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As the social network sweeps clean all bogus activity, page fan counts drop by the tens of thousands.

Metric data on Facebook’s top pages by fan counts and their daily growth. (Credit: PageData)

The purge has commenced. Facebook is throwing out all fake users, accounts, and likes. That’s right, all of those thousands of questionable thumbs ups are starting to disappear.

The social network announced last month that it’d start this massive deletion process, but it was unclear when. According to TechCrunch, Facebook confirmed today that the time is now.

Over the course of the day, tens of thousands of fans were quietly dropped from Facebook Pages. Data from Facebook metrics site PageData shows that Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker lost 96,000 fans today, while Rihanna lost 22,198, and Michael Jackson lost 17,591. Even the Facebook like champion Eminem had fans vanish today — his count dropped by 15,420.

Facebook said last month that the reason it was sweeping its site of phony activity was to cut down on suspicious likes and make sure that users were dealing with real people and businesses.

Here’s more from a blog post in August:

These newly improved automated efforts will remove those Likes gained by malware, compromised accounts, deceived users, or purchased bulk Likes. While we have always had dedicated protections against each of these threats on Facebook, these improved systems have been specifically configured to identify and take action against suspicious Likes.

Despite cleaning house, the social network has said that most pages will see less than 1 percent of likes removed. As long as users go by the rules and haven’t indulged in buying likes from shady sources, the difference should be minimal.

In the end, this eradication should come as good news to most users because it means less spam and phishing on the social network.

Source: CNET News

New Zealand’s Prime Minister issued an apology to MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom after it was determined his government illegally spied on DotCom.

Members of New Zealand’s government believed the law gave them the right to spy on MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom because he was a foreign national.

They were wrong.

In New Zealand today, Prime Minister John Key apologized to DotCom for the spying conducted against him by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).

The United States has accused DotCom of criminal copyright violations and in January New Zealand police raided his home and arrested him. Just ahead of the raid, the GCSB began collecting intelligence against DotCom to see if he posed any danger to the police who would later swoop in by helicopter to arrest him.

Turns out that the GCSB isn’t allowed to conduct such surveillance on New Zealand citizens and the agency was under the false impression that DotCom, who was born in Germany, was not yet a citizen.

This meant that the spying was unlawful.

“I apologize to Mr Dotcom,” Key said, according to a report from New Zealand news site TVNZ.co.nz. “I apologize to New Zealanders because every New Zealander… is entitled to be protected from the law when it comes to the GCSB, and we failed to provide that appropriate protection for him.”

It’s not clear yet how this will affect the charges filed against DotCom by U.S. officials or their attempts to extradite him and six other associates to this country. MegaUpload was once among the largest cloud-storage services in the world but U.S. officials claim the company was a criminal enterprise and officials here are trying to extradite DotCom and the other defendants.

Increasingly, it appears less and less likely the United States will ever get DotCom or the other defendants out of New Zealand. DotCom is becoming something of a folk hero in that country and many there don’t like the way it appears their government caved in to demands by the United States.

The U.S. Attorney’s office alleges that DotCom and the other defendants encouraged users to upload copyrighted movies, music and other media to the cloud-storage service. They then profited from ad sales and by charging for premium services.

DotCom, who has denied guilt, said this today via Twitter: “Numerous unlawful acts against us by the NZ Gov have been exposed. It’s time for a full, transparent & independent inquiry.”

This is only the latest victory for DotCom. A New Zealand court granted his request in June and ordered that he be given access to evidence against him. The U.S. has appealed the decision. A judge then found that warrants used to seize his property were invalid.

Source: CNET News

iOS 6 has finally launched, bringing with it a slew of new features. Here are some of the best tips and tricks for you.

Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

The basics

Download it
The latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system is now available for download to most iOS devices. Here’s a list of compatible devices and a quick guide to downloading the update over the air or through the App Store.

iTunes preview history

(Credit: Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)

Read: How to install iOS 6

Maps
The Maps app in iOS 6 is arguably the biggest change in the latest OS. You can expect to find new features such as voice-guided turn-by-turn directions, Yelp integration and a new 3D mode.

Read: Getting to know Maps on iOS 6

Bringing back Google Maps
Unfortunately, Apple’s new Maps app has met with some harsh (and sometimes hilarious) criticism. Incorrect location data, roundabout directions, and awkward satellite images have many early adopters wishing they could get Google Maps back on their iPhone. Well, you can — though it’s not a perfect solution.

