Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Nvidia CEO: Upcoming Android Tablets to Bring Better Graphics and Multitasking”

Many of the upcoming tablets will be using Nvidia’s dual-core Tegra 2 processor, which will “give you the benefit of higher performance and much, much better multitasking and better graphics,” Huang said in an interview with Cnet.

Huang is also very bullish on the tablet market in general. “Open your notebook. [Inside] it’s got heat pipes, and fans, and heat spreaders, lots of copper. You’re going to get rid of all of that,” he said. “[Tablets] will be quite disruptive to notebooks and entry-level desktops,” he said.

Interestingly enough, Huang was not exactly full of praise for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which is currently one of the biggest competitors to Apple’s iPad. “Look at the Samsung Galaxy Tab. It’s a tablet that uses a phone operating system on a large display. A tablet is not a large phone,” he said.

This echoes the words of Hugo Barra, Google's director of products for mobile, who recently said the current version of Android (Froyo, or Android 2.2) is “not optimised for use on tablets," adding that Google is working on improving the Android experience for tablet computers. We can only hope that this new breed of Android tablets will deliver on the promises from Google and Nvidia.

More About: android, NVIDIA, Tablet, tegra

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Kin One and Kin Two are listed as feature phones in the Verizon road map and will be coming without a data plan. Originally, both Kin phones had required smartphone-like data plans which, in the eyes of many users, were too steep for phones aimed primarily at teens and young adults.

The question is: are the Kins without a data plan interesting enough to make a successful comeback? Engadget has learned that Zune Pass will work over Wi-Fi even if you’re not signed up for a proper data plan, but features such as unlimited photo uploads and Loop won’t be available.

Is Verizon really hoping to rekindle interest in the Kins, or is it just trying to clear its inventory? What do you think? How well will the Kins do when they return to the market? Please, share your opinion in the comments.

[via PPCGeeks]

More About: Kin, Kin 2, microsoft, Mobile 2.0, phone, verizon

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The first Google phone, the Nexus One, launched to great fanfare but disappointing sales. Most experts contribute its downfall not to the phone itself, but to Google’s insistence on selling the phone via a web store and not in the stores of wireless carriers. The result was that Google discontinued the phone.

Will its successor meet the same fate? Perhaps. But one thing is certain; this is definitely a different phone with a different design. Built by Samsung, the Nexus S features a stock version of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), a 4-inch AMOLED screen and a front-facing camera. It looks like it will be available on T-Mobile, but it’s unclear whether it will be available on other carriers or if Google will take a different approach to selling the device.

That’s why we’re asking you, the Mashable readers, to weigh in. Are you interested in Google and Samsung’s new Android-based smartphone? Cast your vote in the poll below, and please let us know why you voted the way you did in the comments.

More About: android, gingerbread, Google, nexus one, Nexus S, Nexus Two, poll, samsung

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The app, aptly named “Track Your Happiness,” contacts iPhone users at random times during the day to ask how they’re feeling and what they are doing while answering these questions. Users have the option to decide when and how often they’ll be notified.

The researchers’ findings, published in the journal Science, were based on samples from 2,250 adults. Out of those surveyed, 58.8% were male, and 73.9% of them reside in the U.S. The mean age of those involved in the survey was 34. As DISCOVER reports, responders said they were daydreaming 46.9% of the time when the iPhone rang to check in on their thoughts. And those who said they were daydreaming were more likely to reveal that they were feeling unhappy.

That said, Jonathan Schooler — a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara — told The Boston Globe that the findings should not just be used to determine that a wandering mind is an unhappy one.

According to Schooler, mind-wandering is key for one’s problem solving abilities — and there is also evidence that it could be important for creativity.

As Schooler told the Globe, “Even if here are times when mind-wandering cuases one to be unhappy, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not the thing that one should be doing.”

Meanwhile, “Track Your Happiness” is still out there, being used as a scientific tool to help researchers figure out the causes of one’s happiness. In order to take part in the study yourself, just visit TrackYourHappiness.org, where you’ll have to answer a few questions before becoming a participant.

More About: emotion, iphone, mood, research, Science, track your happiness

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Back in August, Oracle sued Google, claiming the company “knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property” in developing the Android platform. Calling the lawsuit “baseless,” Google claimed Oracle’s litigious stance was unwarranted, given the fact that Java is open-source software.

But now, Google’s tune has changed somewhat.

Google’s latest legal documents show a string of defenses beyond a simple open-source-is-good incantation. The company claims:

• that it did not infringe on certain patents and copyrights in Oracle’s suit,
• that certain patents and copyrights are invalid or unenforceable,
• that the Android stack constitutes fair use of Oracle’s IP,
• that Oracle comes to the court with “unclean hands” due to its licensing practices for certain open-source technologies and technologies not covered by Oracle’s IP,
• and finally, that if there had been “any use in the Android platform of any protected elements” of Java, Google itself “is not liable” due to the face that such violations would have been committed by third parties and without Google’s knowledge.

It’s truly fascinating stuff; if you’d like to peruse the full response, you can head over to Justicia or scroll through the pages embedded below.

Oracle only acquired Sun Microsystems and, along with it, Java, last year. Oracle called the Java platform “one of the most important technologies Oracle acquired with Sun.”

While Java is, in fact, open-source technology, the sticking point with regard to the Android Platform is a feature known as the Dalvik virtual machine, the part of the stack that actually executes code on Android devices. It’s well-suited to mobile devices with less memory and less powerful processors than a PC has. You can read more about how it works if you like; Oracle has claimed this particular part of the Android stack violates certain patents.

As always, we welcome your opinions in the comments. Who do you think will come out on top in this lawsuit?

More About: android, Google, java, lawsuit, oracle

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Facebook and Google are waging a bitter battle over data portability and the control of your identity on the web. Unfortunately, it’s a battle in which nobody will emerge as the victor, certainly not the millions of users who are now caught in the crossfire.

Last week, Google changed its Terms of Service so that anybody utilizing its Contacts API is required to reciprocate by exporting its contacts back to Google. In other words, if a company or social network wants to let users import their Gmail friends so their users can find their friends, then it has to allow for the same type of importing.

For most companies, this isn’t a problem, but there is a big company that doesn’t offer reciprocity: Facebook. The social network doesn’t allow Google users to import their Facebook contacts for products like Gmail, Buzz or Orkut. Thus, Google blocked Facebook’s access to its Contacts API.

That’s when things got interesting. Following Google’s decision to deny Facebook API access, Facebook decided to circumvent Google by giving users an easy option to download their Gmail contacts and then upload them to Facebook. As AOL’s TechCrunch notes, it’s essentially Facebook’s way of telling the search giant to go to hell.

The Google vs. Facebook Battle

Google and Facebook’s battle isn’t simply about any one company blocking access to data or acting juvenile; the stakes are nothing less than complete dominance of the web. As we’ve noted in the past, Google and Facebook are locked in a heated battle to become your default social profile. Whichever company controls identity on the web, controls the web.

Currently Facebook and Google dominate third-party sign-in options on the web, but Facebook’s growth as an identity platform has been ascending; more than 10,000 website integrate with Facebook every day, thanks in no small part to the explosive growth of the Facebook Open Graph. Can you believe that Facebook’s “Like” button, now ubiquitous across the web, launched not even seven months ago?

Facebook has become so aggressive that Google has reacted with some big social moves of its own. It recently acquired Slide and Ångströ, reportedly for Google Me, the search giant’s rumored next attempt at competing with social networks. However, rumors are no longer focused on Google building a social network; many now believe the company is likely building more social features into all of its products.

Regardless of what exactly Google is building, it’s clear that Google is building something. And the reason they’re reacting so feverishly is because the world’s largest social network is increasing its control of the web. Google’s can’t afford for Facebook to control identity on the web, which is what prompted the change to the search giant’s Terms of Service in the first place.

The Battle Over Identity: Nobody Wins

“Facebook has been a one-way beneficiary of data portability for far too long,” DataPortability Project co-founder Chris Saad told me. “Google asking for reciprocity from equal peers on the Internet is a perfectly reasonable, if not overdue, move.”

In this debate, I believe Google has every legitimate reason to ask for reciprocity; why should Facebook benefit from Google’s Contacts API if Google can’t get the same benefit? More importantly, why should Google give any ground to its new rival?

