February 2012
41 posts
7 tags
Shocker: Apple iOS drives majority of mobile...
comScore released their 2012 Mobile Future in Focus report, which is the first of an annual report that examines the mobile and connected device landscape and gives insights and projections for the following year based on this compiled information. For the 2011 year, comScore’s report shows that Apple iOS dominated the market in the U.S., which may not be a surprise to many, but continues...
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Beam me up, Samsung
I have been waiting five years for this. Ever since the first iPhone where you could watch videos, I have been wondering, when will mobile devices include a projector to broadcast what your watching onto a wall to watch as a TV. It has finally happened, but not by Apple unfortunately. Samsung is the hero here, and I imagine depending on how this is received, other mobile makers won’t be...
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C is for Connected
The same generation that grew up in the 80’s and 90’s on Sesame Street and the Cookie Monster, is now the same generation that is the most digitally connected. A report from Nielsen indicates that Americans 18-34 are “redefining media consumption” with their unique embrace of everything digital. 18-34 year olds only make up 23% of the U.S. population says Nielson, but in...
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Consumer data privacy in a networked world
The online privacy debate has been ongoing since the dawn of the Internet. One thing that can be agreed on through the test of time is that our privacy should not be taken lightly and is important so that we can protect our freedoms and liberties online. The U.S. Bill of Rights contains no express right to privacy, however can be construed in many ways that privacy is a protected right but just...
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Coming soon: Microsoft Office for the iPad
Ah, now it makes a bit more sense for all the hubbub yesterday when Microsoft laid the smack down on Google. It looks like Microsoft may be drumming up some publicity and trying to shine some additional light to their business solution products for good reason. According to The Daily, who scored an exclusive story and pics, Microsoft has completed their business suite of products for an...
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Correct Internet etiquette for commenting on...
If you ever struggle with the appropriate way to comment on YouTube videos, don’t worry, Erik Hoffstad has you covered. His YouTube channel goes over a variety of ways to correctly comment on the many different types of YouTube videos out there using Internet comment etiquette. Simple stuff really, which everyone should be able to apply to their day to day commenting techniques. via...
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Microsoft goes after Google, again
Uh oh, it looks like Microsoft is at it again with Google. Do you remember the Gmail Man? Microsoft clearly has a bone to pick with Google, and they seem to now have pinned the bulls-eye on Google and is not taking any prisoners. In their latest video installment, yes expect more, Microsoft pokes fun at Google who according to Microsoft is “Googlighting” on the software side, in...
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Apple's countdown to 25 billion downloads and...
On the Apple site for iTunes, they are counting down to the moment that the iTunes App Store hits 25 billion app downloads with a snazzy countdown ticker, which is moving extremely fast. Just over one year ago, Apple announced that the App Store had reached 10 billion app downloads. Reaching 15 billion more in just over a year is an amazing accomplishment.
Apple is also going to give away a...
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The Oatmeal illustrates why piracy is so...
Piracy is a big problem. So much so that recent times on the web have become turbulent from national online strikes to combat legislation that impedes innovation and Internet freedoms in the name of protecting copyright laws, to the shut down of websites that contribute to piracy and many others closing their virtual doors in fear of what may happen to them. Since the days of Naptser, Piracy...
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Google Plus iOS users get Instant Upload
The latest update of Google Plus brings a new feature for iOS users that has been around for a bit already for Android users. Coming to iPhone and iPad when using Google Plus is Instant Upload. Instant Upload if enabled allows you to snap photos with your mobile device and have those photos instantly uploaded to a private album on your Google Plus account. As long as you have your Google Plus...
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Georgia Tech develops braille-like texting app to...
Developers at Georgia Tech have designed a mobile app that attempts to mimic Braille which will be geared to help both visually impaired and sighted individuals enabling them to text using mobile devices. The application called BrailleTouch uses the official Braille writing system so that users are able to learn to write and text without even looking at the screen. The app developed at Georgia...
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Angry Birds next conquest: Space
Angry Birds has made it pretty far for some pig killing birds. First they conquered mobile devices, then Google Chrome, Google Plus, and then Facebook. What could possibly be next? How about the final frontier. Angry Birds are going to venture outside of this world and into Space. Angry Birds in Space will be “One small fling for a bird, one quantum leap for birdkind.” What will...
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Cellhelmet is the first iPhone case to provide...
Owning an iPhone can be a precipitous situation if you ever break your phone, because Apple doesn’t offer repairs or replacements if it’s damaged. The iPhone is basically a micro-computer in your pocket, so taking care of it and not breaking it is always important. Like most people, you will probably buy a case for your iPhone, which in many scenarios may save your phone from damage...
