HOW TO: Track Hurricane Earl Online


Mashable! 3 Sep 2010, 2:13 am CEST

Hurricane Earl is expected to wreak some havoc on the East Coast this Labor Day weekend. According to the the National Hurricane Center, Earl is expected “pass near the North Carolina outer banks tonight [Thursday]… and approach southeastern New England Friday night.”

President Obama has declared a state of emergency for North Carolina, and FEMA has deployed teams to North Carolina, Massachusetts, Rhode, Island Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine.

Whether you live near the National Hurricane Center’s official “Forecast Cone” or you’re one of the 34.4 million people who planned a trip for this weekend, you’ll want to keep an eye on Earl. Here are some resources to kickstart your tracking:

Government Resources

The National Weather Service

Get your weather warnings and advisories right from the source on top of a color-coded map. You can also use the site to check in on where Earl is likely to hit and whether or not hurricane force winds are probable in your area.

NOAA’s nowCOAST

nowCOAST

Make a customized, real-time map using NOAA data. Decide what location, information, and time you’d like to view and what data layers you’d like to activate, and nowCOAST will make a map for your request. This is a great tool for people who actually know something about weather, but it can leave the beginner hurricane tracker a bit confused.

NASA Earth Science Office

NASA

See what the hurricane looks like from outer space by taking a look at the latest satellite pictures direct from NASA’s Earth Science Office. The site offers a number of different satellite views, include infrared and water vapor readings.

Weather Media Resources

MyFoxHurricane.com

Myfoxhurricane.com

Very helpful for connecting with other hurricane tracking nerds, this dedicated hurricane website from MyFoxTampaBay and the FOX Network hosts a live chat in addition to its other hurricane resources. Interesting maps include the hurricane’s predicted path map, the wave height near the storm and a radar map that zooms in on the Outer Banks.

The Weather Channel

The_Weather_Channel

The Weather Channel’s Hurricane Central allows you to view where Hurricane Earl has been and where it’s projected to go. There are also separate maps for hurricane advisories, tropical storm advisories, wind speeds and wave heights; the site also has satellite maps for specific regions. The maps aren’t as flashy as some of the other sites on this list, but they are very easy to read and understand.

AccuWeather.com

If you want to see what Hurricane Earl looks like – and we’re not talking radar – watch this footage taken from directly above the eye of the storm. These brave NASA pilots apparently let an AccuWeather videographer on board. Hopefully this is as close to Earl as you will get.

The site’s frequent video coverage of Hurricane Earl is also a great resource.

Google Maps Mashups

Ibiseye

ibiseye

Ibiseye puts the storm’s history, projected path and at-risk areas on one Google map. It’s especially useful for finding at what time and with what intensity the storm is expected to reach a specific point. A graphical synopsis of the storm’s winds, pressure and wind field is also available.

StormAdvisory

ibiseye

Another Google Maps-based resource, StormAdvisory plots Hurricane Earl’s actual path and wind speeds as well as its projected path and wind speeds.

Weather Underground

ibiseye

The tropical weather section of Weather Underground includes radar, satellite, wind and forecast maps. The stand-out feature, however, is the site’s trademarked “Wundermap,” on which you can choose layers of information to display.

Stormpulse: A Hurricane Tracking Dashboard

stormpulse

Stormpulse is all you need to track Hurricane Earl’s vital stats. The dashboard displays every the essential detail, including current category, wind speed and movement, on one screen. You can switch the map to radar or satellite and select a point on the map to calculate its distance from the hurricane.

Mobile Resources

hurricane_mobile

  • The Weather Channel App for iPhone or BlackBerry

    The free version of the Weather Channel’s app for both iPhone and BlackBerry will alert you to weather advisories in your area and check in on the current forecast. The iPhone version comes with an updated local video forecast as well. If you want more from your weather source, a $3.99 iPhone version of the app comes with access to an entire video center and a database of beach condition reports. The Weather Channel also claims this is the only weather app with animated future radar.

  • Hurricane iPhone App

    Anything a storm tracker could want: animated satellite and radar, computer models, NHC bulletins, forecasts, your distance from each forecast point and all the vital stats (including wind speed, direction and pressure). You can keep this $1.99 app on your phone after Earl has passed for the latest updates from government hurricane centers.

  • Hurricane Wallpaper Android App

    Download this $0.99 Android app, and you’ll never be without your weather map. You can keep the current National Hurricane Center’s Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Activity image up on your phone as your wallpaper.