Yet in the end, it’s not Facebook or Google that will suffer for this battle over identity on the web. It’s the users that will lose out.

Facebook won’t be using Gmail contacts anytime soon and don’t hold your breath for Facebook Connect on Google. These moves are to be expected from two companies that are essentially at war, but it’s the average user that has to take the extra steps to upload his or her Gmail contacts into Facebook to get started that is really impacted. It’s about the millions of users that won’t get the benefits of Facebook integration in Google or Gmail. It’s about a war that is only going to get uglier.

In a few years, the lines will be drawn between Facebook and its allies and Google (and whoever is willing to join it). Digital walls to data portability will go up if companies are forced to choose sides. If things keep going in the direction they are headed now, that is the likely outcome.

Image courtesy of Flickr, KatB Photography

More About: Column, data portability, facebook, gmail, Google, op-ed, Opinion, The Social Analyst

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Earlier today, Twitter announced integration with Ping — Apple’s social network for music inside iTunes. This integration brings iTunes song previews to Twitter.com.

Twitter has just released a video demonstration that highlights how the integration makes Twitter’s information network a better place for music discovery. At least, that’s the message it’s trying to drive home.

The video, as seen above, plays more like an ad than a product demonstration, and the quality just goes to show how significant Twitter believes its new-found relationship with Ping to be.

It still remains to be seen whether Twitter users will embrace Ping integration for better music discovery in 140 characters or less, but the song previews are certainly an interesting addition to the Twitter stream that may prove profitable for both parties.

More About: Apple Ping, itunes ping, MARKETING, Ping, trending, twitter

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The Jolibook is set to arrive sometime in November. Running Jolicloud 1.1, the Jolibook will be the first out-of-the-box Jolicloud-powered computer.

It’s set to appeal to the web-app-lovers crowd; small and reportedly affordable, it will come preloaded with Skype, Facebook, Chromium and other popular apps.

As far as specs go, what we know now is that the machine will come with a dual-core Atom N550 processor — a netbook-specific piece of hardware that Intel unveiled just months ago — and a 250GB hard drive.

The Jolicloud OS has been on our radar for about a year. Initially, we loved the pre-beta version and commended it as a lightweight OS with a great look and feel. It’s Linux-based operating system that you can download now free of charge if you want to play with the OS before the official Jolibook comes out; you can also do a dual-boot with Windows.

We can’t wait to get our hands on a Jolibook later this month to see what a web-focused netbook works in action. We’re also wondering how it will compare and contrast with tablets we’ve been using lately.

What do you think of the Jolibook so far? Is it something you’d want to take for a spin or perhaps give as a gift?

Here’s a quick demo of the Jolicloud 1.1 OS running on an Atom N550 processor:

More About: cloud, jolibook, jolicloud, netbook, web apps

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While the ads represent a departure from Google's traditional text ads – and what some might argue is yet more clutter in the once spartan Google search interface – the results apparently speak for themselves.

Writing on the Inside AdWords blog, a company spokesperson says that they've "found that people are twice as likely to click on a Product Listing Ad as they are to click on a standard text ad in the same location."

With the program now expanding from a reported 800 advertisers to Google's entire advertiser base, it could mean significantly more graphical ads in search results, as well as better returns for advertisers and more revenue for Google.

Google explains the format a bit more in the video below:

More About: advertising, Adwords, Google, MARKETING

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“Kind of sad that MS had to promote #windowsphone,” wrote Twitter user @alpesh_shah. “Can’t image Apple or Google needing to pay for a hashtag promotion.”

While other Twitter users are simply glad to see the software giant’s attempted return to mobile domination marked by a bit of social media marketing (courtesy of AT&T, who paid for the promoted tweet to link to Windows Phone 7 devices on their site), many of us are wondering whether said return is ever likely to occur.

Once upon a time, Windows’ mobile offerings competed well in the marketplace. These days, however, Microsoft’s mobile OSes have dipped to around 15% market share, according to recent numbers from Nielsen.

But the latest Microsoft-made operating system, Windows Phone 7, has given some cause for hope. The design language of the OS is beautiful, and Windows Phone 7 has been one of the platforms that’s shaped our conversations about the mobile market since its announcement in February this year.

Nevertheless, when a few Windows Phone 7 devices debuted in the U.S. this week, sales were lackluster, to say the least. Whereas Google ships around 60,000 phones on a normal business day, and blockbuster devices like the iPhone 4 show first-day sales of a million and a half units, only 40,000 Windows Phone 7 devices were reportedly sold on Monday.

Microsoft’s been pumping lots of money into their mobile-device marketing campaigns. It’s been reported the company spent around $100 million to market Windows Phone 7 (and no doubt, the ads are pretty cool). But the initial sales aren’t yet justifying that marketing expense.

This is reminding us of an all-too-recent, all-too-similar story.

Remember the Kin? The should-have-been-world-changing phone that Microsoft axed after a few weeks after its launch?

True, Kin’s sales were reportedly much worse — some say unit sales were in the thousands or even hundreds. And its marketing campaign was as expensive as it was sleazy. But the Kin’s failure wasn’t due to bad ads alone.

While we sit back and wait for more encouraging sales reports to come in, we’re also wondering what you think: Has Microsoft lost its magic touch when it comes to mobile? Will Windows ever be the dominant figure it once was in the mobile scene? And is Windows Phone 7 the OS that will make it all happen?

Tell us what you think in the poll below, and let us know your full opinion in the comments.

More About: microsoft, poll, trending, windows mobile, windows phone 7

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The concept, called LifeEdited, aims to design an actual apartment that brainchild and guinea pig Graham Hill will inhabit. The apartment, just 420 square feet, must be able to accommodate a sit-down dinner for 12, comfortable lounging for eight people, space for two guests, a home office, a work area, hideable kitchen and necessities like bed, shower and bike storage (it is a green initiative, after all).

Hill, founder of Treehugger.com and VP of Interactive Media at Discovery’s Planet Green, is trying to live happily with less space, less stuff and less waste on less money, but with more design. If that wasn’t hard enough, he’s trusting his fate to the web with crowdsourced submissions that he and a panel of architects will provide with feedback. While Hill said he really wasn’t trying to start a business, the apartment must be replicable, leaving the door open for similar designs to pop up across the country if the project is successful.

Hill claimed 80% of the average footprint is related to the buildings we live in. He said recycling or using less plastic, by comparison, only accounts for approximately 5% of our footprint. While the goal is to reduce the footprint in every possible way, a greener, more efficient apartment can help cut down in significant ways. “People want to do the right thing, but the harder it is, the less likely they are to do it,” Hill said. “Every room you build, you gotta build it, fill it with things, light it, heat it… so if you have a dining room you use once a month, you might want to rethink that room.”

To get the ball rolling, Hill submitted himself to the will of crowdsourced submissions. “We’re reaching out to the crowd to hopefully find some really great ideas and to get the conversation going,” he said. He and Shaun Abrahamson of project partner Mutopo hope that the idea inspires conversation regardless of professional background. Even people that can’t design from the blueprints Hill has provided can add their feedback to submissions, vote for a winner and raise awareness for the cause. “It’s nice to do [the design] publicly and build that conversation rather than just having that reveal [when it's done],” Hill said.

Digital technologies have also played a big role in the project. The more we can put online, the less we’ll have to store, print, or otherwise use to take up resources. This is especially true as green technology starts to develop. “I think overall it makes sense,” Hill said. “All we have to do is not replace our electronics every six months,” he added.

The submission period opened October 27 and will run until January 10. A winner will be announced just 10 days after that. Head to Jovoto.com if you’re interested in submitting.

What do you make of the project? Does it sound like an attention grab or a real way to reduce our collective footprint? Let us know if you plan on submitting or what you think of the projects huge designs in tiny spaces.

More About: Crowdsource, crowdsourced, design, discovery, environment, footprint, graham hill, green, lifeedited, new york, planet green, shaun abrahamson, treehugger

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The hyperlink is the fundamental building block of the Internet, and effectively ties reference points to useful content. Without the hyperlink, the web would be nothing more than silos of content lacking semantic connections.

Traditionally, hyperlinks live in browser windows on desktop monitors. Today, however, some hyperlinks are moving offline, where they can be "clicked" by people roaming the real world.

