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Twitter has once again changed their home page.  Announced officially on the blog, the changes took place throughout Tuesday for most users.  The new page is more dynamic in its presentation, giving a continually evolving list of “Top tweets,” some trending topics, and the ability to hover over most things on the screen to get larger versions or more in-depth information.

Grudgingly, it appears, Twitter is admitting that their service is not just about status updates anymore.  It’s a little deeper than that.

In somewhat clunky English, Frederic Lardinois at ReadWriteWeb explains some of the changes and then questions Twitter’s explanation of themselves (which now appears on the front page).  It’s obvious that the home page is all about user conversion.  Twitter’s biggest problem has been converting new users into regular users and the service enjoys a very high dropout rate.  By better explaining how Twitter works and what it’s all about, they obviously hope to retain more of those dropouts.

That analysis seems to bear out as ComputerWorld’s Juan Carlos Perez based an entire piece on considering just that.  Like him and Jason Kincaid at TechCrunch, I like the new look of Twitter’s home page.  Most regular Twitter users rarely see this page anyway, so gearing it towards newbies is a good idea and something that’s a long time overdue.

In fact, unless you log out, it’s hard to see the new main Twitter page as users are normally redirected to their own main feed screen.  A lot of us interact with Twitter through third-party software or devices as well, putting us even further removed from their home page.

So the new improvements are definitely better for new users who, if they stick around, will make for a better community overall.  So what’s not to like here?

The Internet is abuzz with the latest Wall Street Journal entry about the iPhone.  And it’s a whopper.  About this time every year, news leaks from Apple begin to emerge regarding the latest generation of iPhone, which traditionally is released in June.  This year is no different, but it marks a huge change in the way Apple is (apparently) going to operate.

The news is that an iPhone for the CDMA network (Verizon, Sprint) is on its way.  This is huge as it would not only mean the end of AT&T’s monopoly on iPhone connections, but also competition for several other popular smart phone platforms that have, until now, been on Apple-free networks.

Of course, this speculation is based entirely on “inside sources” over at the WSJ, but that doesn’t mean they’re untrue.  Apple routinely uses targeted news leaks to generate media buzz and to create brushfires of free advertising in the blogosphere.

The AppleInsider, however, takes a different view and sees this rumor as just another annual rumor that Apple is finally planning to end exclusivity with AT&T.  This opinion can’t be discounted as the rumor of the iPhone hitting other networks has been persistent for years.

What is overlooked is something new this time around: who’s making the CDMA iPhone.  TechCrunch pointed that out immediately.  Unlike previous rumors about a non-AT&T iPhone, this one has the name of a manufacturer for the new phone’s innards named: Pegatron Technology Corp.  The phones are also said to be scheduled for production in September, so they’d likely be on the shelf for holiday sales.

All-in-all, it’s another productive day of Apple rumors.

One of the biggest negatives that those who dis the upcoming Apple iPad with is the lack of Flash capability.  The iPad, like the iPhone and iPod, won’t be able to show Flash video or animations.  While this may certainly be an issue with many users, developers can be happy knowing that there is a video option that could save the day.

Brightcove issued a press release and lengthy blog post on the subject of Flash video and HTML5.  The company has been working with HTML5 video capabilities for some time and has technology capable of converting Flash video to HTML5 for embed.  More or less, anyway.  It’s still in its infancy, but it’s in workable form.

Most videos from those already using the Brightcove technology will show up on the iPad via HTML5 video, according to TechCrunch.  Usually it will open a Quicktime player on an iPhone and it works on the Android platform as well.

Of course, the technology is still under development, but Brightcove’s CEO, Jeremy Allaire, is confident that they’ll have full parity with Flash by the end of this year.  iPad integration into Brightcove has already been added and audience metrics and other things that Brightcove is known for are being worked on right now and expected to roll out over the next year.

Those with an iPhone can see how this works on that platform and get an understanding of how this will likely work on the iPad as well.  Currently, large outlets like the New York Times and Time Magazine are already using Brightcove for their video rendering, so expect HTML5 to get more popular with time.  According to TechCrunch, both Ooyala and YouTube are working on HTML5 integration too.

Yesterday, service administrators and web surfers worldwide began to get a taste of what life behind the Great Firewall of China is like.  Domain servers were inexplicably offering up Chinese services for many sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and others.

The results for some were interesting, to say the least.  Much of YouTube and most of Facebook are not allowed in China, so what appeared on some users’ screens when visiting Facebook.com was not what they were used to.

The problem lay in the domain name system (DNS) servers of the Top Level Domain (TLD) servers at Verisign.  Or, rather, they were because the Verisign servers weren’t being consulted.  It’s hard to explain, but let’s give it a shot.  Ars Technica did a good job of explaining to the tech-head, but not really to laymen.  Here’s a breakdown.

