Mashable: Latest 26 News Updates - including “An Onslaught of Tablets Coming This Year”

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• An Onslaught of Tablets Coming This Year
• Tweet Defense – Fight Zombies With the Power of Twitter
• MySpace Co-Presidents Reveal Company’s Plan for the Future [INTERVIEW]
• Phonebooth Free: An Alternative to Google Voice for Small Businesses
• Appboy Gets a New Design, iPhone App and Best Buy Partnership
• Google Launches the Google Apps Marketplace
• Twitter Takes on Phishing with New Security Features
• Watch Out, Topeka: Greenville, SC, Also Wants to be Googletown, USA
• HOW TO: Prepare for Disasters Using Social Media
• Lindsay Lohan Sues E-Trade Claiming Baby Ad Is a Parody of Her [VIDEO]
• Hulu Gets 400 Hours of NFL Video
• On Android, MySpace Reigns Supreme
• Retweet.com Sells for $250,000
• Palm Looks to Bring iPhone Games to webOS with New PDK
• PlayStation First to Sell HD Movies from All Major Studios
• Foursquare + Google Maps = FourWhere
• Facebook to Launch Location Features Next Month
• Announcing Mashable’s Google Wave API Challenge
• ShiftPlanning Makes Setting Schedules for Businesses Easy
• Samsung Debuts 3D TV Lineup
• Foursquare Courts Business Users with Checkin Analysis Features
• MacHeist Offers Early Access to Tweetie 2 for Mac
• “Tron Legacy” Trailer Featuring Jeff Bridges Hits the Web [VIDEO]
• Why Computer Engineer Barbie Is Good for Women in Tech
• Cisco CRS-3: Download Library of Congress in Just Over One Second
• Go Tribal Helps Friends Coordinate Informal Plans
• Amazon is Working on a Better Web Browser for Kindle

An Onslaught of Tablets Coming This Year Posted: 10 Mar 2010 03:22 AM PST You think the iPad will be the only tablet we’ll talk about in 2010? Not even close. According to Arm’s worldwide mobile computing ODM manager Roy Chen, we can expect as many as 50 tablets before the year’s end. “The first tablet devices will launch in the second quarter by [mobile network] carriers. You’ll see a lot more in the third quarter,” said Chen. He declined to name specific companies that will launch the tablets, but he did say some of the top 10 telecoms will launch a tablet. Arm also displayed a taste of what’s to come at the Taipei news conference, showcasing two tablets running Android. As a company that creates chips for many of these tablets, Arm must have a good idea about the number of devices we’re likely to see this year. Still, fifty sounds like a lot. iPad generated a lot of buzz, and it may have even created an entirely new market. If iPad is destined to fail, however, it’ll probably take most of these new tablets with it. Tags: arm, Tablet

Tweet Defense – Fight Zombies With the Power of Twitter Posted: 10 Mar 2010 01:39 AM PST We’ve seen many, many iterations of the popular tower defense games over the years, but this one has a special meaning for all you Twitter fans out there. Based on a tried and true concept, Tweet Defense is an iPhone game that lets you fight zombies with various tower defense units, but with a social twist: it grabs your various Twitter stats – number of followers, friends and tweets – and calculates bonuses to your defense based on them. It’s like an infinite time sink which connects two enormous time wasters – Twitter and tower defense. In other words, it’s beautiful. Get Tweet Defense for $0.99 from the App Store. Tags: iphone, tweet defense, twitter