By printing a Quick Response (QR) bar code on any item — a lamp, the program booklet of an event, or a retail store window -– a consumer can quickly link from the real-world experience to rich web content via his smartphone. Using QR codes, jump points to the Internet can be placed anywhere in the physical world.

The ability to place a QR code on anything offers opportunities for businesses and consumers. These are a few examples of how a business can leverage QR codes and turn real-world “clicks” into sales:

• You have been looking for the perfect lamp for your living room for a long time. You see the perfect one — not in a furniture show room, but in a hotel lobby. At the base of a lamp is a QR code. You scan it with your phone, click a link to "buy it now," and purchase the lamp on the spot.
• You drive across town to purchase a leather jacket from a fashion boutique. By the time you arrive, the store is closed. A retail window badge reads: "Sorry, we're closed! Scan this code to buy online, and receive free shipping!" The free shipping offer is normally not available online, but since you made the trek, the store offers you a reward.
• You attend a musical and have a great time. Reviewing the Playbill at home, you encounter a QR code that you can scan to order tickets for the next musical at the venue. The tickets are offered at 40% off, and the offer is only good for seven days. With the offer laid perfectly in front of you, and positive memories of tonight's musical fresh in your mind, you purchase the tickets.

Context-Sensitive Marketing

These examples illustrate the power of a new opportunity created by QR codes that we call context-sensitive marketing, or CSM.

Remember those impulse items in the supermarket checkout aisle? The savvy merchant, knowing you are likely to be hungry while food shopping, shows you quick fixes like a candy bar. CSM enables the same type of impulse buying, only this time, it's "virtual impulse buying." The idea behind CSM is to reach your customers when they are most likely to be interested in your product. With the knowledge of what context you're in –- staring at furniture, attending a musical, or shopping for clothes — the ability to engage in virtual impulse buying is literally at your fingertips.

From the consumer's standpoint, CSM is a convenience. Scanning a QR code is a deliberate act the consumer is choosing to take part in. On the other hand, GPS-triggered smartphone pop-ups are not part of the CSM playbook, because the consumer never opts-in (or out) of the content.

In addition to purchasing convenience, a real-world hyperlink can trigger multimedia or crowdsourced wisdom that can help you in a pinch. Imagine, for example, needing to re-thread the belts on a child's car seat, but not having the manual in front of you to show you how. There is no need to Google the product or scavenge through your file cabinet for the manual; just scan the QR code and have the manual or a how-to video appear right on your phone.

Is the Real World Ready for Contextual Links?

All of this technology may sound great, but is the world ready for QR codes? Changing consumer behavior is notoriously difficult. Will consumers find scanning items with their smartphones to be a natural and useful act?

Technologically, the convergence of three trends are equipping consumers with the tools to make QR code scanning seamless:

• The growth of wireless data transmissions through 3G+ and Wi-Fi;
• The ubiquity of Internet-connected mobile mini-computers, a.k.a. smartphones (equipped with GPS and high-definition cameras); and
• The emergence of data storage in the Internet cloud.

According to Nielsen, 51% of all Americans will be carrying smartphones by 2011. The number of QR codes in circulation is reported to increase significantly. QR reading apps are quick to launch, quick to scan and available on every smartphone operating system.

Behaviorally, the mass adoption of QR codes will depend most critically on the utility of what is behind the QR code. Businesses need to provide scan-worthy content that truly makes the lives of consumers better after taking the time — however short — to scan a QR code. To this end, businesses simply need to be creative. Provide a special offer to incentivize the scan or save time for the consumer by providing context-triggered helping hands.

As a final example, imagine discovering that the water dispenser on your home fridge isn't working. You open the fridge and see the indicator light informing you that your water filter cartridge needs replacing. What do you do? Will you fire up your laptop and type into a Google search box the exact model of your water filter cartridge replacement, then hunt for the best deal online? That's what I did last year. But with any luck, next time around, a QR code will be printed on the water filter with the prompt: "Scan me to reorder." Grabbing my phone, I scan the code, pulling up a 15% manufacturer’s discount if I order the cartridge directly. I click to buy, knowing I saved time and money, which I can now spend on more worthwhile activities.

That is the power of context-sensitive marketing.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

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Images courtesy of Flickr, clevercupcakes, id-iom

More About: apps, business, location, location marketing, location-based, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, qr code, QR Codes, small business, social media marketing

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The study, published in the journal PLoS ONE, is based on two experiments. In the first experiment, 60 participants watched a film containing scenes of injury and death. After a 30-minute structured break, 20 participants played Tetris, while another 20 played quiz video game Pub Quiz. The remaining subjects did nothing. Those who played Tetris had fewer flashbacks of the traumatic film than any of the others did. Incidentally, those who played Pub Quiz had the most flashbacks out of any of the groups.

The second experiment extended the break period from half an hour to four hours — even then, Tetris players experienced fewer flashbacks than the other research subjects did.

According to the researchers, chronic trauma flashbacks are usually made up of sensory, visual images. Participating in visually oriented tasks — such as playing a puzzle-like game along the lines of Tetris — will interfere with other visual memories and help reduce flashbacks. By contrast, performing verbal tasks after a traumatic event — like playing a quiz game — compete more with the part of the brain that helps people make sense of what they’ve experienced.

As the researchers point out in their report, these verbal tasks “may serve to increase (rather than reduce) later trauma flashbacks.”

The study has elicited positive reactions from Tetris’s creator Alexey Pajitnov, as well as staff at Blue Planet Software — the company that manages the exclusive licensing rights to the game. David Kwock, the company’s general manager, says the researchers’ findings also support the feedback he’s heard from Tetris players over the years.

“A great number of our users tell us that they play Tetris to relax,” he says. “In fact, in Japan, they play it at the end of the day — women specifically — before they go to bed, or in the bathroom. That’s why we have waterproof [gaming devices] in Japan.”

Blue Planet won’t be doing anything new in light of this research just yet, but Kwock says the company is interested in seeing how the findings can be used to provide help.

“Tetris is readily available. It’s in a lot of households already,” he says. “If someone were to take this from research, from theory to clinical application, we would be very excited about that.”

More About: ptsd, puzzles, research, Tetris, video games

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Does that make it a little nerdy? Sure it does, but it’s hard to argue when contest prizes include Xbox Kinect or skits like #thatwouldbeawesome start trending worldwide. We got the chance to sit down with Fallon to talk about social media, his tech roots, and what he hopes for the show.

Fallon’s office is in a corner of the 30 Rock building. Dark couches and a heavy wood desk give the room a seriousness that is swiftly cut by the predominance of shiny, wall-mounted screens and a giant TV showing bit.ly analytics for Fallon’s most recent tweet promoting a video of “Remix-the-Clips,” a segment where his band leader, Questlove from The Roots, mashes together viral videos to form a song.

Fallon did his best not to worry about the results. This is what he had to say.

Interview

When did you first hop online in a serious way? Your background was in computing, right?

Fallon: Yeah, it just got too hard for me. But my dad used to work at IBM, so we used to get discounts on computers and stuff, and I did have a ThinkPad. I went and moved out to L.A. and that was like the one purchase I made payments on and staff employee discount, you know?

Doesn't hurt.

Fallon: … I remember we had Prodigy and I was like, “Come on, please, can we just do it? It’s blah, blah, blah, I'll pay for it, it's blah, blah, blah, a month,” so we did it and we all just sat around it like it was old timey, sitting around a radio listening to, you know, Little Orphan Annie or whatever and we were like, “Oh my gosh, Prodigy!”

And I know there was this kid in my high school that was kind of a geek. He was a major geek, like, he loved Chuck Yeager and video games so he had all the King's Quest games you know, Space Quest, all those Sierra games, so we became friends. But he was a major geek — he had so many social issues. But he got me into some weird … kind of chatting, blogs? It was creepy. Like yellow blinking cursor, and you type something and you go on some database and see all the other things people have typed. It felt illegal. It felt like War Games to me and I was like, whoa, so I had played around in that space for a while … It almost felt like buying a pornographic magazine going on these blogs. It wasn't dirty, but it just felt like it was illegal.

When did you see all the interactions and stuff like that as a way to actually help your career, not just as a fun thing? Was there a point where it kicked in?

Fallon: On Saturday Night Live what I remember was kind of looking at the blogs and seeing reviews … so that was '98?

Sure, yeah.