  • MyFoxHurricane iPhone App

    The resources of MyFoxHurricane.com (as discussed earlier in this post) in a $3.99 iPhone app. Get access to breaking news and videocasts from the site as well as radar and satellite images. You can also look at past hurricanes in your area to see how Earl compares.

  • Hurricane Hound Android App

    This Android app shows the storm’s current position, projected storm track and storm warnings on a Google map. It also lets you know how far away you are from the storm at any given moment. And it’s free, which we like.

  • AccuWeather.com iPhone App

    Not fancy but still free, AccuWeather.com’s iPhone app will alert you to weather advisories in your zip code. Aside from accessing the usual web forecast, you can also access video forecasts for your area.

  • Hurricane Central Web App

    Tired of downloading apps? Hurricane Central is a bare-bones mobile site for hurricane information. It pulls maps, advisories and other hurricane announcements from the National Hurricane Center.

Twitter Resources

hurricane_twitter

This Spam Infographic About Spam Infographics Makes My Head Hurt


TechCrunch 3 Sep 2010, 1:53 am CEST

Buzzfeed, the Huffington Post of Internet memes, today wins the “more meta than thou” award for making “An Infographic Backlash Infographic” inspired by the tragic tale of a guy whose job it was to game Digg back when Digg had enough traffic to make it worth gaming.

Okay Buzzfeed, just because you understand recursion, doesn’t mean you have to rub it in our face all the time. Aside from the Greyhat SEO tricks, your anti-infographic infographic and the post that inspired it are actually just describing successful web-writing and content creation. It’s like…there’s a reason people are clicking on it.

From the Digg gamer’s playbook, which is really interesting if you care at all about how people used to build website traffic.

“Spam other sites with it too for bonus points. Email large blogs, etc. to try to get them to run with it too.”

From the Buzzfeed “community manager,” in our Tips inbox today:

Thought this might be up your alley -

a couple of days ago someone posted on Reddit about how he been paid to game Digg and other influential sites by creating infographics (those goofy, badly designed images with stats and pie charts called “everything you ever wanted to know about boobs” that keep turning up on content-sharing sites) and then loading them with keyword-spam embed tags once they start spreading.

today, we posted an infographic about how the system works: http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/the-truth-about-infographics

and within a few minutes, dozens of new fake accounts were created on our site to defend the practice.

the whole thing is pretty fascinating!

Well I do find it fascinating … But wait, didn’t you guys just tell me I shouldn’t link to infographics? Fortunately the Spam infographic has some helpful suggestions for what to do when you’re in this kind of a situation. “If you do include a link to a spam infographic include a no follow tag in the html.”

Which is exactly what we did. Thanks guys! Hi Jonah ;)

Logitech's New Long and Skinny Z305 and Wireless Z515 USB Laptop Speakers [Speakers]


Gizmodo 3 Sep 2010, 1:20 am CEST

A boombox your laptop is not, and speakers that are both portable and powerful are hard to come by. Depending on your needs, Logitech's Z305, a 360 degree sound bar, and Z515, a 50' wireless speaker, might do the trick. More »

Facebook Testing a “Stalker Button”


Mashable! 3 Sep 2010, 1:11 am CEST

Facebook is apparently testing a new subscription feature that would allow users to receive alerts any time a specific friend takes certain actions on the social network.

AllFacebook reports that it has noticed the new feature popping up on friends’ profiles. Facebook told the blog, “This feature is being tested with a small percent of users. It lets people subscribe to friends and pages to receive notifications whenever the person they’ve subscribed to updates their status or posts new content (photos, videos, links or notes).”

In other words, when you click to subscribe to a user, you’ll get a new Facebook notification in your notifications bar at the top of the site or on the mobile device of your choosing any time that other user posts content. We’re not sure yet if you can subscribe to someone who’s not a friend, which is much more stalker-like, or if notifications include likes and comments (right now, it sounds like they won’t).



We at Mashable are hoping this is an opt-in (or at least an opt-out) feature. If Facebook thinks subscriptions are a useful for the majority of average users, people who might want to get special notifications for family members’ or loved ones’ activities, they’re also potentially damaging if rolled out to jealous “frenemies,” vindictive exes or nosy bosses.

