Home � � Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Starbucks Awarding Foursquare Checkins Today”

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Starbucks Awarding Foursquare Checkins Today”

Posted by Ashim Adhikari on 5:20 AM // 0 comments

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Starbucks Awarding Foursquare Checkins Today”

Starbucks Awarding Foursquare Checkins Today

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 05:09 AM PST


Starbucks is celebrating its 40th anniversary today by randomly awarding $40 gift cards to customers who check in using Foursquare.

The promotion, which started this morning at 12:01 AM PST and runs until 11:59:59 PST, will give 500 such cards to those who check in to participating Starbucks locations and unlock a “Tribute Badge.” Consumers can also enter the drawing via e-mail by sending a note with the subject line “Starbucks Foursquare Entry Submission” to foursquare@starbucks.com. Winners will be drawn on March 16. Rules to the promotion can be found here.

The promotion comes as Starbucks is feting its 40th anniversary with a new logo, an ad campaign and some new products, including “Petite” pastries and Starbucks Tribute Blend coffee.

Starbucks has linked with Foursquare before with somewhat mixed results. A program last year awarded discounts to mayors of various stores, but some consumers complained that stores that were supposed to be participating were unaware of the promotion.

More About: foursquare, MARKETING, starbucks

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Formspring Takes a Stand Against Bullies — With Help From MIT

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 03:32 AM PST


Formspring, a popular and highly social Q&A app, gets a bad rap for bullying.

Because users can ask questions anonymously, some of those users feel they can use Formspring’s platform to harass, belittle, intimidate and even threaten others. While most adults might be able to shrug off such words, teens and younger users can have a difficult time emotionally processing hateful speech.

And since quite a large percentage of Formspring’s users fall squarely in the teen and young adult demographic, the startup has decided to take an honest and intelligent look at how bullying can be prevented on the platform.

Today, the startup announced it is partnering with MIT’s Media Lab to develop detection tools for finding “problematic content” and putting a stop to online bullying. Formspring and MIT are presenting their research and project at today’s White House Conference on Bullying Prevention in Washington, D.C.

Henry Lieberman is the principal research scientist at the Media Lab. His team has been using natural language recognition to detect questionable or harassing content in ways that go beyond user reporting and simple word filters. To assist with the team’s research, Formspring has provided the MIT team with valuable internal data on cyberbullying as well as a financial donation to support the Media Lab’s research.

Lieberman said in a release, “There is a real opportunity to put innovation to work in solving the problem of online bullying, and our work at the Media Lab represents a first step in what we believe can result in powerful solutions for social networks, educators, parents and of course, teens.”

Formspring has always been mindful of privacy and safety issues and has been committed to responding to user complaints and reports. However, this new partnership is indicative of a more proactive approach: Why wait for bullying to cause a user stress and emotional pain when it’s possible to detect bullying in advance?

The startup’s communications head, Sarahjane Sacchetti, said, “The Media Lab's efforts to put some of the world's most advanced research to work in identifying and flagging problematic content is of great interest to us.

“We want to emphasize that technologists represent an important part of the solution to this issue.”

Image based on a photo from iStockphoto user Rivendellstudios

More About: bullying, formspring, mit

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Facebook’s New Anti-Bullying Tools Create a “Culture of Respect”

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 03:00 AM PST


At today’s White House Conference for Bullying Prevention in Washington, D.C., Facebook is announcing a new suite of tools to protect users from bullying, foster a stronger sense of community in the social network, and “create a culture of respect” among Facebook users.

Facebook’s changes boil down to two main aspects: an improved safety center with more multimedia resources, and better, more social tools for reporting offensive or bullying content.

In addition to reporting harassing or TOS-violating content directly to Facebook, users now have two important options that are more social and more community-centric. Within the reporting options interface, the targeted user can choose to privately message the user who posted the stressful or offensive content. If the user wishes to report the content to Facebook, he or she can also choose to include a trusted authority figure, such as a teacher or parent, as a contact in that incident report.

As for the Safety Center upgrades, Facebook will be bringing “new educational videos, external resources from renowned experts, downloadable materials for people to share and discuss” and more resources within the coming weeks. The company is also asking teens to contribute feedback on smart, safe uses of technology.

How Facebook Developed Its New Anti-Bullying Tools

Arturo Bejas is Facebook’s Director of Engineering. In a phone conversation, he told us, "[Facebook] spent some time looking at reports we were getting in different categories. We take down content that violates our policies, but we also wanted to help people get support from someone in their lives… someone you trust who can help you deal with this in a way that’s constructive.

“We want this to be a learning experience where people learn how to deal with bullying and feel empowered.”

Bejas also noted that not all bullying content is intended to malign or harm the user on the receiving end. “In talking to safety advocates, we learned that a lot of these things are accidental,” he said.

“People post things they think are funny, but they don’t realize it’s stressful. There’s no malicious intent, and it might not violate the terms of service, but it still needs to be resolved.”

The LGBT Connection

The social network’s focus on anti-bullying tools has to a large extent been driven by Facebook’s partnerships with LGBT organizations since last fall’s tragic and highly visible string of gay teen suicides. These efforts began with a partnership with GLAAD and expanded to include a Network of Support, a group that counts such organizations as the Human Rights Campaign and PFLAG among its members.

Facebook Public Policy Communications Manager Andrew Noyes told us that after the Tyler Clementi and Billy Lucas suicides, “There was hightened awareness around LGBT bullying… We’ve certainly talked to our Network of Support and safety advisory board, and they’re very excited about these features.”

This announcement marks the first major changes to Facebook’s security and safety options since a Safety Center revamp last spring.

Stay tuned for more news from the conference, including how Formspring, an exciting startup that gets a bad rap for its users’ bullying behavior, is stepping up to the challenge and reducing bullying online.

More About: anti-bullying, bullying, facebook, LGBT

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Intel and Lenovo Launch Netbook for Kids

Posted: 10 Mar 2011 02:23 AM PST


Lenovo has teamed up with Intel to launch a netbook called Classmate+ aimed at youngsters, primarily in developing countries.

The Classmate+ is far from a powerhouse, but it packs enough power to get most jobs done – an Intel Atom N455 CPU, 1 or 2 GB of RAM and Windows 7. It also sports a 10.1-inch anti-glare screen, a 1.3 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, two speakers and a choice between a 3-cell or a 6-cell battery.

As for storage options, it’s either 8 GB or a 16 GB SSD or a 160 or 250 GB HDD. The device is shaped like a briefcase and weighs a mere 1.33 kg with the smaller battery and 1.54 kg with the 6-cell version.

The Classmate+ won’t be available in stores – it will be sold to agencies and educational institutions. The first batch of 158,000 will be deployed to students in Argentina this spring by the Organization of Ibero-American States.

More About: developing countries, intel, Kids, lenovo, netbook

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Why Everyone Is Talking About Node

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 09:41 PM PST


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On the 20th floor of a San Francisco skyscraper, a handful of developers are working on a new technology that’s changing the way real-time web apps are built and how they scale.

This technology, called Node.js, is being hailed as “the new Ruby on Rails” by some in the developer community. But it’s not a magic bullet, nor is it appropriate for all programming scenarios.

Joyent, an SF-based cloud software company, is sponsoring the growth and development of Node. It employs Node creator Ryan Dahl, hosts events and creates tools for the growing Node community. Recently, Mashable visited Joyent to see demos from three startups that are using Node to build web and mobile apps for consumers.

In the process, we learned a lot about how and why Node works for the real-time web — and how Node is changing the way the developer community creates the Internet as we know it.

What Makes Node Different

Node had a watershed year in 2010, and it’s shaping up to be as popular as Ruby on Rails among developers. Since the framework was built for the commonly used JavaScript, the barriers to entry are remarkably low, and the reasons for choosing Node to build apps — especially low-latency, real-time apps — are increasingly compelling.

Then there’s the community. The Ruby community has been criticized for being exclusive and harsh. The Node community provides a welcome contrast and embodies the spirit of many other open-source communities. Again, the framework’s JavaScript roots means that it appeals to the less hacker-ish web designer who might be dabbling in web app development as much as it appeals to longtime, hardcore hackers who simply want a better way to build real-time apps.

We asked each of the three startups giving demos at Joyent: Why choose Node?

The common wisdom among many developers is that there is no single right language or framework that should and must be used for all web apps. But based on what we heard from these startups, Node is increasingly being seen as a “best solution” for a certain type of application.

According to Tom Hughes-Croucher, a recent Joyent hire who is writing the first O’Reilly book on Node, "Node has popularized event-driven programming." With event-driven programming, Hughes-Croucher explains, "The actual amount of resources you use is much smaller, and you can get a lot more out of fewer servers."

Node is all about making event-driven, low-latency, concurrent apps. Erlang, the language that powers Facebook’s chat server, uses the same model. Tornado, a concurrent server for Python that powers FriendFeed, was an attempt at this, too. But Node has one advantage over technologies like Erlang and Tornado: "None of that was too accessible," says Hughes-Croucher. "Node takes a language people know very well — Javascript — and makes it available to do server programming, as well."

In traditional languages and frameworks, the communication inside the app between the web server and the database is the most time-intensive part of the transaction. Node makes a much smaller footprint on your web server. It allocates web server resources on an as-needed basis, not pre-allocating a large chunk of resources for each user. For example, Apache might assign 8MB to a user, while Node assigns 8KB.