MySpace Co-Presidents Reveal Company’s Plan for the Future [INTERVIEW] Posted: 09 Mar 2010 09:44 PM PST We had a chance to step into MySpace HQ for a chat with new Co-Presidents Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones, who preside over the News Corp.-owned social network from a shared desk in Beverly Hills. The joint office speaks to how closely Hirschhorn and Jones are working together to create a unified vision of the future for the lately struggling MySpace, whose former CEO Owen Van Natta exited the company after only 9 months in the hot seat. Hirschhorn describes MySpace as a site that “lacked focus” as he and Jones were getting up to speed and learning about the business. He sees the pair’s role as instilling that much-needed focus as well as driving a re-imagination of the site from both a user interface perspective and in the development of new products. All of what we saw today on the near near future of MySpace’s roadmap — into approximately Fall of this year — is in service of the networks’s new overarching goal of promoting user discovery and self-expression. MySpace Strategy As Hirschhorn (pictured, right) describes it, MySpace’s trajectory moving forward is about the “pillars of broadcasting, discovery, self-expression, and making content a part of all those experiences.” He spoke to quality, usability and engineering as major focal points: “we want as many people here to be people who build, and who create, and who have top-notch engineering talent.” Jones relates that metrics have become a core mantra for the company as well: “if someone’s inside the company, we want to give them complete transparency in regards to what they’re working on it, why they’re working on it, why it’s important, and if what they did actually came to a good effect.” They’ve effectively retooled the way the business works to make data a huge driver, including implementing very specific new product rollouts, user testing, and full circle evaluation of how changes affect user behavior. But beyond instilling a level of discipline regarding the process of implementing user interface changes and building new products, at the end of the day Hirschhorn says MySpace is about “music that you love, the photos that you love, the video that you love, and the artistic stuff that goes on every day that says that you’re you. Those are the pillars of how we’re going to be building our product.” Social Network or Destination? We asked Hirschhorn and Jones whether they envisioned MySpace as needing to cultivate its roots as a social network versus crafting the site as more of a destination around premium content, and the answer essentially is both. “You need to be a platform where your audience has a voice,” even as culture constantly shifts and changes, said Hirschhorn. “I think a lot of people say ‘content portal’ — it isn’t just about putting up channels that broadcast this stuff one-to-many. It’s about putting up a platform that’s totally accessible to anyone that creates content, whether it’s big media or not.” Jones (pictured, left) agrees that “going back to the roots of what made MySpace MySpace early on” is important. “I think at some point it lost its way, and we’re basically just tying it back to that. I don’t think it’s a decision of content site or social network — people are doing things that are very social within MySpace, and they’re doing things that are social in other environments too. There’s a type of user, there’s a type of relationship that MySpace is really, really good at, there’s a type of environment around discovery that we’re really good at, and it’s about embellishing that.” Hirschhorn acknowledges that MySpace is “centered around pop culture topics” that resonate with the primarily 14-34 year-old demographic (“and a very sweet spot in the 18-24 demographic”), “so while you could share your thoughts about the elections in Iraq it might not be the place that you do that — but you’ll certainly talk about what went on in The Hurt Locker and what dress Sandra Bullock wore, and that crazy lady who ran onto the stage during the Academy Awards. That is a part of the pop culture conversation that goes on every day, and also a place we feel we can win at.” Twitter and Facebook: Competitors or Coopetition? We asked if the Co-Presidents saw social networks like Twitter and Facebook as competitors, or whether they thought there was room enough in the market to allow a multiplicity of sites to flourish. Jones sees ample space for many social sites: “I think there’s room for all the players. I think at the end of the day there’s not going to be a direct overlap saying ‘this is the exact behavior on MySpace or FB or Twitter’ — there’s always going to be some crossover. I don’t think it’s a winner take all because I don’t think it’s a singular behavior we’re all trying to capture.” Hirschhorn agrees: “The reality is there are people on there with accounts on both. When you’re as big as 100 million or 200 million users you seem to have a little bit of everybody.” He says that after seeing commonalities with Twitter and doing a simple integration deal allowing MySpace users to sync the two accounts, “all of a sudden we started to see people back on MySpace we hadn’t seen in a while.” He sees a certain level of platform agnosticity as being a necessary attitude when operating online: “I think that if you want to maintain a presence online, you have to think cross-carrier or cross-network. When you and I were coming up, SMS didn’t take off until it was cross-carrier. To think that your audience is only going to be on one network is silly. It’s very important for us to be cross-networked, and to make sure that if you’re someone who is managing your presence on MySpace that you can also publish into Twitter, and you can go into Facebook, and if you’re creating a playlist and you want to distribute it into Facebook, that’s great.” Future Roadmap: Profile Changes We were shown a number of elements from the upcoming re-imagination of the user interface, primary among them being changes to profile pages. Users will still have control over customizing the look and feel of their profile (“they’ll actually have better tools,” says Jones), but there will be more unification to the underlying structure and framework behind profile organization in order to make a better, more cohesive experience for users in terms of site navigation. Hirschhorn says that customization is obviously valuable but “has to work within a usable framework. And that is going to be a religion for us. It can’t be homogenized, it still has to be ‘let your flag fly,’ but there has to be a certain kind of structure to it. And that’s a very very important point for us going forward.” He acknowledges the dual blessing and curse of the original wide open profile customization: “giving them that control had a real impact on the usability of MySpace. So the real mission we laid out to the staff was how do we give them the visual control but still maintain a certain kind of architecture in how you browse through the site.” The new profiles will bring a unity to the overall experience while still allowing the “crazy and fun” level of self-expression users came to know and enjoy about the site. Publishing and The Stream In the past, you couldn’t do things like publish videos or other types of content directly into the Stream, but the vision is to allow all types of content. Moreover, you’ll be able to filter the contents of your stream by type, so you can view only videos or see just the links, for example. The MySpace Share mechanism will handle incorporating content from all over the web directly into the Stream, both via buttons webmasters can incorporate within their sites and as a browser bookmarklet that allows sharing content just as easily even if the buttons aren’t specifically included. Currently in testing now is a change to the former status update tool into an explicit publishing tool, allowing users to simply add videos, photos, links, and other types of content. Within the next month we should expect to see a new feature that allows cross-posting to sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Digg via a simple dropdown. “Why not? Publish once, go everywhere. If you increase publishing, you increase engagement,” said Hirschhorn of the upcoming feature. Dashboard and Reputation Back in October, MySpace launched an Artist Dashboard tool (pictured below) as part of the MySpace Music hub for musicians and bands. We’ll be seeing that tool become available for users as well, with the goal of providing a visually-rich view into the “ripple effect” of a user’s activity on MySpace. Imagine being able to get statistics back on what your most popular shares are, who is reacting to what you’re publishing and where they are, and all manner of metadata about what kind of user you are on the site and the effects of your activities there. Closely related to that will be a system of achievements and badges that users can display on their profile to show off what type of users they are, whether it be someone with the most shared playlists or someone who spots trends early on and more. This creates a cycle of feedback and recognition to the user, as well as providing an additional layer of self-expression and identity driven by the data surrounding how that user is actually interacting with MySpace. We were shown bright, friendly icons for potential badges that anyone who has used Foursquare will recognize as familiar, and this particular part of the strategy certainly recalls mechanics like Xbox Live achievements or PS3 trophies as well. The idea is to add game-like elements that not only are fun but also give recognition back to the user in a playful visual style: “that’s what the future of MySpace is going to look like. It’s not going to be bland and data-oriented; it’s not going to look like chaos like it does today. It’s going to be fun and tactile,” said Hirschhorn. Trends Hand in hand with data visualizations in your Dashboard, another new featured area to look for in the near future is a way to identify trends. Here too we should expect to see bright and visually-engaging ways to find out where the hotbeds of activity are around MySpace, whether it be a hot conversation thread or new movie trailer or new album stream. Trends will be tracked in real-time and be based on what’s being most shared, most talked about, and generating the most activity around MySpace at any given time. Those trends will also be able to be broken down very atomically by various indices like region and demographics, so you might be able to drill down very specifically into data points like “what is the most popular album among teenagers in New Jersey,” for example. This level of detail is another example of how data-driven some of the new features will be as well as how much of that internal data will be open and transparent to users, but ideally in a way that’s more visually attractive and accessible as opposed to your typically dry charts and graphs: “I want something more visual. I want it to be visually cool,” said Hirschhorn. Liking and Interest Maps In addition to friending (a bi-directional relationship) and following or subscribing, a new “Liking” mechanism will emerge in the future as one part of a system that will start to understand more about you. This hints at a still nascent element that will likely play a much larger role in MySpace’s strategy moving forward, which is about learning specifically what you like and changing your experience over time to be more customized. Hirschhorn said of the Liking mechanism that it “starts to build preferences that ultimately are going to build up who you are in our database so we can deliver you better experiences. They don’t change your user experience overtly in front of you but they’re going to behind the scenes. That will be both passive and active. That’s a discipline I don’t think we’ve had here, but it breeds engagement and action on the site.” In the long-term, the goal is to build up “interest maps” based on what users have liked and gravitated towards in the past, although the eventual personalization engine will also have to be wide enough to allow for new things and new experiences. “Discovery has to be wider than what you think you want,” and won’t be just about matching a stated set of preferences but also about allowing for serendipity and for new types of content to be exposed to you based on elements including what your social network is actively interested in. More Features, and When Will We See Them? Other new features we were shown included a big visual and thematic update to the Calendar application, which will gain the ability to sort and filter by type of event like concerts, movies, etc. The calendar will be culture-based and have a strong local component, so users can drill down in a visually accessible way to pop culture and entertainment-oriented events nearby. Apps and games will also see significant development in the coming months, with the goal of increasing audience usage from the current 20-30% participation to something more like 50%. Mobile development will also be hugely important, with iPhone and Android (app pictured, right) being the biggest platforms, although currently mobile usage is “overwhelmingly” not smartphone users yet. “The iPhone is gaining very quickly,” though, says Hirschhorn. We should also expect to see a better introduction to MySpace for new users, who will get recommendations in terms of friend and content suggestions upon creating an account on the site. This will give new users a place to start from even if they don’t yet have any friends. Topic pages will be another new feature that will pull in content from around MySpace but also from Twitter, YouTube, and all over the web where it’s happening surrounding a particular topic, movie, celebrity, or other entity people are talking about online. This starts to organize existing content around user interest specifically as opposed to relegating content discovery to specific content hubs in music, movies, etc. Lastly and perhaps more importantly: when will we be seeing all of these new plans come to fruition? The answer is incrementally, as features become ready — as opposed to saving everything up for one big launch. “I don’t think the world wants to wait for a redesign and also, those days are over. 100 million people use this every day, and you can’t just freak out and pull the tablecloth off,” said Hirschhorn of the decision to roll out incremental updates, changes, and new MySpace features. In other words, if you’re curious about how all the above is actually going to be implemented, you likely won’t have to wait too long. From what we saw today, there’s a lot on the plate for MySpace in the coming months, and we should expect to see a lot of changes coming soon. Will it be enough to restore the social network to its former glory, and put MySpace back on a path of growth and leadership in the social networking space? Only time will tell, but if Co-Presidents Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones are able to successfully execute the vision they’ve laid out, it’s perhaps reasonable once again to be optimistic about the future of MySpace. Reviews: Android, Digg, Facebook, Foursquare, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube Tags: Film, interview, Jason Hirschhorn, Mike Jones, music, myspace, social media, trending, tv

