The daily deals service LivingSocial has been hacked and will begin sending notifications out to users this afternoon.

Fifty million of the company’s 70 million users were affected.

Only users in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines are free of risk, since the company uses different storage systems in those countries.

“LivingSocial recently experienced a cyber-attack on our computer systems that resulted in unauthorized access to some customer data from our servers. We are actively working with law enforcement to investigate this issue,” CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy wrote in an internal memo obtained by AllThingsD.

The compromised information includes names, email addresses, encrypted passwords and, in some cases, date of birth. LivingSocial specified that it encrypts passwords by hashing and salting them.

The database that stores customer credit card information was not affected by the attack, the company said.

“We need to do the right thing for our customers who place their trust in us, and

John Barnett, co-creator of Bright Mango’s Wood Camera app, is a professional travel photographer and cinematographer and a contributor to Getty Images. While some photographers reject photo-sharing sites that are aimed at artsy amateurs, Barnett has embraced Instagram as an artistic and social medium. Since joining the network in 2010, he’s attracted more than 43,000 followers. Here are a few of his best tips.

1. “The biggest thing you can do is post good content.”

“All the principles that have applied to photography for the last one hundred years apply on Instagram,” said Barnett, but the application itself has two notable limitations:

First, because you’ll be using an iPhone or an Android rather than a DSLR camera to take the pictures, you’ll be working with a fixed lens.  Barnett advised moving in closer to an object to get a better shot.

Second, because

Over the last few days, Facebook has sent several modifications to its Home “uber-app” directly to users’ phones, rather than through the Google Play store; but with a few clicks of the keyboard, Google has said no more.

The company added to its developer agreement a clause banning apps from updating through any mechanism other than through Google Play.

“An app downloaded from Google Play may not modify, replace or update its own APK binary code using any method other than Google Play’s update mechanism,” the new language says. (It was first spotted by the developer blog Android Police.)

Industry watchers noted that Facebook had likely stepped on Google’s toes with the release of Home, which overrides some of the Android operating system with Facebook’s own branded functionality.

Whether or not the app itself irked Google, it’s clear that Facebook’s

A Dutch citizen was arrested yesterday in Barcelona in connection with March DDoS attacks on behalf of rogue hosting service Cyberbunker that were aggressive enough to threaten the core infrastructure of the Internet, according to a Dutch press release.

(Full disclosure: We read a computer-generated English translation.)

The house where the man, identified as S.K., was living was searched, and computers, drives and mobile phones were seized.

The attacks appear to have stemmed from a dispute between Cyberbunker hosting service and Spamhaus, an informal anti-spam group that publishes a blacklist of spammers and the services that support them.

According to security researcher Brian Krebs, the man arrested was likely Sven Olaf Kamphuis, who was quoted as a representative of Cyberbunker in the New York Times article about the digital attacks. Kamphuis’s Facebook profile picture appears at left.

The investigation was

When bills become infographics and the President’s speeches are reduced to animated gifs, it can only mean one thing: the White House has officially joined Tumblr. Look out, Internet.

The socially savvy Obama administration knows its memes. Its first blog post shows how official government news and public debate will look when it’s done Tumblr-style:

“We see some great things here at the White House every day, and sharing that stuff with you is one of the best parts of our jobs. That’s why we’re launching a Tumblr. We’ll post things like the best quotes from President Obama, or video of young scientists visiting the White House for the science fair, or photos of adorable moments with Bo. We’ve got some wonky charts, too. Because to us, those are actually kind of exciting.”

And here’s the “wonky” chart to prove it. Check it out.

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A new study shows that the current debate about online privacy may wane as those who grew up online begin to take over. The survey, conducted at the University of Southern Calfornia (USC), shows that members of the Millennial generation …

Google has acquired Seattle-based start-up Wavii and is shutting down its service, the companies said today.

The move signals that Google is continuing to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to search and aggregation, according to Ezra Gotthiel, a senior analyst at Technology Business Research.

Wavii’s app, launched in 2009, used natural language engines to compile information from around the Web into stories modeled on the Facebook feed. It also personalized the stories it serves up to each user based on his or her Facebook likes.

“We’re impressed by the Wavii team’s progress in understanding natural language and we look forward to working with them at Google,” a Google spokesperson said.

Wavii also emphasized natural language.

“[W]e’ll be using our natural language research at Google in ways that may be useful to millions of people around the world,” said Wavii CEO

Happy Friday, everyone! Two weeks ago, a little video called “How Animals Eat Their Food” was so educational that some viewers decided to practice their animal table manners at home.

Using little more than a folding table and a pair of sippy cups, the two actors who starred in MisterEpicMann‘s original video have racked up more than 50 million views (as of the time of this post) with their impressions of different animals trying to eat a plate of lettuce.

Some of the parodies they inspired were much more elaborate than this, but they all build on the theme of out-of-the-box eating and other wild behavior. Here are a few of our favorites.

“BLOOPERS: How Animals Eat Their Food,” by MisterEpicMann2

Published on Apr 15, 2013
1,787,207 views, 19,481 likes, 261 dislikes

So that no one doubts the genius of the original video, this collection of outtakes shows how hard it is

Data visualization builder infogr.am has relaunched its site to include a professional package that gives paid subscribers the freedom to use the infographics they make offline.

Much like Visual.ly and Piktochart, Infogram has a range of templates for visualizing data with infographics and charts. Users can either enter the data manually or import it from Excel or similar programs; and can also add videos, pictures, and text. The interactive infographics can work on any device.

In the pro version, the finished charts can be downloaded as PDF or PNG files.

Founded in 2012, Infogram boasts 300,000 customers who have created approximately 700,000 “infograms.” Publishers that use the tool as a white label service include Washington Post, VentureBeat and The Next Web.

“Our aim is to change the way people work with visual information online and offline,” said infogram founder Uldis Leiterts in a statement.

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LinkedIn Rolls Out Address Book and Calendar Management App (SocialTimes)
LinkedIn Contacts, a feature and iOS app, aggregates the user’s address books, emails and calendars and keeps them up to date on the site. The user’s most recent email interactions and calendared meetings with each of his or her LinkedIn contacts appear on that person’s profile page. The Next Web What’s more, if you search by a tag or a company, you’ll be able to filter through all your contacts to determine who you know the best there. For example, I might click on “Evernote” to find that I’m connected with CEO Phil Libin, but that I have a closer relationship with developer advocate Rafe Needleman. Wired LinkedIn Contacts also notifies you when