“The way that Node is more efficient on servers is by not allocating resources to things while it waits,” says Hughes-Croucher. “Say you have to talk to the database, and that’s going to take 50ms to respond. Instead of assigning all of the processing resources for that 50ms wait, it just uses a placeholder. When the database responds, then it allocates the resources needed to process. That means it’s totally possible to do a lot more requests at once, because you only allocate the server resources when you need to use them, not while you are waiting on databases.”

Node’s Explosive Growth

Unlike PHP or Ruby, Node has yet to appear as the technological face of a popular, mass-adopted web service like Twitter, WordPress or Facebook.

Rather, Node took off in the imaginations of programmers, organically becoming the quirky new tech that was on the tip of every tongue. First, devs asked if you’d heard of it; then, they started asking if you’d tried it or built anything with it.

As you can see from these GitHub reports, both the number of committers and the number of commits to Node core really took off, and there are no signs of Node’s growth slowing down in the dev community.

Click the image to see full-size charts, which we obtained from GitHub.

Commits and committers to Node on GitHub peaked in the fall of 2010, but developers’ conversations around Node have really just started to pick up steam since the beginning of 2011. Here’s a graph showing Twitter conversations around Node; you’ll notice a few spikes throughout the fall of 2010, and more consistent conversations occurring in 2011.

"If you look at Rails and Node on GitHub and compare the traffic,” says Hughes-Croucher, “Rails had 270,000 views over the past three months. Node has 325,000, and it’s only going up… it’s exploding."

There have been “it” technologies in the past, and the current vogue is Ruby on Rails. So what makes devs think Node is the heir apparent?

"Node is going to become the next big thing for a few reasons,” said Hughes-Croucher. “Everyone wants to do way more powerful apps — things like Google Instant and Facebook. People are expected to support millions of users on a ton of devices in real time. These are the expectations people have of applications now. And if you did that with traditional frameworks, it would take forever, and the hardware would cost millions of dollars.

“The point of Node is that it’s really fast, it’s really easy to scale, and the Javascript aspect means it’s really easy to build.”

Node for Real-Time Voice

Igal Perelman is the VP of product for Voxer, an iOS app that aims to “make audio sexy again.” It functions a bit like a walkie-talkie, a bit like a group IM app and a bit like a social/location consumer app.

“There is a huge reason why kids love to use walkie-talkies. It’s fun and immediate,” said Perelman. “We took that basic use case and improved it a lot.”

The user pushes a button, starts talking, and the message is immediately sent to the app user on the other end. Both parties can listen and talk simultaneously. Chat requests come through as push notifications, allowing the users to choose whether or not to join the chat.

Users can also re-listen to messages in case they need clarification or missed part of a message, like rewinding a video. Another cool feature: The app supports group chats with unlimited numbers of participants.

Finally, it’s entirely free.

Voxer uses Node because the low latency allows for near-instant transfer of audio data. Says Perelman: "Node was very crucial to this, because the audio needed to be live. And Node allows us to maintain a large number of connections with very low latency. It was a quite easy decision."

Voxer’s VP of technology, Matt Ranney, told us (via the app itself, of course), "This is our third iteration trying to do live voice. We first tried C++ for performance reasons, but it was too complicated, too hard to wrangle. Next, we chose Python. It was great, but unfortunately, the Python virtual machine is incredibly slow.

“So we’ve gone to the opposite extreme. In our third version, we’ve done it in Node, and we have the best of both worlds. We have the high-level language of Javascript and the high performance of the [Google's V8 JavaScript engine's] virtual machine.”

Node for Gaming

One of the hackathons we followed this year was Node Knockout, a 48-hour contest to see who in the world can build the best, most complete, most interesting Node apps on a very tight deadline.

The popularity winner for the 2010 contest was Scrabb.ly, a massively multiplayer online version of Scrabble. The game plays in real time, and the map of all the tiles is sprawling to gargantuan proportions.

The team built the game in two days and has since made a company out of the project.

On the flipside, “Rails Rumble [a similar, Ruby-on-Rails-flavored hackathon] has been around for four or five years, and only one company has come out of it,” says Fortnight Labs and Node Knockout co-founder Gerad Suyderhoud. “We had a company in our first year. Because Node is such a great technology for real-time web apps, you see a lot more games, so the results are a lot more fun.” The next Node Knockout is in August 2011.

Suyderhoud and co-founder Visnu Pitiyanuvath’s entry in the 2009 Rails Rumble was Lazeroids, but they discovered that building a real-time game in RoR was “too hard.”

When it comes to real-time games, says Suyderhoud, “There’s really not a lot that’s competing with [Node]. The other technologies just aren’t as good at doing real time. They’re backed in older frameworks. Node was designed from the ground up for real time and to be easy to use. Other technologies would take forever to do the same things.”

“You have this giant ecosystem of Javascript that’s perfect for real time,” he adds.

And as far as community is concerned, Suyderhoud says, "it’s amazing how inclusive it is. I’ve never seen such good support. For Node Knockout, it was some people’s first time using Node. We didn’t provide a lot of support, but we got really lucky. A lot of people who had no vested interest and were not participants stepped up and helped people solve their problems over the weekend, in chat channels and over Twitter. I was definitely not expecting that."

Node for Collaboration

Mockingbird is more a tool for web designers than a true consumer app, and it allows devs and designers to rapidly create wireframes. The interesting thing about Mockingbird is that this Node.js app is already making serious money for its creators.

Basically, Mockingbird is a tool for collaborative drawing and real-time communication between designers and clients. It took the founders just months to take the app from concept to a working beta.

“We’ve been around since November of 2009 and launched our paid product November 2010,” says CTO and co-founder Saikat Chakrabarti. “We’re doing much better than we thought. We thought we’d be struggling entrepreneurs for a long time, but we’re very much in the green.”

The app currently has 60,000 users and hosts more than 100,000 projects.

Says Chakrabarti: “I tried to do the app in Twisted and Tornado at the time, and Node was by far the easiest… A lot of people and companies are very invested in this.”

Node for the Future

Time will prove whether Node is that next big thing, but one thing was agreed upon by all parties at this roundtable demo session: Node needs a Twitter, a Facebook or some other big, consumer-friendly, mass-adopted app to make the mainstream tech community take notice.

However, as soon as middle managers get wind of Node, it runs the risk of developing a bubble. An employment bubble would surely be followed by an employment crash, which would likely be perceived as the “downfall of Node.”

A misunderstanding of the technology is also a risk. Former Twitter engineer Alex Payne’s claim that Ruby was slow continues to haunt general conversations about Ruby to this day.

It’s not our intention to inflate anyone’s expectations of Node. And we’re certainly not advocating its use for all programming projects. However, we do think that Node is an interesting, accessible and efficient technology for real-time applications, and we’d love to see what comes of this framework.

We’ll especially be keeping an eye out for “the Twitter of Node” — both to critically examine how the framework performs under pressure and to keep an eye out for hype.

Stay tuned for Mashable‘s ongoing coverage of Node, including one-on-one interviews and code snippets to get you started.

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Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Petrovitch9

More About: joyent, node, node.js, ryan dahl, tom hughes-croucher, web development series

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Apple Offers Video Guided Tours of iPad 2

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 08:39 PM PST


With iPad 2 fever running high, Apple keeps the temperature rising with these 14 just-released “Guided Tour” videos showing off that shiny floozy it’ll be selling on Friday at five. See all 14 videos here.

These are some gorgeous videos. I especially like the way each logo is pinned against a moving background at the beginning of each segment. The iPad 2, a full one-third thinner than its predecessor, has never looked so good as it does in these beautifully produced vignettes.

However, if you want to get an unbiased preview of the iPad 2, you’ll have to peruse our reviews this weekend. Or, just wait until Friday, March 11, when you’ll be able to hold one of these babies in your own hands, and decide for yourself if it’s for you.

Here’s a little tidbit of good news for you if you’re hell-bent on picking up an iPad 2: Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says the lines to buy one will be a whole lot shorter than they were last year.

That’s because last year, Munster says, Apple had 1200 retail locations distributing the iPad, while this year there will be more than 10,000 stores selling the iPad 2, including Best Buy, Target, Verizon, Walmart, AT&T and the Apple Stores. However, Munster says the Apple Stores might have long lines, since they’re starting sales at 5 p.m. on Friday.

Unfortunately, there was one way to buy the iPad last year that doesn’t exist this year — you could order one online and receive it via FedEx on the same day it was offered in stores. No such luck this year, where you can order one on Friday, or go to a store and buy one.

More About: apple, Guided Tour, iPad 2, videos

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Bands Can Tap Into the Power of Their Online Fanclub With New App Creator

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 08:06 PM PST


The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: FanTrail

Quick Pitch: FanTrail is an app that allows fans to connect with their favorite artists, reaping rewards for their devotion and interaction. Artists, in turn, can easily reach fans and create stronger ties with their following.

Genius Idea: So you’ve got fans? Rad. You’re already one step above that dude in his basement, uploading sad, sad GarageBand-fashioned songs to BandCamp, where they will never be heard by anyone but his mother. Now, the question becomes: How do you leverage said fans? How do you reach out to them in a way that’s not spammy, annoying or irrelevant? Startup FanTrail thinks that it has the answer.

FanTrail, which launched this month in preparation for SXSW, was founded by Joshua McClure, who used to work for an iOS development firm and built apps for bands, and Joel Rasmussen, who produced and co-wrote the documentary Before the Music Dies (a film about the ills of the music industry). The two decided to merge their expertises and create an app that would be helpful to musicians and fans alike.