Fallon: You just say, “Oh my God, people are watching and reviewing shows and saying, “Look at this new guy. Who's this new guy who did a great impression of Gilbert Gottfried?”… I had to give my sister some long web address like, “No, you’ve got to type in 8, 0, 5, slash, this, you’ve got to read this, this person thought it was good.” So I kind of became aware of it there and I remember sort of looking at different web shows and getting web cameras and going, “Oh, that's going to be something” and I remember we wrote “Jarret's Room” [for Saturday Night Live], which is our version of Wayne's World.

Yeah, you and Horatio [Sanz]?

Fallon: Me and Horatio, yeah, and I remember everyone going like, “Does it have to be a web camera? Can't it just be a dorm room? You know, a show in his dorm room?” And I was like, “No, the whole idea is that kids are doing this in their dorms.” … And they're like, “Uuuh, well, uh, whatever. Let's just try it out.” And we did it, and it was OK, it didn't really take off. Whatever, but, it was super fun and I think that was kind of like what I always wanted to do. I always wanted to push what was going on technology-wise, you know, what people are doing social media-wise.

… And then the show was starting and I teamed up with Gavin Purcell [from Attack of the Show] who you know from, um… [looks up at the analytics of the Remix-the-Clips tweet he just posted] Ah, this did not do well …

Do you check every time you send a tweet? Do you check to see how it does?

Fallon: Sometimes, if I think that people should be checking it out. Like, we did the Zach Galifianakis one.

With the arms?

Fallon: Fake arms, that went pretty good.

So when we were starting, I didn't even know what Twitter was, and I was interviewing different producers for our show and I loved Attack of the Show. I thought that was a cool show. So I said, “Can I meet with that guy? Like can I just pick his brain?” He said, “No, I’m happily married. I have kids. I’m very happy with my job.”

Go do something else.

Fallon: Yeah, he was like, “Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds great. I think you're going to be a good host, it's just — no thanks.” And then two days later his manager called back and said to my manager, “Yeah, I'll meet with Jimmy.” So he came and he had like a three-page outline of… you know, what he likes about late night, what he doesn't like about late night, and what should change in late night and one of the things was that no one's really embracing technology in any of the late night shows. I mean I don't think Conan [O'Brien] talked about Twitter once. I mean he, you know, he was the youngest guy out there.

Yeah, I mean it was theoretically his demographic to own and he wasn't talking about technology, or at least not nearly as much as people are now.

Fallon: No. On The Tonight Show, they did something, they made fun of it even.

Yeah.

Fallon: I forget, but he didn't use it. They didn't make jokes about it, they didn't use it. And Letterman — it just doesn't fit if he's talking about Twitter. Leno doesn't; it's like me talking about cars. It just doesn't fit, I don't know anything about cars.

So I think it was just a hole that was like, “Jimmy, do you think we should fill this hole?” I mean, no one's embracing video games even, and they're opening bigger than movies. No one’s mentioning these things and I was like, “Let's do it.” I totally love video games. I mean, if we can do this and get paid for it? This is our job? This is hilarious, this is great. So then we just kind of jumped in. I started Twitter. You can find out right, when's your first tweet?

Ah, I think so…

Fallon: Yeah I think so, right? … "I'm getting started on Twitter." Brilliant.

Appropriate, at least. Topical.

Fallon: Really, what a great — oh man — comedy genius. That was on December 4, 2008.

That's now in the national library, along with the rest of Twitter.

Fallon: Yeah, that's in the Library of Congress.

When you're president in 2080 they can look back and say, “And what was your first declaration to the public?”

Fallon: “He was the one who said, ‘Just getting started on Twitter.’ A man who needs no introduction.” And then they don't introduce me. ‘Cause I'm so famous … So anyways, we started on Twitter before the show started and I remember saying to Gavin, “Right now we have like almost a hundred followers, this is so cool.” I’m like, if we start the show, my goal is I want to have 3,000 followers, and then, that's 3,000 viewers that can watch the show! We’ll tell them when we're debuting and it's so good! And now, you know, it's up there. It's like — I don't know what it is.

How much of [your social media presence] is appealing to that sort of demographic and how much is just sort of fun for you? Or is it a bit of both?

Fallon: Good question. It's super fun for me. It's not work at all … The one thing that I learned again from Gavin is really one of the main connections between our show and using social media is we were talking with [Late Night producer] Lorne [Michaels], we were figuring out what to do with the show and all this stuff, and … Lorne Michaels in some interview, goes, “Yeah and, um, Jimmy's going to debut on the web.” And we're like, “What?”

Surprise.

Fallon: I'm so glad he did it, because me and Gavin … went and got this Panasonic camera … over at B&H, and we got a tripod and we just shot me talking. And me talking for 40 seconds took us three hours because I was stuttering. I was sweaty, I didn't know what I was doing. I was like, I can't believe I [don't] know how to talk into a camera, but I was embarrassed to kind of, you know, talk and just be open. And the thing is, with the Internet it’s like, you can't … be phony if you're going to do this. If you're going to do this type of thing, you can't have a fake bone in your body because they'll catch you and bust you on it. Like, “Dude, what was that about? That wasn't you.”

You really gotta be honest about it, and I think that's where you succeed … So then slowly it became easier, but we would edit it on final draft ourselves — we had nobody working. We had just me, Gavin, this kid Justin Ulbrich who still edits the show. Three of us. And Michael Shoemaker from SNL who's producing, and we'd just sit there and edit.

Well, “Weekend Update” [from Saturday Night Live] must have prepped you a little bit for that sort of stand-and-deliver, where you're not specifically playing a character, even though you're of a fake newscaster. Did that help at all or it's just a totally different beast?

Fallon: No, it definitely helped, because after doing movies and stuff like that … you miss the live [audience]. I never thought of myself as a ham or somebody that just wants to be in front of the crowd, but then when you're done doing it you go, “I think that's what I do. I guess that's what I should be doing.”

I don't want to admit it, but I do enjoy the feedback from the audience. It's instant feedback. It's like, you could do a movie, shoot it for a year, wait six months, it comes out and you gotta do three weeks of marketing. Three weeks of that, and everyone goes, “It sucks.” And it’s like, God, that's a year of my life, f***k. You should have just told me that when we were doing it.

I would have stopped, had I known.

Fallon: Yeah. Like if I do a bit on my show and it’s not funny, the audience doesn't laugh; you're like, yikes, that didn't work.

Well, how's [technology] changing the actual show? I know you have a computer on your actual desk, but is social media, or technology in general, playing into what you're doing?

Fallon: It is, I mean, our show's not “live” live. We tape it, so that's the only bummer that if we do a Twitter thing it has to be the next day, which is still quicker than most.

One of the interesting things about doing a live show and actually having people either call in or have sort of hashtags and responses is that … it is very much spontaneous. How do you deal with that random element and the live element of social media?

Fallon: Well, like right now we're doing a thing called hashtags where we tell everyone a hashtag on Tuesday night and then they type whatever joke they want to type and put the hashtag in there and then Wednesday we read our favorites. Like 10 of our favorites were trending worldwide with “#thatwouldbeawesome.”

Yeah yeah, it's awesome.

Fallon: It's crazy, for like three days, trending worldwide, it's crazy. So we got thousands of #thatwouldbeawesome tweets. Now and then they'll slip in some dirty ones, some are the same, like some people just have the same jokes so you can't [say], “Ah, which one is funnier?” They're not. A lot of the people aren't comedy writers so they're not all guaranteed, but some of them are just quirky enough and genuinely funny that you go, “This is just genuinely funny and you want to read it and it's cool.”

I look at them and Gerard [Bradford] and [Mike Dicenzo], two other writers that do hashtags, we all just look through them. [He mimes looking through his phone] Like, “This is a good one, did you see this one?” We saw one this morning, this girl was like "This is my one thousandth tweet, how boring" and I was like, “We should make a big deal about her tweets.”

Why not, right?

Fallon: Yeah, it's like, well you say it's boring but we don't say anything is boring.

But there's got to be some other challenge to doing it live like, having that day to say, “Maybe not that one, but this one?”

Fallon: It's extra work, but I mean, we could not even embrace social media at all and do our own list of things that would be awesome. It might even be funnier, but there's something about the involvement of everyone around the country, or the world … it's so cool that you can do that, that technology can do that now. It's so weird. People from Australia and India — Brazil? It's crazy, people, it's just nuts, it's like, it's so fun.