Phonebooth Free: An Alternative to Google Voice for Small Businesses Posted: 09 Mar 2010 09:15 PM PST In November, Phonebooth.com released the beta version of Phonebooth OnDemand, which is a full-featured phone service that lives in the cloud, but can communicate with both cellular phones and IP desk and conference phones. Today, that service — which costs $20 a month per user — is becoming generally available. Phonebooth.com is also leveraging its own private VoIP network to launch Phonebooth Free, a free version of its hosted phone system, which is very similar to Google Voice but aimed at small businesses. Phonebooth.com is a product from Bandwidth.com. While Bandwidth.com might not be as well-known as players like Comcast, Verizon and Cisco, in the business VoIP space it’s a pretty big player. Bandwidth.com has its own VoIP network and because of that has more flexibility over pricing, which is one reason the company can launch products like Phonebooth Free. Phonebooth Free A problem that a lot of small businesses face — especially businesses that have employees located all over the country — is deciding on a phone system. On the one hand, the investment into a PBX system is often an expense that just can’t be justified in the beginning. On the other hand, having everyone use their own cell phones can appear unprofessional — especially if you are a customer-facing company. Services like Grasshopper exist and they offer a low-cost way to get features like auto-attendant (press 1 to reach Jenny in Accounting) and call forwarding, but even they have a minimum monthly pricing plan. Phonebooth Free is, from what I can find, the only free VoIP-based phone system that will give you a local number with up to five extensions, offer call forwarding to multiple sources, voicemail with transcription, and the ability to let users connect with you from the web (like the Google Voice widget) for free. Free? Yeah. Free. If you sign-up for Phonebooth Free you get a free local phone number for up to five users and 200 inbound minutes a month. Every additional minute is 6¢, which is about the industry standard. Phonebooth Free includes an auto-attendant so that you can have number-based redirection to go to other employees or users. And like Google Voice, you can set-up call forwarding to forward to one or multiple cellular phones based on rules that you set. Phonebooth Free also includes support for something called Contact Us Plus, which is a dynamic widget that you can put on your website that offers up contact information (including click-to-call), plus other business contact info like e-mail, Twitter links and a Google Map with your company’s location. The widget is dynamically generated, which means that if you change your phone number or website or other information, it gets updated automatically. Phonebooth OnDemand Phonebooth Free is a brand new offering, but Phonebooth OnDemand is also becoming generally available. Phonebooth OnDemand is a product aimed at businesses that need either more inbound minutes or need to be used with desk phones and have other features from a full-featured phone system. Phonebooth OnDemand is $20 a month per user and includes unlimited local and long distance calls on the Phonebooth.com nationwide network, supports HD VoIP and IP phones, can handle conference calls (that can be set up within the web admin interface), and can do everything that Phonebooth Free can do in terms of number porting and forwarding. Phonebooth.com has an upgrade path that will let users or companies upgrade from Phonebooth Free to Phonebooth OnDemand, if their needs for a phone system extend or grow beyond free offerings. Other Thoughts Phonebooth Free has most of the features of something like Google Voice except for one — outbound calls still appear from the number in which they originate from. I spoke to Todd from Phonebooth.com and he said that while masking tools will probably be available in the future, it will most likely be done on the software side for the individual cell phone clients, because those systems handle that sort of thing better. On the mobile end, Phonebooth sees the potential for mobile and VoIP integration — especially at the business level — and they have plans to make their whole platform integrated across the big mobile platforms. As it stands, you can use your cellular phone with either Phonebooth service without a problem, but mobile clients are something that will be featured in the future. Big Opportunities for Small Businesses By offering a free option with a direct upgrade plan to another product, Phonebooth Free is really attractive for small businesses — or even individuals who want to maintain separate business and personal communications fronts, without having to invest in getting multiple phone numbers or phones. We think that VoIP’s business implications are potentially even greater than its consumer implications, especially as more and more companies move or consider moving to IP-based PBX systems. Hosted services like Phonebooth have a real opportunity to get business from companies that might not want to invest in full systems that someone has to be paid to maintain, but that still want an easy way to route and manage incoming and outgoing calls. Does your business use any sort of VoIP solution? What do you use and why? Let us know! Reviews: Google Voice, Twitter Tags: bandwidth.com, Google Voice, grasshopper, phonebooth, phonebooth free, phonebooth ondemand, voip

Appboy Gets a New Design, iPhone App and Best Buy Partnership Posted: 09 Mar 2010 06:48 PM PST Back in October we wrote about Appboy, a social network for mobile app developers and users. Since launching, Appboy has continued to evolve into a community for both developers and users to find and rate apps, as well as submit ideas for new mobile applications. Appboy has just rolled out a big update to its site which improves the design, adds stronger integration with Facebook and Twitter, and makes it easy to keep up with what your favorite app developers are doing. The site has also launched a new companion iPhone application and started a new partnership with Best Buy Mobile. New Look and Feel The Appboy Profile pages have been given a total facelift. Now, in addition to displaying your user activity and favorite apps, users can link their Twitter accounts with Appboy and auto-publish any #appboy tweets directly to their Appboy page. For users, this feature might not get a ton of play, but for app developers it becomes a pretty handy way of keeping your Appboy profile up-to-date with little fuss. Users can also now login with either Twitter or Facebook Connect. We really like that Appboy has embraced other social networks instead of trying to force users to keep everything in the Appboy garden. You can also now follow other users, which is especially helpful when you want to keep up with what’s happening with your favorite app or app idea. The App Pages have also received a new coat of paint, with an easy way to vote “Love It” or “Hate It” on an app’s page. Comments and reviews can now be viewed separately, which is nice when you just want to distill one group or the other. Plus, users can now add related links, videos and reviews to an app page which can help provide better context. User reviews are also now ratable — Digg style — which allows the most helpful reviews to appear higher on the list. iPhone App In addition to a new website design, Appboy now has its own iPhone app. The free app gives users all the functionality of the website right on the iPhone. That’s really nice, especially when you are looking for a new app or want to leave a review for something you just purchased. Sure, the App Store works for that too, but what is nice about Appboy is that it is a community. Check out these screenshots to see the app in action. As you can see, the interface matches the website and it’s very easy to get around and rate or learn about apps and app ideas. Best Buy Mobile Partnership One of the most unique features of Appboy is that it isn’t focused on just one platform; it’s focused on mobile apps in general. So whether you have an Android device, an iPhone, a BlackBerry or a Palm Pre, you can find, rate and suggest ideas for new apps. Best Buy just launched a new mobile site, Best Buy Mobile, and Appboy powers the Apps section for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. The top 10 apps from each platform are fed into Best Buy’s site and those apps come directly from the Appboy community. This is a pretty big step, considering the relative age of the site, and we think it’s because Appboy has shown itself as being committed to the mobile community as a whole. Looking Good Appboy continues to be a great resource for developers and users wanting to connect and share what’s cool and what sucks in the mobile app space. The new iPhone app is a really nice addition to the site and we hope that the Best Buy partnership will bring even more users into the community. How do you find out about new mobile applications? Let us know! Reviews: Android, Digg, Twitter Tags: android, appboy, apple, apps, iphone, iphone apps, mobile apps

Google Launches the Google Apps Marketplace Posted: 09 Mar 2010 06:05 PM PST Today at the Google’s Campfire One event at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View the Internet search giant is launching its new app store for business, known as the Google Apps Marketplace. Last week, we broke the story that Google Apps Marketplace would launch today, reporting that it would be an app store integrated within Google Apps that would allow third-party developers to sell software directly to Google’s business consumers. Now, with developers gathered at the Googleplex, we’re about to learn how Google Apps Marketplace works and, more importantly, which apps are going to be available at launch. My live notes from the event are below: Google Apps Marketplace: The Details - Note: you can watch the live stream of Google Campfire One on the Google Developers YouTube Channel. - Vic Gundotra, Google’s Vice President of Engineering, has just started speaking - Vic is talking about feedback it’s received from its business customers. Google believes that business apps should be run in the cloud. One problem: to use multiple business apps, you need to log into multiple websites, which can be messy and a security threat. - Google Apps Marketplace announced. - Details: $100 flat fee, no matter the amount of apps you launch. 20% revenue share. This is an important number, as most app stores charge 30% revenue share, especially Apple’s iPhone app store. - Over 50 partners for Google Apps, including Aviary, Expensify, Intuit, and others. - Now Google is talking about the technical details of how to get your app added into the Google Apps interface. - Google’s diving into secure data access via OAuth. Google’s clearly thought about how to make sure that information that apps need is received from users, but that apps don’t take more information than they need. - Google has brought up a developer, Ryan, to demo some of the code to integrate his app with Google Apps Marketplace. It’s a “Hello World” type of app. - If you go to http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/, you’ll see the store’s future splash page. - Intuit is demoing. They’re the people behind Quickbooks and showing off their Intuit Online Payroll app within Google Apps. - They’re showing of integrations of Intuit’s payroll system within Google Calendar. Logging in via Google Apps seems intuitive. - New demo: Scott from Atlassin is demoing Jira Studio. The dashboard they’ve built with Google Apps integration is very impressive. Screenshots coming. - “Fingertip access” to Google Talk. It has Google Docs integration, and is available today. It’s a very killer apps for development management and issue tracking. - Another demo: Manymoon. - The key themes seem to be A) how easy it is to code integration with Google Apps, and B) How many nifty things you can do linked to Google Apps. Google Calendar will definitely benefit from these apps. - Everything will be available tonight for purchase - Last demo of the night: Ryan from Appirio, a cloud solution provider. It’s a tool for managing your team’s cloud applications, such as Salesforce. It’s meant to transition enterprise into the cloud more effectively. - One interesting demo: you can trigger actions within your email with Appirio. You can, for example, get information on customers right from within your email (it’s embedded!). The embeds are called Gmail contextual gadgets, and they are really nifty. - Example: Customers emails you saying that a project is behind schedule. With Appirio, you can access from Gmail the projects that are open with the customer vis PS Connect. It’ll show budget, the status of the project, end dates, and notes. - Google’s David Glazer (Engineering Director) is closing the campfire session. - The President of Google’s Enterprise division is on stage. Security, compatibility, simplicity, and more are possible through cloud apps, which is why Google has bet so heavily on it for enterprise. - 25 million active users of Google Apps. And apparently once companies of 20,000+ employees switch to Google Apps, they don’t switch back. Reviews: Aviary, Gmail, Google, Google Docs, google talk Tags: app store, Campfire One, developers, Expensify, Google, Google App Store, google apps, Google Apps Marketplace, Google Campfire One, trending