Enter FanTrail. The service is basically a method by which artists can easily create an iPhone app (Android is on the way) for their fans — for free. Every app has the same elements, which let fans garner rewards for their devotion.

Artists simply sign up for the service via the website (provided they have an Apple ID), after which it creates an app that is placed in the App Store. In the app, artists are outfitted with a dashboard that they can use to post news and events, update Twitter, Facebook, etc. all at once, push announcements, see where fans are located on a map using geolocation and send personally recorded messages to followers. Right now, one must do all of this within the app, as there will be no web version until the next iteration of the service.

Artists can also earn revenue through the app. When fans buy music using FanTrail, artists receive their usual royalties, and even additional cash from the service itself via what’s called Artist Incentives. All artists receive a FanTrail Score, which is tabulated based on how many fans have downloaded the app and those fans’ average LoveScore (which is basically a loyalty score). That score determines how much money FanTrail will pay the artist out of its total profits.

FanTrail makes money via co-marketing agreements, sponsorship and mobile payment fees.

Fans, in turn, can reap benefits from their LoveScore, which grows every time they check in at a show, buy music through iTunes and Amazon, and send artists cash through a feature called “LovePay” (said cash can be used for any charity the artist chooses). Every action that offers an artist support garners the fan “Love” on a “LoveMeter” featured within the app. That way, artists can see which fans are most loyal and reward them via recorded messages or any other offer they may choose.

The FanTrail team especially highlights the app’s “Love Mail” feature, which allows artists to record messages and send them to all of their fans, fans chosen by location, or one, special fan.

To leverage its platform, Fan Trail is launching a contest called the Sweetwater Indie Cup at SXSW for all showcase artists. Each band is encouraged to build a FanTrail app, and the artist that gets the most fans will score $40,000 worth of recording equipment and recording time at Sweetwater Studios in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Artists like Erykah Badu and The Roots already have apps via FanTrail, and the team says they’ve seen more than 500 signups this month.

Granted, this isn’t the only platform for artist app creation out there — Mobile Roadie has been around for a while, and there are a ton of startups like Flowd and Mobile Backstage cropping up overseas to offer artists an easy way to connect with fans.

Moreover, the you-scratch-my-back, etc., etc., trend among artists and fans is seriously on the rise, what with crowdfunded record labels, crowdsourced A&R sites and services that let fans make album decisions launching every day.

The concept of letting fans — Super Fans, really — take the reins seems to be extremely popular of late. It just remains to be seen if those fans will actually take the initiative to pick up where the music industry left/is leaving off.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Bliz

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Twitter Updates iPhone App, Calms User Revolt?

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 07:01 PM PST


Twitter ran into a user revolt when it released version 3.3 of its iPhone app last week, and Wednesday it released an update that could convince its angry users to put their figurative torches down and go back to their homes.

The problem was, Twitter introduced a “Quick Bar” that hovered at the top of the user’s tweets, generally making a nuisance of itself in spite of the fact that it was offering real information about trending topics.

Users didn’t care for this at all. Wondering how widespread the disdain was for this little tweak, we took a poll last weekend and got an overwhelmingly negative reaction to version 3.3 of Twitter’s iPhone app. As you can see, more than 81% of our readers disliked the Quick Bar:

Now, as Twitter promised late last week, version 3.3.1 is here, and it includes “updated Quick Bar default behavior to not overlap tweets in timeline.”

If you ask me, I think Twitter should give users a choice of whether they want that Quick Bar hovering anywhere in their app. But what will happen when Twitter wants to introduce advertisements using that Quick Bar? What do you think, commenters?

More About: iphone apps, Quick Bar, revolt, trending, twitter, verison 3.3

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StumbleUpon Double-Dippers Reap Major Rewards

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 06:25 PM PST


Discovery and recommendation engine StumbleUpon announced it has closed a $17 million Series B financing round. The round includes investments from Sherpalo Ventures, First Round Capital and Accel Partners.

For StumbleUpon and some of its investors, this isn’t their first time at the rodeo. Founded in 2001 by some scrappy Canadians, the company moved to San Francisco and scored $1.5 million from investors in 2005. Those investors included Ram Shriram (Sherpalo Ventures) and First Round Capital.

In 2007, eBay purchased StumbleUpon for $75 million in cash. For early investors like Shriram, that was a nice payout.

Many questioned eBay’s decision to purchase StumbleUpon — the move never made much sense. In April 2009, StumbleUpon’s founders bought the company back from eBay for a reported $29 million. The beauty of the buyback? Some of the investors — including Sherpalo Ventures — were the same investors in the pre-eBay days.

Now StumbleUpon has closed a second round of funding.

As it was in 2007, the content discovery space is now hot again. StumbleUpon is unique in that it has continued to grow its user base — 14 million members and counting — while also maintaining a presence in areas like mobile and video.

The founders of Foursquare are often praised for creating Dodgeball, selling the service to Google and then basically creating the same service all over again. From where I’m sitting, StumbleUpon and its long-time investors scored and even bigger coup. Create innovative web company. Sell said company for large chunk of cash. Buy company back for less than 50% of sales price. Raise additional funding for “new” company. Rinse. Repeat.

Future VCs of tomorrow, take note: This is what a truly epic investment opportunity looks like.

More About: accel partners, content discovery, financing round, First Round Capital, funding, Sherpalo Ventures, stumbleupon

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Firefox 4 Moves Out of Beta, New Downloads Available Now

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 05:39 PM PST


Firefox 4 has moved out of its beta period and is now in the “release candidate” stage.

The last beta version, Firefox 4 Beta 10, was released just six weeks ago. Current Firefox 4 beta users will be automatically upgraded to the RC version of the browser, and RC users will be automatically updated to the final release of Firefox 4 when it is available.

Much-heralded features of Firefox 4 include Sync and Panorama, a.k.a. Tab Candy. Around 70% of Firefox plugins are compatible with Firefox 4, and the browser has been optimized for better add-on management, as well. Users can submit feedback on the browser’s performance or issues at any time from the Help menu.

Also, the new RC release represents significant bug fixes (8,000 squashed and counting) and performance enhancements, including faster start-up, speedier graphics rendering, and faster page loading.

Users wishing to download the new software can do so now.

More About: beta, browser, Firefox, Firefox 4, plugins, release candidate, Tab Candy, trending

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Flipboard To Release New Version Thursday: Here’s What’s New [PICS]

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 05:22 PM PST


Flipboard is slated to launch version 1.2 of its popular social newsreading app for the iPad Thursday, just one day before the iPad 2 arrives in Apple stores across the country.

Flipboard co-founder Evan Doll walked us through the new features, including:

  • Social search: Users can now search for key terms or hashtags to pull up real-time updates from multiple sources, including Facebook, Facebook Groups, Twitter, Flickr and Google Reader. Results are displayed in Flipboard’s signature magazine-style layout, making it easier to follow and navigate through a flood of breaking news than, say, Tweetdeck.
  • Instagram integration: Flipboard has taken advantage of the API of photo-sharing iPhone app Instagram, enabling users to browse Instagram photos as if they were flipping through a homemade photo album. Users can click to see images at 2/3 screen size — making it, in fact, much better for viewing Instagram photos than the Instagram app itself.
  • Speed: Flipboard is now twice as fast as it was before, Doll tells us. Content now loads in four to five seconds, rather than eight to 10.
  • Two new partners: Both Wired.com and photo blog Pictory have become official Flipboard content partners, and will soon begin displaying and selling ads in the app, of which Flipboard will receive a cut. (While Flipboard displays ads at present, they do not yet generate any revenue.)
  • Refresh button: There is now a refresh button at the top of most pages for loading new content.
  • Featured: A featured ribbon at the top can be pulled out to highlight editors’ picks.

The additions are appreciated but by no means revolutionary. We’re curious to see whether Flipboard moves in the direction of personalization and algorithm-based recommendations in the future, like Zite, a newly launched reading app for the iPad.

Preview Gallery









Social search allows users to navigate real-time news and specific topics in a digestible format.





Flipboard now has a designated section for Instagram photos.





Instagram photos can be enlarged to roughly 2/3rds the size of the screen.





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More About: Flipboard, ipad app, trending

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Dept. of State & 18 Other Governments Apply for Code for America

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 04:51 PM PST


Code for America, the non-profit organization that creates government-changing apps for communities around the U.S., has received applications from 19 U.S. city, state and federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of State.

Each of these government entities will compete to be one of the three to five communities that gets Code for America fellows to create a customized, open-source app to solve a pervasive problem in public service or government administration.

For example, in the last Code for America cycle, five cities were picked for projects such as an Open311-type project and an application that allows citizens to monitor and give feedback on city hall proposals.

The 19 applicants will compete for a spot in the next Code for America cycle. Applications will be judged based on the government’s commitment to the partnership, funding to support the project, and the openness, efficiency, and reusability of the proposed application or project. The selection process will be guided by a committee, which will announce the winning applicants in June 2011.

Once three to five candidates are selected, the custom apps will be developed by Code for America fellows, a team of 20 crack web and mobile developers hand-selected by an all-star committee that includes Irene Au of Google, Paul Buchheit of Facebook, Anil Dash of Expert Labs and many more.

Code for America's Government Relations Director Alissa Black said in a release, “It's great to see not only this much interest in Code for America, but also enthusiasm from public officials in using technology to change the way government works.

The response we're seeing proves that government is thinking creatively about ways to innovate in response to our fiscal crises, and that the open government movement is really taking hold within government itself.”