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Jeremy Lin will help you get into Harvard in...
Before #Linmania, #Linsanity or the #Linderella story of Jeremy Lin being picked up by the New York Knicks and becoming the recent driving force of their success, the NBA star used to attend Harvard University. Getting into Harvard is no easy task. How did Jeremy Lin do it? He lays out in five easy steps exactly how it’s done so that in the end, you will be #Linning. via buzzfeed
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Low signal strength will not be an issue with...
Getting a good signal for your wireless devices can almost always prove to be tricky. Depending on various factors including your location, cell towers, your mobile device and it’s antenna can all play a factor into getting a signal or no signal at all. I can think of one carrier that has had lots of signal issues *cough AT&T cough*. ChamTech Operations looks to change the wireless...
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Behind the scenes, Tumblr is scaling at an...
As many know, Tumblr has been growing at a massive rate over the past year. This is a good thing of course. But it can also be bad because it leads to system strain and outages when you don’t have the scalability to account for the huge spike in usage. This is certainly something Tumblr has suffered through, with outages plaguing the site, it seems that Tumblr just hasn’t been able...
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Create cinemagraphs in just a few easy steps with...
Cinemagraphs are a hybrid of a photo and video combined into one animated image, with the animations typically being a very subtle animation in only one part of the image. For example, you might have wind blowing a flag around in an otherwise completely still photo or someone’s hair moving around. Creating cinemagraphs can be a laborious process requiring photoshop and lots of patience,...
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Thank you Google for making health related...
Now that Google has officially shut down Google Health, they still wanted a way to help users with health related issues. Health is one of the top three biggest topics online (Health, Games & Auto). Google has also mined enough data to know that users that search for health symptoms also follow those up with searches for related health conditions. So Google decided to work their algorithmic...
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The Myspace hype machine needs a reality check
The wheels are in motion again it seems. I am reading all over the web yesterday and today how Myspace is on it’s way to making a come back and that Justin Timberlake is actually bringing ‘sexy’ back to Myspace. Really, is that so? The news is that Myspace is going to make an announcement that they have amassed one million new users to the site. Back in December, Myspace...
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Calling all Little Monsters: The Lady Gaga social...
As the Queen of Pop and also known as Mother Monster, Lady Gaga likes to call her millions and millions of fans her Little Monsters. Lady Gaga is also the queen of something else, which is not as glamorous as being the queen of pop. Lady Gaga is also the queen of social media. Lady Gaga’s Facebook page alone has 47,869,199 likes. Her Twitter page has 19,206,447 followers and her Google...
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A real life Temple Run acted out by Parkour...
A real addicting game lately for me has been Temple Run. Some people like their Angry Birds, I like my angry demon monkeys! Parkour free runner Adam Brashaw apparently likes it too. He even wondered what the Temple Run game would be like in real life. So he made this creative video, which gives you an idea of what it would be like to run from the demon monkeys with Brashaw being chased by...
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SNL mocks Verizon smart phone sales (video)
Last night on Saturday Night Live, they had a skit on Verizon smart phones and all the difficult to understand jargon that is used when talking about them. Such as Verizon 3G, 4G LTE, download speeds plus additional fluffer Verizon always throw in. Knowing the technical side of smart phones can almost always be confusing. Then factor in all the different phone brands and each different model for...
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Oh yeah, Star Wars iOS app yeah
I am channeling my inner Pauly D for my excitement here. Star Wars and Lucas Films have released their official iOS gaming app for iPhone and iPad. Although I am excited, it’s not the iOS game that I would have hoped for, but hey, it’s Star Wars. The iOS game is based on Pit Droids, which are the droids from Tatooine that you would see before the pod races. In the game, you have...
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Dad shoots daughter's laptop in response to...
For all the rebellious teens out there on Facebook, be really careful what you say about your family on your Facebook posts. If you don’t, this may happen to you. This is probably the best Facebook video I have ever seen. Love it. I’m pretty sure his daughter won’t be saying bad things about his family again in public. via buzzfeed
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FBI releases 191 page file on Steve Jobs
Believe it or not, the FBI had a full 191 page file on Steve Jobs. It isn’t what you’re thinking though. According to VentureBeat, Jobs applied for an official government position as part of George H.W. Bush’s administration in 1991. As part of the consideration for this position, the FBI did a full check on Jobs which in this file has information about his past drug...
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Random Fact: 25% of Wolfram Alpha searches comes...