What do you think of the “subscribe” button? Is there anyone in your life you’d subscribe to? What about others subscribing to you — would you like or dislike that feature?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

[img credits: AllFacebook and jvk]

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Yammer 2.0: A Facebook for the Warren Buffett set


VentureBeat 3 Sep 2010, 1:00 am CEST

Yammer, originally launched as a “Twitter for businesses,” will soon expand its services into a full-on social network like Facebook — built to help streamline workplaces and network business professionals.

Along with a redesign to be more social, the Yammer developers are also providing access to developers in order to attract third-party apps. Yammer is also going to allow for event creation, threaded conversations, chat, activity feeds and… well, you get the picture. Really, this seems like Facebook with an alternative color scheme and a different target audience.

But it does seem to be taking off — TechCrunch reported that the service was doubling its revenue every quarter, and it already successfully raised about $15 million in two rounds of fundraising. Yammer reportedly plays host to 80,000 companies — including 80 percent of the Fortune 500.

The competition has also failed to step up so far — despite the launch of Chatter, Salesforce.com’s take on Twitter for business, Yammer still continues to advance.

Yammer in its current form operates using the freemium model. It offers the basic service for free with a premium service charging $5 a month. The service crossed 1 million users in July. The company, based in San Francisco, launched in 2008, when it won an award at the TechCrunch50 conference, and is led by David Sacks, PayPal’s former chief operating officer.

The first set of applications will begin rolling out September 28. Until then, executives will probably just have to cross their fingers that employees won’t spend wasted hours on Yammer instead of Facebook. Or, worse yet, both Yammer and Facebook.

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Mark Zuckerberg Is On iTunes Ping — But Only One Is Real


TechCrunch 3 Sep 2010, 12:50 am CEST

Perhaps you’ve heard that Apple and Facebook are having a little bit of an issue at the moment. Despite launching with Facebook Connect integration yesterday, it’s now nowhere to be seen on Apple’s new music social network, Ping. And that’s too bad because even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg signed up to try out Ping yesterday, we hear.

While Facebook Connect will no longer help you find Zuckerberg there, if you do a simple name search, there he is. Well actually, there he is twice. Hmm. Which one to choose?

One has 46 followers, says he’s into “Dance, Hip-hop/Rap”, and has no picture. The other has 74 followers, doesn’t list musical preferences, but has a picture. So it’s gotta be the second one, right?

Nope. As tempting as it is to think that Zuckerberg actually filled in his profile to say “It’s true, I invented Facebook,” this is a fake account. The one with no picture and less followers? That’s the real Zuck. He follows two people, Katy Perry and Bret Taylor. One of those is a famous pop singer, the other is Facebook’s CTO. I’ll let you sort that out.

Who cares? Well, it’s sort of interesting that anyone can create a fake account of someone else on Ping. Sure, you need an iTunes account, but there are undoubtedly many people who have no interest in using Ping and are happy to create fake accounts aplenty. As another example, here’s The Beatles. No, it’s not the group (iTunes doesn’t play nicely with them, remember?) — it’s someone who made their name “The” and “Beatles” and put an album cover picture in there.

These fake account could potentially lead to users who believe them getting tricked into making purchases that they think their idols recommend. Zuckerberg didn’t actually recommend Those Darlins, for example — Fake Zuckerberg did.

Seems like there’s an identification system that could potentially help with this. Oh yeah, Facebook Connect.

REMINDER: Free Catfish Screening Today In San Francisco


All Facebook 3 Sep 2010, 12:47 am CEST

-Catfish Logo-A quick reminder for those of you who are based in San Francisco. There will be a free screening of Catfish for all readers of AllFacebook today at 7 PM at the Metreon. If you are around and have a chance to make it, I couldn’t recommend the movie more highly. It’s really a fun film and best of all, the filmmakers behind this movie will be answering questions during a panel immediately following the screening.

It looks like a metal marble floating in space. Or the palantír of Orthanc, magically teleported from Middle Earth to 11,000 light years away, in the Cassiopeia constellation. But it's just a visual effect. This is the Bubble Nebula. More »

In The Coming HTML5 Browser Wars, The Markup Should Remain The Same


TechCrunch 3 Sep 2010, 12:39 am CEST

On Monday, Google made a big splash with a customized Arcade Fire video page that showed off all the cool things HTML5 can do, from video, animations and 3D rendering to gorgeous fonts and choreographed windows. It’s all cutting edge stuff as far as what is possible with a Web browser goes, but there is one very big problem. It doesn’t work so great in all browsers, even browsers that supposedly support HTML5. If you go to the landing page that launches the video in Firefox or even the forthcoming IE9 (which isn’t out yet, but is very HTML5-friendly), it detects your browser and suggests you use Chrome instead. I received the following message on Firefox:

This site was designed with Google Chrome in mind and is unable to render properly in your browser. For the best viewing experience, we recommend downloading Google Chrome and trying this site again.