Here’s the full list of applicants:

  • Anchorage, Alaska
  • Austin, Texas
  • Balboa Park – San Diego, California
  • California Department of Economic Development
  • California Department of Energy
  • Columbus, Ohio
  • Detroit, Michigan
  • Hartford County, Maryland
  • Memphis, Tennessee
  • New Orleans, Louisiana
  • New York City
  • Omaha, Nebraska
  • Palm Bay, Florida
  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Raleigh, North Carolina
  • San Francisco, California
  • Santa Clarita, California
  • Santa Cruz, California
  • U.S. Department of State

More About: code for america, developers, government, social good

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Bandcamp Offering More Than One Day of Free Streaming Music From SXSW Artists

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 03:32 PM PST


Going to SXSW Music (a.k.a. Hipster Spring Break) this year? Well, music-sharing platform Bandcamp has you covered with aggregated songs from 470 artists performing at the fest.

Surf on over the Bandcamp’s site, where you will be greeted by a page featuring an enticing array of album covers from SXSW bands (who also use Bandcamp). You can either click on album art to hear specific jams, or just press the “Listen” button to stream a full 1 day, 6 hours, 25 minutes and 41 seconds of music.

I don’t know about you, but I like to be prepared when I go to a music fest — you know, so I don’t just go see that band I’ve seen four times already for a solid fifth round, and stand around perplexed by the plethora of shiny new bands glinting around me.

So study up, children — this is only the tip of the musical iceberg (there’s more than 2,000 bands attending the fest — and that’s not counting the kids who plan to drive 30 hours and play on the sidewalk outside the venues).

More About: bandcamp, music, sxsw, sxsw 2011

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5 Ways To Integrate Technology Into Your Child’s Education

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 02:43 PM PST

Children Computer Image

Jeff Galinovsky is regional manager for Intel's classmate PC in North America where he focuses on expanding education products as well as building an education ecosystem. You can follow him on Twitter at @ClassmatePCDude.

Most of us didn't have today's technology options when we were in school, so while parents realize technology has become an integral part of their child’s education, they’re sometimes finding it difficult to incorporate it into the learning process.

It's much more than choosing the right hardware (desktop, iPad, netbook, etc.). Parents need to consider several other factors: Appropriate software, interactive e-reading programs, how to educate children about online safety when exploring social media, and how to integrate technology into the current curriculum.

However, technology is important in today’s world and taking a comprehensive approach to technology education will ensure that children thrive in the modern education system and in the jobs of the future. Here are five tips for streamlining the process.

1. Get the Wiggles Out

zoo imageTake learning out of and beyond the classroom. Children learn in a multimodal manner -– they want to be able to touch and hear and see things up close. Netbooks or laptops that feature tools like a camera, writing stylus and audio recording capabilities help to encourage a multimodal approach to learning. The more learning modes (auditory, visual, and experiential) that are exercised, the more likely the material they are learning is likely to stay with them long-term.

Use tools and devices that help kids feel comfortable in their spaces and get them up and moving around when it's appropriate. This can keep kids focus while making the lessons more interesting and exciting. For example, in a field trip to the Central Park Zoo in New York, a group of fifth graders measured the temperature and humidity in the Tropical Zone, drew penguins and built robots — all using tools and software integrated and available on their convertible tablet netbooks.

2. Make Topics Real and Applicable

Rote memorization is not always the best approach for teaching kids. It's important to demonstrate how subjects like math and science are important and exciting outside of the classroom and in the real world. Having access to real-world examples can help bring tough subjects to life in new ways. Learning math is more fun and easier when fractions are part of a cooking recipe, for example.

In my daughter's fifth grade science class, she developed an experiment to determine if she could generate electricity with a soda and Mentos reaction, using a convertible netbook and equipment from Pasco to test her hypothesis. She only became that excited about science once she got hands-on and explored things that were interesting to her. She told me at the end of last year that she really loved science. You don't often hear that from tween girls these days, do you?

3. Give Kids a Sense of Ownership

red image

Technology opens up opportunities for kids to really take ownership of their own educations and to be a part of the process. With 1:1 learning devices, learning becomes about students and their needs. This can mean more engaged learners with pride in their work and what they are learning about. According to a recent study by Project RED on the key technology factors for student achievement, a strong student/computer ratio is tied to improved test scores and graduation rates. Kids like to move around, so if you're worried about the device taking a beating, look for netbooks or laptops that are rugged and offer some waterproof resistance.

4. Facilitate Self-Paced Learning

book image

Everyone learns at a different pace, and in a different way. Some kids do well when given a task and a deadline and then set free; others need more guidance and time. Technology allows parents and teachers to provide the right amount of discipline for each student individually, and to supplement where necessary. It also allows students to learn at their own pace, which can help keep them interested and excited about the material.

One example is McGraw-Hill's LEAD21 reading program, which offers a personalized and interactive experience for various reading levels. It can adjust vocabulary, concepts, word counts, font size and spacing for different grade and age levels.

5. Create a Safe Environment to Explore

When left on their own, kids can independently explore, discover, and make learning more exciting for themselves. However, just as you want to make sure your children are safe playing in the neighborhood, you need to teach them about Internet safety. It’s important to warn about predators, inappropriate material and mature content, but hovering over them to ensure they are safe will only stifle them.

Look for built-in safety tools in computers that allow parents to ensure that kids access approved sites and content. Parents can choose when, where and what they want their children to access. According to a recent survey on kids and Internet safety, 68% of teens have at some point accepted Facebook friend requests from people they don’t know, opening the door to sharing personal information — like where they live — with strangers.

My 11-year-old daughter started a Twitter account unbeknownst to me. I am not ready for my 11-year-old to be plugged into the social web. When I found out that she had an account, I logged into her netbook and started using a monitoring software product. I could confirm that she did start a Twitter account and was sending messages to someone she thought was Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers.

This tool allowed me to validate the problem and to have a web safety conversation with my daughter. The software allows her to have freedom, and me to have peace of mind. We have been able to discuss what is good and real on the net and what is not.

What are your tips to integrating tech and education? How do you balance freedom and supervision? Let us know in the comments below.

More Education Resources from Mashable:

- 100+ Online Resources That Are Transforming Education
- 8 Ways Technology Is Improving Education
- The Case For Social Media in Schools
- How Social Gaming is Improving Education
- Why Online Education Needs to Get Social

Images courtesy of Flickr, San Jose Library, library riot, quercus design, H is for Home

More About: Children, education, gadgets, Kids, List, social media, tech

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Jake Gyllenhaal Movie Uses Mobile Tagging in Marketing Campaign

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 02:24 PM PST


As you might expect for a movie called Source Code, there's a big digital component to the film's marketing campaign.

In a first for Summit Entertainment, the studio behind the Jake Gyllenhaal thriller, Source Code will have a social media game called Source Code Mission that can be activated by Microsoft Tag technology within the movie poster. That bit of code, which any smartphone can read, will lead to a game that takes 10 to 20 minutes and is based on the movie's plot, which features Gyllenhaal returning to the scene of a bombing of a Chicago commuter train and trying to change the outcome.

Summit worked with The Visionaire Group on the game. The movie will premiere this weekend at SXSW in Austin, Texas, and then open in wide release April 1.

Though other studios have used QR codes to hype releases, most recently DreamWorks for I Am Number Four, Jack Pan, executive vice president at Summit, says he wanted to create "a true value proposition for anyone who scanned the code," instead of just leading to a dedicated website.

As a bonus, those who complete the game will be automatically entered for a grand prize of a trip to SXSW in 2012.

The use of social media games to spur interest in entertainment properties appears to be growing. In January, Starz launched the series Spartacus: Gods of the Arena with a Facebook game and an iPad app. That month, the CW also publicized the new season of Gossip Girl with a Facebook game. And more recently, Paramount Pictures promoted the animated Johnny Depp movie Rango with a tie-in with Zynga's FrontierVille game.

More About: facebook, MARKETING, microsoft tag, source code, Summit Entertainment

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13 Potential Breakout Apps To Watch at SXSW 2011

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 01:42 PM PST


There are few conferences as notorious for launching startups from obscurity to relative mainstream as SXSW. Foodspotting, Foursquare, and Twitter are just a few of the companies that attribute at least part of their launch success to the conference.

"If you hit the right 100 people at SXSW with, let's say, Twitter, you can effectively hit everyone there if you have a strong impression on 100 people," says Tim Ferris, who presented his first book, The 4-Hour Workweek, at SXSW 2007.

What will be the Twitter of SXSW 2011? There are plenty of companies that could possibly make a big splash at this year’s conference, most of them mobile apps. Our 13 top picks are listed below.

1., 2., 3. and 4. Group Messaging Apps

Free group-texting app GroupMe launched in August as a simple way to text a group of people at once. They’ve raised $10.6 million in funding and added features for sharing current locations and photos within groups.

Since then, the group-messaging space has all but exploded with the arrival of numerous serious contenders. Fast Society, another SMS-based service, launched in September, allowing users to set a time frame for their group conversations and offering conference calls and location sharing.

IM app Kik was downloaded more than 2 million times in the three weeks after its October launch. The app functions instantly, like BBM, rather than relying on asynchronous and and often expensive text messages. This week, the app announced an $8 million round of funding, as well as group and photo features.

And then there’s Beluga, which allows users to end instant group messages, photos and location information across multiple platforms. The messaging app launched in December only to be acquired by Facebook in March.

So far there’s no clear leader among these group messaging apps (and a heap of others), but SXSW — a massive conference that requires massive coordination among teams — makes an ideal place for one to emerge.