Well it was interesting when there was one Late Night hashtag and the woman was actually there that night.

Fallon: Oh my God, yeah! Dude, that was weird. Like, I said “This one's from @blahblahblah,” and you hear like, “Woo hoo!” It's like, “No way, you're here?” That was unbelievable … That was so fun. I go, “I can’t believe you're here!” She was freaking out.

It seems strange that we would think it was strange that the person who tweeted that would be a real person.

Fallon: Yeah

As opposed to, “Oh you're just a thing in the ether.”

Fallon: Yeah, exactly, it is. Everyone does have a face, all these people. Yeah, it's so fun … and NBC's been great to us. We're on so late you know, I don't even know what exact time we're on. I want to say 12:36?

Sure.

Fallon: Why? It should be 12:30. I don't understand this, but 12:36 we're on, which is just crazy. But I mean, at that point you're either in it or you're not in it, so it's like we're trying whatever we want to try. We're trying new things all the time and we just want to keep playing with different stuff and seeing how how far we can take it… I gotta crack Facebook. I don't [know] what to do with that yet.

How did these ideas or skits or bits get developed? You know, either Remix-the-Clips or Late Night hashtags, or potentially what happens with Facebook. Do you all sit down and say, “We need something on YouTube. We need a YouTube one.” Or is it much more free-form?

Fallon: Yeah, no, it's free-form. We have pitch meetings and just, we go around to all the writers and they just say what things they're pitching. I mean there are just no assignments. I think Mike Dicenzo — he was from The Onion — he was the one that came up with hashtags; him and Gerard.

Yeah, yeah.

Fallon: You know, I think that's what I realized when you do those things… I think one of our first videos we did, some comment was on there, [and] it was like, “Jimmy Fallon is a douche,” and then it was like, the next video we did was me reacting to it and I just went up to the roof and contemplated life, and we played this NBC sad music that we could get from the [NBC music] library.

Fallon: It was like a piano, and I had this jackass jacket with a fur collar, like a faux fur collar on it, just thinking about everything and then just cut [snaps fingers] back to me going “Alright everybody, that's the webisode for the day and uh…” But it was kind of honest because I was like, God, I mean the critics can be brutal on the web, but it kind of prepares you for, you know, magazines and newspapers. It's like, oh, that's it?

Has the staff been cool with it as far as when you say, “OK, we're going to do Remix-the-Clips or we're going to do late night hashtags”?

Fallon: They love it.

Everyone's been on board?

Fallon: On board, always. With those guys, they're always on board with anything and like any idea we have. We try to support every idea … until it doesn't work, then we don't support it.

But it's good, at least going into it, everyone seems to be…

Fallon: Everyone's on computers, everyone's on iPads, everyone's on BlackBerrys, everyone's on Twitter, in my whole office. I mean, we have the best bloggers in … sorry, we have the second-best bloggers in the whole world. In television. We have the best bloggers in television. I can say that. Can I?

But these guys are the greatest. They, Sarah Schaefer and Cory [Cavin] and Jon Friedman. They get together and they just — they make a great blog … Which is why I'm psyched we have this [mobile] app that's coming out on Monday [November 8].

Yeah, I was hoping you'd put some of those in there. That the actual mobile app would have the fake ones [from the show].

Fallon: Yeah, Lint Brush, Axl Rose Relaxation Tapes are in there. What else is on there? Moldova: Yes or No? That's a great app, and we actually used the geo-locator on your phone so if you are in Moldova it will say “Yes, you're in Moldova.” I’m so excited. People need that. That's the whole point. The whole reason you buy a $500 phone is to see if you are … in Moldova. Or not.

What I'm hoping is that whoever actually reviews the app has to send someone to Moldova to see if it works. Because, journalistic integrity, you have to check.

Fallon: Oh my God, I would love that. If you Fedex-ed an iPhone to Moldova, yeah and just like…

Yeah, with instructions saying, “Please click on this and just…”

Fallon: Yeah…

Let me know…

Fallon: Yeah, and I think all it does is just say “Yes, you are in Moldova.” But I don't know. I mean, no one knows until you do it. But it will work, I know that.

With the spontaneity and the craziness of social media, has there been anything that's been surprising?

Fallon: How helpful people can be, I think, and nice. It's really awesome, I think it shows how good we can be … as a world, as a country. I mean, people are really thoughtful and nice if you just ask them. Like, I go to this guy, Steve Garfield, when we were doing our videos on our blog. I was like “Alright, welcome back, this is our third vlog and, you know I'm going to send another vlog.” And he sent in a thing and he goes, “Hey Jimmy, I just want to say you're doing a great show, this is really cool what you're doing, but uh, they're not called ‘vlogs.’ You have a blog and what you're doing is uploading videos to you blog, so hope that helps you.” And I was like, “How cool is this dude?” That really does help me. I did not know that that's the terminology.

So then how do you distinguish, just even in your own head, the ability of people to be so helpful and the sort of categorical awfulness of [trolls]?

Fallon: Yeah, I think it's overwhelmingly nice now compared to what it was a long time ago… I mean, I could bring up my Twitter feed right now and see what people are saying [goes to his computer]. It'll just take an hour to load.

… I gave out tickets once … someone said “Dude, I'm in town, I’m with my wife, is there any way?” and I was like, “Uh, yeah. Great. Where are you now? I'll send someone down right now.” And he was like, “Are you serious?” … How cool is that? If I ever tweeted David Letterman, like, “Dude, I'm outside 30 Rock and I'd love to come see,” or Conan O’Brien…

It'd make your year, right?

Fallon: I wouldn't understand what was going on, it'd be so fun. But it's cool that you can do that now. And it's not a big deal.

What's next? Do you have anything coming up that you're either looking forward to or excited about either in social media or otherwise?

Fallon: … I think what's next is video games maybe? Somehow? Making our own? I want to get into that. Make our own games and then we could do interactive fun games that we could play with our audience, you know?

Right, right. That'd be really cool.

Fallon: Right? With some Xbox Live thing or something like that, but I’m interested. We have a couple ideas, and I just think that's fun. I think that could be super fun.

More About: #thatwouldbeawesome, interview, jimmy fallon, late night with jimmy fallon, LNJF, saturday night live, social media, talk show, television, twitter

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Search Engine Land posted a screenshot that depicts the now recognizable “Promoted” moniker listed below the Google Mobile Twitter account. The Promoted Account appears as a suggested Twitter account to follow in the “Who to follow” section.

Promoted Accounts are a new addition to Twitter’s suite of Promoted products that includes Promoted Tweets and Promoted Trends. The product is said to be available to select Twitter partners.

We have reached out to both Twitter and Google for comment and will update this post when we know more.

Image courtesy of Search Engine Land

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Ever wonder what applications celebrity Twitter user, angel investor and startup advisor Ashton Kutcher has on his iPhone’s homescreen? Wonder no more.

In celebration of Kutcher’s new role as an advisor to Chomp, the high-profile technology enthusiast has shared a screenshot from his iPhone. Notable applications pictured include Foursquare, Facebook, Path (currently in stealth mode), GroupMe, Spotify, Posterous, Square, DailyBooth, Skype and Chomp.

Of course, some of the applications represent Kutcher’s biased interests as an investor or advisor. Still, it’s an interesting look at the services the star has deemed either significant enough to back financially or give his seal of approval — a very powerful gesture from someone with his stature and Twitter following.

More About: ashton kutcher, iphone

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Kudos to Engadget, which was the first publication to get pictures of the mythical successor to the Nexus One. As we reported earlier today, the device is built by Samsung and has a lot of similarities to the Galaxy S Android phone.

According to multiple reports, the Nexus S runs Gingerbread (Android 2.3), sports a 4-inch AMOLED screen, sports a curved back, hosts a front-facing camera and will be available on T-Mobile. It’s expected to be announced at the same time as Google’s official Gingerbread announcement.

Once again, neither Google nor Samsung have confirmed the existence of this device, so while we’re pretty sure it’s real, there’s always the chance that this is a fake. Until someone confirms the Nexus S exists, here’s another picture of the device; Engadget has a full gallery if you want to see more.