Twitter Takes on Phishing with New Security Features Posted: 09 Mar 2010 04:53 PM PST Spam and phishing have been ongoing problems at Twitter for some time, and tonight the company announced that it is stepping up its efforts to stop them with some new features, described as being able to "detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of bad links." In a blog post, Twitter writes that the protection works by "routing all links submitted to Twitter through this new service … even if a bad link is already sent out in an email notification and somebody clicks on it, we’ll be able keep that user safe." How exactly they do that, we're not sure, but Twitter notes that you'll start seeing short links using its own "twt.tl" URL shortener in direct messages and email notifications. As users who have been victimized by phishing scams (and those annoyed by the constant barrage of dodgy DMs) can likely attest, it's a feature whose time has most certainly come. Reviews: Twitter Tags: phishing, security, twitter

Watch Out, Topeka: Greenville, SC, Also Wants to be Googletown, USA Posted: 09 Mar 2010 03:19 PM PST Google's call for medium-sized cities to pilot its high-speed broadband network has attracted the marketing wit of another locale: Greenville, South Carolina. Citizens of Greenville have launched the "We Are Feeling Lucky" campaign –- an obvious play on Google's "I'm Feeling Lucky” button — an effort that will culminate in citizens trying to form "the world’s first and longest human Google chain." Glowsticks will apparently be involved in the event, scheduled to take place on the evening of March 20. The site makes heavy use of Google products and services — likely not a coincidence — in getting its message across. There's also a social media component, with “We Are Feeling Lucky” having a YouTube channel featuring citizen videos, a Facebook event for the "Google on Main" event and a Twitter hashtag: #LuckyGVL. Here’s one of the YouTube clips featuring a variety of Greenville residents: While citizens work to spread the message and draw Google's attention, a formal proposal from the city is in the works to be submitted to Google by the March 26 deadline. Greenville joins a growing list of cities that are getting creative in hopes of landing Google's fiber. Topeka, Kansas, drew headlines when it unofficially renamed itself Google, Kansas. Duluth, Minnesota, went viral (to the degree a video about a public infrastructure proposal can) with a YouTube video. Columbia, Missouri, has 5,000+ fans of a Facebook Page supporting Google Fiber in their town. When Google announced its plan to launch the fiber network test, the company made it clear to us that it has no plans to become an ISP. Nonetheless, it appears that lots of cities would be more than happy to serve as the test bed for its vision of a faster Internet, which its claims will have speeds of up to 100x typical connections. Which campaign for Google Fiber has been your favorite so far? Let us know in the comments. Reviews: Google, Twitter, YouTube Tags: Google, google fiber

HOW TO: Prepare for Disasters Using Social Media Posted: 09 Mar 2010 01:48 PM PST Mollie Vandor is the Product Manager for Ranker.com and Media Director for Girls in Tech LA. You can find her on Twitter and on her blog, where she writes about the web, the world and what it's like to be a geek chic chick. Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes — lately, it seems like there’s a new natural disaster wreaking havoc on poor planet Earth every week. From our television sets to our Twitter streams, it’s impossible to ignore the devastation these disasters leave behind. And, no matter where you’re watching from, it’s hard not to feel just a little bit helpless in the face of such colossal catastrophes. But when it comes to natural disasters, modern technology is making it easier than ever to take control by creating your own emergency response system — no high pitched beeping required. There are tons of tools to help you create emergency preparedness plans, keep in touch during a disaster, and get your life back after one strikes. Nothing will keep you safer or saner during a natural disaster than having a good plan in advance. Create a Plan According to FEMA, the best way to avoid significant damage during a disaster is to prepare an emergency response plan in advance. The FEMA website is a great place to get that process started. In fact, they offer an easy checklist of items you should consider when putting together your plan: Escape routes, family communications, utility shut-off and safety, insurance and vital records, special needs, caring for animals, and safety skills. It seems like a lot, but fortunately, there are plenty of resources to help make all that planning much easier. Figuring out your escape route is probably the top priority when it comes to emergency preparedness. And, making sure that your loved ones know where to go and how to meet up could help keep your family together when everything else is falling apart. That’s where Google’s MyMaps service comes in handy. MyMaps lets you plan a route using landmarks, lines, and shapes, and lets you easily share that route or access it on your mobile browser. Of course, the most reliable option in a disaster is still the lo-fi hard copy of that escape route. MyMaps lets you print perfect copies so you can laminate them and stick them everywhere from the fridge door to the kids’ backpacks. And while you’re throwing things in those backpacks, also think about including an ID card, in case your child is separated from their caretaker during a disaster. You can easily order ID cards online at places like Life360, a site that offers multiple mobile and web-based emergency planning services, including ID cards for your kids and a messaging system that contacts your entire network of family and friends during a disaster. Of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of emergency preparedness apps. From the ICE app for iPhone and Android, which stores your emergency contacts and medical information, to the self-explanatory Emergency Preparedness Checklist (iPhone), there are plenty of quick, easy and mobile options to help you get a jump on your emergency planning. Plus, if you share my proclivity for destroying any home improvement project you come within five feet of, there’s also an easy online guide to help you shut off your utilities, from the Washington state Department of Health. And, the only technical knowledge required is the ability to print the super-simple instructions and tape them up near your door. Keep In Touch One of the scariest parts of any emergency is not being able to reach the people you love — and knowing that the people you love might not be able to reach you. And, of course, you want to stay abreast of all the breaking news about whatever it is that’s going on. Fortunately, one of the best advantages of our constantly-connected world is that there are multiple channels for communication. When one channel goes down during a disaster, you might still be able to get through on another one. The first thing to do is make sure you have a backup plan for keeping all your gadgets in good working order during a disaster. Now might be a good time to invest in a solar charger for your iPhone or Blackberry, for example — not to mention a hand-cranked emergency radio, flashlight and flares. Or, you could just hit up the Red Cross Store for a gadget that does all of the above, and charges your MP3 player too. If you’d rather just upgrade your existing gadgets, check out the Emergency Radio app, which turns your iPhone into a supercharged scanner for police, fire, NOAA and other emergency radio frequencies. Even without any extra apps, your 3G-enabled phone will likely help you stay connected in case of an emergency. Even though phone lines may be down or jammed, the 3G network won’t necessarily be out as well. This is how Twitter status updates helped locate a missing person during the recent Chile earthquake. So, having an app for Twitter, Instant Messenger, or even Facebook on your mobile device might help you keep in touch with loved ones who can’t get through to you via more traditional means of communication. And, a quick status update telling everyone where you are and how you’re doing could help give loved ones peace of mind in the middle of the chaos that comes with a catastrophe. Speaking of peace of mind, FEMA will actually e-mail you disaster updates in real-time, so you can stay up to date on the latest breaking disaster news. Most college campuses have similar services, so students — and their parents — can receive regular text messages and e-mails during an emergency. The FCC actually maintains a pretty good list of these services. And, of course, you should always know the right resources for specific information about the particular types of catastrophes that are common to your neck of the woods. For example, during the recent Hawaii tsunami warnings, residents could receive up-to-the-minute reports from a variety of sources, including NOAA. So, bookmark your local emergency services sites, or add them to an RSS feed or special start page. Create a Twitter list of the people you trust for breaking news about your area, or set up an old fashioned phone tree using e-mail over 3G as a backup in case the phone lines go down. No matter what you decide to do, make sure you have plans in place for staying in touch across multiple means of communication. You never know what will work and what won’t if a disaster really does strike. Get Your Life Back Once the immediate threat of a natural disaster has passed, you may find yourself facing an awful lot of cleanup, not to mention plenty of paperwork, as you try to recover your assets. This is why it’s important to catalog your stuff before that happens. This will make the process of an insurance claim much easier. The first step in setting up a cataloging system is to get yourself organized. There are plenty of apps for that, and options for Blackberry users as well. Once you’re organized, you can start scanning all of your important possessions and papers into a web-based app, which will store them in the cloud. So, no matter what you lose in a disaster, you won’t lose your records too. Use Home Inventory for iPhone or Star Home Inventory for Blackberry to track all of your stuff from the comfort of your mobile device. If you have a Mac, you can also use DeliciousMonster to scan all of your books, movies and more into your computer by their bar codes. Or, just hook up a standard barcode scanner directly to your laptop. Publish your stuff to the web to make sure your data is safe in case your desktop is destroyed. And, to really be on the safe side, create a Google Docs account, and back up your important insurance papers directly from your desktop. The Last Word Despite how far modern technology has come, we still haven’t figured out a perfect way to prevent natural disasters. Preparation is still the best defense. Proper planning means that if a disaster does strike, you’ll know what to do, where to go, and how to recover — which is some pretty powerful stuff indeed, even in the face of the forces of nature. More social media resources from Mashable: - 5 Ways to Use Twitter to Avoid a Backchannel Disaster - How Companies Are Using Your Social Media Data - The Science of Building Trust With Social Media - How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement - 3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology Image courtesy of iStockphoto, BradenGunem Reviews: Android, BlackBerry Rocks!, Facebook, Google Docs, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: disaster, emergency, how to, List, Lists, social media