As part of a NY Times post on the updated and new premium services for Wolfram Alpha, the computational search engine, they let out a tidbit of information that 25% of all searches on the search engine derive from Siri. Siri as you know is the Apple intelligent voice assistant which just debuted with the iPhone 4S a few months ago. For the new premium services on Wolfram Alpha, you will be able...
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Hello Kitty joins the Mile High club
In Taiwan, the airline EVA Air is starting a new trend and enticing travelers with a new way to fly by having Hello Kitty themed flights. From a customized jet that dawns Hello Kitty branding to the flight attendants wearing Hello Kitty aprons, Hello Kitty boarding passes and Hello Kitty seats, the flights are a Hello Kitty fans dream come true. The new Hello Kitty jets will operate for at least...
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Facebook almost identically copies Google Plus...
Facebook is pushing out a new photo viewer that many may have seen recently, maybe not, as it’s still pretty new. If you use Google Plus, the wider view photo viewer may look familiar to you. The new Facebook photo viewer is wider and shows comments parallel to the photo, lined up nicely. The new photo viewer looks really good too. It’s in a shadow box which makes the images pop...
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Apple mini-stores will be in your local Sam's club...
When you do your bulk grocery shopping at your local Sam’s club in the near future, you may be able to step foot into a mini-Apple store according to 9to5 Mac. Sources are saying that Sam’s club, which is a subsidiary of Walmart is in talks with Apple to expand their already Apple friendly in-store sales to open them up to mini-stores within Sam’s club locations. It’s...
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Sponsored Stories coming soon to Facebook mobile
It looks like after the Facebook IPO, Facebook has taken a hard look into generating revenue for the social network. They need to keep a steady flow of money and please share holders now that they will be a public company. Part of the IPO was that Facebook doesn’t post advertisements on the mobile platform. In order to grow, it was inevitable that ads may have made their way to the mobile...
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There were 13.7 million SuperBowl tweets
Yesterday was not only a big day for the Patriots and the Giants, with the Giants coming out victorious, but was also a big day for Twitter, of course. After yesterday’s SuperBowl 46 game, Twitter posted to their blog today sharing some great stats which I also listed below. In summary, Twitter saw it’s highest Tweets Per Second (TPS) in history during the game yesterday, with the...
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League of Legends gamer dies in cafe and nobody...
According to a report from Kotaku, a gamer in Taipei, Taiwan was playing the multi-player game League of Legends in an Internet cafe for several hours before dying. He laid dead for nine hours before anyone noticed that there was a dead body next to them in the cafe. The gamer, Chen Rong-yu had checked into the Internet cafe as many do in that region to play PC-games. It’s commonplace...
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For the first time, smart phone sales trump PC...
An interesting statistic came up with the Canalys Quarter 4 - 2011 report on smart phone and PC sales. Canalys reports that for the first time, smart phone sales have overtaken PC sales. The report indicates that vendors shipped 158.5 million smart phones in Q4 2011, up 57%. By comparison they report out that 414.6 million PC’s were shipped, up 15%. What is even more interesting is...
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Tumblr adds Highlighted Posts to user feed to...
Tumblr just added a new way for your blog posts to get a little extra attention in the Tumblr Dashboard (user feed). On Tumblr, you can follow other people, and you see their posts in your feed, just like with Twitter. Starting today, you can pay $1.00 to “highlight” your blog posts to your followers, giving it a giant bright tag of sorts that will surely stand out in the feed. As of...
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Steve Jobs, Clint Eastwood and others photoshopped...
UK artist and Photoshop extraordinaire Steve Payne has created some fantastic portrait illustrations using celebrity faces and a digital copy of the old Russian General portrait originally made by George Dawe. English artist George Dawe painted over three hundred portraits of Russian generals during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia for the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace. Steve Payne...
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Volkswagen does it again with their new Superbowl...
Last year’s Volkswagen Superbowl commercial with the kid trying to do the Force on his dad’s VW was a hit. So naturally Volkswagen isn’t going to let it’s popularity just disappear after one commercial. This year’s Superbowl commercial has already been posted by VW to YouTube, which is a continuation from last year’s commercial, with a very cute dog too. Which...
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Exceptional artist illustrations of Feudal Japan...
I love Star Wars stuff, in particular cool illustrations and artwork. I also love Japanese art and the Japanese Feudal time period of Shoguns and Samurai. So when I saw these Star Wars illustrations in Feudal Japanese art by Clinton Felkner, I was taken aback. These illustrations are badass to the fullest. Samurai Yoda Samurai Storm Trooper - Archer Samurai Storm Trooper - Field Commander ...
