Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Google Goes Underground for Nicolas Steno’s Birthday”

Mashable: Latest 29 News Updates - including “Google Goes Underground for Nicolas Steno’s Birthday”

Google Goes Underground for Nicolas Steno’s Birthday

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 03:01 AM PST


Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 374th birthday of Nicolas Steno, often called the “father of geology.”

Born on January 11, 1638, Steno was a Danish bishop and scientist best known for his “principle of original horizontality,” stating that layers of sediment are originally deposited horizontally due to gravity, as well as “law of superposition,” which states that layers of sediment are deposited in such a way that the oldest reside on the bottom and the youngest on top.

With his research, Steno laid down the foundations of stratigraphy, a branch of geology that studies rock layers. He also had notable contributions to paleontology, as he was one of the first to suggest that fossils were remains of once-living organisms.

Steno died in 1686. He converted to Catholicism from Lutheranism, and Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1988.

Bonus: Here are the best Google Doodles of 2011:


1. Martin Luther King Jr.




This Google Doodle, displayed Jan. 17, features a group of children playing hopscotch — an homage to Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Google, google doodle, Nicolas Steno

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This Swiss Army Knife Comes With a 1 TB USB Flash Drive

Posted: 11 Jan 2012 01:45 AM PST


Victorinox has unveiled a Swiss Army knife with a USB flash drive that holds 1 terabyte of data.

The company has had a USB knife in its line of products for a while, but the Victorinox SSD comes with several new features: it connects to eSATA II/III as well as USB 2.0/3.0 with a single connector, it has a monochrome graphic display showing what’s on the drive and it supports 256 AES encryption.

Data transfer speeds are 220 MB/s for reading and 150 MB/s for writing data, and the availabile capacities range from 64 GB to a whopping 1 TB.

Of course, the knife also has a blade, scissors, nail file with a screwdriver tip and a LED/laser pointer. All you frequent travelers needn’t worry – the drive can be interchanged between the fully-equipped body and the flight-friendly body, which comes without the pointy stuff.

The company has also launched the Slim 3.0 USB drive, which goes up to 128 GB on the storage side and offers 10 times faster data transfer than the previous version.

Both devices will be available in April 2012 at a yet unannounced price.

CES 2012: Mashable’s Photo Coverage From the Ground

Check out more gadgets, booths and appearances from our team on the ground at CES 2012.


Thermador Cooktop




The Freedom Induction Cooktop by Thermador allows the user to place pots anywhere on it's surface for cooking.

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More About: CES, CES 2012, Swiss army knife, Swiss knife, Victorinox

Parrot Zik: Best Bluetooth Headphones Ever? [HANDS ON]

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 11:37 PM PST

zik by starck 360

LAS VEGAS — There are several reasons Bluetooth headphones haven’t taken off — lousy designs, poor execution, that cumbersome “pairing” — but the Zik, a new headset that Parrot unveiled at CES 2012, appears to address pretty much all of them. The Zik is one of the cleverest implementations of wireless technology we’ve seen in headphones to date.

For starters, the Zik has serious design cred behind it. It’s another baby of designer Phillipe Starck, who also collaborated with Parrot on speakers, and he seems to have struck gold here. The Zik’s earcups completely enclose the ear — a style made popular again by Beats Audio — but the headset is comfortable to wear and has an elegant look.

The Zik’s sleek look is partly due to the unusual fact that it has no buttons for volume or jumping tracks. To turn up the volume of your streamed music, just swipe your finger up the back of the right earcup. To track up, swipe forward; track down, swipe back. And to pause? Just take off the headset and it knows to stop the music until you put it back on — very smart.

But what about pairing with your cellphone? Yes, you still need to do that, but if your phone has near-field communication (NFC) — the short-range mobile-payments technology found in the Galaxy Nexus and a few other phones — you’ll be saved the trouble. Just tapping the phone to one of the earcups will automatically pair it with the Zik, no typing required.

Want more? How about bone-conduction technology to help cancel noise when you have to take a call. Or the active noise cancellation that detects and stamps out noise both outside and and inside the headset. And the accompanying app, which gives you precise control over your sound, from the width of the soundstage to multiple equalizer.

In our listening test of the Zik, we felt the sound quality was excellent. Both highs and lows sounded clean without distortion, and it could give plenty of oomph when needed. Noise cancellation wasn’t quite as good as, say, the Bose QuiteComfort 15, but it’s fine for most purposes.

Parrot didn’t say when it would be out and what it would cost, so we’ll have to just drool over our photos until then. Are you as impressed with the Zik as we are? Let us know what you want from a pair of wireless headphones in the comments.


Parrot Zik Headphones




The Zik Parrot, designed by Phillipe Starck, is a pair of Bluetooth headphones designed by Phillipe Starck.

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More About: bluetooth, Headphones, parrot

How Humans Copy Animals on Facebook and Twitter [VIDEO]

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 08:41 PM PST


Forget the Winklevoss twins. The next suit accusing Mark Zuckerberg of stealing the Facebook idea might just come from Flipper.

A study by scientists in the United Kingdom says that human use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter mimics the ways animals including dolphins and monkeys have long shared information about their own lives and worlds.

“Social networks are the same across all species and, whilst details of their structure may differ, some properties remain the same whether we are looking at killer whales, spider monkeys or, indeed, humans,” University of Aberdeen biological sciences lecturer David Lusseau tells The Press Association.