Lindsay Lohan Sues E-Trade Claiming Baby Ad Is a Parody of Her [VIDEO] Posted: 09 Mar 2010 01:30 PM PST The Super Bowl may be long over, but Brand Battle 2010 continues to rage on, as yet another commercial is bit by the controversy bug — this time one of those adorable spots from E-Trade featuring a talking baby named “Lindsay.” According to the New York Post, actress Lindsay Lohan is suing the investment site on the grounds that the man-eating, substance-abusing baby in the commercial is based on her. Lohan’s lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia, is asking that the commercial be taken off the air and every copy of the offending spot be rounded up (which could now be more difficult given today’s coverage). The actress is also asking for $100 million. According to Ovadia: “Many celebrities are known by one name only, and E-Trade is using that knowledge to profit… They used the name Lindsay…They’re using her name as a parody of her life. Why didn’t they use the name Susan? This is a subliminal message. Everybody’s talking about it and saying it’s Lindsay Lohan.” Ovadia also says Lohan was mistreated because E-Trade didn’t get her approval nor offer her compensation for allegedly being referred to in the ad. Now, the lawyer says her client is owed $50 million in exemplary damages, as well as $50 million in compensatory damages. Although Ovadia says that the spot — which debuted during the Super Bowl and aired during the Winter Olympics — helped garner E-Trade mucho money, it wasn’t one of the most popular ads to premiere. It didn’t rank tops with either online viewers or couch potatoes (although the talking baby series has racked up a lot of success in the past). Still, today it joins a cadre of commercials that cleaned up on hits due to controversy — including the Tim Tebow spot, GoDaddy’s rejected “Lola” ad and men’s-only dating site ManCrunch’s similarly punted ad. One could argue that by suing E-Trade, Lohan is calling even more attention to the ad in question. As of right now, the ad has nearly 2.5 million views on YouTube. It remains to be seen — most likely tomorrow — what effect this lawsuit has on further increasing visibility. But judging from the fact that it’s been cropping up all over the web since the litigious news hit, you can bet Lohan’s legal ire will ensure the vid’s virality for at least the remainder of this week. Check out the vid below and let us know in the comments whether or not Lohan has a case. Reviews: YouTube Tags: legal, lindsay lohan, MARKETING, Super Bowl, viral video, youtube

Hulu Gets 400 Hours of NFL Video Posted: 09 Mar 2010 01:12 PM PST Hulu struck a deal to host content from The NFL Network in January, including eight shows and highlights from every team in the National Football League. The network has been adding new content to the site ever since, and this week Hulu has posted an impressive 400 hours of NFL-related videos. Fierce Online Video reports that Hulu plans to add 600 more hours before the next football season starts. Sports enthusiasts are seeing a big boom in web video coverage; the NCAA college basketball league just launched a website that streams shareable clips from countless March Madness plays. Meanwhile, Hulu is likely hoping deals like this one will — in tandem with its own in-house reality show If I Can Dream — help make up for the loss of two of its most popular shows, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Hulu saw a slight dip in viewership in the month of January, but maybe this vast library of NFL content will help pull the numbers back up. [via Business Insider] Reviews: Hulu Tags: football, hulu, News, nfl, nfl network, sports, video

On Android, MySpace Reigns Supreme Posted: 09 Mar 2010 12:53 PM PST Despite CEO drama, plummeting traffic and even declining mobile website usage, MySpace Mobile for Android is the most popular social app in the Android Market and the third most popular downloaded application overall. While Facebook might dominate social networking apps on the iPhone, Facebook for Android leaves much to be desired. It’s not as bad as it was six months ago, but it still pales in comparison to the offerings for BlackBerry — let alone the iPhone. MySpace Mobile for Android on the other hand, integrates itself extremely well within the Google ecosystem and the Android platform. You can even update your status via voice, using a widget available in the MySpace app. AndroidStats, a site that tracks the rankings in the Android Market, shows that MySpace Mobile for Android has consistently been a big winner for the platform. We think the great integration with the platform has something to do with that. Let’s throw the question to Android users: What app do you prefer, Facebook or MySpace on your Android phone? Does strong mobile integration make a social network more appealing? Let us know! Reviews: Android, Android Market, Facebook, Google, MySpace, iPhone Tags: android, myspace

Retweet.com Sells for $250,000 Posted: 09 Mar 2010 12:33 PM PST Retweet.com, which put itself up for sale last month, has sold for $250,000 in an online auction on Flippa. The auction saw a fair amount of interest with 45 bids in total, but it appears that the winning party came in with a "buy it now" offer for $48,000 more than the current bid to take ownership of the Tweetmeme competitor. Like Tweetmeme, the site aggregates the most popular links on Twitter, and also provides third-party websites with buttons that lets their visitors easily retweet articles. Although the service isn't as popular as Tweetmeme, it has been able to accumulate respectable traffic, and it's ideal name give it significant branding power. According to the company's listing on Flippa, there is not yet any revenue. At this point, we don't know who the buyer is, though we heard rumblings last month that a major social news site was interested. We're looking for more information and have contacted the team behind Retweet.com for details. We'll update if we learn more. [thanks Matt Binder for the tip] Reviews: Tweetmeme, Twitter Tags: retweet, tweetmeme, twitter