But wait, isn’t Firefox one of those “modern browsers” that supports HTML5? This isn’t the first time there have been issues with HTML5 compatibility. The problem is that HTML5 is so young that the standards have not been hammered out yet across all browsers. The markup language required to produce the same effect is different for different browsers.

“The Arcade Fire thing . . . they are writing to the browser,” points out Dean Hachamovitch, the Microsoft general manager in charge of Internet Explorer. “They use proprietary Javascript.” HTML5 “done right,” he contends, would be using the same markup language across browsers. Seems reasonable. That is what the open Web is all about. It is why we have standards. But HTML5 is so new that we are getting flashbacks to the late 1990s with sites refusing to accept certain browsers.

To illustrate this point, Microsoft has an HTML5 test page set up that changes the border around a block of text. Inside the block of text, it shows the markup code required to create different effects such as animating it or creating dots instead of a solid line. Here is what the code looks like in Chrome:

And here is what it looks like in Firefox

What’s wrong with these pictures? One takes 16 lines of code, the other takes four, and they are completely different.  Even the dots that are created don’t match (Chrome’s dots are square).  A different set of HTML5 code is required for IE9.  ”We want to make the same markup work everywhere,” says Hachamovitch.  ”If you have to write that differently for every browser it is kind of missing the point.”

Microsoft is working with the standards bodies, as are all the other browser makers, but what is really needed is better definitions and a thorough set of reference examples for every possible HTML5 feature.  It’s a lot of work.  Eventually, we will get there. But until then, expect to see grandstanding about which browser does HTML5 better.  When you hear that, just ask yourself, which version of HTML5 are they talking about.

Facebook Connect Disappears from iTunes Ping


Mashable! 3 Sep 2010, 12:04 am CEST

Late last evening, Apple released iTunes 10 and its new Ping social network to the public. Assuming you were able to access the service, you may have noticed the ability to add friends via Facebook Connect, a feature we mentioned in our first-impressions post last night.

That feature disappeared earlier this morning, as first noted by Peter Kafka. So where did the feature go and why did it disappear?

According to AllThingsD, Facebook was responsible for turning off Apple’s access to its Facebook Connect API. Typically this API is open to just about any application developer. However, with higher-volume apps (think social games and services with lots and lots of users), Facebook apparently requires a special agreement for these kinds of connections.

According to AllThingsD’s sources, an agreement between Apple and Facebook couldn’t be reached, so Facebook cut off access. Apple subsequently removed the feature from its service. Users can still be added by searching by name or via e-mail address. However, it’s important to note that the e-mail address is the one associated with a user’s iTunes account. I have a special iTunes-only address in place, which means that anyone who wants to follow me will have to use my name.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has turned off its data hose to another company. Twitter briefly introduced a Facebook follow feature before Facebook shut off access.

Apple and Facebook have worked together in the past, most notably with the Share via Facebook option first introduced in iTunes 9 and the App Store Facebook Page.

As it stands, if you did manage to use Facebook Connect with iTunes Ping last night, the app itself is still visible in Facebook and you can see which friends are also connected.

We would be surprised if this feature didn’t make a reappearance at some point. That’s a good thing, because Facebook is becoming the de facto social graph for many users and makes the friend discovery process much easier.

We’ve reached out to Facebook and Apple for comment on this particular issue.

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Done Deal: HP Gets 3PAR For $2.35 Billion In Cash


TechCrunch 3 Sep 2010, 12:00 am CEST

It's officially over. After Dell pulled out of the running this morning, HP has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire data storage company 3PAR, for $33 per share in cash, or a value of $2.35 billion. The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies. This morning, HP upped the ante with an offer worth $33 per share or $2.4 billion. 3PAR accepted HP's bid and Dell withdrew.

