Facebook owns group messaging startup Beluga

Social network hegemon Facebook has recently expanded its ranks by acquiring (for an undisclosed sum) one Beluga Inc., a small startup founded by three ex-Google employees which has developed a 'group messaging' app for both iOS and Android devices.

Beluga's software allows people to form private 'pods' of friends in which the participants can share updates, location info and photos, plan events, and basically stay in touch, all without worrying about text messaging fees. The app also provides real-time alerts using push notifications to ensure everyone is up-to-date with the latest happenings in the friend pods.

As expected, Facebook will utilize Beluga's knowledge and technology to improve on its own messaging system but that won't happen super fast so, for the time being, the Beluga mobile apps are still usable. They'll probably be retired in a few weeks.

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Google Maps 5.2 is Twitter-friendly,offers friend pinging

A new version of Google Maps for Android is now available and it brings a few social-focused Hotpot and Latitude updates. First up, you get the option to tweet ratings and reviews of Places (restaurants, cafes and such) so they can be quickly seen by followers and maybe taken into account.

Next, there's the 'ping' function which enables you to basically ask a nearby Latitude friend if he/she would like to meet and where. There's no texting or calling involved as the person pinged will receive a notification on the Android device. If they want to meet all they need to do is check into a place, sending back a notification to confirm its 'availability'.

Another addition is the Search more places button which lets you search for a place that's nearby but is not found in the suggested list of places to check in. For all this and more, you need Google Maps 5.2 (which is free) and an Android 1.6+ device.

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WordPress sustains massive DDoS attack

Popular blogging platform WordPress was subjected Thursday to a vicious distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.

The site, which hosts more than 17 million blogs with 286 million monthly readers, was able to recover as of mid-afternoon EST on Thursday.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said in a blog post that many users experienced performance or connectivity issues.

Cluley cited an email exchange with a representative of Automattic, operator of WordPress, which said the site was hit with a major DDoS attack that measured "multiple gigabits per second."

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg told TechCrunch that this was the "largest and most sustained attack" the site has had to fight off in its six-year history, affecting all three data centers in the United States.

Mullenweg told the technology blog that he believes the attack may have been politically motivated against a "non-English" blog. He also warned that the attack may return.

An email sent to Mullenweg by SCMagazineUS.com was not immediately returned.

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