Lusseau, who led the 10-year study on animal behavior, will present his findings next Wednesday in Aberdeen in a talk called, “Did Animals Invent Twitter?”

Lusseau’s project found that dolphins, whales, primates and hoofed animals all form groups to help make decisions efficiently and effectively to benefit the individual animals involved. Researchers liken this to the ways in which humans interact socially on Facebook and Twitter to exchange information and tailor group discussions to individual needs. And, just like when humans plan a party or outing via Facebook, certain animals tend to guide the conversations about where to locate food or avoid predators.

“Schools of dolphins provide an example of this,” Lusseau says. “As individuals, dolphins have their own daily needs to fulfill, such as resting and eating, but they are also concerned with what they should do next as a group. We find that group leaders can emerge simply in particular cases because they might know the current context better than the other members of the group.”

Lusseau’s research also found that all animals are linked to one another by shared sets of connections — much like humans are in the real world or on Facebook — and that the same six-degrees-of-separation concept even applies in the animal kingdom.

But, while human behavior on social networks may reflect that of mammals in the wild, as Lusseau says, there is still no evidence of a parallel Internet where animals giggle at photos of cuddly humans.

What do you think? Do Lusseau’s theories hold water? Or are they much ado about very little? Let us know in the comments.

More About: animal, Facebook, mashable video, social networking, Twitter

Cellphone Users Like to Be Drunk [STUDY]

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 08:24 PM PST


If you’re trying to drink less booze in the New Year, you might want to put down your cellphone.

A study released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control shows that cellphone users are more likely to binge drink than other groups surveyed. The study points to the fact many people who use only their cellphone and don’t have a landline are often young and male. Both young people (ages 18-34) and males typically report higher incidences of binge drinking compared to other groups.

In 2009, before cellphone-only users were incorporated in the study, 15.2 percent of the surveyed population reported binge drinking. In 2010, that number went up to 17.1 percent.

“Even after adjusting for age,” the study says, “cellular telephone respondents have a higher prevalence of binge drinking than landline respondents.”

Apparently, drinking alcohol can make you popular on social networking sites, or at least provide you with some hilarious photos. So why are cell phone users drinking more?

The CDC’s study relies on self-reported data from a random telephone survey. Participants were asked if they ever drink alcohol. They were also asked how often they binge drink, which is four or more drinks for women and five or more for men, in a short period of time.

BRFSS is the state-based random telephone survey the CDC uses. In the past, only landlines were dialed. But in September 2011 the BRFSS released a set of survey data from 2010 that included both landlines and cellphone-only adults. Cellphone-only users who don’t live in South Dakota or Tennessee (the two states not included in the survey), showed a nearly 2 percent increase in reported binge drinking.

“These findings confirm the importance of increasing the number of cellular telephone respondents in the BRFSS to assess binge drinking and related harms more accurately,” notes the study.

The survey took responses from a total of 457,677 adults (422,039 landline respondents and 35,638 cellular telephone respondents).

Maybe these results could also shed some light on sexting?

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, emre563

More About: CDC, cellphone, study

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Find the Status of Job Applications and Improve Your Search for Employment on StartWire

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 08:01 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.

StartWireName: StartWire

Quick Pitch: StartWire is an Internet job search organizer.

Genius Idea: Closes the "résumé black hole" by providing jobseekers with automatic application status updates from thousands of employers in the U.S.

Searching for a job is not easy, especially in today’s economy. What’s even more frustrating is never hearing back about the status of applications after spending countless hours applying for jobs.

Fortunately, job seekers can now find the answers they need on StartWire – an Internet job search organizer that closes the "résumé black hole" by providing automatic application status updates from more than 5,500 employers.

“Most job sites are based around job discovery,” Chris Forman, CEO of StartWire, told Mashable. “StartWire is different because it is based around job search organization and is the only site that provides automatic updates on the status of job applications.”

Users can sign into StartWire using their LinkedIn or Facebook accounts. To find out the status of a job application, click “Track a New Application” and forward the confirmation email you received after applying to a company to apps@startwire.com. StartWire will then organize your applications in one spot and label each one as “active application,” “stalled application” or “no longer in the running.”

StartWire

StartWire also sends you daily updates via email or text regarding the status of your job applications.

To accelerate your job search, StartWire also emails you daily action items and recommends jobs based on your connections, work experience and profile information. Its social network system shows users’ connections for specific jobs, the companies where they have the most contacts and the people in their network who have the most connections to employers.

When you find a job that interests you, StartWire helps you obtain referrals from your best connections.

Founded in early 2011, the company recently conducted a survey of more than 2,000 job seekers and found that 77% of respondents think less of companies that do not respond to job applications, and 58% would hesitate buying a product from a company that did not respond to their job application.

As a solution to the “black hole” between applicants and employers, StartWire now provides a free, online tool that manages job applications of its 50,000 users and helps them get started on the next steps of their job searches.

StartWire’s business model is based on advertising career websites such as CareerBuilder.com, to its users. The company has raised $3.25 million in funding and plans to expand its services to Canada in the future.

Image courtesy of iStock, DNY59

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, 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.

More About: bizspark, job applications, job search, jobs, startwire

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20 TV Shows With the Most Social Media Buzz This Week [CHART]

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 07:49 PM PST

It’s safe to say that we’ve never encountered such a strong juxtaposition in all past social TV charts. The social activity surrounding ABC’s Republican presidential debate outpaced Jersey Shore — barely.

The New Hampshire debate aired Saturday to 6.25 million viewers, a huge turnout following the Iowa caucuses four days prior. And although the debate’s social buzz topped Jersey Shore’s, Snooki and gang managed to earn 7.6 million viewers for the show’s fifth season premiere on Jan. 5. Verdict: people can get their reality drama fix in many forms.

The data below is compliments of our friends at Trendrr, who measure specific TV show activity (mentions, likes, checkins) across Twitter, Facebook, GetGlue and Miso. To see daily rankings, check out Trendrr.TV.


Image courtesy of iStockphoto, narvikk

More About: features, Social Media, social tv, social tv charts, Trendrr, TV

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Twitter Accurately Predicts Romney Victory in New Hampshire Primary

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 07:41 PM PST


Mitt Romney clinched the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night, falling in line with Twitter's prediction that the former Massachusetts governor would be the Republican victor.

Mashable recently reached out to Globalpoint Research to analyze Twitter sentiment regarding the primary, and the results gave Romney a slightly higher lead than the latest polls.

The research firm — which used a weighted metric to combine tweet volume and retweets with detailed sentiment analysis — found that Romney would not only have the edge, second place would be a tight call between Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum.

Romney came out on top with 37% of the vote, followed by Paul (23%), Huntsman (17%), Gingrich (10%), Santorum (10%) and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (1%).

Romney became the first Republican candidate to win the first two contests since 1976.

Last week, Mashable asked Globalpoint Research if Twitter could predict the Iowa caucus, and although the results weren't perfect, they called for a much stronger showing by former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum than the national polls projected. After the closest Iowa caucus in American history, Santorum was defeated by a very thin margin.

The concept of Twitter predicting the GOP presidential race is not necessarily new. In fact, according to research revealed in November 2011, political candidates do better in the polls when they gain more Twitter followers. National polls happen all the time but it's possible to predict when certain candidates will climb in the rankings based the rate they are followed.

Do you think Twitter can predict how well candidates will do in the polls? Why or why not? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

BONUS: 10 Unforgettable On-Air Political Bloopers


Rick Perry: "Oops"


2012 presidential candidate Rick Perry drew a massive blank Wednesday night during CNBC's "Your Money, Your Vote" GOP debate. On stage in Michigan, Perry attempted to rattle off three federal government agencies he would eliminate, but failed to remember number three: "Commerce, education and the … uh, um, what's the third one there. Let's see … " The mental block lasted about 40 more seconds before Perry uttered, "Oops."

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More About: 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney, Politics, ron paul, Twitter

What Techies Are Buzzing About at CES [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 07:29 PM PST


More people tweeted about Microsoft than any other tech brand Monday at CES 2012, but people who tweeted about Google had the most followers on average. Ultrabook computers, tablet devices and OLED display technology were by far the most-mentioned digital trends on Twitter. And Mashable had the second-most tweeted domain name at the industry’s showcase event.

These are among the nuggets of information provided by our friends at Simply Measured analytics. The Twitter statistics provide a quantified analysis of who and what caught the tech world’s attention at the unofficial kickoff to CES. Below, we offer some quick analysis on Simply Measured’s complete findings, but please examine the stats yourself to parse out what you think the data’s most interesting revelations are and then share with us in the comments. (CES officially runs Tuesday through Friday, which is why graphics about Monday’s mentions are marked as “Day 0.”)

How Did 2012′s Unofficial Kickoff Compare to Last Year?

In general, people tweeted more during the first day of CES week in 2012 than than they did in 2011. This isn’t all that surprising, however, as Twitter’s use and popularity have boomed over the past year.

In both years, the frequency of tweets hashtagged #CES spiked late, but 2012 had a much more volatile morning and afternoon, with a few mini-spikes interspersed throughout the day.

The Most-Mentioned Brands

Microsoft, LG and Samsung had the highest peaks in mentions. Those three brands eclipsed the rest of the field, with Sony, Nokia and Panasonic rounding up the next tier.

Microsoft had the hottest moment of all, which coincided with a swell of anticipation for CEO Steve Ballmer’s evening keynote address at his company’s last CES appearance.

The Hottest Trends

OLED was mentioned on Twitter more than 650 times on Monday, while ultrabook laptops and tablet devices were the only other trends to garner more than 400 Twitter mentions with the #CES hashtag.

Tablets have been long been a hot topic, while OLED display technology likely got a significant boost form the unveiling of LG’s 55-inch OLED HDTV, which dazzled us on Monday.

The Top-Tweeted Domains

The top two domains on Monday were tech news sites, with ces.cnet.com and mashable.com pacing the field. The two biggest social sharing sites, Facebook and Twitter, came in third and fourth. YouTube rounded out the top five, probably as a popular place to share and watch videos of product demonstrations.

The rest of the list of most-tweeted domains was also dominated by news and sharing sites.

The Overall Leaders

Buoyed by Ballmer’s much-anticipated keynote speech, Microsoft gained by far the largest share of #CES-tagged tweets, at 12%. Samsung, LG, Sony and Nokia were the only other brands that hovered around 5%, and Intel was the only other company above 2%. Apple managed to pull in 1% of mentions despite not even having an official presence at the event.

But Google and YouTube got the most bang for their Twitter mention. People who tweeted about Google had an average of nearly 24,000 followers, while those who tweeted about YouTube had an average of more than 21,000 followers. Microsoft grabbed the largest share of Twitter mentions, but people who talked about the Seattle tech giant averaged a comparatively small 6,235 followers.

What do these Twitter statistics tell you? Let us know in the comments.

All graphics provided by Simply Measured

More About: CES, CES 2012, Twitter

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Sharp 80-Inch HDTV Just Got Even Better, Still Value-Priced

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 07:22 PM PST



LAS VEGAS — I like what Sharp is doing with its HDTVs. Every new model the company is releasing in 2012 will be 60 inches or larger.

The flagship of the fleet is the 80-inch s LC-80LE632U, similar to the 80-inch HDTV the company began selling in September. But this one’s sporting a faster 240Hz refresh rate, and Sharp’s Quattron technology that uses the usual red/green/blue pixels, and adds yellow to the mix for even better color rendering.

Along for the ride is built-in Wi-Fi and the new SmartCentral user interface I’ll tell you about below. The new TV will sell for $6499 when it ships in April.

That extra color make this monster set look even better. I took a long look at this 80-inch behemoth, and found myself full of want. This would look just right in our home theater, with its spectacular color and true-to-its name sharp picture. With good quality displays — which are easy to find at CES 2012 — bigger is better, if you have the room for such a thing.

Enhancing its appeal is the SmartCentral smart TV platform, giving you the usual suspects as apps (Netflix, Pandora, many others), and letting you customize the positions of apps you’ve downloaded into this TV/computer. It reminded me of Google TV the way its search function pulls results from the Web as well as whatever you have in your apps. For instance, if you’re looking for the movie Men in Black, the system can find results for it online, and on Netflix.

Sharp reps told me the company’s line of TVs will get an additional benefit when they ship starting in February — the ability to control their SmartCentral with tablets and smartphones.

Beyond this specific model, I asked Sharp about its new push toward introducing only large screens this year (but still selling all sizes). The company says the push to go big is because of an advantage Sharp has over other manufacturers — it has the only 10th-generation LCD display plant in the world, uniquely suited to manufacturing these screens that are 60 inches and larger. The benefit for us? Huge screens at affordable prices.


Viewing angles are excellent




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More About: CES, CES 2012, Sharp, TVs

First Intel Smartphone Will Be Lenovo K800 for China, Motorola Devices Coming

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 06:43 PM PST

Intel keynote ces 360

LAS VEGAS — Those Intel smartphones we caught a peek at in Intel’s booth aren’t just “reference” anymore. Intel announced today at CES 2012 that its chips are coming to real phones that real customers will be really using. One catch: those customers will be in China only for now.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini proudly announced today that Intel chips will finally be in phones outside of trade shows. Shortly after making the declaration, Liu Jun, senior vice president of Lenovo joined him on stage to reveal the device, the Lenovo K800. The first carrier will be China Unicom, and it’s scheduled to be available in the spring.

The phone will use Intel’s 32-nanometer mobile chip technology, known as Medfield, part of Intel’s Atom line. It has a 4.5-inch screen and is less than 0.4 inch thick. As you’d expect, it can perform tasks that are processor-intensive, like playing 1080p video through an HDMI port to a external HDTV. It’s also equipped with near-field communication (NFC) for mobile payments — as well as other tricks (more on that in a bit).

Although Intel only revealed one phone in China, that appears to be just the beginning. Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha paid Intel’s event a visit as well. Although he didn’t have any details on products, they’re definitely in the works — Jha said the two companies have entered a multi-year, multi-device partnership. Look for the first Intel-powered Motorola products later this year.

Besides phones, Intel had a few more things to say about Ultrabooks (hard to believe, I know). First Dell revealed its first-ever Ultrabook, a design with a 13-inch screen that weighs less than 3 pounds. It’ll cost $999 and be available in February. (For more on the XPS 13, check out Mashable‘s hands on.)

On top of that, Intel went a step further with what it has planned for NFC tech now that its phone has gone public. Now when making an online transaction, instead of just tapping your credit card to the screen to input payment information (which the company demonstrated yesterday), a user can just tap his NFC-equipped phone to the Ultrabook to fill out a payment form. The site in question needs to support the tap tech, though.

We also finally learned why Intel roped in will.i.am to be its celebrity spokesperson. The musician is tasked with the “Ultrabook Project”: traveling the world to create new music, selecting independent artists in every city he visits, creating one song per city — all done on an Intel Ultrabook. will.i.am appeared on stage to awkwardly singe the praises of intel and Ultrabooks and reveal the first song made for the project. Check out Intel’s sizzle reel for the project below.

The most groundbreaking news for Intel, though, is its first real entry to the smartphone market. It’s only just begun, but taking away any market share from ARM, whose technology is in virtually every mobile device today, would be a big deal.

Are you excited by Intel’s big push for Ultrabooks, Intel-powered phones or will.i.am’s project? Let us know in the comments.


Intel CEO Paul Otellini




Otellini revealed that Intel phones are finally going to get into customers' hands.

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More About: CES, CES 2012, intel, lenovo, Medfield, Motortola, trending, Ultrabook

The Top 10 News Organizations With the Most Google+ Engagement

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 06:06 PM PST


1. The New York Times




A list published Jan. 10 ranks news organizations based on the level of engagement they incite on Google+. Here are the top 10 outlets that garner the most +1s, shares and comments.

+1s per post: 130.92

Shares per post: 73.85

Comments per post: 43.00

Total per post: 247.77

Click here to view this gallery.

A list published Tuesday reveals which news organizations on Google+ instigate the most reactions from their followers. Since Google+ brand pages launched in November, media outlets have been playing around with how to best use the 6-month-old social network.

Based on +1s, comments and shares, The New York Times, Mashable and The Next Web appear to be finding the most success at roping in heavy engagement (see the top 10 and statistics in the gallery above).

Adam Sherk, vice president of SEO and social media at Define Media Group, ranked the top 45 media outlets by using All My +, a tool that analyzes public Google+ data of individual users or pages to spit out engagement statistics, charts and most-popular posts.

Never one to be complacent or ignore changes in the social media landscape, The New York Times posted the rankings on its Google+ page to thank its community and ask for suggestions on how to improve its strategy.

SEE ALSO: Complete Guide to Google+ | Who Is the 1st Google+ User to Reach 1 Million Followers?

Google‘s social network has naturally attracted news organizations that want to interact with readers or gain more eyeballs on their stories, photos and videos. However, not all brands are getting the visitors they seek. Recent data shows that of the 61 companies on the Interbrand Top 100 Brands list that are on Google+, only 13 had followings of 5,000 or more.

How do you think news organizations should use Google+? Any suggestions for them to improve?

More About: Google, mashable, Media, new york times, News, Social Media, trending

Why Targeted Ads Must Account for Changing Consumer Context

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 05:50 PM PST


Tom Wentworth is chief marketing officer at Ektron Inc., a provider of web content management and marketing optimization solutions.

Millions of parents have bought Hannah Montana albums online for their young daughters and nieces. Marketers seized the opportunity to launch ads for Hannah lunchboxes and accessories — which unfortunately appear on adult profiles. And guess what? The Bieber ads are next.

For adults whose tastes trend more toward U2 and Smashing Pumpkins, ads that offer deals focused on teen idols miss the mark completely. Few adults are Bieber fans, and they're likely uninterested in spoiling their preteens with Bieber gifts all year long.

Still, one look at adults’ social media profiles indicates that the users are inundated with ads for with teen swag, simply because they’ve purchased the items for family members. User profiles also reflect that they’re interested a wide variety of other things: skis (for themselves), perfume (for their wife or girlfriend) and sports tickets (for friends).

The key to any successful marketing program is personalization. The ads and content that appear to a user should be relevant, reflecting his individual preferences and needs.

Too often, a diverse holiday shopping list skews your entire purchasing profile based on a micro-moment in the year. The fact is, we all operate in different contexts — especially during the holiday season. If you're a female fashionista who bought a skateboard for her boyfriend, you're interested in hair extensions, not helmets. You might be a 45-year-old technology manager who likes jazz and runs marathons, but you're also a husband, a son, an uncle and a friend — and your purchases reflect all those different contexts.

Marketers need to do a better job understanding not only the purchaser, but the context in which he makes his purchase.

While some marketers do a good job aggregating a purchaser’s persona and filtering out purchases that don't fit the profile, others fail entirely. If you're going to market to someone in a sustained way, you need to make sure your offer jives with an individual’s broader patterns.

On the other hand, there is value in identifying the precise moment a shopper assumes a new context. If you present a mobile coupon for jewelry to a middle-aged husband right before he buys a women's sweater, you might be able to turn a $40 purchase into a $200 purchase. Just as that man entered the gift-buying-husband context, his psyche became open to entertaining offers. The next day, the micro-moment would have already passed. He will have re-entered his more generalized context, and will not be in the mood for jewelry ads.

If someone bought Cars 2 merchandise this holiday season, it probably doesn't tell a marketer a whole lot, other than the purchaser bought one of this season's hottest toys. But if that same person suddenly purchases a piano book, that becomes context worth examining. Perhaps it means a father is helping his daughter embark on a lifetime of piano playing, which might mean pitching some lessons or additional collections of sheet music.

Other micro-moments can be leveraged as well. Say a middle-aged husband with no kids prefers action movies, but suddenly orders a barrage of Disney movies from Netflix. Chances are, he has nephews and nieces over for the weekend. He has entered the uncle context. If you anticipate that and hit him with a discount for the nearby amusement park, you may have landed yourself a decent sale.

Or a middle-aged mom from Arizona purchases winter hats two consecutive Februaries in a row. Maybe she's visiting relatives in Minnesota, and is therefore entering a cold weather context that will certainly wear off by the time she gets back to Phoenix.

Shopping-related data is growing by leaps and bounds. The marketers that use that data to understand their customers' contexts will be the most successful. Misreading your customer — assuming that he suddenly can't get enough Bieber, based on a one-time purchase — can be fatal. But tuning in and personalizing content delivery on-the-fly presents a real opportunity to make a sale and nurture a future relationship.

Images courtesy of Flickr, ogimogi, redwood 1

More About: ads, Advertising, contributor, features, Marketing, online coupons, online marketing, personalization

Will Twitter Predict the New Hampshire Primary?

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 05:22 PM PST


All of the candidates duking it out for the Republican nomination have a social media presence. But can the activity surrounding their accounts reveal anything about their chances to win elections?

Last week, we asked if Twitter could predict the Iowa caucus. The results weren’t perfect, but they did call for a much stronger showing by former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum than the national polls projected.

Indeed, after the closest Iowa caucus in American history, Santorum was defeated by an absolutely razor-thin margin.

For Tuesday’s primary, we asked Globalpoint Research once again to analyze Twitter for us. Their weighted metric combines tweet volume and retweets with detailed sentiment analysis. Here’s what they found:

Twitter Sentiment

These results give Mitt Romney a slightly higher lead than the latest polls, but they don’t have any glaring difference with the most recent polling data from New Hampshire.

If Twitter is indeed predictive of the results, then Tuesday night should see a clear Romney victory, with a closely contested struggle for second place between Ron Paul, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum. There are no outrageous spikes in the data, but on Twitter, as in many polls, Jon Huntsman has been picking up steam.

Will any of these predictions will hold true? Stay tuned — we’ll find out Tuesday night.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, JamesBrey

More About: 2012 presidential campaign, Facebook, New Hampshire republican primary, Twitter

Your Smartphone Is One Step Closer to Becoming Invincible

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 05:06 PM PST


It seems technology companies are finally tuning in to that most basic of tech consumer problems: dropping devices in the toilet. Unveiled this week at CES, Liquipel is a clear coating that protects smartphones from dying in a watery grave. And if Liquipel can connect with enough smartphone vendors this week at CES, it could come with your next phone.

The new coating uses nanotechnology vapors to seep into every part of your phone and protect it from water damage.

The coating is “1,000 times thinner than a human hair,” says Danny McPhail, co-president at Liquipel. The super-thin coating does not effect the look or functionality of the phone.

At CES, a smartphone coated in Liquipel is tossed into a dish filled with water. Another video on the company’s website shows phones being bombarded with water. Each time, the phones are taken out of the water and, amazingly, they work. You can watch Liquipel’s YouTube channel to see demos for yourself.

Even though the Liquipel-coated phones can take a splashing, or even a dunk, going for a swim with the coated phone is not advised.

Liquipel plans to close deals with smartphone manufacturers this week at CES to get their coating on new phones out of the box.

Right now, if you want your smartphone coated with Liquipel, it costs $59 plus shipping. You need to send your smartphone to Liquipel to be treated and they’ll send it back in a couple days.

Ten types of phones can be coated with the water-proof sealant: Apple iPhone 3G through 4S; Motorola Droid X and X2; HTC Evo 4G, Shift 4G, MyTouch 4G and Thunderbolt; and Samsung Charge.

While, Liquipel doesn’t protect from falls, being crushed or poop germs, you can now cross water off the list of phone threats.

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, PeskyMonkey

More About: CES, CES 2012, smartphone

Reddit Announces Blackout to Protest SOPA

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 04:48 PM PST


Reddit, in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), will be shutting down normal operations on Jan. 18 from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET.

During that window, visitors to the site will find a message about SOPA and its sister bill in the Senate, the Protect IP Act (PIPA). There will also be links which will provide more information about the two bills and suggestions on how to take action against SOPA and PIPA.

The decision was not an easy one to make. The Reddit community has been very active and outspoken in its opposition to SOPA. Redditors have created anti-SOPA websites and mobile apps, campaigned against elected officials they perceived to be pro-SOPA and they have posted and discussed any article related to SOPA they could find.

Paul Ryan, target of the Reddit community’s “Operation Pull Ryan,” has recently announced his total opposition to the bill.

However, the site’s users are characteristically known to meet any downtime with emotions ranging from annoyance to antipathy.

“Many of you stand with us against PIPA/SOPA, but we know support for a blackout isn't unanimous,” said the Reddit team in a blog post.

“We’re not taking this action lightly. We wouldn't do this if we didn't believe this legislation and the forces behind it were a serious threat to reddit and the Internet as we know it. Blacking out reddit is a hard choice, but we feel focusing on a day of action is the best way we can amplify the voice of the community.”

The Reddit team, ever respectful of their community, has invited all users to leave suggestions on what to do with the site during the SOPA blackout.

More About: reddit, SOPA, stop online piracy act

Cut the Rope Hits the Web via Internet Explorer 9

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 04:04 PM PST

Popular mobile video game Cut the Rope is coming to the Web by way of Internet Explorer 9.

Microsoft announced during its keynote at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show on Monday night that a desktop HTML5 version of the game is now available for free through Internet Explorer 9, thanks to a partnership with PixelLab and ZeptoLab, the makers of the game.

[wp_scm_ces_highlights]

The physics-based puzzle video game was developed in 2010 by Russian developers and quickly became a global sensation. The object of each level is to maneuver a piece of candy into the mouth of a green cartoon monster called “Om Nom”. The candy hangs by one or several of the titular ropes, which the player can cut with a swipe of their finger, and can also be manipulated through other objects including bellows and floating bubbles. Each level pack introduces new objects.

“We developed a set of new levels for Internet Explorer users,” said Semyon Vionov, creative director at ZeptoLab, via a video featured on the game’s site. “There are unique levels that aren’t found in any other of our games.”

The latest version features 25 levels to play, including seven that can be unlocked by pinning the site to the browser’s taskbar. The move is part of an effort to help promote Internet Explorer 9 and attract more visitors to the browser. The game can also be played on any HTML5-compatible browser.

The game is now available at cuttherope.ie.

For more coverage from 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, click here.

CES 2012: Mashable’s Photo Coverage From the Ground

Check out more gadgets, booths and appearances from our team on the ground at CES 2012.


Solar-Powered Car





Covered in HIT photovoltaic modules, this super-sleek vehicle won the World Solar Challenge race

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: cut the rope, Internet Explorer 9, microsoft, Mobile, mobile gaming

Tell Us A Story – On Facebook [CONTEST]

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 03:46 PM PST

Facebook Story

Calling all armchair novelists: Facebook isn’t just a place to waste time anymore.

In a move seemingly contrary to the deliberate brevity of Twitter, Facebook dramatically expanded its character limit in November to 63,206. This recently got us thinking, “Just what exactly could you fit in 63,206 characters, if you felt so inclined?”

So we set out to push the limits, and wound up realizing that you can publish the first 20 chapters of Genesis, roughly half of The Old Man and the Sea, or the lyrics to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” 61 times over.

However, for as much fun as we had finding out what you could cram into a Facebook status update, we figured (as you did in our comments) that there has to be a more practical use for this amount of text being afforded us. And that’s where you come in.

We know Mashable readers are creative, funny, and smart. We want you to post something in your status update that’s going to blow us away. You could write a short story, or an epic poem. Facebook has given you the space to write the equivalent of 451.5 tweets, and we’re giving you the green light to use it. We just want you to write about whatever you want. You don’t have to use all 60K characters to enter the contest, but we want to see you flex your status updating power, here.

How to Enter the Contest

  • When publishing your status, make sure to adjust your settings to make it public.

  • Post the link to your status in the comments of this post.

    • Facebook Permalink

  • Post your status by Wednesday, Jan. 18 at 5:00 p.m. EST in order to be considered.

Our editorial staff will be reviewing the submissions looking for the best. The top response might be published on Mashable as a guest post.

More About: community, Facebook, Social Media

Spotify to End Unlimited Free Streaming for Some Users Next Week

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 03:29 PM PST

Spotify Founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon

Spotify’s unlimited free streaming and sharing service was music to American ears when it launched in July 2011. Now comes a dissonant note: ten-hour monthly caps will be implemented on all free accounts when the six-month promotional period comes to an end for early adopters next week.

“All new Spotify users, both in the U.S. and in all other countries in which Spotify is available, are able to enjoy an unlimited free service for their first six months. As we have previously stated, after a Spotify user has enjoyed free unlimited listening for six months, some changes to the free service will come into effect,” the company said in a statement.

Spotify has garnered 10 million users worldwide and a base of more than 2.5 million paid subscribers since it was developed in Sweden in 2008 and launched in various parts of Europe.

Free versions of the desktop app were available through invites only. An unlimited service was offered at $4.99 per month and the premium service was available for $9.99 per month. The Spotify Unlimited and Spotify Premium services were available free of ads and with unlimited music.

Spotify Premium ($9.99) offers offline playlists, unlimited ad-free music and enhanced sound.

The number of users exploded after users were able to sign in and download the Spotify music software via Facebook, avoiding the invite-only process. It was never meant to be a free service that would last forever. Unlimited free streaming was set to expire for U.S. users after they used the app for six months of streaming, as it had with the launch of the app in the UK in 2008.

Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek, while announcing the Facebook partnership at last year’s f8 developer conference , said that more people will pay for music — staying away from pirated stuff — with access to the great variety of high-quality music that Spotify provides.

SEE ALSO: HOW TO: Get Started With Spotify

Says the company’s Terms and Conditions of Use: “Spotify Service can be accessed as an ad-supported free-to-the-user service having no monthly cap on listening hours or a cap on number of plays of a unique track during the first 6 months following creation of your Spotify account, but thereafter a cap of 10 listening hours per month and a cap of 5 plays per unique track (the ‘Free Service’).”

Spotify’s popularity stems from the fact that you can stream any song or album, drawn from a wide selection of music. Playing a song on the Spotify player will automatically alert your Facebook friends, allowing them to learn what you like and discover new music. Users may also drag songs into friends’ profiles to share tunes.

Users can also take Spotify on the go — the free mobile app is available on iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Phone, Palm and Blackberry, which allows streaming over WiFi (premium service), offline playlists (premium service), access to your Spotify account and syncing your own music into Spotify from your phone.

Will you continue to use Spotify once your 10-hour cap on free streaming, following your initial six-month period? Let us know in the comments.


More About: free music, mobile application, Music, spotify, Spotify apps

Did 300 Workers at an Xbox 360 Factory Threaten Mass Suicide?

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 03:14 PM PST


Three hundred Chinese factory workers who manufacture Microsoft Xbox 360s threatened mass suicide last week, according to unconfirmed reports.

The Foxconn employees threatened to throw themselves off of a factory roof due to a payment dispute, according to Record China and Want China Times. According to these reports, the incident began when employees asked for raises on Jan. 2 and were asked to either quit with compensation or keep their jobs without a raise.

Most of them chose to quit, but did not receive the promised compensation.

Microsoft could not confirm whether the mass suicide incident took place at Foxconn Technology Park in Wuhan, China. A spokesperson declined to confirm whether the factory is even a manufacturer of Xbox 360s, saying that the company does not disclose which specific products are manufactured by which suppliers.

“Microsoft takes working conditions in the factories that manufacture its products very seriously, and we are currently investigating this issue,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement to Mashable. “We have a stringent Vendor Code of Conduct that spells out our expectations, and we monitor working conditions closely on an ongoing basis and address issues as they emerge.

“Microsoft is committed to the fair treatment and safety of workers employed by our vendors, and to ensuring conformance with Microsoft policy.”

Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s largest electronics contract manufacturer, counts Apple, Dell and HP among its clients — most famously producing the iPhone. But despite the employee talent shows, sports tournaments and training programs in its promotional material [PDF], the company has a lousy track record when it comes to employee suicide. Wired calculated in its March 2011 issue that 17 Foxconn workers have killed themselves in the past five years.

