Google+ begins verifying celebrity accounts

Google has started verifying celebrity accounts on its Google+ social network, the company announced Monday.

Once verified, celebrities, public figures and high-profile member profiles will display a check mark next to the account holder’s name.

“We’re starting to roll out verification badges on profiles so you can be sure the person you’re adding to a circle is who they claim to be,” said Google employee Wen-Ai Yu in a recent note. “For now, we’re focused on verifying public figures, celebrities, and people who have been added to a large number of Circles, but we’re working on expanding this to more folks.”

As VentureBeat reported in July, Google has been striving to increase the number of celebrity members on the social network to help push it into a more public spotlight the way both Facebook and Twitter are. The new verification strategy will help further that goal. Previously, celebrity accounts –? like William Shatner — were getting flagged as fakes, which might have hurt its early chances at gaining a celebrity user base.

And while high-profile members will initially get the verification treatment, the company said it plans to verify the identity of all Google+ accounts. Google has even gone as far as expelling all members that use a pseudonym or nickname instead of their real, legal name — something that has sparked outrage by many users.

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Tags: Google Plus

Companies: Google

People: Wen-Ai Yu

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Disabling the iOS Beta 5 Apple installs and developer of accounts on sales of device Slots? [Update: the old betas expire?]

Since late last night, MacRumors has received some reports of users who have seen their devices running different beta versions of iOS 5 closing down and returning to the mode of activation. Reports have been sporadic, with some users suggesting that beta previous versions may simply have been expiring and was disabled by Apple.

But, according to a report from Karthik.K (via AppleInsider), deactivations appear to be an effort by Apple to crack down against the registered developers who have been selling them additional beta slots to provide access to beta versions 5 iOS non-developers. Developers who have sold their locations are apparently reports that Apple has closed their accounts on the violation of the terms of the company developer, limiting facilities beta iOS for devices of the developer for testing purposes. Many of my developer friends have reported that Apple has sent an e-mail warning who said that they have identified the developer to sell its slots for some users get the overview at the beginning of iOS.

And Apple began closing the accounts of developer to sell the slots and also reported the UDIDs associated with this account of dev, thus making the 5 unusable iOS device.

Many developers have received this letter and immediately prohibited their developer program account.

Once Apple locks your iOS device, the phone will come in the mode of initial configuration, asking you to connect to a WiFi network. And nothing happens more than that.

Apple allows developers to register up to 100 devices to a single developer account, which costs $ 99 per year. Each developer can submit a list of unique identifiers of the (UDIDs) device to be registered under their account, and some users have taken to sell these sites of device non-developers for $5-10 each to pay for their own developer access and to make a small profit. To go even further, full Web sites even arose to facilitate the direct sale of these locations.

Because of these beta slot sales, access to the iOS 5a was relatively large open, facilitating the important disclosures on the operating system mobile generation despite many details technically being covered by agreements of non-disclosure between Apple and its developers.

It is unclear why it took Apple long to crack down on the behaviour, such as the sale of slots beta was a secret de polichinelle for some time. iOS 5 is set for a public release some time this "fall", with the general consensus being that it should appear alongside the iPhone 5 in September or October.

Update: most of those they were affected by the issue of the Bill note that they were running Beta 1 or 2 of the beta version of iOS 5, which have expired. We have received scattered reports of users to Beta 3 and 4 Beta affected, but those who may be erroneous. Therefore, the issue may simply be expiring early beta versions as we assumed from the outset.

We are always seeking reports more users on iOS Beta 3 or 4 current Beta which can confirm affected.

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