Google kills Menu button, brings action bar on the fore

As Ice Cream Sandwich begins rolling to more devices, you will not find the Menu button on Android devices anymore. Honeycomb 3.0 had reduced users’ reliance on physical buttons and now Google has decided to kill the Menu button and get its ‘action bar’ on the forefront. Now, action bar isn’t something new and was there, even before Honeycomb.

 The Android developers’ blog states, “You might worry that it’s too much work to begin using the action bar, because you need to support versions of Android older than Honeycomb. However, it’s quite simple for most apps because you can continue to support the Menu button on pre-Honeycomb devices, but also provide the action bar on newer devices with only a few lines of code changes.” In the blog post, Google also tells its Android developers to start using the action bar, which is a dedicated space to the application and actions that users can perform. The app is recognized and gives it users several actions to choose from.

It tells developers that apps should stop relying on the hardware Menu button, and they should also stop thinking about activities using a menu button. The activities should provide buttons for important user actions directly in the action bar (or elsewhere on screen). Those that can’t fit in the action bar will end up in the action overflow. Basically, those actions, which don’t need to be on the screen can overflow off the screen. The action overflow is a three dotted icon found on the extreme right. Users can reveal the overflow and other options by touching an overflow button that appears alongside the on-screen action buttons.

So, even if an app supports older Android versions, it won’t display the Menu button for versions Honeycomb 3.0 and beyond. Those with apps developed for Android 2.3 and lower, and when running on the Honeycomb tablet of Google Nexus will see that the system adds the action overflow button besides the system navigation.

 

Protesting SOPA, Anonymous hacks Mexican websites

After attacking the U.S government's anti-scam website, OnGuardOnline.gov as a mark of protest against the SOPA and PIPA bills, hacktivist group, Anonymous has now wreaked havoc on some Mexican websites. According to Inquirer Technology, Anonymous hacked several Mexican websites belonging to the Interior Ministry, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, and at least till mid-afternoon, the website of the Interior Ministry remained inaccessible. The hackers, reportedly were enraged about the specifics of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which required laws against online file-sharing to get tougher. In a YouTube video, Anonymous stated, "We demand the Mexican government not continue with this law because they will take away our freedom of speech and file sharing."

 

The Mexican version of the SOPA act, as the way the act is referred to as was proposed by conservative senator Federico Doring. Troubled by the turn of events, Doring tweeted saying that while Anonymous did have the right to express what they felt about the bills, they did not have the right to attack web pages. A couple of weeks ago, SOPA and PIPA talks were reigning. In the U.S, the bills earned a lot of debate, and subsequently several popular online services protested against it, since a completely blinding rule would curb Internet freedom. Just this month, there were also reports about the SOPA bill being pulled out for the time being, since a regulators felt the approach needed revision. Anonymous, the hacktivist group has been particularly enraged about the entire episode and the result has been a series of hack in the past week, or so in protest to the SOPA act.

Yesterday, one of our reports confirmed the hack at U.S government's anti-scam website, OnGuardOnline.gov as a mark of protest, also mentioned that the group had planned to target Sony, too for showing its support to the SOPA bill.

Anonymous warns of Facebook "blackout" on January 28

Anonymous is set to launch a global war against governments and corporations using the Internet. They targeted the United States Department of Justice website, among other sites, last week, in retaliation to the FBI shutting down file sharing site, Megaupload. Now, a YouTube user claiming to be representative of the group posted a video hacktivist group is planning to take down Facebook on the 28th of January. We're having a little deja vu here. Mostly because a previous claim by Anonymous to take down Facebook happened last year. The group planned to take down the social network on the 5th of November, more commonly known as Guy Fawkes day, but never did. Another reason to experience deja vu? They announced the November YouTube takedown via a YouTube video as well.
The video calls to attention that even though the problem of SOPA and PIPA are temporarily over, the Internet rights of the American people are still not guaranteed to be upheld. The video asks viewers to download Low Orbit Ion Canon (LOIC), the same method they used to take down the DOJ website. It works by flooding the servers of the target site with hundreds of packets of information, inevitably leading to a server crash. The video even provides instructions on how to use LOIC and declares the attack for midnight on the 28th of January. It doesn't specify, which time zone within the United States the attack will take place, though.
Of course, there will be obstacles in their path to take down a website like Facebook, which is well stocked with servers around the world. "While it is true that Facebook has at least 60,000 servers, it is still possible to bring it down," the video says. The video then says that Anonymous needs help of the people. Will Anonymous go through with this battle in their "online war"? The November 5th attack failed because there was a lack of organization within the group for the attack. Will they manage to get themselves organized this time around? We'll have to wait and see.