More About: android, Google, nexus one, Nexus S

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On January 6, the snow-induced closure of Robin Hood airport led Paul Chamber to tweet, “Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!” While intended (and interpreted by friends) as a joke, the tweet led to a police visit at Chambers’s doorstep a week later.

Initially, it looked like Chambers might be charged under bomb hoax and anti-terrorism legislation. However, according to The Guardian, Chambers was instead charged using a law that was aimed at nuisance calls. This law dates back to the 1930s.

In her appellate ruling, Judge Jacqueline Davis found that Chambers’s tweet contained menace and that he should have known it could be taken seriously. The Guardian quotes Judge Davis as saying, “[The tweet was] menacing in its content and obviously so. It could not be more clear. Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed.”

In addition to his fine and conviction, Chambers has also been ordered to pay an additional £2,000 to cover the legal bills for the latest proceedings. Chambers and his legal team will be considering further appeal.

The line between free speech and yelling “fire” in a crowded theater is becoming less and less clear in the age of both anti-terrorism laws, and the public and global nature of social networking.

What do you think of the ruling? Let us know.

Image courtesy of SoulRider.222

More About: bomb threat, legal, twitter, uk

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The announcement was made by North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue, who said that the facility will take 18 months to complete and will employ 35 to 45 workers to operate (not including the 250 jobs that will be created during its construction). It is being built in Rutherford County, which is to the west of Charlotte.

Facebook and the governor are also touting the data center’s environmental friendliness and energy efficiency. It will “employ innovative cooling and power management technologies” and utilize Facebook-developed technology that will make the data center “rely on fewer than half the computing power (and related energy consumption) that a similar data center would have required only a few years ago.”

Facebook broke ground on its first data center in January (based in Oregon) to deal with its rapid growth. However, the social network’s growth has been so explosive that it decided in the middle of construction to double the size of the center.

Now it looks like that won’t be enough to support Facebook’s skyrocketing growth, so Facebook is putting down even more money in exchange for the raw computing power necessary to keep the site afloat.

More About: Data Center, facebook, North Carolina

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B2B marketers are increasingly using social media to connect with their customers, but oftentimes they are not using those tools effectively. One report found that only 32% of B2B companies engage with their customers on a daily basis via social media. Another discovered that 46% of B2B marketers thought social media was irrelevant. And another found that 60% of B2B firms have no staff dedicated to social media and just 10% of B2B firms use outside agencies or consultants. While the vast majority (86%) of B2B companies use social media for marketing, it's clear there's considerable room for improvement.

Increased online investment is one sign of change. Forrester Research is betting that interactive spending will double from 2009 to 2014 to total $54 million. While it's not clear how much of that money will go into social media, the report was bullish on the new tools provided they're used correctly. "Social marketing is great for building more intimate relationships with your clients and prospects," wrote Forrester's Michael Greene. "But many marketers are diving into social marketing without a coherent social marketing strategy."

Chris Chariton, vice president of marketing services and product management for GlobalSpec, couldn't agree more. "Trying to make use of all of the available social media tools can be overwhelming to industrial companies [GlobalSpec's specialty], especially if you are faced with limited resources," said Chariton. "So we recommend that you approach social media with a vision and defined goals. Don't look at social media as a stand-alone marketing tool. It is just one tool in your online marketing toolkit, so whatever steps a company takes in social media, they must be taken hand-in-hand with other marketing efforts. Social media goals should support overall marketing goals."

Senior Account Executive Deanna Ferrari of WordWrite Communications suggests first learning how and if an intended audience is using social media. "I always recommend doing targeted searches to see where your customers are. Perhaps they just read blogs — so start your own blog and comment on others, leading prospects back," said Ferrari. "It may be harder to find the right audience, but once you do, you can create a channel so that prospects and customers can interact and engage with you, learn your product or service, and hopefully become a lead or a sale."

For a deeper look at the current state of B2B social media marketing, check out the infographic below.

The B2B Social Media Marketing Series is supported by IDG Enterprise. Understand how IT decision-makers are accessing information and how you can engage them with successful multi-channel programs. To learn more, download our white paper or listen to our webcast as IT marketers discuss the challenges of reaching customers in the current media environment and best practice frameworks for developing successful multi-channel programs.

More B2B Marketing Resources from Mashable:

- What the Future Holds for B2B Social Media Marketing
- 10 Essential Social Media Tools for B2B Marketers
- 4 Tips for B2B Marketing on Facebook
- 13 Essential Social Media Lessons for B2B Marketers from the Masters
- 10 Essential Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Yuri_Arcurs

More About: b2b, b2b marketing, B2B Social Media Marketing Series, business, infographic, infographics, MARKETING, online marketing, social media, social media marketing

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Kutcher joins Kevin Rose, creator of Digg, as Chomp’s second advisor. The two will help the startup build relationships, as well as contribute to the company’s product and marketing strategies.

Chomp exists as a web service and iPhone application [iTunes link]. The startup tackles application discovery by providing search, personalized recommendations and highlighting friends’ applications.

Kutcher is fast becoming an important mover and shaker in the technology sector as both startup advisor and angel investor. Some of Kutcher’s investments include Flipboard and Hipmunk.

More About: ashton kutcher, chomp, iphone app

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The campaign, which is running in TV, print and online, features a number of relatively high-profile figures, including former First Niece Lauren Bush, actor Ryan Kwanten from True Blood and style blogger Susie Bubble. It asks the question: “If you could give anything in the world, what would it be?”

Crowley and Selvadurai chose to benefit Camp Interactive, which combines nature and technology to benefit inner-city youth.

You can view one of the commercials from the campaign below. For each “Like” one of the videos receives on Facebook, $1 will be donated to the charity featured in the video, on top of a base $150,000 donation from Gap. (Customers will also receive a 30% discount on one regularly priced item from Gap).

More About: advertising, dennis crowley, foursquare, gap, MARKETING, naveen Selvadurai, social good

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The Winter Tech Series is supported by Goodyear. Goodyear’s Winter Reactive Technology helps drivers react to changing winter weather conditions. Be prepared for rain, snow, ice, sleet and slush. Learn more here.

Resorts in the U.S. have been open since October and some of the best mountains in Europe have already gotten a healthy dose of snowfall.

Winter sports season is upon us, and, like everything else, there’s an app for that. Here are six of our favorite mobile apps for keeping track of resort conditions, navigating the slopes, and capturing evidence to back up your bragging rights.

1. REALSKI Augmented Reality

If you’ve ever needed to ask someone what chairlift you’re on, you’ll appreciate this augmented reality app. The app uses the iPhone’s compass, camera, and GPS to label points of interest that fall in your phone’s viewfinder. You’ll be able to name the runs, chairlifts, and facilities ahead of you just by holding your phone up. REALSKI is free and includes maps for Copper Mountain, Deer Valley, Killington, Northstar-at-Tahoe, and Stevens Pass. You can download additional maps of about 80 other resorts for $0.99 each.

2. Vail’s EpicMix App

If there weren’t enough reasons to be jealous of skiers and snowboarders headed to Vail Resorts, this winter’s debut of the EpicMix app adds another. The application logs your day on the mountain, rewards you with special pins for accomplishments, like being on the first chairlift of the day, and helps you keep track of your friends.

Even visitors without smartphones can take advantage of many EpicMix features, because the phone relies on a chip embedded in lift tickets that is scanned by Vail employees at the bottom of lifts. The application uses information about which lifts the visitor rides to calculate vertical feet skied, days on the mountain, routes taken, and other feats. Visitors can log into the website or the app for Android and iPhone (the app for BlackBerry is currently in development). They can use the same app to track their family members and Facebook friends’ locations and accomplishments.

3. iTrailMap 3D

With the right app, smartphones with GPS can track your spot on the mountain and keep track of your total distance, vertical distance and elevation. But sometimes you just need to pull out a static map and plot your day. This iPhone app offers the best of both worlds by letting you flip between a “paper” version of resort maps and their 3D, GPS-enabled counterparts. The former also allow you to retrace your day and upload it to the web.

The full 3D version ($4.99) gives you access to 750 resort maps worldwide. The maps are downloaded onto your phone, which means they’re still useful on mountains out of reception range. Slightly cheaper single-destination 3D versions are available for popular resorts like Vail and Brekenridge. Big Air Software, which makes the iTrail Map, also makes an advertising-supported free version, but it only includes static “paper” maps.