A Simple Way to Attach Your iPad to Your Walls [Ipad]


Gizmodo 3 Sep 2010, 12:00 am CEST

The PadTab iPad wall mounting system is great. It's easy to set up, simple to remove, doesn't require much room, and lets you mount your iPad next to your toilet. No, really. That's what some of the promotional photos suggest: More »

Google's Schmidt mocked in Times Square ads


Webware.com 2 Sep 2010, 11:54 pm CEST

Consumer Watchdog produced two cartoony ads slamming Google CEO Eric Schmidt as part of an effort to build support for a "do not track" list.

Originally posted at Relevant Results

What’s keeping you from importing Facebook friends into Apple’s Ping social network


VentureBeat 2 Sep 2010, 11:47 pm CEST

Steve Jobs presenting PingFacebook friend importing was a key feature of Apple’s new Ping social network, until discussions between the companies fell through, Facebook blocked Ping’s access to its data, and Apple removed the feature from Ping entirely — according to All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher.

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs showed off Ping at its media event yesterday, Facebook integration was clearly visible in his presentation. But when users finally got their hands on iTunes 10 and set up their Ping accounts, many were confused as to why they couldn’t import Facebook friends — instead, they were stuck with prehistoric options like searching for friends on the service, or inviting them via email.

A lucky few were able to use the Facebook friend import before Apple removed it, and a Facebook app for Ping, which handled the import duty, is still available.

Yesterday, Jobs told Swisher that “onerous terms” from Facebook led Apple abandon the feature. But it turns out the full story is even juicier: Apparently Apple did implement the feature after its negotiations fell through, which led to Facebook blocking the company from using its APIs (application programming interfaces) to get access to user data.

Normally, Facebook’s APIs are open and available to use. But in the case of services like Ping that would lead to heavy usage, Facebook requires an agreement.

Once Apple and Facebook come to an agreement, we can expect the feature to be re-enabled. Having access to Facebook is key for any budding service with a social spin, and even Apple will eventually have to come to terms with that.

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Coda’s electric sedan says ‘aloha’ to Hawaii next year


VentureBeat 2 Sep 2010, 11:47 pm CEST

coda sedan surfersCoda announced today their plans to roll out their all-electric sedan in Hawaii in the third quarter of 2011, positioning the car to battle the Nissan Leaf in a market that suffers from the highest gas prices in the country.

In May, Nissan singled out Hawaii as a target market –- the state will be among the first to get the Leaf next year. The Coda is set to hit the U.S. market at the end of this year, the same time the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf will arrive.

“They have a great opportunity in front of them. At least for the next 18 months to 24 months there’s going to be a very limited supply of both the Volts and Leafs, so I think there will be customers hungry for those vehicles … and would strongly consider Coda,” said John Gartner, analyst for Pike Research.

Hawaii is a prime market for electric vehicles, thanks to short driving distances and a strong commitment to renewable energy. Their current governor launched the Clean Energy Initiative, which aims towards 70 percent clean energy usage by 2030.

Hawaii is also one of the first states to partner with Better Place, a company that has brought electric vehicle infrastructure, charging stations and in some cases electric cars themselves to countries like Israel, Denmark and Australia.

The state’s deal with Better Place should yield stations where EV drivers can exchange their depleted car battery for a charged one. And with islands that are short in circumference, “range anxiety” is less of an issue.

The Coda sedan itself seats five, and the company says its lithium-ion battery system has 40 percent more usable energy than any other EV in its class, with a range of 120 miles.

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What Happened To Wicked Lasers' Spyder III Pro Arctic Laser? [Lasers]


Gizmodo 2 Sep 2010, 11:42 pm CEST

When we heard about Wicked Lasers' Spyder III Pro Arctic laser, an ultra powerful portable laser with a lightsaberesque design selling for only $200, it almost seemed too good to be true. Turns out it might have been. More »

Facebook Blocked Ping's API Access Because Apple Didn't Have Authorization To Use It [Unconfirmed]


Gizmodo 2 Sep 2010, 11:41 pm CEST

We've heard that Apple launched Ping without Facebook support because the two companies couldn't agree on some terms, but today AllThingsD explains that Apple actually ignored the fact that negotiations failed and incorporated Facebook's API—until Facebook blocked things. More »

The Truth About E-mail: We Check It All the Time [STATS]


Mashable! 2 Sep 2010, 11:38 pm CEST

E-mail has invaded every aspect of our lives. We don’t need a survey to tell us as much, but new research from Xobni and Harris Interactive confirms that we’re not alone in dealing with e-mail overload.