5. HeyTell

walkie_talkie_image

It’s possible that all of the group-texting apps at SXSW will be out-staged by an even simpler group-communication tool: HeyTell. The free app simply turns Android phones or iPhones into walkie talkies. The app already has more than 4 million users.

The company recently rolled out a new feature that allows users to HeyTell message other users nearby. Which could either be very useful or very obnoxious in a high-density setting like SXSW.

6. Yobongo

Yobongo offers a slightly less intrusive way to make serendipitous connections than broadcasting out of a stranger’s walkie talkie. The app places nearby users into a chat room with each other (this introduces a potentially problematic provision: In order to be useful, other people in the room need to have downloaded the app). Chat members can see each other’s avatars and start private conversations aside from the group.

Creepy or useful? Networking mecca SXSW will be a great place to find out.

7., 8. and 9. Photo Sharing Apps

photo_sharing_image

Apps that allow users to take and share photos from their mobile phones launched, won funding and updated like crazy throughout 2010. SXSW might help one or more of these apps enter the consciousness of the average smartphone owner.

Picplz and Instagram offer users filters to enhance the photos they take with their phones and options to share them to social networks. Instagram launched in October and quickly became a leader in sheer number of users. By December, the app was seeing two-to-three uploads per second. Picplz, which launched in May, hasn’t reported staggering adoption rates, but has earned respect — and funds — from investors like Andreessen Horowitz.

Meanwhile, Path takes a different approach, creating a selective network of 50 or fewer friends for users to share photos with.

10. Hashable

Hashable Founder Michael Yavonditte describes the check-in service as “check-ins for people.” Using the app or website, Hashable users can choose to broadcast who they’re #meeting, #raninto or had #lunch with to Twitter, or to keep it between their “inner circle” of connections. To make this easy, the app pulls in contacts from Twitter and any webmail accounts the user adds. People can also use the service to make introductions between their connections and exchange business card information.

In the meantime, using the apps will build a database of “relationship records” and allow people to learn who in their network is connecting with whom. At a conference, the app can be useful to keep track of new connections (no business cards to run out of or lose). In fact, the company intends to show off its conferencing functionality at SXSW this year, where it will send 20 of its top users to introduce the networking technology.

11. LiquidSpace

liquidspace_image

LiquidSpace gives the people who crouch on the floor with their laptops at conferences like SXSW an alternative. The startup, which launched on Tuesday, is like an AirBnB for workspaces. When users open the app, they see a list of available workspaces near them that they can reserve for a set price.

Venues range from hotels with free conference rooms to startups with extra desks. Anyone can list a space, and the venue is free to set its own prices and approve guests.

LiquidSpace is making its debut at SXSW with four pop-up work spaces that can be reserved using its app, including a tour bus outfitted as an office inside. After SXSW, the service will launch in the Bay area with about 50 more venues.

12. Lanyrd

lanyrd_image

Lanyard is a crowdsourced guide to social conferences. Sign in with your Twitter profile, and the site automatically shows you what conferences people who you follow are planning on speaking at or attending. Since event organizers and other users are encouraged to add conference panels and speakers, your contacts need not be Lanyrd users to be included. Can’t attend all of the conferences that you want to? The site also collects conference videos, slide decks and handouts in a searchable database to help absent users get the information that was presented.

SXSW will be the first test drive of Lanyrd at a major conference, and the startup is treating it as such. In February, it launched an unofficial guide to the conference that shows users which sessions their contacts will be at and allows them to search by topic for conference materials that match their interests.

13. Bnter

bnter_image

Launched in November by the creator of Texts From Last Night, Bnter allows users to post their messages (from last night or otherwise) on the web for others to read. Users can follow each others’ accounts and comment on the conversations.

SXSW is supposedly a hotspot of interesting conversation, but will people really want to post them to the web? As of now, witty comments like the one highlighted in the image above seem to dominate the site over, let’s say, discussions about why academic tech research matters.

On the other hand, the massive list of parties planned during the conference do present a ripe opportunity for sharing the former type of content, so SXSW could be a perfect place for this app to hit the big time.

More SXSW 2011 Resources from Mashable:

- 80+ Can’t Miss Things To See & Do at SXSW 2011
- Where to Find Mashable at SXSWi 2011
- SXSW For Startups: Top 10 Questions Answered
- 6 Successful SXSW Startup Launch Stories
- Giant Graphic Commemorates SXSW's 25th Birthday [INFOGRAPHIC]

Photos Courtesy of Flickr, hive, fd, saxarocks Istockphoto, khz

More About: Beluga, bnter, fast-society, group messaging, groupme, hashable, heytell, instagram, Kik, lanyrd, liquidspace, Lists, Path, picplz, sxsw, sxsw 2011, trending, yobongo

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YouTube Video of the Day: Lost Canister of Film Returned to Owners Via Web

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 01:22 PM PST

Back in January, we introduced you to Todd Bieber, who found a canister of film in Brooklyn's Prospect Park and made a YouTube video to find its owners. Well, two months later, Bieber achieved his mission, tracking down the owners in Paris.

Bieber, who works as director of production and content at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, was cross-country skiing in Prospect Park when he came across a lone canister of film. Instead of leaving it be, Bieber decided to develop the film and, upon seeing the gorgeous pictures of a group of travelers on holiday, he set out to meet the folks in the snaps.

Through the wonders of the Internet, YouTube and viral culture, the video finally made it into the hands of the film’s owners, and Bieber was able to connect with them in Paris.

“Basically I made a simple silly choice and it led to one of the most amazing/crazy experiences in my life,” Bieber says. “So I’m going to keep doing stuff like that.”

Check out the video above for the whole story.

More About: viral-video-of-day, youtube

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Microsoft Kinect Sales Top 10 Million, Set New Guinness World Record

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 12:59 PM PST


Microsoft has sold more than 10 million Kinect systems for the Xbox 360 to retailers, the company announced Wednesday.

Kinect, a controller-free gaming system that competes with the Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 Move, has been selling at an impressive rate since it launched in November.

During the first three months after its launch, this rate was fast enough to earn Kinect the title of “fastest-selling consumer device.” According to Guinness World Records, which officially confirmed the record today, Microsoft sold an average of 133,333 units per day between November 4 and January 3.

“The sales figures here speak for themselves,” said Gaz Deaves, gaming editor for Guinness World Records in a statement from Microsoft. “According to independent research, no other consumer electronics device sold faster within a 60-day time span, which is an incredible achievement considering the strength of the sector.”

In comparison, it took the Nintendo Wii about two years to pass the 10 million sales mark (although to be fair, Nintendo’s system was about $100 more expensive at launch than Microsoft’s sensor).

Kinect sales have unsurprisingly slowed since the holiday season and the initial launch. If sales had continued at the newly announced record rate, Microsoft would be announcing it had sold more than 18 million units instead of 10 million. Even so, at this point it looks safe to call the device a smash hit.

More About: games, kinect, microsoft, sales

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How Google & Bing Keep Spam Out of Search

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 12:32 PM PST


The Future of Search Series is supported by SES New York Conference & Expo, the search and social marketing conference helping brands, agencies, and professionals connect, share and learn what's next for the interactive industry.

Web spam: It’s the badly written, plagiarized, keyword-stuffed, advertising-packed nonsense that no one wants to see in search results.

In fact, “content farms,” as sites that foster and host such spam are called, have been a primary target of search engines, such as Google and Bing, for the past few months. As the content farmers’ techniques become more sophisticated, so must search engine algorithms.

More and more search engines are fine-tuning their technologies to eliminate this type of content from search results. We spoke via e-mail to representatives from Google and Bing to learn what they’re doing differently these days to combat web spam.

How the Search Engines Are Fighting Spam

A Google rep said, “We thoroughly investigate every report of deceptive practices and take appropriate action when we uncover genuine abuse. In especially egregious cases, we will remove spammers from our index immediately, so they don’t show up in search results at all. At a minimum, we’ll use the data from each spam report to improve our site ranking and filtering algorithms, which, over time, should increase the quality of our results.”

As for content farms, Google has recently retooled its web spam algorithm to deal with poor and syndicated content.

“You can expect sites with shallow or poorly written content, content that's copied from other websites, or information that people frankly don't find that useful will be demoted as a result of our recent algorithm changes,” stated the rep. “On the other hand, high quality pages — pages with original content and information such as research, in depth reports or thoughtful analysis — will get a boost.”

We also spoke with a rep from Bing, which along with handling its own search engine’s capabilities also “handles the algorithmic pieces, including relevance and spam,” for Yahoo’s web search. Together, Yahoo and Bing account for almost 30% of web search traffic.

The Bing spokesperson told us, “Bing is able to easily detect pages consisting of machine-generated spam, keyword stuffing, redirect spam or malware, allowing Bing to effectively remove such sites from results. This is done through constant innovation… to detect the various evolving versions of the kinds of spam techniques we face. Additionally, signals that have been previously spammed now have countermeasures to prevent abuse. Bing has also developed several ranking signals to help weed out spam results and better understand the intent of the searcher.”

But when it comes to content syndication and content farms, the Bing rep said, “Unfortunately, as our methods to combat spam evolve, so do the spammers. Content farms are becoming increasingly common, and Bing engineers have started evaluating all of Bing's algorithms — not just those focused on spam prevention — to ensure a consistent return of higher quality results.”

Over the past year in particular, Bing’s web spam engineers have been working on features to decrease the search rankings of spammy content, and the Bing spokesperson said the search engine is continuously improving its spam-fighting algorithms and also offers other forms of malware protection for web search.