When you type in “Facebook.com,” for instance, several things happen before your browser ultimately loads the popular social website.  First. the “.com” portion triggers a domain lookup at the TLD server in charge of .com’s – Verisign.  These are generally handled regionally, so that if you’re in the Western U.S. you’ll likely have your query sent to a different set of servers than you would if you were in, say, Germany.

That regional response isn’t so much for time (it literally ads only nanoseconds to travel the globe), but more for security.  If one TLD gets shut down, it won’t close up the entire ‘Net, just that region of it – which can be redirected until the problem is fixed.

What happened here was related to the way that TLD and DNS servers in China operate.  In order to facilitate the firewall they use to censor what Chinese surfers can access, China had to get creative with the way that domain queries are handled there.  Domain censorship is handled at the root rather than on individual sites or with some kind of software filter.  So instead of filtering sites like your “kid safe” software might, China just filters the domains themselves, resolving them to Chinese-specific domains (.cn).

Somehow, this level of filtering was propagated to some TLD services outside of China, resulting in users outside of China being directed to Chinese versions of websites.  Of course, whether this was all an accident or not is still up in the air, but most likely it’s a problem with the size of the Internet, number of users, and a system that is becoming antiquated.

Some major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are already talking about changing a few of the easier-to-alter portions of how all of this routing works.  The most obvious solution is to watch for domain direction to Chinese-based websites and servers unless directly called.  Basically, this would mean that anything aiming for something other than a .cn site address would never end up behind the Great Firewall.

The iPhone Goes Down

This year’s CanSecWest Pwn2Own hacking contest proved one thing: nothing is safe from concerted hack attempts in today’s digital society.  No iPhone, Web browser, or much of anything else is safe, it turns out.  Hackers turned out in droves to the CanSecWest event in Vancouver for the annual Olympic Games of Hacking (as it were).

Two Europeans tore into an iPhone and not only did they get through all of the security features (the phone was fully patched), but they managed to pull the entire SMS database including erased messages.  ZDNet broke that story with a highlight of how it went down.

Famed hacker Charlie Miller was there to once again show that no matter how much they do to upgrade it, Safari is not a browser safe from attack.  This year, he did it without even having access to the machine it was installed on, getting into the MacBook Pro from afar, according to CNET News.

No browser is safe, it turns out, as a German student demonstrated by hacking both Firefox and IE8 as well as Safari (though not remotely, as did Miller). Incidentally, the aforementioned iPhone hack took place via the Safari browser.  Fair warning to Safari users.

The whole Pwn2Own event is put on by TippingPoint, who gives cash and other prizes to participants for the best hacks and explanations of their exploits.  These are then shared with the vendors who make the devices and software in order to bolster security.

Most of the prizes at this year’s event were in the $10,000 and $15,000 range for top takers.  In return for their prizes (and fame), participants are required not to disclose details of their techniques.

In an updated blog post, Google outlined their basic business strategy in China after the pullout and how apps such as Gmail and Google Docs will be affected.  While Google’s Evil Meter still shows most services intact for China, though reports say that specific search terms on Google.com.hk (where Google.cn redirects) are being filtered externally by the Chinese government.

Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land blasts Google for their heavy-handed PR, their reversal of policy, and other aspects of their dealings in China in recent weeks.  His negative attitude towards Google is catching on as many are seeing this latest action by Google not as a safety and retaliatory measure against the Chinese government for hacking Google services and systems, but as a grandiose bit of political grandstanding by the corporation whose policies just a month ago were to abide by China’s wishes and filter content for Chinese searches.

This grandstanding smacks of both hypocrisy and political spin on the part of Google, so it’s easy to see why this point of view is gaining ground amongst critics.

This probably hasn’t been helped by Google’s Sergey Brin calling for the U.S. government to intervene and call out the Chinese government for its censorship.  He didn’t waste any time pointing the finger at Microsoft either, which a lot of people are seeing as pure grand standing on Brin’s part as Google, in some eyes, is only a California-based version of Microsoft anyway.

However you look at it, though, it’s hard to understand why Google took a perfectly good business relationship with China, playing by Chinese rules, and then was surprised when China’s government decided to make it clear that the rules only apply to Google, not Beijing.  Laws are made by governments, not abided by them.  When Google responded with business threats, which were justified, the Chinese (of course) blew them off.  Now, suddenly, Google wants to turn this into a political battle and make it a moral issue rather than a pure business one. This sudden white hat position of Google’s isn’t sitting well with some people.  It should be obvious why.