2,200 adults 18 and older in the U.S. and U.K were surveyed on their e-mail habits and attitudes. Most respondents — 72% in the U.S, 68% in the U.K. — indicated that they check e-mail during their time off. A large percentage of Americans also check e-mail in bed (19%), and while on vacation or during days off (50%).

When queried about their outside-the-workplace e-mail activities, nearly half (46%) of the American respondents indicated that they do so to ease their workload. Thirty-seven percent are afraid they’ll miss something important (guilty as charged), and 27% check work e-mail when off the job because it is expected of them. Another 26% keep up with e-mail while on vacation because they simply can’t handle the volume otherwise.

When comparing e-mail behaviors by gender, there are some subtle differences in habits. Men, for instance, are more likely to check e-mail in bed — 21% of men claim do so, while 16% of women admit to the practice. Of course, this bed-checking trend also skews toward 18- to 34-year-olds, who are twice as likely (31%) than 35- to 54-year-olds (15%) to do so.

The real-time nature of the web and social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook are likely contributing to our always-on attention spans, and hence, contributing to the e-mail overload problem. We can only hope tools such as Rapportive, Gmail Priority Inbox and Xobni’s add-ons will help our cause.

Image courtesy of revrev, Flickr

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Facebook Testing “Subscribe”, Their Version Of Follow — Well Sort Of, Maybe


TechCrunch 2 Sep 2010, 11:30 pm CEST

I feel like all I’ve written about the past few weeks is Facebook’s need for a new social dynamic. Specifically, I want Facebook to break their social graph into two: those people who you are friends with, and those who you follow — for sharing purposes. It seems that Facebook may be testing something like that out — well sort of, maybe.

Facebook appears to be testing out a new feature called “Subscribe.” A source who supposedly has it enabled, tells All Facebook that “by subscribing you don’t miss any updates from people you subscribe to.” While on the face of it, this would seem to be a lot like the idea of “follow” it’s not clear from that wording if you actually already need to be friends with a person in order to follow them.

In other words, this may just be another mechanism to ensure you see updates from people you really care about. But if that’s the case, this just adds more confusion to Facebook’s social graph because you can already create lists for that purpose. Though, as All Facebook points out, these update will apparently appear in the notifications drop down.

Instead, what I’m hoping is that this is a proper follow feature that allows you to see other users public updates even if you’re not subscribed to them. And vice versa, obviously. I would love to allow people to subscribe to stuff I share publicly (and have it appear in their stream), but have the option to still share stuff with my actual friends.

But still, maybe that is in the works as well. Baby steps are probably wise here for Facebook so their users don’t lose their minds and scream bloody murder — which will happen anyway.

We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment on this to try and get more clarity on the feature. They’re currently “looking into it.”

Update: Here’s Facebook’s comment:

This feature is being tested with a small percent of users. It lets people subscribe to friends and pages to receive notifications whenever the person they’ve subscribed to updates their status or posts new content (photos, videos, links, or notes).

“Friends” appears to be the keyword there — as in, this is still only for people you are connected with. But I’ve asked Facebook to clarify that further just to make sure.

Facebook Beefs Up Security with Remote Logout Feature


Mashable! 1 Jan 1970, 1:00 am CET

Facebook is bolstering the security of user accounts through the launch of a new feature that gives users the ability to see their overall account activity and remotely log out of active sessions.

Have you ever logged into your Facebook at a public computer, but forgot to log out when you left? What if you left your Facebook account open at home with a snooping brother, sister or spouse? They would have access to sensitive personal information or could wreak havoc by posing as you.

These are the problems that Facebook is attempting to address with the gradual rollout of remote logout. The new feature appears under the “Account Security” section of Account Settings. Account Security displays the most recent activity related to your account, including location, device name, time and device type/browser. This should give you a clue as to whether you left Facebook open at a public computer or just left it running at the office PC.

That’s not all, though. To the right of any active account is a link for remotely logging out of your Facebook account. “In the unlikely case that someone accesses your account without your permission, you can shut down the unauthorized login before resetting your password and taking other steps to secure your account and computer,” the Facebook team explained in blog post published earlier today.

This is a welcome security update from the world’s largest social network. For many, Facebook accounts hold information as sensitive as e-mail (and Gmail has had remote logout since 2008). Anything that provides more control over a user’s security is a win in our books.

Have you ever wanted a remote logout feature for your Facebook account? Let us know in the comments.

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