“Bing actively detects drive-by download in our indexed pages and warns people when such results are shown as search results… [Also,] Bing actively detects scareware — where the user is tricked in to believing that he has download malicious software and is subsequently forced to either pay for fake anti-virus software or download actual malicious software — in indexed pages. Whenever Bing detects scareware sites or pages that redirect to scareware, Bing actively blocks them from the search results.”

Series Supported by SES New York Conference & Expo

The Future of Search Series is supported by SES New York Conference & Expo, the search and social marketing conference helping brands, agencies, and professionals connect, share and learn what's next for the interactive industry. Learn why more than 5,000 brands and agencies from the enterprise level to brick and motor businesses choose SES for their online marketing education.

More Tech Resources From Mashable

- Desktop Farming: 10 Gadgets for Growing a Cubicle Garden/
- Who's Really Scanning All Those QR Codes? [INFOGRAPHIC]
- What's New in iOS 4.3
- 9 Apps To Make You Super Productive on Windows, Mac & Linux
- The Future of the Connected Car

More About: algorithm, bing, Future of Search Series, Google, Search, spam, web spam

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iOS 4.3 Now Available for Download

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 12:13 PM PST


Apple has officially released iOS 4.3 for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users. The release comes just two days before the iPad 2 goes on sale.

We’ve covered the various updates and improvements in iOS 4.3, but the quick highlights include:

  • Faster JavaScript engine
  • Better AirPlay Support
  • Personal HotSpot on the iPhone 4
  • iTunes Home Sharing

On the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, users can install the update by clicking on the “Check for Update” button on the device summary page in iTunes. Apple TV 2 owners can download the update from the “check for updates” menu on the device.

If you want a direct link to the IPSW update file, our friends at MacStories and TUAW have tracked down the download links:

Want to see what’s new? Check out our hands-on guide:


Mute or Rotation Switch Selector




Apple made a wise decision in iOS 4.3 for iPad by allowing users to choose between using the switch on the side of the device to mute volume or act as a rotation lock.

By default, the switch acts as a mute button. However, in the General section under Settings, users can toggle the functionality.


Mute or Rotation Switch On-Screen View




iOS 4.2 introduced the ability to double-tap the home button and swipe right to access a panel to easily control brightness or audio or video playback. The panel will now show either a mute button or a rotation lock, depending on your settings.

For instance, if you choose to designate the side switch as a rotation lock, the on-screen button will act as a mute switch.


Enabling Home Sharing




One of our favorite features in iOS 4.3 is support for iTunes Home Sharing. Home Sharing allows users to browse and playback iTunes content from across a local network.

To use Home Sharing, first make sure that the feature is enabled in iTunes. In iTunes, this means clicking on the Advanced menu and selecting "Turn on Home Sharing." Then just enter in your iTunes username and password.

In iOS 4.3 users will need to enable Home Sharing. Go to Settings and then select the iPod section. Then enter in your iTunes username and password into the box. This will enable your device to access your iTunes library when on the same local network.


Selecting iTunes Library




In the iPod app in iOS 4.3 a new "Library" menu item will appear in the sidebar. Using this selector, users can then choose a local iTunes library to connect to from within the app.


Home Sharing Album Browse




Home Sharing works incredibly well. Playlists, Smart Playlists, Podcasts, Audiobooks and videos are all accessible from the sidebar, just as if you were accessing local content in iOS.

I have a Smart Playlist setup to list every album I buy from Amazon.com. I can access that playlist group and browse each album in an easy to view, concise manner.

Playback takes place over the network and is seamless.


Home Sharing Music Video View




You can easily browse the music videos that you have added to iTunes or purchased via iTunes.


Home Sharing Voice Memos




For users that choose to automatically backup their iPhone voice memos to iTunes, those audio files are accessible via the iPod app in iOS. This is great for use on the iPad or for accessing notes that may no longer be local on the iPod.


Audiobooks




Audiobooks downloaded or imported from iTunes are also accessible via iOS 4.3.


Movies




In the Videos app on the iPad or on the Videos tab in iPod for iPhone/iPod touch, users can browse video files in their iTunes library.

For movies purchased from the iTunes store, this means you can playback that connected content on your iOS device over the network.

Chapter marks are accessible and pressing the "next" button in playback will go to the next marker.


Movies




This is really just to highlight Errol Morris's amazing film, The Thin Blue Line.


Music Playback




Playing back music via Home Sharing is the same as playing back local content.

Album art comes in clear and tracks can be scrubbed forward, backward or paused.


Music Playback Track Listing




While listening to music it's easy to switch back to the track view of an album or playlist.


Audio Podcasts




Audio podcasts play back over the network in the iPod app on iPad. Again, cover art is displayed on the screen.


Video Podcasts




Video podcasts can be browsed via the iPod app on the iPad but play back in the Videos application.


SunSpider Results




During the iPad 2 announcement, Steve Jobs pointed out that the JavaScript engine from Safari 5 for Mac OS X was now part of iOS 4.3.

CNET UK ran some benchmark tests on the new iPad 2 and found that indeed, JavaScript performance is much, much faster on the new device.

This performance boost isn't limited to the new iPad 2, the original iPad and the iPhone 4 also get a big boost.

Our iPad running the final release of 4.3 scored a 3306 on the SunSpider benchmark (lower is better in these tests).

That compares with CNET's 2097 on the iPad 2 and an 8321 on their iPad running iOS 4.2.

For comparison, our iOS 4.2.1 iPhone 4 scored a heavy 10214. In iOS 4.3 it racked up a much faster 4141.


HotSpot Support




Verizon customers aren't the only users that can use a mobile hotspot on the iPhone 4. iOS 4.3 brings that ability to users with different wireless carriers too.

The feature is subject to fees and data caps set by wireless providers but users can use the iPhone 4's 3G connection to power 3 other devices via Wi-Fi, one via Bluetooth and a fifth via USB connectivity.

Image credit: TiPB

More About: apple, iOS, ios 4.3, upates

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Turn Your Phone Into an Interactive “Hello My Name Is” Badge

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 12:03 PM PST

Two-year-old startup Contxts is ready to prove it has graduated from a fledging SMS-focused contact exchange upstart to a mature competitor in the mobile contact-sharing market with a new interactive badge feature.

The scrappy startup has managed to transform Contxts profiles into interactive “Hello my name is” badges for mobile phones. Contxts users need only navigate to contxts.com/sxsw on their mobile device, sign in and save the webpage to their home screen.

The mobile badge displays a user’s name alongside a QR code that when scanned will pass along contact details. The badge also cycles through a user’s latest tweets and checkins, highlights fun facts and puts other social data on dynamic display using information from a user’s profile.

Best of all, Contxts will be gifting lanyards and phone holders to SXSW attendees. So if you’re going to SXSW, you can wear your phone as an interactive name tag around your neck. Just make sure to reserve yours by sending an e-mail to sxsw@contxts.com.

The geeky fashion accessory is a super visual way to convey to fellow attendees that you’re with the digital revolution, even if it might drain your battery over time.

The fun festival-appropriate badge is the perfect way for Contxts to standout at SXSW and drive home the utility of its more grownup but still simple contact-sharing system.

More About: contact sharing, contxts, sxswi

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Get a Job in Social Media, Marketing or Web Development Today

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 11:38 AM PST


If you’re seeking a job in social media, we’d like to help out. For starters, Mashable‘s Job Lists section gathers together all of our resource lists, how-tos and expert guides to help you get hired. In particular, you might want to see our articles on How to Leverage Social Media for Career Success and How to Find a Job on Twitter.

But we’d like to help in a more direct way, too. Mashable‘s job boards are a place for socially savvy companies to find people like you. This week and every week, Mashable features its coveted job board listings for a variety of positions in the web, social media space and beyond. Have a look at what's good and new on our job boards:

Mashable Job Postings

Events Sponsorship Manager at Mashable in New York, NY.

Executive Assistant at Mashable in New York, NY.

Associate Design Director at Mashable in New York, NY.

Mashable Job Board Listings

SEO/SEM Specialist at Tire Company Solutions in Cookeville, TN.

Applications Engineer at Demand Media in Santa Monica, CA.

Customer Experience Manager at Sierra Trading Post in Cheyenne, WY.

Digital Media Analyst at The Advertising Council, Inc in New York, NY.

Group Director at SS+K in New York, NY.

Head of Marketing at Quirky in New York, NY.

Managing Director for Digital Media at Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates in Washington DC.

Managing Director of Brand Advertising at White Digital Media in Carlsbad, CA.

Social Community Manager at Kudzu in Atlanta, GA.

Associate Director, Digital Strategy at Taylor in New York, NY.

Bilingual Senior Account Executive at The Media Network in Silver Spring, MD.

Social Marketing Coordinator at Feed Company in Los Angeles, CA.

Social Media Account Associate at G2 USA in New York, NY.

Digital – Technical Director at Edelman PR in San Francisco, CA.

SVP of Project Management at Digitas Health in New York, NY.

User Experience Designer at Emma in Nashville, TN.

Application Developer at Emma in Nashville, TN.

Freelance Creative Designer at White Digital Media in Carlsbad, CA.

Manager, Marketing Analytics at Walt Disney Parks & Resorts in Glendale, CA.

Digital Media Sales and Project Manager at Northstar Travel Media in Seacaucus, NJ.

Account Executive, Affiliate Advertising at Adknowledge, Inc. in New York, NY.

