25 Worst Passwords of 2011 [STUDY]

Pro tip: choosing “password” as your online password is not a good idea. In fact, unless you’re hoping to be an easy target for hackers, it’s the worst password you can possibly choose.

“Password” ranks first on password management application provider SplashData’s annual list of worst internet passwords, which are ordered by how common they are. (“Passw0rd,” with a numeral zero, isn’t much smarter, ranking 18th on the list.)

Google Lets Wireless Access Point Owners Opt Out of Its Database

Google has announced a method to let wireless access point owners all over the world opt out of having their AP included in Google’s Location Server.

Google Location Server is a large location database that lists access points all over the world. Its purpose is not to identify people, Google says, but to be able to quickly determine the location of a mobile phone owner by looking for wireless APs that are physically close to that person.

Siri, Read My Mind: Did Hackers Just Build a Brain-Powered iPhone?

If you believe this video — and that’s a big if — the era of thought-controlled phones has begun. A pair of hobbyist hackers claim to have taken Siri, the iPhone 4S feature that obeys voice commands, and turned it into an app that obeys brainwave patterns.

“It works! It really works! It’s so freaking amazing,” Josh Evans and Ollie Hayward announced Tuesday on the blog they created to chronicle what they call “Project Black Mirror.”

Google Paid Search Products You Need to Know

For many digital marketers, the fall of 2011 might be remembered for bringing dynamic advertising to paid search. Google’s newest offering, said to flip “the search engine on its head,” does away with the traditional keyword advertising approach in lieu of matching landing pages with the right user search.

It’s Official: Flash Mobile Player is Dead

Adobe confirmed what reports were saying all morning: It’s done with the Flash Mobile Player and has now thrown its lot in with the HTML5 crowd — for mobile at least.

“We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc.) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook,”

Two Schools of Thought: The Key Difference Between Apple and Google

Apple and Google may look similar on the surface, but the companies couldn’t be any more different. That much has become clear to me after reading both the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson and Steven Levy’s In the Plex.

Google and Apple are technology behemoths that bucked the system, created game-changing

What Advice Did Steve Jobs Give to Mark Zuckerberg?

Mark Zuckerberg says he asked Steve Jobs about how to build a high-quality team and great products, but denies Apple and Facebook ever talked about an acquisition.

The revelations come as part of an in-depth interview between PBS’s Charlie Rose and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg. The extensive interview covers all of the bases, such as whether Facebook will ever build games (no, Zuck says) and what Zuckerberg thinks of Google+ (he calls it “their own little version of Facebook”).