Palm Looks to Bring iPhone Games to webOS with New PDK Posted: 09 Mar 2010 12:27 PM PST Palm has announced the beta release of its Plug-in Developer Kit — or PDK — a new component in the webOS SDK that will make for dramatically better gaming on the Palm Pre, Palm Pixi and all future webOS devices. Originally announced back in January at the CES show, the release’s venue — the ongoing Game Developers Conference in San Francisco — is as much an indication of Palm’s gaming ambitions for its platform as the release itself. The PDK now lets developers use C and C++ and the OpenGL ES graphics API for 3D graphics and means, in Palm’s words, that developers who have built games for other platforms can now bring their titles to the webOS platform. Put even more simply, it’s a way of luring developers to the webOS platform offering an easy way to convert iPhone games, for example, to work on Palm handsets, therefore bolstering the webOS’s available apps with popular titles from other platforms. Thanks to early access to the PDK, some developers (EA Mobile, Gameloft, Glu Mobile and Laminar Research) are already offering 3D titles via the Palm App Catalog, however new games created with the public beta PDK won’t actually work on Palm phones until a webOS update is pushed out some time “during the middle of the year”. Those on the dev side of the fence can head over to the Developer Portal and download the Palm webOS PDK now. Tags: games, palm, webOS

PlayStation First to Sell HD Movies from All Major Studios Posted: 09 Mar 2010 12:03 PM PST Sony Computer Entertainment is proudly shouting “FIRST” (YouTube commenter-style) with an announcement that claims the PlayStation Network is the first online service to sell high-definition movies from all the major movie studios: Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Walt Disney, Warner Bros and, of course, Sony Pictures. Some of the content has been around for a while — for example, NBC Universal videos debuted on the PlayStation Network one year ago tomorrow — but PlayStation owners have access to a few new movies today. They include Up, G-Force, Earth, Star Trek, Paranormal Activity, Zoolander, This Is It, 2012, District 9, Zombieland, Inglourious Basterds, Couples Retreat, Public Enemies, The Hangover, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Wizard of Oz. All the studios but Fox are represented there; Fox’s new contributions (Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Jennifer’s Body and Fantastic Mr. Fox) will debut on the PSN this Saturday, March 13. PSN competitors like Apple’s iTunes Store and Apple TV set-top box and Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace and Xbox 360 console offer formidable libraries of on-demand video from the major movie studios, but Sony is boasting that it’s the only one to offer HD content from all of them. In a time when the market is terribly fragmented between so many different formats and services, posting HD content from every major studio is actually a notable feat. Sony will have more firsts on the horizon, too; the PlayStation 3 is going 3D soon. Apple and Microsoft have had their own opportunities to say “first,” though. The Xbox 360 streamed Netflix movies first, and both Apple’s iTunes Store and the Xbox 360 offered movie downloads and rentals before the PlayStation Network did. Reviews: harry potter, iTunes, zombieland Tags: 20th century fox, Film, hd, Movies, nbc universal, paramount pictures, playstation 3, playstation network, playstation portable, PS3, PSP, sony, Sony Pictures, sony playstation 3, Sony PSP, video games, walt disney pictures, warner bros

Foursquare + Google Maps = FourWhere Posted: 09 Mar 2010 11:45 AM PST New location-based social search tool FourWhere shows Foursquare tips and comments using Google Maps so you can search and discover what everyone is saying about nearby places. Users simply input a location or address into FourWhere, right-click (control click) on the map and select display preferences. The map can display all comments nearby, all venues in the vicinity and/or remove venues without tips. It’s a simple app with a powerful purpose. For those of us preparing to journey out to Austin for SXSW, FourWhere’s release couldn’t have come at a better time. A search around the downtown area yields comments with insightful information about restaurants and bars. Essentially the application offers a map-based search experience for socialites looking to plan a fun night out. FourWhere currently only pulls in data from Foursquare, but Sysomos, the company behind the app, has plans to integrate more social data in the future. Reviews: Foursquare Tags: foursquare, fourwhere, location-based, sysomos

Facebook to Launch Location Features Next Month Posted: 09 Mar 2010 11:03 AM PST Facebook's move into location has seemed inevitable for some time, and it now appears that the company will officially reveal its plans at next month's Facebook developer conference –- f8. According to The New York Times, the social network will incorporate location in two ways: (1) its own features for sharing location and (2) APIs to let other apps — like Foursquare and Gowalla –- offer location services to Facebook users. Presumably, Facebook will make sure to address privacy issues with its location features — for example, perhaps with settings that allow you to share your location only with a select group of friends. The Times’ report doesn’t detail the specifics of such features, though it notes that the social network updated its privacy policy late last year in preparation for a location launch. Facebook will be rolling out its location features to an enormous user base — there are now more than 400 million users of the social network in total, 100 million of which access the site via mobile regularly. The company also has its own native apps for all of the major mobile platforms. All of this gives Facebook’s location features an enormous edge over the competition. The Times’ report suggests that the competition isn’t the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla, however, but rather Google and its huge base of local small business advertisers. Of course, the startups aren’t ignoring this opportunity either — earlier today, Foursquare shared details of upcoming features it plans to release to help local businesses utilize checkin data. With Facebook entering the space, though, the other players will need to look to create value in ways beyond checkins and knowing where your friends are located at any given point in time. That’s why Foursquare seems to be so focused on partnerships and gaming, while Gowalla is making moves (as recently as last night) in virtual goods. In any event, location remains the huge trend so far in 2010, and literally each day seems to bring new indications of which way it will all play out. Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Google, Gowalla Tags: facebook, foursquare, social networking, trending

Announcing Mashable’s Google Wave API Challenge Posted: 09 Mar 2010 11:02 AM PST Mashable and the Google Wave team are proud to announce the Google Wave API Challenge, a month-long competition to create exciting new Google Wave extensions. Google Wave's latest updated clean API and new extension abilities allow for faster development, more opportunities for integrations and lots of exciting potential for many new Google Wave use cases. We invite developers from around the world to showcase their latest extensions. Over the next several weeks, Mashable and the Google Wave team will be showcasing and discussing the most interesting submissions. There will be 3 voting categories: Most Fun, Most Useful and Best Use of the Embed API. We’ll then pick a Judge’s Choice as the overall winner. The winning developer/development team will receive 2 unlocked Nexus Ones, see their extension featured on Mashable AND receive free passes to the Google I/O conference. 4 Step Submission Process Step 1: Developers install the “Mashable submitty extension” from the public read-only wave Step 2: After installing this, you’ll get a “New Mashable Submission” in your new wave menu Step 3: Just use our “Mashable Submitty” Google Extension and fill out the form. Step 4: After approving valid entries, we’ll create a public discussion wave with entries including a voting gadget. Timeline: Submissions Open: March 8th, 2010 Submissions Close: April 9th, 2010 11:59 PM EST Public Voting on Top 20 submissions: April 12th, 2010 – April 19th, 2010 Winner Announced: April 21st, 2010 Rules: • Developer or Developer Team (Preferred max of 4 names submitted) • Existing Extensions are eligible only if they use the new API (ports to the new API are fine) • Full Credit for any work due must be entered in April 9th, 2010 • Over 18 to receive prize • Final winning submission will be judged exclusively by Mashable and Google Wave team Reviews: Google, Google Wave, Mashable Tags: contest, Google, Google Wave, google wave api challenge

ShiftPlanning Makes Setting Schedules for Businesses Easy Posted: 09 Mar 2010 10:55 AM PST This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: ShiftPlanning Quick Pitch: ShiftPlanning Provides free employee scheduling tools to businesses of all sizes. Genius Idea: ShiftPlanning is a web-based tool for companies that want a way to easily and efficiently manage work schedules and availability. Schedule management, especially for companies or individuals who work remotely, can be difficult. Sure, you can use stuff like Google Docs and Basecamp for setting company-wide events, but once you have more than a handful of employees, keeping track of all that information can be tough. ShiftPlanning is a suite of shift and scheduling tools that both employers and employees can use. You can use the system to set up multiple schedules, trade shifts, handle vacation days and requests, and to create a record of availability. We like that ShiftPlanning doesn’t keep your data behind its walled garden; you can print or export files, access the site from your mobile phone and even integrate the system into your own website. ShiftPlanning is free and worth checking out if you have problems managing schedules and employee shifts in your business or organization. What tools do you use to manage schedules? Let us know! Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines)." Reviews: Basecamp, Google Docs, PHP, ShiftPlanning Tags: business, scheduling, shiftplanning, web apps