Read: How to bring back Google Maps in iOS 6

Siri gets smarter
Siri has learned a few new tricks in iOS 6, including how to launch apps, update your Facebook or Twitter status, and make restaurant reservations. Here’s how you can use them.

Read: How to use Siri’s new features in iOS 6

Do Not Disturb
Do Not Disturb is a welcome feature that allows iOS users to completely silence their device(s) on demand, or on a schedule. To be sure you don’t miss any important phone calls, you can customize which calls will get through no matter what.

Read: Set up Do Not Disturb on iOS 6

Politely decline incoming calls
Instead of just sending a caller to voice mail, you can now send them a message explaining why you can’t talk, or set yourself a reminder to return the call in a few hours.

Read: Send a message, set a reminder when declining a call on iOS 6

FaceTime over 3G
The Achilles’ heel of FaceTime has always been its Wi-Fi requirement. Unless you were to jailbreak your iOS device, then install a tweak to get around the 3G requirement, you could only use FaceTime when you were connected to a Wi-Fi network. With iOS 6, and depending on your carrier and device, you can now use FaceTime anywhere your iOS device has a cellular signal.

Read: How to enable FaceTime over 3G with iOS 6

Shared Photo Stream albums
Sharing photos using your iCloud account and Photo Stream is now possible thanks to iOS 6. You can share with iOS and non-iOS users directly from your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad.

Read: How to create a shared photo stream album on iOS 6

Passbook
Passbook is a new app included in iOS 6 aiming to provide one location to store membership cards, tickets, coupons, and potentially payment information on your iPhone. Passes are easy to add, manage, and use. Hopefully this feature will take off once developers begin releasing updates with Passbook integrated into their apps.

Getting started with Passbook on iOS 6

Mail

Insert photos and videos into an e-mail
There are some great new features in the Mail app on iOS 6, including VIPs, pull to refresh, and (my favorite) the ability to insert a photo or video directly into an e-mail while composing it. It’s easy to use, you just have to know it’s there.

Attach a photo, video when composing an e-mail on iOS 6

Multiple e-mail signatures
Being limited to one e-mail signature, no matter how many accounts you have on your iOS device, is now a thing of the past. With iOS 6 you’re able to set an e-mail signature up for each account and not have to worry about managing when it’s used.

Read: How to set multiple e-mail signatures on iOS 6

Safari

Safari goes full screen
Mobile Safari now allows you to browse in a full-screen mode, in landscape orientation, on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Read: How to use Safari’s full-screen mode on iOS 6

Upload photos in Safari
The inability to upload a photo while browsing the Internet has been annoying iOS users for years. Thankfully, Apple finally addressed it in iOS 6. You can now upload photos from your Camera Roll and Photo Stream directly to Web sites in just a few taps.

Read: With iOS 6, you can upload photos in Safari

iOS 6 and Privacy Settings
You now have better control over which apps can access your personal data. It’s no longer up to the developers to request access to your calendar or contacts, iOS 6 handles it now. If you want to adjust your privacy settings, you’ll need to know where to look.

Read: How to control your privacy settings on iOS 6

Extras

Panorama
When Apple unveiled the iPhone 5, it also showed us the new Panorama feature for the first time. If you have an iPhone 4S or an iPhone 5, you can now take panoramic photos directly in the native camera app.

Read: How to take a panoramic photo with iOS 6

Facebook
Facebook integration has finally been integrated in iOS. Like the Twitter integration, Facebook is a sharing option throughout the entire operating system, and it’s easy to set up. The link below will take you to a complete rundown of Facebook on iOS 6.

Read: Get started with Facebook integration on iOS 6

Weather, Game Center, and a few other little improvements
You already know about the Maps app and Siri, but here are five interface conveniences in iOS 6 that aren’t featured in the big reviews.

Read: 5 smaller useful tweaks in iOS 6

Find My Friends notifications
If you use Find My Friends to help you keep track of your kids, you’ll like its new notification feature. Using the latest update to Find My Friends in iOS 6, you can now be notified when a contact in your Find My Friends app either arrives or leaves a location.

Read: How to set up Find My Friends notifications

Outlook.com is a free, modern email service from Microsoft. It has a familiar name and a fresh, modern design. Outlook.com makes your email richer by connecting to Facebook and Twitter and helps you be productive with Office and SkyDrive. Because email is personal, Outlook also helps keep you in control of your private data.

Accodring to Microsoft, these are some of their noteworthy features integrated: