Mashable: Latest 8 News Updates - including “Windows Phone 7 Doesn’t Support Tethering”

If you’re thinking of buying a Windows Phone 7 device and using it to connect your laptop to the Internet, think again. The company’s new smartphones will not support tethering at all.

That’s another item on the list of features (including copy and paste) tech geeks love that won’t be present in the new phones. To be fair, though, the iPhone didn’t officially do tethering either until very recently, but the feature is well-supported by many Android phones.

The Boy Genius Report says that it heard directly from a Microsoft spokesperson, who said that the company’s official statement is this: “Windows Phone 7 does not support tethering.”

That’s going to be a dealbreaker for some hardcore techies, but most users won’t know the difference. And there are plenty of features left to recommend Windows Phone 7, including Xbox Live integration, the Zune marketplace and some neat Bing Maps features.

Windows Phone 7 is ready for release, so we’re just waiting on manufacturers to start cranking out their handsets based on the platform. Let’s just hope it goes over better than the Kin, Microsoft’s last big phone launch.

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Reviews: Android, iPhone

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A study conducted at Northwestern University determined that celebrities like Ashton Kutcher with millions of Twitter followers are mostly ignored on the social media site, resulting in very little if any influence.

When the researchers applied their mathematical algorithm to the countless tweets that appear on Twitter each day, they found that experts in certain fields were much more likely to cause topics of discussion to become trends. That might come as a relief to social media enthusiasts who crave discussions of substance, and a surprise to critics who argue that social media is prone to inanity.

These findings hit the wire a few months after social media analytics company Sysomos claimed that celebrities’ followers don’t have any influence, either.

It might all depend on how you crunch the numbers. Don’t forget that Justin Bieber used to consistently sit near the top of Twitter’s official trends list, and that one source close to Twitter claimed 3% of the network’s servers are dedicated to tweets from Bieber and the retweets from his followers. But the Northwestern researchers don’t place him very high at all in their own list of trends, which is currently topped by topics related to the Brazilian music awards.

Northwestern professor Alok Choudhary and graduate student Ramanathan Narayanan say that if a celebrity tweets about his or her area of expertise, he or she may actually have some influence in that case — for example, if LeBron James tweets about basketball. But an actor’s political statements generally won’t hold as much weight as those tweeted by political analysts or politicians.

The researchers set up a website called Pulse of the Tweeters that lists the top trends based on their algorithm, along with the most influential users for each trend. The site is a little ugly, but the data is worth the trip.

[Via Telegraph]

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Reviews: Twitter

More About: ashton kutcher, celebrities, demi moore, influence, justin bieber, Lady Gaga, northwestern university, research, social media, study, twitter

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Many literary forecasts of our technological future have already come to pass: the atomic bomb, the submarine, and even the iPad. Discovering passages of science fiction that turned out to be eerily accurate predictions is certainly quite entertaining.

It's also a point of controversy among Sci-FI enthusiasts. Eric Rabkin, a professor at the University of Michigan and the 2010 winner of the Science Fiction Research Association's Pilgrim Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction scholarship, explains why.

"First, there's the infinite monkeys problem. If you have an infinite number of monkeys randomly pounding on typewriters for an infinite length of time, the odds are 100% that at least one of them will … write Hamlet," explains Rabkin. "In other words, with thousands of [science fiction] writers turning out tens of thousands of visions of the future, in what sense is any coincidence between a future element and what comes to pass a prediction?"

Consider this a full disclosure: the following list is not exactly academic or even scientific. But the members of The Science Fiction Research Association who helped us compile this list agreed that these 11 science fiction prediction passages were entertaining enough to share.

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1. The iPad: 1968

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We all giggled earlier this year when Apple announced the iPad. Some of us made jokes about certain feminine products. But it looks like Arthur C. Clarke went down the the same naming route with the “newspad.”

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke:

“When he tired of official reports and memoranda and minutes, he would plug in his foolscap-size newspad into the ship’s information circuit and scan the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world’s major electronic papers…Switching to the display unit’s short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him. Each had its own two-digit reference; when he punched that, the postage-stamp-size rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort. When he had finished, he would flash back to the complete page and select a new subject for detailed examination…”

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2. Tanks: 1903

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The first tank battle in history didn’t take place until 1916, though it’s possible that seminal sci-fi author H.G. Wells was drawing upon Leonardo Da Vinci’s 15th century design when he imagined this scene in 1903.

The Land Ironclads by H.G. Wells:

‘Whit, whit, whit,’ sang something in the air…Bang came shrapnel, bursting close at hand as it seemed, and our two men were lying flat in a dip in the ground, and the light and everything had gone again, leaving a vast note of interrogation upon the night.

The war correspondent came within bawling range. ‘What the deuce was it? Shooting our men down!’
‘Black,’ said the artist, ‘and like a fort. Not two hundred yards from the first trench.’ He sought for comparisons in his mind. ‘Something between a big blockhouse and a giant’s dish-cover,’ he said.

‘And they were running!’ said the war correspondent.

‘You’d run if a thing like that, with a search-light to help it, turned up like a prowling nightmare in the middle of the night.’

…

In that flickering pallor it had the effect of a large and clumsy black insect, an insect the size of an iron-clad cruiser, crawling obliquely to the first line of trenches and firing shots out of portholes in its side. And on its carcass the bullets must have been battering with more than the passionate violence of hail on a roof of tin.

Then in the twinkling of an eye the curtain of the dark had fallen again and the monster had vanished, but the crescendo of musketry marked its approach to the trenches.

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3. Virtual Reality Games: 1956

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Considering that the first video game wasn’t created until 1958, virtual reality games were a pretty far reach in 1956.

The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke:

Of all the thousands of forms of recreation in the city, these were the most popular. When you entered a saga, you were not merely a passive observer…You were an active participant and possessed—or seemed to possess—free will. The events and scenes which were the raw material of your adventures might have been prepared beforehand by forgotten artists, but there was enough flexibility to allow for wide variation. You could go into these phantom worlds with your friends, seeking the excitement that did not exist in Diaspar—and as long as the dream lasted there was no way in which it could be distinguished from reality.

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4. The Atomic Bomb: 1914

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“Though the term ‘atomic bomb’ had been used before Wells, it seems that he came up with the term on his own, and he was the one who popularized it,” says Dr. Patrick B. Sharp, who discusses this connection in his book Savage Perils. “He was extrapolating from the work of Frederick Soddy, a British chemist who worked on radioactivity.”

Leo Szilard, who participated in the Manhattan Project, cited this specific passage in a letter to Hugo Hirst (which is part of a collection of letters in The American Atom):

"It is remarkable that Wells should have written those pages in 1914. Of course, all this is moonshine, but I have reason to believe that in so far as the industrial applications of the present discoveries in physics are concerned, the forecast of the writers may prove to be more accurate than the forecast of the scientists."

The World Set Free by H.G. Wells:

The problem which was already being mooted by such scientific men as Ramsay, Rutherford, and Soddy, in the very beginning of the twentieth century, the problem of inducing radio-activity in the heavier elements and so tapping the internal energy of atoms, was solved by a wonderful combination of induction, intuition, and luck by Holsten so soon as the year 1933. From the first detection of radio-activity to its first subjugation to human purpose measured little more than a quarter of a century. For twenty years after that, indeed, minor difficulties prevented any striking practical application of his success, but the essential thing was done, this new boundary in the march of human progress was crossed, in that year. He set up atomic disintegration in a minute particle of bismuth; it exploded with great violence into a heavy gas of extreme radio-activity, which disintegrated in its turn in the course of seven days, and it was only after another year’s work that he was able to show practically that the last result of this rapid release of energy was gold. But the thing was done—at the cost of a blistered chest and an injured finger, and from the moment when the invisible speck of bismuth flashed into riving and rending energy, Holsten knew that he had opened a way for mankind, however narrow and dark it might still be, to worlds of limitless power.

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5. The cubicle: 1909

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We admit that most cubicles aren’t hexagonal and don’t come with armchairs, but still, those beehive-like, fluorescent-lit cubes where so many of us click away our days didn’t catch on until the late 1960’s.

The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster:

Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens, this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the centre, by its side a reading-desk — that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there sits a swaddled lump of flesh — a woman, about five feet high, with a face as white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs.

An electric bell rang.

The woman touched a switch and the music was silent.

“I suppose I must see who it is”, she thought, and set her chair in motion. The chair, like the music, was worked by machinery and it rolled her to the other side of the room where the bell still rang importunately.

“Who is it?” she called. Her voice was irritable, for she had been interrupted often since the music began. She knew several thousand people, in certain directions human intercourse had advanced enormously.

But when she listened into the receiver, her white face wrinkled into smiles, and she said:

“Very well. Let us talk, I will isolate myself. I do not expect anything important will happen for the next five minutes — for I can give you fully five minutes, Kuno. Then I must deliver my lecture on ‘Music during the Australian Period.’"

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6. Earbud Headphones: 1950

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Apple’s earbuds became the prominent headphone design when they were released with the first-generation iPod in 2001. When Bradbury wrote this in 1950, headphones looked more like this.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury:

And in her ears the little seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind.

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7. Video Chat: 1911

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AT&T started demonstrating its picturephone at the New York World’s Fair in 1964. The public was invited to place calls to a special exhibit at Disneyland. The first webcam was pointed at the coffee pot in the Trojan Room of the Computer Science Department of Cambridge University. Skype was founded in 2003.

Ralph 124C 41+ by Hugo Gernsback:

Stepping to the Telephot on the side of the wall, he pressed a group of buttons and in a few minutes the faceplate of the Telephot became luminous, revealing the face of a clean-shaven man about thirty, a pleasant but serious face.

As soon as he recognized the face of Ralph in his own Telephot, he smiled and said, “Hello, Ralph.” “Hello, Edward. I wanted to ask you if you could come over to the laboratory tomorrow morning. I have something unusually interesting to show you. Look!”

He stepped to one side of his instrument so that his friend could see the apparatus on the table about ten feet from the Telephot faceplate.

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8. Automatic Doors: 1899

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Depending on who you ask, the automatic door was either invented by Heron of Alexandria about 2000 years ago or by Dee Horton and Lew Hewitt in 1960.

When the Sleeper Wakes by H.G. Wells:

The two men addressed turned obediently, after one reluctant glance at Graham, and instead of going through the archway as he expected, walked straight to the dead wall of the apartment opposite the archway. And then came a strange thing; a long strip of this apparently solid wall rolled up with a snap, hung over the two retreating men and fell again, and immediately Graham was alone with the new comer and the purple-robed man with the flaxen beard.

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9. The Escalator: 1940

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Although this is an often-cited example of a science fiction invention, the first escalator-like machine was actually patented in 1892 and the first moving walkway debuted at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893.

The Roads Must Roll by Robert Heinlin:

They glided down an electric staircase, and debouched on the walkway which bordered the north-bound five-mile-an-hour strip. “Have you ever ridden a conveyor strip before?” Gaines inquired. “It’s quite simple. Just remember to face against the motion of the strip as you get on.”

They threaded their way through homeward-bound throngs, passing from strip to strip…
After passing through three more wind screens located at the forty, sixty and eighty-mile-an-hour strips, respectively, they finally reached the maximum speed strip, the hundred mile and hour strip, which made the round trip, San Diego to Reno and back, in twelve hours.

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10. The Submarine: 1969

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Jules Verne’s submarine is similar to the escalator in being frequently misquoted as an invention. The Nautilus was actually based on a submarine that had been used with military success by the Confederacy five years earlier.

“Verne didn't so much predict the submarine as imagine how, in a more capable form, it might bear on social, political, scholarly, and even psychological matters,” explains Rabkin.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne:

For some time past vessels had been met by “an enormous thing,” a long object, spindle-shaped, occasionally phosphorescent, and infinitely larger and more rapid in its movements than a whale.

The facts relating to this apparition (entered in various log-books) agreed in most respects as to the shape of the object or creature in question, the untiring rapidity of its movements, its surprising power of locomotion, and the peculiar life with which it seemed endowed. If it was a whale, it surpassed in size all those hitherto classified in science. Taking into consideration the mean of observations made at divers times — rejecting the timid estimate of those who assigned to this object a length of two hundred feet, equally with the exaggerated opinions which set it down as a mile in width and three in length — we might fairly conclude that this mysterious being surpassed greatly all dimensions admitted by the learned ones of the day, if it existed at all.

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11. Radar: 1911

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The evocation of radar in this passage is to Rabkin’s knowledge, the “one invention that ever appeared first in science fiction in adequate form and detail to count as a true prediction.” Guglielmo Marconi didn’t create a working device that could detect remote objects by signals until 1933.

Ralph 124C 41+ by Hugo Gernsback:

A pulsating polarized ether wave, if directed on a metal object can be reflected in the same manner as a light ray is reflected from a bright surface… By manipulating the entire apparatus like a searchlight, waves would be sent over a large area. Sooner or later these waves would strike a space flyer. A small part of these waves would strike the metal body of the flyer, and these rays would be reflected back to the sending apparatus. Here they would fall on the Actinoscope, which records only the reflected waves, not direct ones.

…From the intensity and elapsed time of the reflected impulses, the distance between the earth and the flyer can then be accurately estimated.

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More Tech Resources from Mashable:

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- 11 True Stories Behind Tech's Top Names
- 10 Great Watches for Gadget Lovers [PICS]
- 7 Services That Will Suggest Things You Like
- 10 Cool and Unusual Laptop Sleeves [PICS]
- 10 Ridiculous iPhone Accessories [PICS]

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, theprint, enot-poloskun,Dizzy,acerebel, dem10, and Flickr Commons, The Library of Congress, U.S. National Archives, National Maritime Museum

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Reviews: Skype, iStockphoto

More About: 2001: a space odyssey, earbuds, gadgets, Headphones, Inventions, ipad, Radar, Sci-Fi, science fiction, tech, technology, trending, video chat

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Apple launched an update to its iTunes software for Macs and PCs last night. The new version (10.0.1) mostly adds bug fixes, but the most important addition is an overhaul of how you share your music with friends on Ping, the musical social network that Apple released alongside the new iPods a few weeks ago.

Now you can “Like” or “Post” a song from your library or playlists with a menu that appears next to the title of whichever song is playing, as seen in the picture above. The original version of Ping lived in its own world apart from your music library, making it kind of a pain to use.

There’s also a Ping sidebar that lets you view updates from artists and friends you’re following without leaving your library. A button has been placed in the bottom right corner of the iTunes window that expands or contracts the sidebar.

No significant changes were made to Ping itself — only to the ways you can access it from the application’s main interface. That’s a huge improvement; Ping’s features were previously so far detached from the normal iTunes listening experience that you’d have to want to use it pretty badly to bother opening it up.

Ping still has a ways to go. The lack of Facebook or Twitter integration is a huge barrier to drawing new users. The service still doesn’t “scrobble” the songs you listen to like Last.fm does, and we’re not sure why.

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Other Changes

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Apple fixed a number of bugs, including a crash bug and two visual performance glitches. Other than those and the Ping changes, we’ve only found one useful addition: Apps that support Apple’s Xbox Live-like social gaming service Game Center now have a badge in the App Store to indicate as much.

Small as they are, these are welcome changes. The Game Center badge wasn’t mentioned in Apple’s update notes, so let us know if you find anything else on your own.

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Reviews: App Store, Apps, Facebook, Last.fm, Ping, Twitter, iTunes

More About: apple, apple game center, apple itunes, Apple Ping, game center, itunes, itunes 10, itunes 10.0.1, music, patch, Ping, social media, social networking, software update, Update

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Everyone likes to play games, especially when those games involve your social circle. “Social gaming” is a relatively new category of video game for a variety of reasons. The explosion of social media sites like Facebook opened the door for independent app creators. What started as simple graffiti programs has grown to include complex, incredibly popular games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars, among others.

Mobile too has seen a lot of recent growth in the social gaming market. While mobile games were once limited by the graphical and processing capabilities of older hardware, smartphones have paved a new way. Now, with the iPhone planning to use the Unreal engine (also used on the Gears of War series), and technology rapidly improving across BlackBerry, Android (and not to mention the iPad), social games have started to increase both in quality and popularity.

While social games are gaining traction, few people know how those games are actually made. Behind every game, from the FarmVilles to the smallest indie creations, is a team of developers, designers and programmers; even if that “team” is just you and your best friend.

Still, social gaming can be a tough market to break into, especially as more and more people move from “traditional” console games to work in the space. To help, we spoke with some industry pros to get some tips on tackling the social gaming job market.

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The Easy-Ins and Hard Routes

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Of all the roles that contribute to creating a game, some are easier to approach than others. “As with any game development, the easiest jobs to get are the Q/A or testing jobs,” said Shane Satterfield, Editor-in-Chief of GameTrailers.com. “With so many ex-console [developers] moving into the space, competition for higher level jobs are beginning to get fierce, so testing is a good way to get your foot in the door.” Satterfield cautioned against immediately gunning for a game development position as more people have to work for years before becoming a game developer or designer.

A solid engineer, while perhaps not the “sexiest” job, is almost always a welcome member to a team. “We have so many people playing our games,” said Amitt Mahajan, director of engineering at Zynga Games. “We have unique problems when it comes to scaling our servers to handle the millions and millions and people that play our games every day… we’re looking for folks willing to learn and grow with us in scaling servers.” Zynga’s Staffing Director, Florence Thinh emphatically agreed, writing: “Engineers, engineers, engineers! For popular web companies… finding a strong PHP [or] Flash developer is a hot commodity. Also, UI Designers.”

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Star Qualities

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Regardless of what position or foothold you’re looking for, there are basic qualities that social gaming companies look for. Aside from solid skill sets and passion, it’s important to demonstrate flexibility and desire to learn. Social games (in general) have smaller staffs than traditional games where individuals can be responsible for several different roles. Mahajan stressed the importance of a candidate willing to learn and grow with the company and their specific games. “The hiring practices are very similar in that regard,” Mahajan said. “We look for folks that have demonstrated some passion in their spare time and the ability to actually finish those products.”

If you’re interested in games, Mahajan said, there’s no better experience (or way to show an employer) than to start making them yourself. “You actually get live feedback, it’s much easier to learn what you did wrong… to have an idea and follow through with it, that’s a good sign for potential investors and employers.” That drive and passion is mirrored by Thinh. They look for candidates who don’t get discouraged easily, are flexible, ambitious, smart, and creative.

Still, your resume and even your portfolio should genuinely reflect your personality. It’s less important to present yourself as a seasoned professional (if you aren’t) and better to include information and samples that speak to your interests, passions, and skills.

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Some Realities

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As much as social gaming might seem like, well, “fun and games,” the reality is that developing social games is a lot of hard work. “You have to have an amazing work ethic and you have to be incredibly passionate about it. And by that I don't mean that you like to play video games,” Satterfield said. “I mean that you like to talk to friends and family about them on a much deeper level and you're passionate enough about it to get in arguments.” Social games are made on strict deadlines with lots of pressure and long hours, especially at smaller studios. Those conditions also afford room for creativity and real ownership over the final product. It’s a give and take that can be grueling but ultimately beneficial.

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Console Comparisons

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Social games are not like console games for both better and for worse. Console games are able to run at faster speeds with better graphics with more complex game environments. But that’s not really the whole story. Social games are able to present features and unique perspectives that large budget console games can’t.

Ultimately, games are about connecting with people, whether you are playing multiplayer or simply sharing stories with friends about that impossible level in Contra. Social games inherently reinforce that joint experience. “It’s like a live service,” Mahajan said, “we worry about the user experience at any given second… the key thing is that we’re a service and not a boxed product.” That ever-changing game experience allows for quick changes and an organic work experience based on feedback and interaction.

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Conclusion

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We play games to connect, and social games are inherently built to do just that. “The common mistakes games make is they focus too much on the game on not enough on what you’re doing with friends,” Mahajan said. It’s also important to think about whether the game could be played over your morning coffee or in the subway. “Games are meant to fill those gaps you have in your life.”

Satterfield might agree: “It may seem obvious, but I think the best element of social games is being forced to interact with others. The sharing is especially important as it builds a sense of community within the player that motivates them to reciprocate. This is something that flashy console games have yet to really get right.”

Getting a job in social gaming can be tricky but for people willing to pay their dues it can also lead to amazing creative possibilities in a quickly expanding field. As Satterfield concluded: “The first few years can be a grind, but for those who are talented and dedicated enough, it can be incredibly rewarding.”

Mashable Job Board Listings

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Software Engineer at Digital Madhouse in Scottsdale, AZ.

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User Experience Designer at Mobio Identity Systems, Inc. in Vancouver, Canada.

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User Experience Designer at Musician’s Friend in Medford, OR.

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Senior Software Engineer, Social Media at Constant Contact in Waltham, MA.

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Web Creative Specialist at Logitech in Fremont, CA.

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iPhone Developer at Kazaam Interactive in Newton, PA.

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Creative Director at Tokii in Oakville, Canada.

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Mashable’s Job Board has a variety of web 2.0, application development, business development and social networking job opportunities available. Check them out at here.

Got a job posting to share with our readers? Post a job to Mashable today ($99 for a 30 day listing) and get it highlighted every week on Mashable.com (in addition to exposure all day every day in the Mashable marketplace).

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Reviews: Android, BlackBerry Rocks!, Mashable, PHP, iPhone, iStockphoto

More About: farmville, games, gametrailers, job, job search series, jobs, Mafia Wars, Mobile 2.0, shane satterfield, social games, social gaming, videogames, Zynga

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The Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin voiced “empathy” for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s position as an accused idea thief — an accusation that plays a central role in the film about the young executive.

The film is based on a book called Accidental Billionaires, which among other things accounts a dispute between Zuckerberg and individuals who accused him of stealing their ideas when creating the social network.

Sorkin said in an interview with Time, “I’ve been that guy. I’ve been the Mark Zuckerberg in that situation, and I have absolute empathy for him.”

He referenced occasions when would-be screenwriters tried to claim that they’d come up with the idea for The West Wing, the TV series he ran for seven years, as the reasons for his empathy.

At one point in the film the Zuckerberg character says, “If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you would have invented Facebook.” Sorkin used that line as a sort of personal catharsis; “It’s what I always want to say to these people,” he said.

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The Social Network: Fact or Fiction?

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Facebook’s founders are reportedly not very thrilled with the angle of either Accidental Billionares or The Social Network, and have challenged some of the facts in the story they tell, so it’s interesting that Sorkin claims to empathize with Zuckeberg.

As is the case with most film versions of true stories, the facts aren’t all straight. Since the film is a work of art and not a documentary, that old Pablo Picasso quote might apply: “Art is the lie that tells the truth.” And Sorkin’s first objective is obviously to entertain. Sorkin explained his approach thusly:

“There were a number of different versions of the truth coming from three or four or five people. And rather than pick one and dramatize that, I wanted to dramatize the fact that there are three or four or five different versions of the truth. Everybody has their own version, and everybody is right, and everybody is wrong.”

Even if you can’t catch the pre-release screenings in New York or San Francisco, you’ll be able to make your own judgments about Sorkin’s screenplay when the movie hits theaters around the U.S. on October 1.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia, thedemonhog

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Reviews: Facebook, Wikipedia

More About: Aaron Sorkin, facebook, Film, mark zuckerberg, movie, screenwriter, social media, social networking, the social network, trending, Writer

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We can’t condone betting on sports, but if you wagered that they’d be back on top of the Twitter trends this week, you’d be that much richer. Football, both the worldly and American varieties, sandwich the network’s very name at the top of this week’s chart.

The remainder of the top trends again remind us of the microblogging platform’s internationalism. Quite a few Latin American trends power their way to the fore, while general buzz about the entertainment world rounds out the list.

Check out the complete chart below, compiled by our friends over at What The Trend. Because this is a topical list, hashtag memes and games have been omitted from the chart.

You can check past Twitter trends in our Top Twitter Topics section as well as read more about this past week's trends on What The Trend.

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Top Twitter Trends This Week: 9/18 – 9/24

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Rank	Topic	Top Index This Week	Intensity	Description
#1	Soccer/Football	1	2	The young, talented and rebellious soccer player Neymar Jr. was punished by the coach of Santos FC, and the coach was fired as a result. Manchester United and Liverpool also had their share of tweets.
#2	Twitter	1	2	A Twitter security flaw affected thousands of users, as maliciously tweeted javascript could cause a person to execute commands just by mousing over a link on Twitter.com
#3	NFL	1	2	Football is in full swing, and Michael Vick returned to the NFL, starting in his first game since his dogfighting arrest.
#4	RBD	1	2	A fan of former Mexican pop group RBD recorded an unintentionally hilarious YouTube video, complaining about how a website had written RDB instead of RBD.
#5	Brazilian VMAs	1	1	The most discussed trend was how every time the Brazilian "happy rock" band Restart received an award, it was booed by the audience.
#6	Justin Bieber	1	1	Bieber won a Brazilian VMA for "Best International Video."
#7	Bishop Eddie Long	1	1	Prominent Georgian church leader Eddie Long was accused of coercing two of his male congregants into having sex while they were teens.
#8	Harry Potter	1	1	The trailer for the upcoming film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has just been released.
#9	Yom Kippur	1	1	Yom Kippur, known as the Day of Atonement, is a sacred holiday for Jews. It began Friday, September 17th, at sundown.
#10	Gossip Girl (TV Show)	1	1	Gossip Girl character Chuck Bass returned as part of the fourth season, having survived a shooting at the end of season three.

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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ricardoinfante

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Reviews: Twitter, YouTube, harry potter, iStockphoto, justin bieber

More About: entertainment, football, Google, justin bieber, List, Lists, soccer, social media, sports, Top Twitter Topics, trending, trends, twitter, twitter trends

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Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world. We're keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today.

Tech Companies’ Anti-Poaching Agreements Come to an End

The Department of Justice has reached a settlement with Adobe, Google, Intel, Intuit, Apple and Pixar that prevents these six leading technology companies from entering into anticompetitive, “no-poach” agreements for each other’s employees.

The settlement marks the end of an investigation by the DoJ to determine whether those agreements violated U.S. antitrust laws which, indeed, they did. All six are now barred from entering into these types of agreements, especially ones that ban "cold calling."

Digg Traffic Declines Sharply Following Release of “New Digg”

New data from Hitwise reveals that visitor traffic to Digg.com has declined 24% in the U.S. and 34% in the U.K. over the past 11 weeks, dropping off most sharply after the social news network released a new version of its site to users in late August.

Users have staged protests against the new version of the site since its public launch. Digg’s team has been responsive to many of users’ complaints thus far, rolling out changes to its algorithms to give users — rather than publishers — more power over front-page content, for instance; however, they have apparently not done enough to prevent a significant percentage from spending their Internet minutes elsewhere.

Sony Ericsson Drops Symbian OS from Smartphone Plans

Despite Nokia's best efforts to entice developers, the Symbian mobile operating system continues to lose support from users and vendors. On Friday, Sony Ericsson spokesman Aldo Liguori revealed that the company has no further plans to develop smartphones based on the OS.

Like competitors Motorola and Samsung, Sony has shifted much of its focus to developing phones based on Google's Android platform instead.

Further News

• Apple has released iTunes 10.0.1, which, in addition to patching the usual bout of bugs, gives increased visibility to the company’s new music-focused social network, Ping [via TiPB].
• Facebook has officially rolled out a new feature for helping you discover Facebook Pages, dubbed “Page Browser.”
• Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg joined Oprah on the Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss his $100 million donation to public education in Newark schools on Friday.
• Just in time for the second season of the hit TV show Glee, Smule has upgraded its popular iOS app, Glee Karaoke [iTunes link].
• Nine months after Amazon announced the launch of an app store for its Kindle e-reader, the first paid app, Scrabble, has made its way into the store.

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Series supported by HTC EVO 4G

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This series is brought to you by HTC EVO 4G, America’s first 4G phone. Only from Sprint. The “First to Know” series keeps you in the know on what’s happening now in the world of social media and technology.

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Reviews: Android, Digg, Facebook, Google, Internet, Ping, Symbian S60, adobe AIR, scrabble

More About: adobe, apple, business, digg, facebook, first to know series, Google, mark zuckerberg, Mobile 2.0, New Digg, Nokia, sony, sony ericcson, Symbian

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F1 2010 was the biggest title to come out over the past week, but we know not everyone is a racer. So whether you have opponents in your F1 2010 rearview mirror or in your Halo: Reach crosshair, we want to know what’s happening in your gaming world.

Excited about next week’s release of Dead Rising 2? Still playing Red Dead Redemption? Tell us about it.

Comments are open to: tips, critiques, (good-natured) smack talk and basically anything else related to gaming.

The weekend gaming open thread is intended to bring Mashable gamers together through conversation about games. This thread is for those of us who had the first NES and for those whose first gaming experience happened on an Xbox 360, so let’s try to keep it fun for everyone.

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Reviews: Mashable

More About: F1 2010, halo reach, microsoft, playstation 3, PS3, sony, Weekend Gaming, Xbox 360

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