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Tag: Last.fm

  • Last.fm Open Sources Moost, A C++ Library

    Last.fm Open Sources Moost, A C++ Library

    Last.fm may be well known for its Internet radio services, but the company is also breaking into the open source scene. It’s latest release is sure to pleas all the C++ coders out there.

    Last.fm’s Marcus Holland-Moritz announced today that moost, it’s C++ library is now available to all under an open source license. He says that moost has been in development by Last.fm’s MIR team over the past five years, and contains all the tools and utilities they use on the site. It’s based on the boost C++ libraries.

    Moost contains a number of features that programmers will find handy. Here’s some of the features you can expect when using it:

    There are a lot of different things in moost. Some are really simple, yet very helpful in day-to-day work, like the which template that allows you to use pairs (and containers storing pairs) more easily with standard algorithms; or stringify, a function template that turns complex objects into strings. Other parts are slightly more sophisticated: for example, moost contains the framework that is shared by all our backend services, and that allows you to write a daemonisable service with logging, a set of standard options and even a service shell that multiple users can connect to when the service is running, all in a few lines of code.

    As our backend services are inherently multi-threaded, there’s also a bit of threading support in moost. For example, the safe_shared_ptr template is immensely useful for resources that are shared between threads and need to be updated atomically.

    Moritz says that moost also features memory wrapped dataset classes and an abstraction for loading shared objects. Both of which will make it easier to manage resources while building out large datasets.

    You can check out moost for yourself now over at GitHub. Moritz encourages any interested developers to contribute to the project if they have the time.

  • Yandex Launches Social Search App Wonder Aimed At US

    Update: Facebook has pulled data from Wonder. More here.

    Russian search engine company Yandex has launched a new social search app for the iPhone and iPod Touch for people in the U.S. It’s called Wonder, and taps into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare, iTunes, and Last.fm to provide answers to questions based on data from your friends, as well as location and music info and options (such as previewing and purchasing songs).

    Take a look:

    Wonder by Yandex Labs from Yandex Labs on Vimeo.

    The app uses natural language voice search first and foremost, but includes a keyboard input option. Right now, it only works in English and understands a few types of questions pertaining to places, music and news. It utilizes speech recognition and text-to-speech technology from Nuance Communications. Here are some examples Yandex provides for the types of questions it works for:

    – If you are looking for a proven sushi place in New York, you can just ask: what sushi restaurants do my friends go to in New York?

    – When you are looking for coffee shops in a new area, you can ask: coffee shops nearby.

    – If you need to catch up with your friends on a Friday night, just ask: where do my friends party?

    – You know your friend John has a good taste for music, ask: what music does John listen to?

    – Feel like listening to electronic music, ask: I wonder what electronic music are my friends listening to?

    – Want to catch up on news, ask: news shared by my friends.

    Wonder’s launch comes at an interesting time, amidst a slow roll-out of Facebook’s own attempt at social search. Of course this is a mobile app, and Facebook’s launch does not include mobile (though that will come in time). It’s unclear whether or not Yandex intends to release Wonder on Android.

  • Last.fm Gets Some Changes, With More On The Way

    After testing them for a couple weeks, Last.fm is pushing out some new design changes, and says that there will be more in the coming weeks and months.

    The secondary navigation menu has been moved from the left side to the upper-right side on most pages on the site. Here’s a look at the before and after:

    Before

    Last.fm navigation before

    After

    Last.fm navigation after

    “This gives you a wider page, with more space for what matters: the content,” says Simon Moran on the Last.fm blog. “On pages where there are a lot of items in the navigation menu, we’ve grouped the less frequently-used items into a small dropdown menu on the right.”

    Artist, Album and Track pages have been totally redesigned from scratch.

    Artist Page

    New artist pages

    Album Page

    New album pages

    Track Page

    New track pages

    Moran says the design changes reflect three main aspects: a tidier, more rational layout, a fresher visual design and new page templates. Do you agree? Some early commenters on the blog post don’t. One says, “Last.fm is the only site I know that gets uglier/messier at every redesign.”

    Another says, “I agree, this was an unnecessary change. All elements are too big now and it looks very chaotic.”

    Of course all redesigns of popular sites will face criticism. It happens every time.

    Either way, it’s going to change even more, so it will be interesting to see what other tweaks they come up with, and how users respond. Now is not a good time to be alienating users, that’s for sure. Competition in the online music discovery space is greater that it ever has been, and Spotify is making a huge impression on the market these days.