Community Support Specialist at Cruise Critic in Pennington, NJ.

Senior PR Account Executive – Digital Entertainment at Miller PR in Los Angeles, CA.

PR Account Supervisor – Consumer Technology at M. Booth & Associates in New York, NY.

Senior Marketing Manager at Beezag.com in New York, NY.

Visual Designer at UncommonGoods LLC in New York.

Programmer Developer at Polis in Washington DC.

Senior Interactive Producer at Attention PR in New York, NY.

Account Supervisor, Digital at Edelman PR in Los Angeles, CA.

Community Manager, La Mer at The Estee Lauder Companies in New York, NY.

Associate Director – Lifestyle at Attention PR in New York, NY.

Account Supervisor – Digital at Edelman PR in Los Angeles, CA.

Digital Producer at Premiere Networks in New York, NY.

Inside Sales Account Executive at IGN Entertainment in Beverly Hills, CA.

Senior Software Engineer at Digitas in New York, NY.

Manager, Internet Solutions Technology at Digitas in Chicago, IL.

Associate Director, Quality Assurance at Digitas in Boston, MA.

Associate Director, Project Management at Digitas in New York, NY.

Sr Associate, Project Management at Digitas Health in New York, NY.

Creative Director at Weber Shandwick in Baltimore,MD.

Web Developer/Front End Engineer at AppFolio Inc in Goleta, CA.

User Interface Designer at American Institutes for Research in Washington DC.

UI/UX Designer at Roundhouse Agency in Seattle, WA.

UI/UX Designer at Roundhouse Agency in Portland, OR.

Marketing Manager at Demand Media in Santa Monica, CA.

Senior Online Marketing Manager at Demand Media in Santa Monica, CA.

HTML/HTML5/PHP Developer at Gotham Inc in New York, NY.

Associate UX Designer at Buddy Media in New York, NY.

Senior Director, Product Innovation at FYI Direct in Norwalk, CT.

Manager, Ad Producer at Buddy Media in New York, NY.

Front End Engineer/CSS Producer at Buddy Media in New York, NY.

User Interface Designer at Buddy Media in New York, NY.

Head of Search Engine Optimization at cj Advertising in Nashville, TN.

Marketing Specialist at Cellular South in Ridgeland, MS.

Web Development Program Manager at Seattle Children’s in Seattle, WA.

User Experience Architect/Designer at FYI Direct in Norwalk, CT.

Sr. Flash Designer at Digitas in Boston, MA.

Web Project Manager at Defenders of Wildlife in Washington DC.

Director of Online Publishing at Defenders of Wildlife in Washington DC.

Digital Strategist at Golin Harris in Chicago, IL.

Developer at JangoMail in Mountain View, CA.

PR Account Executive at M Booth and Associates in New York, NY.

Ruby Developer at American Express Publishing in New York, NY.

Community Manager at New Relic, Inc. in San Francisco, CA.

PR Account Manager – Social Media at MARC USA in Pittsburgh, PA.

Interactive Marketing Manager at Smithsonian Student Travel in Cambridge, MA.

Community Manager for Microsoft Social Media at Uptown Treehouse in Los Angeles, CA.

Senior Art Director at Fairly Painless Advertising in Holland, MI.

Digitial Media Manager at BarkleyREI in Pittsburgh, PA.

Business Analyst II – Marketing at Arthrex Inc. in Naples, FL.

Senior Engineer at Synacor in Buffalo, NY.

Associate Director – Web/Online Communications at Northeastern University in Boston, MA.

Social Media Sales Consultant at Social Lift Inc. in Troy, MI.

Project Manager at Synacor in Buffalo, NY.

Director of Online Acquisition at NetSpend in San Mateo, CA.

Account Manager at Phase2 Technology in Alexandria, VA.

Engineering Manager at Synacor in Buffalo, NY.

Director of Engineering at Synacor in Buffalo, NY.

Web Developer at Oxfam America in Boston, MA.

Online Communications Specialist at Casper College in Casper, WY.

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

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Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore Earns World Economic Forum’s Leadership Award

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 11:11 AM PST


The World Economic Forum Wednesday named its Young Global Leader honorees of 2011, and we’re excited to share that Mashable CEO and founder Pete Cashmore has been named one of the Young Global Leaders.

The distinction is given each year to a handful of people younger than 40 to recognize their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world through inspiring leadership.

“The Young Global Leaders represent the voice for the future and the hopes of the next generation,” said the World Economic Forum’s founder and chairman Klaus Schwab, who established Young Global Leaders in 2004.

The selection committee — led by Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan — selected 190 people from 65 countries from various sectors, including business, civil society, social entrepreneurs, politics, government, arts, culture and opinion and media. Other honorees include Nike executive Jayme Martin, CNN International anchor Hala Gorani, TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie and Max Levchin, vice president of engineering for Google, among others. Here’s the full list of 2011 honorees.

Pete and the other honorees can now participate in the Forum of Young Global Leaders, which will convene at an annual summit in China in September. The forum says past Young Global Leaders are actively engaged in the community.

The World Economic Forum, based in Geneva, Switzerland, is an independent international organization that aims to improve the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas. They host an annual conference in Davos that brings together top businesspeople, politicians, influencers and media to discuss global issues and solutions.

Photo by Lisa Bettany

More About: leadership, mashable, social media

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5 Useful iPhone Apps for Analyzing Your Website’s Success On the Go

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 10:57 AM PST


This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

You don’t have to be tied to your desktop to check up on your website’s vital statistics — there are a wealth of great iPhone apps that will help you do it on the go.

Whether you could be called on at any time for an update, are a one-man-band wanting an at-a-glance stat attack, or need a portable way to present the latest figures to partners, customers or clients, these apps should assist you.

Have a read below for five solutions to keep you in the loop away from your office and let us know in the comments which iPhone apps you’ve previously used to track your website’s success story.

1. BAM Analytics Pro

BAM Analytics Pro from Blast Advanced Media (a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant) is a quick, easy and affordable solution for anyone who wants to view their Google Analytics information on their iPhone. Using the app, you can create up to 65 different reports that can be exported via CSV, XML and e-mail with options to receive 50, 100, 200 or “all” results. This is notable as rival apps only offer the top 100.

Comparison functionality is also strong with the ability to compare advanced segments and date ranges on the go and gain insight from those stats.

Cost:: $1.99

2. Ego

Perfectly suited for smaller businesses that are interested in a wider range of less in-depth stats, Ego is a one-stop shop for all your vital figures from Ember, Feedburner, Google Analytics, Mint, Squarespace, Tumblr, Twitter and Vimeo. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to view your company’s Twitter followers count, feed subscription totals or visits to a certain site, then Ego offers a good-looking way to do so on the go.

Cost:: $1.99

3. SimpleSense

If you’re signed up to Google’s AdSense for Content program, then this free app is a must-have. The app connects to your Google AdSense account and shows you all the major stats wherever you might be. With this free app, you can view your AdSense for Content earnings for yesterday, the past seven days, the past month and the current payment quickly and easily, while $0.99 in-app purchases offer further data on Channels, AdSense for Search and AdSense for Feeds.

Cost:: Free

4. Analytics App

Here’s another app that brings Google Analytics info to the palm of your hand. The Analytics App claims to offer a better experience than checking on your computer, with handy overview reports giving you the info you need at one glance and a today report to keep you up to date. Delving in deeper, you can generate up to 55 reports with custom time ranges and view integrated charts for many metrics — all on a clean and tidy interface.

Cost:: $1.99

5. ABuzz

Although hits, clicks and conversions are popular ways of measuring a website’s success, they are certainly not the only ones. The other, less measurable (although in some ways just as important) method is through reputation.

Are you tuned into just exactly what’s being said about your brand online? While you may have alerts and searches bookmarked on your main computer, accessing that info while out and about might not be so easy. The ABuzz iPhone app will search Digg, Twitter, Buzz, public parts of Facebook, blogs and forums for mentions of multiple keywords and phrases of your choosing to help you monitor and manage your company’s public image when away from the office.

Cost:: $4.99

Which features do you look for in analytics apps for business?

More iPhone Business App Resources from Mashable

- 5 iPhone Apps For Avoiding International Business Faux Pas
- 5 iPhone Apps to Boost Productivity
- 3 Useful iPhone Apps to Help File Your Taxes
- 14 Essential iPhone Apps for Small Business Users
- 12 iPhone Apps for Surviving Conference Season

More About: analytics app, business, iphone, iphone apps, small business, Web Development

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Smart Labels Make Gmail Even Better

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 10:44 AM PST


Google introduced Wednesday a new Gmail Labs feature to help users better organize and classify their e-mail: Smart Labels.

The new Smart Labels are designed to complement the Priority Inbox feature that the Gmail team introduced last year. Like Priority Inbox, the goal with Smart Labels is to automatically help get mail where it needs to go.

Once activated, the feature creates new labels for bulk, notification and forum messages. Bulk mail includes mass mailing, promotional newsletters and daily offers. These messages are filtered out of the inbox by default (but still marked as unread if you want to check them out later). The “notifications” Smart Label works for things like account statements and receipts. The forums section is for e-mail from mailing lists or other large e-mail groups.

If, like me, you’ve already made extensive use of filters and labels to organize and categorize your Gmail inbox, you might wonder how Smart Labels are any different. The net result may be similar, but the fact that Smart Labels are automatic and customizable makes them pretty great.