If you have a BlackBerry or Android phone, try similar application Satski ($8.99).

4. Snow and Ski Report by REI

While it’s fine to remain blissfully ignorant of business, politics and world affairs during a ski weekend, one kind of news that you’ll definitely want to keep up with is the weather. REI’s recently updated Ski and Snow Report App makes it easy by letting you track the weather at up to 12 of your favorite resorts. You can either add resorts that are near your current location or pick from a worldwide list. See how much snow has fallen in the last 72 hours, how deep it is at base of the mountain, the number of trails open, and the number of lifts running at one glance. If you’re planning ahead, there’s also a five-day forecast available for each resort. The updated version also has the option to include a resort’s Twitter feed on its weather dashboard and even includes live web cams for some resorts. (Oh yes, and the ability to search for the REI stores within a 200 mile radius.)

REI doesn’t seem to have updated Android or BlackBerry versions, but The North Face makes a comparable app for both the BlackBerry and Android that works just as well.

5. Elevation Pro

This $0.99 app is pretty simple. It tells you what your current elevation is, which is something that being on a mountain, especially on a long chairlift run, often makes you curious about. Elevation includes two different calculations. One is the ground elevation using USGS data at your current location. The other is a calculation using the GPS on your phone. If you feel an urge to broadcast what you’ve learned, there’s a tweet button built right in to the application

6. snowEdge

If you must quantify your slope time, snowEdge will help you. The iPhone App judges your skill based on how fast you go, how dynamic your turns are, and how much air you get on jumps. By leaving the application open, you’ll get a measurement on each of these factors for every run that you do. Speed and air time are about as self explanatory as expected, but the measurement for dynamic turns is based on the app’s “Turn Acceleration Index” and takes into account the lateral acceleration during the turn.

An especially appreciated detail is that the default interface displays your latest run and your best runs throughout the day on the same screen. That way, you can aim to improve and easily track your progress.

The Winter Tech Series is supported by Goodyear. Goodyear’s Winter Reactive Technology helps drivers react to changing winter weather conditions. Be prepared for rain, snow, ice, sleet and slush. Learn more here.

More Mobile Resources from Mashable:

- iPhone Apps For Exploring the Great Outdoors
- 8 Free BlackBerry Games Worth Downloading
- 3 New Recipe Apps for the iPad [PICS]
- 5 Mobile Apps for Finding Great Movies
- 13 Branded Mobile Apps That Got It Right

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, AnastasiyaShanhina

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We're keeping our eye on three interesting developments this Thursday.

Federal Agency Says Facebook Posts Protected by Free Speech

A federal agency has declared Facebook posts are legally protected speech, even for employees who write negative things about their employers.

The National Labor Relations Board said in a recent lawsuit that the termination of employee Dawnmarie Souza, who used some vulgar language to deride her boss on Facebook when he denied one of her requests, was unlawful.

The British Monarchy Joins Facebook

The British Monarchy officially joined Facebook Monday morning. Those who "Like" the Page will be able to receive updates about the Royal Family's doings through their Facebook News Feed.

Firefox Plugin Prevents Intoxicated Social Networking

This week, web security company Webroot released a new Firefox plugin called "The Social Media Sobriety Test", which prevents users from accessing sites like Gmail, Facebook and Tumblr if they fail to solve certain puzzles and other tests during designated hours.

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Twitter founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams appeared on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon last night to discuss the origins of Twitter, which they said could have gone by a very different name.

As the guys say in the interview, when Twitter first launched, it was all about urgency, so names on the table included, “jitter” and “twitch.” According to Biz Stone, “Twitter” happened to be near “twitch” in the thesaurus. Since “jitter” and “twitch” sounded too “drug addict”-like, “Twitter” it was. And it’s a good thing too — imagine uttering the phrase, “I’ve been Twitching all day!” Not too hot, huh?

Check out the rest of the interview above for more from the guys, as well as Rainn Wilson, who dropped in to chat with us before the Fallon interview yesterday.

[via The Next Web]

More About: biz stone, evan williams, jimmy fallon, television, twitter, video

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As official partners, Robert Mondavi Winery and Franciscan Estates are rewarding SCVNGR users of legal drinking age for challenge gameplay at their venues.

Rewards are perfectly suited for wine aficionados and novices alike, and include VIP and free winery tours, free tastings at affiliate wineries, discounts on bottles and reserve barrel tasting. Robert Mondavi Winery, for instance, is currently hosting six challenges. SCVNGR users who complete all six will have a shot at winning a “Fantasy Napa weekend” courtesy of the winery.

SCVNGR CEO Seth Priebatsch says that wineries have been especially responsive to the idea of using SCVNGR’s game layer for the real world to better engage customers and bring in new business.

“Our partner businesses got pretty excited and have been bringing it to their colleagues … This will help generate a ton of playership in the valley and will help in generating traffic to wineries who are building on SCVNGR,” he says.

On Friday, SCVNGR released its rewards program in New York City. Today’s launch in Napa Valley, coupled with the winery partnerships, signal the startup’s aims to penetrate particular industries, as opposed to just regions. It’s an interesting strategy that could help the relative newbie in the consumer location space stand its ground against the likes of Facebook and Foursquare.

Image courtesy of Flickr, walleyg

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Two weeks ago, the rumors started to fly about the potential existence of the Nexus Two, a device that would run a stock version of Android 2.3 (a.k.a Gingerbread) and be promoted as the next Google phone.

Since then, more reports have emerged that seem to confirm that Google really is going to take another crack at producing a rival to the iPhone. The device is rumored to be made by Samsung, has a curved back, a 4-inch AMOLED screen and shares a lot of similarities with the Galaxy S phone.

While those reports are convincing, that doesn’t confirm that the phone is real by any means. However, a slip-up by Best Buy, first caught by Phandroid, may be the most concrete indication yet that this phone is real.

Earlier today on Best Buy’s website, the company published a section that looked something like this:

Once the page was spotted, it was quickly taken down (you can still access the Google cache of the page, though). Still, it gives more credibility to the rumors that a “pure Google” phone is in the works. The new details are that it will be called the Nexus S and that it will be available on T-Mobile, just like its predecessor the Nexus One.

As we said when we reported the Nexus Two rumors, we would welcome the Nexus S with open arms; the Nexus One is still one of the best Android phones out there, and we believe a Nexus S could help fight the increasing fragmentation of the Android OS. However, Google ultimately failed with the Nexus One, and it’ll have to take a new approach if the Nexus S is to succeed where its predecessor did not.

More About: android, Android 2.3, gingerbread, Google, nexus one, Nexus S

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Apple’s social network for music, Ping, has unveiled a cross-platform integration with Twitter that now allows users to connect their Twitter accounts and automatically share their Ping activities to Twitter.

The collaboration also means that Twitter.com will now feature iTunes song previews, and support song purchases and downloads directly from tweets. iTunes song previews are available for all users in the 23 countries where iTunes is available.

Ping users who connect their Twitter accounts will now automatically share their Ping posts, likes and reviews on Twitter. The features are turned on by default, but Ping users can also disable the auto-tweets from within the settings portion of the iTunes social network.

“Last month, we launched a new version of Twitter that gives users the ability to see embedded photos and videos directly through the details pane. Adding the ability to listen to music previews makes that experience even richer,” says Carolyn Penner of Twitter’s communication team.

Ping’s Twitter infusion is quite significant. For one, Ping users can now easily find and connect with their Twitter followers, which makes Apple’s social network infinitely more social. Plus, with Twitter users set to automatically share their Ping activity, they’ll be playing a huge role in Ping’s growth.

What makes the cross-platform integration all the more interesting is the fact that Apple and Facebook have yet to resolve their relationship spat, so Ping users are still unable to connect their Facebook accounts.

More to come…

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The $3.99 app [iTunes link] features all-original content, ranging from the publication’s signature arts and crafts how-tos (including, conveniently, a “How to Use This Issue”), cooking and baking recipes, makeup tips, a photography-rich profile of the publication’s namesake and video tour of her garden, and more — not found in any print edition.

It’s everything you’d expect from a tablet version of the polished print magazine: The app is teeming with vivid photographs, and the publication’s layout designers have rendered the magazine’s harmonic pastel palette even more beautiful on the iPad. The designers deserve special applause for the cover, which features 180 still-motion slides of a blooming peony photographed over a 10-hour period, and for the edition’s scrollable layouts, such as the one in the “Seasonal Sparkle” feature, which transcends the confines of the single-page layout.