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I am Facebook
After all the details of the Facebook IPO yesterday, one thing has been made certain. The cash flow coming out of the IPO is going to make many people millionaires and billionaires. Let’s not forget where this all started though. Yes, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, we know. But without us, you and I, the users, Facebook would not exist. Therefore, speaking for everyone, I am Facebook....
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Tumblr Tuesday will soon will be Tumblr everyday
Every Tuesday of every week, since 2009, Tumblr has spotlighted a few blogs in a staff post as part of “Tumblr Tuesdays”. The point of Tumblr Tuesdays is to bring recognition to bloggers on the social blogging platform and highlight the interesting, fun and exciting blogs. Since Tumblr essentially has skyrocketed in popularity in the past year and half and is flourishing, and now it...
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Some interesting tidbits about Facebook's IPO
Earlier Facebook officially filed for their Initial Public Offering (IPO). In the filing statement, there is a lot of good details and interesting information I have come across so far. At a high level, I touched base on some factoids when I found out about the IPO, but after that I decided to dig deep into this very long and brutally detailed filing. The copy of the statement can be found on...
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It's official: Facebook files for it's IPO
As reported last week, Facebook has just made it official by filing for their Initial Public Offering. The IPO filed just a few minutes ago is for $5 billion. The actual valuation of Facebook at this point is still not known, as the value of the shares haven’t been published yet. Initial estimates value the social network at $100 billion, which will make Zuckerberg worth $24 billion. As...
January 2012
70 posts
6 tags
EFF is trying to help MegaUpload users retrieve...
If you are one of the MegaUpload users that had files uploaded to the site before the federal indictment and shut down and have lost complete access to those files, there may be something you can do about it to get those files back. This is of course for users with non-infringing content. If you happened to have copyright infringing content, that you will never get back. For those that had...
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Soon you will be able to kill pigs on Facebook
The very popular Angry Birds game that took the mobile app market by storm, then Google Chrome and naturally Google Plus is making it’s way to the biggest most dominant social platform in history; Facebook, which by the way is supposed to be filing it’s IPO possibly by tomorrow. The pig killing birds plan on making their way into your open social graph on Valentine’s Day,...
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Hawaii is proposing legislation to track all...
Hawaii may be known as the “Big Island” and the go-to place for the best vacations around, but if you plan on visiting Hawaii and are bringing your laptop or mobile device, you may want to think again. It will be worse for residents of Hawaii if state officials get their way with a new proposed Internet bill which will make living in the Aloha state tougher for Internet users. ...
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Using geo-tagged tweets to map out city paths
Programmer Eric Fischer who likes to map data in interesting ways just finished a new project mapping out tweets from Twitter. Using public tweets from Twitter’s API that were geo-tagged in specific cities like New York for example, he was able to map out ‘point-to-point’ trips which show the most traversed paths taken by those Twitter users. Using a random selection of...
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If you need to 'avoid the ghetto', don't worry,...
Microsoft is currently working on an app that is hitting a bit of controversy. The Microsoft pedestrian routing app not yet named but dubbed the “avoid the ghetto app”, is supposed to be a GPS navigation assistant that uses statistics to help you find your way. For example, if you need directions to that sporting event downtown, the app will use crime statistics, weather reports,...
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Shit Silicon Valley says
Riding the coattails of the Shit people say meme like Shit girls say and Shit black girls say, comes Shit Silicon Valley says. Written, filmed, and edited by Kate Imbach and Tom Conrad, they seem to capture the Valley in it’s funniest form. Some of my favorite quotes from the video are: “I saw it on TechCrunch”, “It’s stealth, so I can’t say too much”,...
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Facebook may file for it's IPO next week
In a new report from the Wall Street Journal published a short time ago, they are saying that Facebook may finally file for their Initial Public Offering (IPO). Currently Facebook is a privately held company, and if they go public their stocks can be traded publicly and they can build on their capital dramatically. The IPO if filed, is estimated to be in the range of about $100 billion, which if...
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Tweets still must flow, even if some are censored
What the heck is happening to the Internet? It seems lately that it’s going to hell in a hand basket. Sure the Internet has always been a place where volatile things can happen, but it could be avoided on an individual basis. Now it appears the places that we come together as a community to interact and socialize in places that have become sacred is evolving and changing at a rapid pace...
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The FBI is building an interactive social media...
The FBI is expanding their plans for their social media tracking program. The bureau has published a Request For Information from application developers/companies for information on how the FBI can build a flexible program to map out and analyze social media in real-time. No longer does the FBI want to waste their time doing this by hand, they want to automate it, naturally. A year ago DHS...