Samsung Debuts 3D TV Lineup Posted: 09 Mar 2010 10:40 AM PST 3D is set to be big this year, and Samsung is hoping to tempt early adopters with a promotional offer that attempts to combat one of 3D TV’s main problems — lack of content — by bundling in a 3D movie with certain sales. The promotion takes the form of a new “Starter Kit” that offers U.S. consumers the chance to enjoy 3D movies in their own living rooms, rather than having to head to nearest cinema to check out the eye-popping action. In 2010, Samsung will offer a range of 3D-capable TVs, including the LED 7000/8000/9000 Series, LCD 750 Series and the Plasma 7000/8000 Series. Still, just two models will actually hit shop shelves this month: 46-inch and 55-inch models of the LED C7000. The promotional Starter Kit will see anyone who buys a 2010 Samsung 3D TV and 3D Blu-ray Player or Home Theater System getting two pairs of Samsung 3D active glasses and a 3D version of DreamWorks Animation’s Monsters vs. Aliens on Blu-ray with 3D Shrek promised in the second half of the year. As well as 3D abilities, the new LED TVs offer Internet@TV connectivity with the new Samsung App Store on board. To give you an idea of what you’ll have to cough up to go 3D in the comfort of your own home, pricing for the TVs alone ranges from $380 to $7,000. Samsung’s 3D range arrives ahead of Sony’s due this summer and just a day ahead of Panasonic’s, due to launch in conjunction with Best Buy in the States on March 10. Will you be splashing out for three-dimensional television? Let us know in the comments below. Reviews: Blu Tags: 3D, 3dtv, dreamworks, samsung, televisions

Foursquare Courts Business Users with Checkin Analysis Features Posted: 09 Mar 2010 09:55 AM PST The Foursquare platform currently caters to consumers and offers businesses the ability to provide specials. Today, however, we’re learning more information about a business dashboard — complete with checkin analytics — that’s being gradually rolled out to business owners. While the dashboard is still an alpha product, it’s already able to make the distinction between staff and customers, and tracks checkins on a daily, weekly, 30/60/90-day or all-time basis. Data includes total checkins, unique visitors, male-to-female ratio, social media-sharing (i.e. showing how many users are sending their checkins to Twitter), top visitors and checkin time breakdown. Users can opt-out of sharing their checkin data via settings section of the website. According to The New York Times’ Bits blog, “Business owners will also be able to offer instant promotions to try to engage new customers and keep current ones,” and, “there will also be a Staff page available to each business that will allow employees to interact directly with customers using social networks.” When we followed up with Tristan Walker of Foursquare we also learned that as of right now 30 venue owners have access to the new tool, which the company has been testing for a week. In the coming weeks, Foursquare plans to introduce the insightful utility to all businesses running specials with the company — close to 1,000 businesses. Real-World Meets Checkin This is just the beginning of the business dashboard, as Walker tells us that the company has plans to continue to innovate and integrate real-world phenomena with its valuable checkin data. For example, Walker tells us that Foursquare is “thinking about … correlating checkins with weather patterns,” so “for a merchant offering incentives there may be a way for them to offer better incentives on rainy days.” But that’s just scratching the service. Remember Tasti D-Lite’s re-imagining of the customer loyalty program? The new TreatCard uses Foursquare’s API to automatically check customers into venues and tie purchase information with rewards. Tasti D-Lite’s Foursquare checkin/purchase setup sets the stage for the day when the business dashboard will include purchase information, to which Walker says, “Once we can add purchase information on top of checkins things can get pretty interesting.” This is all fine and dandy for the neighborhood coffee shop or local bar, and very much supersedes what Yelp provides or Google offers businesses via Place Pages, but what about the Starbucks of the world? Clearly this type of analysis — if it could scale — would be killer for big businesses interested in tracking their trending venues and discerning what works by location. Walker admits that the company will need to make adjustments to allow for aggregation, but that the dashboard will be for everyone. And while he wouldn’t give us any names, he did say, “We’ve been talking with quite a few [large corporations] who are excited about the potential for this.” At the end of the day, the business features further contribute to Foursquare changing the world as we know it. In a previous post on the subject matter, I wrote that Foursquare was redefining what it meant to be a regular and pioneering a deeper connection between place and patron. Given that businesses using Foursquare will soon be able to interact with their checked-in customers, those two assertions are now more true than ever. Just as businesses see a huge advantage to interacting with potential and existing customers (and naysayers) on Twitter, so too will they experience the same advantages on Foursquare, but with even more incentives and a plethora of data at their fingertips. [img credits: MariSheibely, Bits] Reviews: Foursquare, Google, Twitter, Yelp Tags: business dashboard, foursquare, MARKETING, social media

MacHeist Offers Early Access to Tweetie 2 for Mac Posted: 09 Mar 2010 09:29 AM PST Tweetie for Mac is the newest bonus edition to the MacHeist nanoBundle 2, which gives Mac users an opportunity to buy a variety of software for a discounted price. Additionally, buyers will also get early access to the pre-public beta for Tweetie 2 for Mac, plus a free upgrade to Tweetie 2 once it is released. When Loren “Atebits” Brichter released Tweetie 2 for the iPhone last fall, one of the biggest new features in the app was that it was completely rewritten in such a way that the desktop version of Tweetie for Mac and the iPhone version could share the same codebase. From a development standpoint, that means that adding new features to both apps would be easier and more streamlined. Tweetie for Mac is still a great Twitter client — especially for users like me who like to avoid Adobe AIR whenever possible — but it has grown a bit long-in-the-tooth, when compared with either its iPhone counterpart or some other newer Mac alternatives. That’s why getting early access to Tweetie 2 for Mac is so compelling. It’s a nice rejoinder to fans who have wanted to get updates on the status of Tweetie for Mac, while also offering up some promotion for the new version in the process. One note about how MacHeist works: Users get licenses for most apps immediately upon purchase, but some apps have an “unlock” number that needs to be reached before serials are given out. Now, this is largely a marketing technique (I’ve never seen any MacHeist that didn’t end with all apps being unlocked for all buyers), but you might not get your Tweetie for Mac license until tomorrow afternoon (or whenever the “magic” number of sales hits). MacHeist is $19.95 for eight apps (including Tweetie for Mac), plus you can get three other apps for free by taking part in a MacHeist “Tweetblast.” The sale runs through tomorrow night and the Tweetie 2 alpha preview is expected to start sometime next month. What is your favorite Twitter client for Mac? Reviews: Twitter, adobe AIR, tweetie Tags: apple, mac apps, mac software, macheist, software, tweetie, tweetie 2 for mac, tweetie for mac

“Tron Legacy” Trailer Featuring Jeff Bridges Hits the Web [VIDEO] Posted: 09 Mar 2010 09:15 AM PST New Academy Award-winner Jeff Bridges reprises his role as arcade regular and computer programming genius Flynn in the trailer for Tron Legacy, which just made its official web debut today. The film is a long-anticipated sequel to the 1980s geek classic Tron, and this is the first full-length trailer. The film (or at least the trailer) focuses on Flynn’s son, who goes looking for his father in the now-abandoned arcade that was the launching point for the first movie, only to find him in a more technologically advanced version of the fantastic and dangerous virtual world introduced in the first film (which won much acclaim for special effects). Since the franchise has always been about the latest in filmmaking technology, Tron Legacy will be presented in 3D. A 3D trailer actually premiered before select showings of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Tron fans traveled from distant cities to see it. The movie is also trending on Twitter right now, so we think this has the makings of a hit. Disney plans to release Tron Legacy on December 17, believing that it will draw a big audience during the lucrative holiday season. We know many Mashable readers are going to be interested in seeing this film, but does it have any chance of living up to the iconic original? Watch the trailer and leave a comment letting us and other readers know what you think. Watch the Trailer Reviews: Mashable Tags: 3D, disney, Film, jeff bridges, Movies, trailer, tron legacy, video