For instance, my own inbox has filters and labels designed to move promotional mailings to their own folder. This is very similar to what the bulk Smart Label does — except with Smart Labels, I don’t have to manually add each e-mail address to a filter.

Smart Labels also work with existing labels and filters and can be edited like any other label. Existing filters can be adjusted to avoid being tagged by Smart Labels and users can decide whether a Smart Label group skips the inbox.

One of the areas where desktop e-mail clients — notably Microsoft Outlook — still supersede web clients is with custom folders and rules. With Smart Labels, Google is helping to close that gap.

What do you think of Smart Labels? How do you currently use labels and filters to organize your inbox? Let us know.

More About: e-mail, gmail, gmail labs, Gmail Priority Inbox, Google, Priority Inbox, smart labels

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VeriFone Demands Recall of Square Credit Card Readers

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 10:33 AM PST


Electronic payment processor VeriFone — also makers of the mobile payment system PAYWare Mobile — is accusing mobile payments competitor Square of having a serious hardware security flaw that VeriFone CEO Douglas Bergeron calls a “disturbing new risk to consumers.”

Bergeron issued Wednesday an open letter and video to the industry and consumers calling for a recall of Square’s credit card readers.

“The issue is that Square's hardware is poorly constructed and lacks all ability to encrypt consumers' data, creating a window for criminals to turn the device into a skimming machine in a matter of minutes,” Bergeron says in the letter.

VeriFone has also created a sample skimming application it claims can grab a consumer’s credit card information after each swipe. The skimming application is available for download on a site set up by VeriFone and has been sent to Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express and JP Morgan Chase, Square’s credit card processor.

The statement and video purport to advocate for the consumer, but VeriFone has a decided interest in the mobile payments space and the company’s alarmist, anti-Square tone give away said bias. VeriFone accuses Square of “cutting corners,” and “freely distributing devices that anyone can use to steal your credit card information,” among other things.

In January, Square closed $27.5 million in funding at a valuation of $240 million, and has seen thousands of businesses sign up to use the service since its public release a few months ago. The startup has, however, faced security mishaps in its short history and went through a retooling period last year before making its hardware available to the public.

Square has yet to publicly address the security hole exposed by VeriFone. Mashable has reached out to Square for comment on the matter.

Update: The VeriFone video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s Terms of Service. VeriFone has since pulled its sample skimming application.

More About: mobile payments, Square, VeriFone

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VMWare View Lets iPad Users Access Corporate Desktops

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 10:24 AM PST


Virtualization giant VMWare released VMWare View for iPad on Wednesday, in an effort to help enterprise users gain access to their workstations without sending IT departments into a tizzy.

VMWare View for iPad [iTunes link] is the company’s virtual workstation solution for large businesses and enterprises and it’s free for existing customers. Virtual machines are created and stored at a data center and these machines are then the location-agnostic desktop points for end users.

VMWare View for iPad will let users treat the iPad as a thin client, and users can then access their desktop, file documents and other data from within the application, over Wi-Fi and 3G.

VMWare is a bit late to the party. Competitors Citrix and Wyse have had iPad clients available for their products since last year. Wyse’s PocketCloud app even supports VMWare View virtual machines. Still, for VMWare View customers, having an official solution is an attractive offering.

VMWare told us that “this is just the beginning” of the company’s commitment to the iPad. The company took its time to deliver what it calls a “finely tuned solution” that should help businesses easily bridge the gap between their older Windows software and the cloud-based systems of the future.

VNC and RDP apps for the iPad are nothing new, but VMWare touts its PCoIP protocol as delivering a better, more fluid user experience, whether a machine is being accessed over a strong Wi-Fi connection or over 3G.

Users can use swipe gestures to pull up the iPad keyboard and to perform tasks. The app also includes a virtual trackpad for better tracking accuracy and easy access to function keys and other extended keys that might not be on the regular iPad keypad.

VMWare View is also compatible with external Bluetooth keyboards and can be used with the VGA connector to hook up to an external display.

This video demos VMWare View for iPad.

Business Users Want to Use the iPad

Business users of all stripes are embracing the iPad. The device’s form factor, low weight and incredible battery life make it a great travel companion. Software vendors likes SugarCRM, Salesforce.com, Box.net and FileMaker are all embracing the iPad and other mobile devices, because these devices are often a better fit for workflow and productivity than a laptop or desktop computer.

Solutions that can also allow users to access their Windows desktops make these types of devices even more attractive for businesses.

We look forward to the day when data from a workstation or VM can be directly accessed from a native app like an e-mail client, database program or word processor.

Fifteen years ago, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison failed to sell the world on a future of thin client workstations. That vision is becoming realized with the advent of cloud computing, bare metal virtualization and devices like the iPad.

More About: ipad, ipad apps, ipad business, remote desktop, virtualization, vmware, vmware view

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Chrysler’s Twitter Account Accidentally Drops the F-Bomb [UPDATED]

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 10:15 AM PST

Someone with access to the official Chrysler Twitter account, @ChryslerAutos, dropped an F-bomb on its more than 7,500 followers earlier today.

“I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f**king drive,” reads a retweet of the slipup.

The actual tweet has been deleted from the account, and the company quickly tweeted an apology, saying that its account had been compromised.


Jalopnik, which originally noted the mishap, reported that people familiar with the Chrysler media organization said the source of the tweet is likely an employee of the social media company that runs Chrysler’s Twitter account.

Like a tweet from the Red Cross last month that spawned #gettngslizzerd, Chrysler’s tweet seems to be the result of an employee confusing personal and brand accounts. Bad taste on Twitter can’t always be prevented (cough, Kenneth Cole), but please, brand Twitter account managers of the world, double-check your tweets.

Update: Chrysler confirmed in a blog post that the off-color tweet came from an employee of its social media agency, New Media Strategies. The employee, according to the post, “has since been terminated.” Meanwhile, the @ChryslerAutos account has actually gained Twitter followers since we first reported the incident.

More About: Chrysler, f-bomb, twitter

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President Obama Fights Bullying on Facebook

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 10:05 AM PST


U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle popped up on Facebook to deliver a message about cyber-bullying. The video, exclusive to Facebook, serves as a promo and curtain-raiser for the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention, which takes place Thursday.

Facebook isn’t just the messenger, it will take an active role in the summit, along with the Department of Education, the Department of Health, and concerned students, parents and teachers. Facebook will host a Facebook DC Live event at 12:20 p.m. ET.

The live conversation will tackle how we can make the Internet safer and how to promote a shared sense of digital citizenship. It will take place across several pages on Facebook and include big-wigs from Facebook Security, MTV and the White House Office of Public Engagement.

In the video, President Obama jokes about not bugging the viewer for a friend request but instead bringing to light the upcoming conference. “This isn’t an issue that makes headlines every day, but it affects every single young person in our country,” he says in the video.

The topic also hits a personal note as Michelle Obama mentions their own daughters. Bullying used to be considered a part of growing up, but President Obama refers to the reach of cyber-bullying that can exist between school, your phone and your home life.

Cyber-bullying has been of growing concern to both the White House and Facebook. Facebook has put renewed resources into stopping online bullying, including by creating a Safety Page and Safety Center, while the White House has created its own portal, StopBullying.gov.

This isn’t the first video President Obama has made addressing the dangers of bullying. In October, he created a YouTube video in support of “It Gets Better” to address bullying directed at homosexual youth.

It’s easy to shrug off cyber-bullying the same way that name-calling often registers below physical violence. However, it can be just as painful and even more dangerous. More and more people, especially youths, are putting their lives online, and cyber-bullying is becoming harder and harder to ignore.

"Out of 15 million children's IM accounts analyzed we found that 5.6 million children received cyber bullying messages," said Adam Hildreth, founder and CEO of Crisp Thinking, a digital watchdog agency concerned with behavioral analysis and Internet safety. That estimate might even be conservative, according to the National Crime Prevention Council. It claims cyber-bullying affects almost half of all American teens; 19,000 attempted suicides occur each year in the U.S. because of cyber-bullying, according to the Cyber-bullying Research Center.

What do you think of using the Internet to fight cyber-bullying? What do you make of the White House and Facebook joining the fight? Let us know in the comments below.

More About: barack obama, bullying, charity, cyber-bullying, michelle obama, non-profit, potus, President, president obama, social good

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Watch Bonnaroo Live on Your iPhone, iPad or Android

Posted: 09 Mar 2011 10:00 AM PST


Vevo revealed last month the Bonnaroo lineup for 2011, and today, the music video site is announcing that it will be streaming select live and on-demand performances and interviews across Vevo.com and Vevo Mobile, as well as Vevo-connected devices.

Bonnaroo, which takes place in Tennessee from June 9 through June 12, features a bevy of acts of all ilks, including the Grammy-winning Arcade Fire. And, thanks to sponsors like Ford, music fans can now experience the show via Vevo.

Content will be available on Vevo mobile products for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android, Vevo.com, and on devices like Google TV and Boxee. Vevo partners AOL, BET and CBS Interactive Music Group will also feature coverage. Scheduling will be announced soon.

Bonnaroo and Vevo also plan to create a web series that will appear on Vevo’s Bonnaroo Channel and on Bonnaroo’s website.

More and more, events like Bonnaroo are making their way to the web — the Grammy’s and Oscar streams spring to mind — and Vevo is increasingly offering live concert events.

Will you watch Bonnaroo via Vevo this year? Or is the experience only worth it when it’s in real life?

Image courtesy of Flickr, craigCloutier

More About: bonnaroo, boxee, google tv, ipad, iphone, music, vevo, video, youtube

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