今日科技：30美元电影租赁方案；谷歌想识别你的脸

    • 谷歌（Google）正在开发一款具有人脸识别功能的移动应用程序，以帮助用户获得被拍摄者的谷歌个人主页（Google Profile）联系信息。谷歌工程部总监哈特穆特•内文（Hartmut Neven）表示，当涉及隐私问题时，谷歌将“非常谨慎”。[美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）]

    • 域名注册服务商GoDaddy的首席执行官鲍勃•帕森斯有麻烦了，因为关于他非洲冒险的一段视频在网上疯传。视频中，帕森斯射杀了一头大象，而且还让一帮村民将象肉瓜分。他射杀大象的原因？因为它偷吃村民的粮食。（Silicon Alley Insider）

    • 宝马（BMW）宣布将在纽约成立总额达1亿美元的新创企业孵化投资基金，以投资并扶持在移动和基于地理信息服务领域的公司。新近成立的BMW i Ventures总经理乔戈•莱曼向《快公司》（Fast Company）表示：“作为一家汽车厂商，我们非常关注移动领域的服务，即便它们可能与汽车毫无干系。我们并非从汽车（角度），而是从消费者（角度）来考虑问题。”（《快公司》）

    • Facebook的每月移动用户数达到2.5亿。为了庆祝这一成绩，这家全球领先的社交网络即将发布全新的更出色且统一的移动网站。（TechCrunch）

    • 官方消息：Quick Bar——批评者们称其为#Dickbar——被移除。Quick Bar是Twitter iPhone客户端内嵌的信息栏。这个黑乎乎、令人生厌的家伙会时不时地在Twitter消息列表顶端显示热门话题和促销广告，几乎无处不在。应用程序商店（App Store）中上架的最新版Twitter应用程序已移除Quick Bar。（TechCrunch）

    • Twitter宣布其注册用户数已达1.75亿，不过到底有多少用户是活跃的？其活跃度又如何呢？在一些拥有Twitter API（应用程序接口）完全访问权人士的帮助下，Silicon Alley Insider做了下统计。该公司报道称1.19亿Twitter账号关注了1个或多个其它账号，8500万账号拥有1个或多个粉丝，5600万账号没有关注任何账号，还有9000万账号则没有任何粉丝。（Silicon Alley Insider）

    • 华纳兄弟（Warner Bros）、索尼（Sony）、环球电影公司（Universal）以及20世纪福克斯公司（20th Century Fox）将联手为Direct TV公司的家庭首映（Home Premiere）服务推出30美元电影租赁方案。这些公司的影片将在公映后两个月提供给用户。首批上架的影片为连姆•尼森的《不明身份》（Unknown ）和亚当•桑德勒的《随波逐流》（Just Go With It）。（Variety）

    • 日前，Groupon联合创始人布拉德•基维尔和埃里克•莱夫科夫斯基向Qwiki注资100万美元，后者是一项网络服务，主要从互联网提取信息，并创建多媒体版的维基页面/演示。Facebook联合创始人爱德华多•萨维林也对Qwiki有投资。大佬们的阔绰出手使得这家新创公司在最新一轮融资中募得约900万美元。[《纽约时报》（New York Times）/DealB%k]

    • 苹果公司（Apple）负责全球营销的副总裁艾莉森•约翰逊即将离职。她将与Facebook公关部前高管布兰迪•巴克共同创立一家营销与公关公司，不过公司名称尚未确定。（AllThingsD）

    译者：项航

    • Google is developing a mobile app with facial recognition technology that pulls up the Google Profile contact info for people snapped in photos. Google engineering director Hartmut Neven says the company will be "extra careful" when it comes to privacy issues. (CNN)

    • The CEO of domain name registrar GoDaddy, Bob Parson, is in some hot water thanks to a viral video chronicling his African adventures. In it, Parson shoots an elephant and lets a bunch of villagers make off with its flesh. His reason? The animal was eating all the villagers' crops. (Silicon Alley Insider)

    • BMW announced plans for a New York City-based start-up incubator with a $100 million investment fund that will invest in and encourage the growth of mobile and location-based companies. "As a mobility company, we are focusing on mobility services that may not even have anything to do with cars," Joerg Reimann, a managing director of the recently-formed BMW i Ventures, told Fast Company. "We're not coming at this from a car [perspective], we're coming from a consumer [perspective]." (Fast Company)

    • Facebook now has 250 million mobile users a month and to celebrate that, the social networking champ is launching a new, spiffy and unified mobile web site, as seen on the right. (TechCrunch)

    • It's official: The Quick Bar -- or as detractors affectioned dubbed it, #Dickbar -- is dead. The obtrusive black bar that inserted trending topics and promoted ads at the top of Twitter streams on iPhones everywhere was removed from the latest Twitter app update in the App Store. (TechCrunch)

    • Twitter claims 175 million million registered users, but just how many of them are active, and to what degree? With the help of someone with full Twitter API access, Silicon Alley Insider did some math and reported that 119 million Twitter accounts follow one or more other accounts, 85 million accounts have one or more followers, 56 million accounts follow 0 accounts, and 90 million actually have 0 followers. (Silicon Alley Insider)

    • Warner Bros., Sony, Universal and 20th Century Fox are rolling out $30 movie rentals for the service Home Premiere on Direct TV, offering films two months after their theatrical release date. The first movies up for grabs will be the Liam Neeson thriller Unknown and Adam Sandler's Just Go With It. (Variety)

    • Groupon founders Brad Keywell and Eric Lefkofsky invested $1 million in Qwiki, a service also funded partially by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin that basically pulls information from the Internet and creates multimedia-rich wiki pages/presentations. Their generosity brings the start-up's latest round of funding to some $9 million. (New York Times/DealB%k)

    • Apple VP of worldwide marketing Allison Johnson is leaving to co-found a new, as-of-yet unnamed marketing and communications firms with former Facebook PR executive Brandee Barker. (AllThingsD)