All accomplishments withstanding, there’s a few things that could have been done better. The text is not selectable and there is no avenue for sharing the content in the app via e-mail or social networks. Interactivity is limited to swiping between pages, tabbing through photo galleries, and clicking “play” on embedded videos. The video for the makeover piece was not embedded in the app but rather linked to the magazine’s website, where the video is not yet available. The ads, which are relatively numerous, are by and large uninteresting, and improve on print ads and TV commercials only by including links to advertisers’ websites and Facebook Pages.

Martha Stewart Living will begin publishing regular monthly editions for the iPad beginning with the February issue, according to a spokesperson for the publication. Martha Stewart released a cookie recipe app for the device just last week.

Screenshot Gallery

Promotional Video

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After getting off the phone one late September morning with another Department of Veterans Affairs representative who couldn’t explain why his GI Bill benefits hadn’t been processed, Iraq war veteran Aubrey Arcangel tweeted his frustration:

@DeptVetAffairs I spoke w/ 4 reps and provided my certID and trans# for my #GIBill cert. 2 weeks and still doesn’t show on my file!

Arcangel had previously vented on Twitter about the VA, but this was the first time he tried what a buddy called a “power tweet” with the details of his problem. And though Arcangel is optimistic about the power of social media — he tweets for Student Veterans of America and organizes their social media initiatives — he didn’t expect what happened next. As he sat on the bus headed to the national Student Veterans of America conference in Washington, D.C. the following day, his Twitter app alerted him of a new direct message. The VA had tweeted back.

“It’s almost liberating to know that you can contact them yourself through a different means and get a response,” Arcangel said.

Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have completely changed the way the VA and traditional veterans’ service organizations reach the new generation of veterans home from Iraq and Afghanistan -– and they’re finding that an increasing number of older veterans are connecting through social media, too.

“For years there’s been this stereotype, whether it’s deserved or not, that VA is made up of a bunch of faceless, nameless bureaucrats who sit around and don’t do anything,” said Brandon Friedman, the VA’s director of new media. “So in my view, the way to combat that is to put names and faces on everything. Not just so you can personalize it, but so there’s accountability — and people appreciate that.”

Outreach For a New Generation of Vets

Friedman himself is the face behind the VA’s responses to veterans’ tweets and posts. Now the VA’s main Facebook Page has more than 69,000 subscribers — the largest following for any cabinet-level agency in the federal government — and nearly 9,000 Twitter followers, but the federal agency had very little social media knowledge or infrastructure when Friedman joined the VA in August 2009. It became his job to get everyone on the same page, and he was pleasantly surprised by how receptive VA employees were to using social media.

“I thought we were going to have to break out sledgehammers and break down walls and coerce people into using all these tools,” he said, “but in reality everybody was like, ‘Yeah, we’ve been wanting to do this for years!’”

For Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of American, the largest organization for veterans of the current wars, social media has always been a fundamental part of operations since the group was founded in 2004. Social media was a necessity in the early days, Digital Engagement Director Daniel Atwood said, because it was the only way IAVA could reach a large audience with such a small staff and limited resources. The organization still actively uses Twitter and Facebook — where it has more than 170,000 subscribers — and also runs a social networking site exclusively for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

“We try and weave social media in a smart, strategic way into absolutely everything that we do,” Atwood said. “We don’t view it as a separate thing that we need to do because it’s the hot trend, etc. It’s just a particularly powerful set of tools we’ve got at our disposal to help achieve our mission.”

It has been a longer learning curve for organizations accustomed to decades of printed newsletters and scheduled mailings, but they say social media lets them reach their members better than ever. Jerry Newberry, the director of communications for the VFW, said his organization has stepped up social media efforts in the past couple of years.

“We understand that technology is changing, communication is morphing constantly, and in order to reach the audience we want to reach — this new generation of veterans — we simply have to go where they go,” he said.

American Legion spokesman John Raughter said face-to-face contact is still important and happening every day at posts around the country, but social media is especially well-suited for veterans and service members who might be disabled, deployed or just working all day. “For them, the electronic media is a godsend,” he said.

Older Veterans Get on Board

As traditional veterans organizations started reaching out online, they discovered that veterans of previous wars are increasingly adopting the benefits of social media, too. Among the VA’s Facebook subscribers, more than a third are 45 or older, while only 8% are under 25, according to Friedman.

When Raughter started working at the American Legion a decade ago, there was a huge difference between younger members who used e-mail and older members who had never tried it. Now there are far more ways to communicate online — and far more young veterans — but that gap has diminished. “Now just about everybody, from World War II veterans on to the current generation, they’re getting online,” he said. “It’s no longer this big generation gap that used to exist.”

Newberry, of the VFW, counts Korean War and WWII veterans among his personal Facebook friends. “There’s some belief that there’s an age barrier there,” he said. “I don’t know why people make that assumption, because it’s simply not true.”

Over on the VA Facebook Page, the majority of commenters are not Iraq or Afghanistan vets. Many are Vietnam or Gulf War veterans, or their family members, who’ve been dealing with the VA long before the Internet became a standard way to communicate. Steve Wilkerson, a 67-year-old Vietnam veteran who blogs, tweets and checks into Foursquare, along with occasionally commenting on the VA’s Facebook Page, says he’d like to see the VA or another organization train older vets how to use basic social media tools so they can stay better connected.

He also hopes the VA will continue to be responsive on social media and make sure those comments get translated into action.

“If it’s just back and forth between me and some guy I was in Vietnam with and haven’t talked to for all that length of time — I mean, that will certainly be nice and I’ll be happy to hear from some of them — but it doesn’t by any means use the full capacity of social media for the VA.”

VA Builds a Strategy

It’s a challenge that Friedman is well aware of as he monitors the VA’s sites each day and analyzes the statistics. By watching web traffic for the various VA websites, for example, Friedman decided it would be best to create a separate Facebook Page and Twitter feed for each of the 153 VA medical centers around the U.S., since people were searching for information at the local level.

“As a veteran myself, I understand why this is,” Friedman said. “When you live in like Texas or Nebraska or wherever, and you think of VA, you don’t think of VA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. You think of that big building on the other side of town.”

So local centers started joining the popular social networking sites last spring, after proving they had the staff and knowledge to do it properly. It’s Friedman’s goal to get all 153 up within a year, and they’re about a third of the way there with more than 50 on Facebook and nearly 30 on Twitter. Two or three new profiles launch each week, Friedman said. The demand is definitely there — a common complaint posted on the main VA Facebook Page is that a veteran’s local VA center doesn’t yet have a page.

With the main sites he manages, Friedman has been setting the standard for how VA employees can break through the long tradition of bureaucratic anonymity. He signs everything he posts, and each update on Facebook generates dozens of scattershot comments ranging from enthusiastic support to bitter grievances. Many of them are addressed personally to him:

“Thanks Brandon, where do we mail the form to?”

“Ya see how ANGRY so many Vets on here are Brandon?? WHY ya think that is??”

“Brandon, sounds like some good news for a change. Thanks for posting it! :-)”

“Brandon, you’ve taken on a big task …”

Friedman admits having his name out there so prominently is a double-edged sword, and it’s been harder to get other VA employees to identify themselves so personally. “I haven’t pushed it really hard because I can tell they’re very uncomfortable with it,” he said. “But they’re also falling behind, because we’re doing it, and it’s clearly a driver of subscribers and participation.”

Everyone involved says it’s too early to tell how much social media will help the new generation of veterans to get the care they need and benefits they deserve in the long run, but Friedman is confident that social media can create a cycle of accountability and confidence because everyone can see the conversation.

“They feel like they’re being listened to, they’re being responded to,” he said. “So whenever you help somebody, it doesn’t just help that one person — it helps build trust in your organization with everyone else who sees you helping.”

More Social Good Resources from Mashable:

- How Social Media is Helping Veterans Connect
- 5 Must-Follow Non-Profits Making a Difference With Social Media
- 3 Ways Small Businesses are Investing in Social Good
- HOW TO: Help Solve the Global Water Crisis with Social Media
- 3 Creative Social Good Campaigns that Will Make You Smile

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, adamkaz

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