  • LulzSec Releases 10,000 Twitter Accounts Complete With Passwords

    LulzSec announced their return just last week and they’re already causing a bit of a stir. The group used a security loophole in a third party Twitter application to gain access to about 10,000 Twitter accounts.

    LulzSec, now going under the name of LulzSec Reborn, announced on Saturday that they had leaked the accounts of people use the TweetGif application. It seems to be a relatively unknown application that allows users to easily Tweet out gifs.

    As you can see, LulzSec seems to have attacked this particular application just for the “lulz.” They claim it to be nothing serious and they probably don’t even intend to use this information for anything. That being said, you should change your password now if you have ever used TweetGif.

    So what did LulzSec manage to take from TweetGif? According to PC Magazine, the TweetGif data table contained usernames, passwords, real names, locations, bios, avatars, the token the application uses to pull Twitter data, and the last Tweet to come from that account. It’s a ridiculous amount of information that a third-party application is privy to. Twitter has always seemed to be pro-privacy, but handing over this much information to a questionable third-party app seems to be pretty hypocritical.

    Thankfully, this attack is nowhere near the scale of the recent password leaks that have affected LinkedIn, eHarmony and Last.fm that saw millions of passwords leaked online. The security loophole has been fixed, but you should change your password for those sites as well just to be safe. Fortunately, somebody has created a site that allows you to see if your password for LinkedIn was leaked. As for eHarmony and Last.fm, better safe than sorry.

  • Last.fm Responds to Password Leak

    Earlier today it was reported that Last.fm has become the third website whose passwords were among those leaked online earlier this week. At that time, the website was simply recommending that users change their password. Now, Last.fm has announced the full details of how the website is responding to the leak. In a post on the Last.fm blog, Vice President for Product Matthew Hawn announced that the company will be increasing password security and is contacting its members to recommend that they change their passwords. From the post:

    We immediately implemented a number of key security changes around user data and we chose to be cautious and alert Last.fm users. We recommend that users change their password on Last.fm and on any other sites that use a similar password. All the updated passwords since yesterday afternoon have been secured with a more rigorous method for user data storage.

    In addition to emailing members, Last.fm will be sending out alerts via social media and through the Last.fm website. Hawn stated that the site would be “redoubling” its efforts to secure user data.

    The entire story began when a large hash of passwords was posted on a hash-cracking website earlier this week. It was quickly discovered that more than 6.4 million LinkedIn passwords may have been compromised. Later it was discovered that eHarmony passwords were also included in the leak. Both companies took action to lock down accounts affected by the leak and emailed instructions to members detailing how to reset their passwords. Last.fm is the latest website to be caught up in the password leak.

    Considering the events of this week and the slowly growing number of websites affected, I’m thinking this weekend just might be the perfect time to kick back, enjoy a frosty beverage, and change my password for every online service that I use.

  • Last.fm Passwords Leaked Online Too

    [UPDATE] Last.fm has responded in more detail and is now notifying its members of the situation. Read the story here.

    [ORIGINAL STORY]
    Yet another site has had its passwords compromised in the wake of the LinkedIn password leak. Last.fm has announced that it has begun investigating the leak of passwords from its website. LinkedIn was the first site to discover that more than 6.4 million of its passwords had been leaked onto a hash-cracking site this week. eHarmony has subsequently discovered that some of its member’s passwords were also included in the leaked hash. Both of those companies have responded by locking down compromised user accounts and emailing their members with instructions on how to reset the password for their account.

    The announcement that LinkedIn was a part of the password leak came through a message on its website that explains the situation. From the announcement:

    We are currently investigating the leak of some Last.fm user passwords. This follows recent password leaks on other sites, as well as information posted online. As a precautionary measure, we’re asking all our users to change their passwords immediately.

    Oddly, Last.fm is not taking the same precaution as LinkedIn and eHarmony of disabling user accounts associated with known cracked passwords. Instead, the site is asking all of their members to log in and change their password. It is unknown whether the company has sent a mass email to its members detailing the situation, or whether they are relying on their website message.

    The rest of the Last.fm message was part of what is becoming a standard template for these types of announcements. The company emphasized that it would never send an email to members with a link for a password update, suggested some simple password security tips for individual users, and apologized for any inconvenience the ordeal may cause its members. Last.fm also emphasized that it takes user privacy “very seriously.”