Why Computer Engineer Barbie Is Good for Women in Tech Posted: 09 Mar 2010 08:54 AM PST Rebecca Zook is an online female math tutor who has been helping students get math into their brains for seven years. She blogs about learning at Triangle Suitcase. Over half a million votes were cast to decide Barbie's newest career. But even though Computer Engineer Barbie was developed in consultation with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering, the new doll's appearance has sparked controversy. While some have embraced coder Barbie, others have attacked the concept, saying that her pink laptop, sparkly leggings, and trendy glasses are "too feminine" to be realistic. The critics imply that real coders aren't feminine, and feminine coders aren't real. But women shouldn't feel like they have to stop being feminine to work in technology. The First Computer Programmer Was a Fashionista That's right. The first coder was a lady. Ada Lovelace, over a century ahead of her time, is widely considered to be the first computer programmer. She was the first person to conceptualize and articulate what computers were capable of doing, and the first to foresee that computers could create artificial intelligence, generate graphics, and create music. So, is Barbie's outfit really that unrealistic? If the very first person to conceptualize a computer did so while wearing a girly up-do and a frilly gown, why can't someone write great code while wearing pink platform crocs and a t-shirt that spells "BARBIE" in binary? Women and Tech Today This false dichotomy — that you have to choose between being feminine and "looking the part" of a mathematician or scientist — might be part of what turns girls off from math and science in the first place. Or maybe girls don't aim for careers in math and science because they don't see role models. Even Ada Lovelace had role models. Her mom, the “Princess of Parallelograms,” loved math and gave Lovelace a very intensive math education. And Lovelace was also mentored by legendary female science writer and polymath Mary Somerville. Or maybe girls are afraid of being the only woman in their technology courses or workplaces. If that's the case, their concerns are certainly warranted. Not only are fewer women entering the information technology field, but more women are leaving the field mid-career. A recent Harvard Business Review report, The Athena Factor, notes that “52% of highly qualified females working for SET [science, engineering, and technology] companies quit their jobs, driven out by hostile work environments and extreme job pressures.” These women report that they lack mentors and feel intense isolation in the workplace. Coder Barbie and the Future In 2010, maybe Computer Engineer Barbie would feel uncomfortable writing code on a pink laptop that matched her glasses in a workplace where she was outnumbered by men 25-to-1. But perhaps we should aspire to create a world where Computer Engineer Barbie and her gloriously pink accessories could realistically exist. Allowing a vision of an ultra-feminine computer engineer might, even subconsciously, open girls — and the rest of society — up to the possibility. As a female math tutor, I used to feel the need to “tone down” my feminine style. I'd wear black slacks when working with my students for fear of appearing “unprofessional.” But then I decided to show my true fashion colors and wear my homemade dresses and sparkly barrettes when tutoring. Since then, some kids have been openly relieved when they met me and found I didn't look like their stereotype of a math tutor. The “math geek” stereotype in their brains was more intimidating and less fun than the real-life tutor wearing fuzzy pink boots. You don't have to choose between looking feminine and being good at math, science, and engineering. We need all kinds of people, all kinds of minds, and all kinds of geeks to solve our technology problems. More tech resources from Mashable: - 10 Essential Chrome Extensions for Web Developers - 10 Popular Firefox Add-ons for Web Developers - 5 Must-Have Geek Collectibles Tags: barbie, careers, coder, computer engineer, girls, Kids, mathematics, programming, Science, tech, trending, women

Cisco CRS-3: Download Library of Congress in Just Over One Second Posted: 09 Mar 2010 08:37 AM PST Cisco has announced a new routing system that it says is going to speed up the Internet in a big way. According to the company, Cisco CRS-3 — currently being tested by AT&T — is three times faster than its predecessor, which was introduced in 2004. The company offers a few intriguing sound bites about the CRS-3 and what it enables: - the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress to be downloaded in just over one second - every man, woman and child in China to make a video call, simultaneously - every motion picture ever created to be streamed in less than four minutes. Of course, that's not for end users, but ultimately allows the telecom companies (Cisco's customers) to route traffic around the Internet faster. Speaking to the reasoning behind the new speed push, Cisco CEO John Chambers says in the video below that he expects Internet traffic to grow at "200-500 percent per year" as bandwidth-intensive activities like downloading and streaming video continue to explode. At the same time, Google has its own ideas for speeding up the Internet, and is currently looking to test its own fiber network to deliver 1 gigabit per second Internet connections (and Topeka, Kansas wants in!). One way or another, it looks like the Internet is only going to continue to get faster. Here's Chambers's video and another with more of the nitty-gritty details of CRS-3: Reviews: Google Tags: cisco, crs-3

Go Tribal Helps Friends Coordinate Informal Plans Posted: 09 Mar 2010 07:59 AM PST Launching in beta today, Go Tribal tackles the other side of the equation from formal event services like Meetup or Plancast by helping members organize informal group plans. By identifying when users are free and available to hang out, Go Tribal hopes to eliminate some of the hassle involved in coordinating friends for spontaneous group activities. Targeted primarily towards women, Go Tribal’s goal is to facilitate meaningful offline interaction via simple technology that lets users see which of their friends is “down to hang out” at any given time. Members can set status indicators for upcoming dates, allowing peer groups to identify the best times to arrange informal get-togethers. Once a group has agreed upon a physical meetup, members can coordinate on the specifics of time and place, plus use existing social networks like Facebook and Twitter to further socialize the event and send out more invites. We spoke with Founder and CEO Shruti Challa about the service, which will be open to the first 10,000 signups in the U.S. for now. She said the inspiration for Go Tribal arose naturally out of the young founding team (which also includes Chris Baclig, Eric Ma and Amara Humphry), who upon recent graduation from Stanford discovered a lack of tools for maintaining existing friendships in the physical world. “Technology seemed to be getting further away from creating and sustaining relationships in real life. Facebook and Twitter seemed distant, and we wanted to use technology to help create a physical connection,” Challa said of the new startup. Future plans for Go Tribal include integrating more contextual local search and information tools to help members decide where to spend their group time once they settle on a date and time to get together. The startup also plans to eventually work more closely with businesses to help groups influence decisions when they’re actually being made — imagine a coalesced social group with some bargaining power to “shop around” for potential deals and experiences that clubs or venues might be willing to offer in exchange for securing business from a large group. With an interesting twist on local and informal group event organization and a smart road map ahead, Go Tribal is a social service to watch. If you have a chance to check out the service, let us know what you think. What features would you want to see in a service facilitating informal meetups? Reviews: Facebook, Twitter Tags: Events, facebook, go tribal, informal plans, meetup, social media, startups, twitter

Amazon is Working on a Better Web Browser for Kindle Posted: 09 Mar 2010 07:00 AM PST Ask any Kindle owner about browsing the web on the device, and you’ll get the same answer: Well, you can do it, but… And then you’ll hear how abysmal the browsing experience really is. Having tried it myself, it made me want to whip out my iPhone and its Safari at each turn. Now, the folks at Webmonkey have noticed that Amazon has posted a job listing (the listing has been online for quite a while, but has only now been noticed), looking for a software development engineer to “design and implement new features” on an “innovative Embedded Web Browser.” While it’s the current Kindle’s monochrome, slowish screen will never provide a beautiful browsing experience, improvements could definitely be made to the current browser. With the iPad coming to the U.S. market in less than a month, Amazon needs to do damage control in all areas in which Apple’s device is superior to the Kindle, and building a better web browser is probably a priority. The real question, however, is this: Will users prefer the readability of the e-ink screen or the more beautiful (but perhaps less enjoyable when you’re reading a book), backlit color LCD? Or will a new technology emerge, connecting the best of both worlds? For example, Kindle doesn’t have a touchscreen, but Sony’s e-readers have shown that it is possible to have one on an e-ink display, at the expense of some glare. We’ll have some (but not all) answers when the iPad finally hits the market. In the meantime, tell us what you think. Will Kindle (with its current e-ink screen) ever provide a good or even great browsing experience? Please write your opinion in the comments. Tags: amazon, browser, Kindle, trending

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