Amazon has posted an overview of what Kindle owners can expect in its version 2.5 software update slated for late May, and a key feature of the update will integrate online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, BetaNews reports. This will be the first major feature upgrade to Amazon’s e-Book device line since the launch of the Kindle DX last year. After the launch of that model, there was a single software update, which moderately improved a user’s experience by stretching battery life and adding native PDF support. But with that update, one hand gave while the other took away: It also turned off the default text-to-speech option, amid the disputes it caused with the Author’s Guild. Now, version 2.5 of the software will add long-overdue features to the device. For instance, users will be able to share their highlighted passages with the rest of the world directly from their Kindle. These will be able to be posted on Facebook or Twitter, or will be counted in Amazon’s “Popular Highlights” of e-Books. In other words, users will be able to see what the Kindle community thinks are the best lines from their books or books they’re looking to purchase. There also will be more font sizes, improved image clarity, and a password protection option in the update…
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Online hate sites grow with social networks
According to a new report on digital hate speech, terrorists and racists are turning to online social networks and depending less on traditional web sites to recruit impressionable followers, the New York Times reports. The report, by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, found a 20 percent increase in the number of hate and terrorist-abetting web sites, social network pages, chat forums, and micro-bloggers over the past year, to a total of 11,500. “The real growth is where it is for everyone: in social networks,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, an associate dean at the center, which is a Jewish human-rights group. Longtime web sites like Stormfront, which bills itself as a leading site of the “White Nationalist Community,” are still around and active, Rabbi Cooper said. But such sites have become the old-line media of online racism. The annual report is intended as a “collective snapshot” of the activities of hate groups and terrorists online, Rabbi Cooper said. It is distributed as a CD-ROM, mainly to law-enforcement agencies and nonprofit groups, instead of online because it includes terrorist tutorials. “We don’t want to help the bad guys,” Rabbi Cooper explained…
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