Some of Foxconn’s factories are surrounded by anti-suicide nets, and employees have reportedly been asked to sign a “no suicide” pact. After interviewing 120 Foxconn workers, authors of a May 2011 report [PDF] by Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour found significant instances of labor abuse at the factories.

“Workers always have excessive and forced overtime in order to gain a higher wage,” says the report. “Workers are exposed to dust from construction site and shop floor without adequate protection. Even worse, they are threatened by potential harm of occupational diseases in various departments. Additionally, military-styled management is still in practice, characterized by ‘military training’ for new workers.”

In June 2011, Apple sent its then-COO Tim Cook and a team of independent suicide prevention experts to review Foxconn’s factory in Shenzhen. According to an Apple report released in February 2011: “The investigation found that Foxconn's response [to the suicides] had definitely saved lives."

If the current reports are true, however, the response may not have been enough.

Graphic courtesy M.I.C. Gadget

More About: apple, Foxconn, microsoft

10 Classic Video Games You Can Play Online for Free

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 02:56 PM PST

Fire up your time machine and visit your 12-year-old self. Tell him that all the computer games he’s saved his hard-earned allowance for will one day be free. Stick around to watch him cry, but try not to create any time-space paradoxes — we’ve got gaming to do.

Below, check out our list of official remakes, ports and offers of classic video games that found new life on social platforms and free sites.

Have we missed any? Share your favorites in the comments.


1. The Oregon Trail





The game that made dysentery fun was released as a Facebook app last February, much to the delight of grown-up school children everywhere. It's now social, of course, but the decision whether to ford the river is all your won.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Facebook, features, games, Gaming, social games

For more Entertainment coverage:

The New Hampshire Primary on Social Media

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 02:45 PM PST

It’s primary day in New Hampshire, and social media networks have been ablaze with posts, tweets and videos from the Granite State.

Politicians are taking to the web in the battle for votes in the nation’s first primary. Journalists are also using Twitter and YouTube to cover the primary with up-to-the-second reporting and behind-the-scenes photos. Watching all this happen are the voters tasked with making the big decision of 2012: Who will win the Republican nomination for president?

As Tuesday night’s primary unfolds, we’re sharing the best examples of social media’s use during the showdown. Follow Mashable to learn how politicians, journalists, media outlets and citizens are using social media in New Hampshire. We’ll be updating this continually:

More About: 2012 presidential campaign, Storify, Twitter

How to Get Into the Sold-Out MashBash Party at CES

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 02:34 PM PST


Bummed you didn’t get a ticket to the sold-out MashBash event at CES? You may be in luck.

Skullcandy is giving away 20 passes to Mashable readers at CES who missed the ticket boat. Here’s how you can win them:

  • Visit the Skullcandy booth, located in the South 1 Exhibit Hall in the Las Vegas Convention Center.
  • Take a photo of yourself looking awesome at the Skullcandy booth.
  • Tweet your photo at @Skullcandy.
  • Submit your photo by Wednesday, Jan. 11 at 12 p.m. PT.

Skullcandy will choose the most inspired submissions and contact the winners directly. Below, you can see Mashable staff Jennifer Diamond, Morgan Berk, and Adam Hirsch rocking out at the booth to get you started.

Skull Candy Booth

Be sure to get creative because MashBash is a party you don’t want to miss. It will celebrate the Mashable Awards winners and the best of digital at 1OAK Nightclub in the Mirage Hotel and Casino on Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012. It will be a night of networking, dancing and celebration in true Mashable style at one of the hottest new clubs in Las Vegas.

The event will bring together the Mashable community, industry leaders and digital influencers from the biggest technology and consumer electronic brands attending CES.

[wp_scm_ces_highlights_2]

San Francisco-based DJ duo A Plus D — a.k.a. Adrian and Mysterious D — will be spinning their world famous mashups at MashBash. (Think Lady Gaga meets Bob Marley or Will Smith meets Daft Punk, mixed together under one roof.) A Plus D, creators of Bootie, the biggest mashup bootleg party in the world, will rock the party with their musical concoctions and creative song combinations.

Hope to see you in Vegas on the dance floor!

MashBash Info

Date: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 (during International CES Convention week)

Time: 8:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. PT

Location: 1OAK Nightclub, Mirage Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, NV (1OAK is located at the Mirage Hotel & Casino just off the North Valet access or Self-Parking entrance into the hotel)

Premiere Sponsors

More About: CES, CES 2012, Events, mashable, MashBash

For more Entertainment coverage:

Twitter Slams Google: Social Search Changes Are ‘Bad for People’

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 02:20 PM PST


The social networking war just heated up a few degrees.

After Google announced Tuesday morning that it would more closely integrate Google+ into its regular search results, vocal opposition to the changes arrived Tuesday afternoon from an unlikely source: Twitter.

A statement from the microblogging company said Twitter’s real-time information was often the most relevant result on Google. “As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter,” the company said. “We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone.”

SEE ALSO: Google Merges Search and Google+ Into Social Media Juggernaut

The Google update, known as “Search Plus Your World,” blends Google+ pages that have been made public in with regular search results on Google — although the Google+ results are clearly annotated. It’s a fairly major update for Google+ users — of which there are now reportedly 62 million — and a fairly minor update for the rest of us.

Still, it evidently got the warning klaxons blaring over at Twitter HQ. Here’s the complete statement, care of Twitter spokesman Matt Graves:

For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results anytime they wanted to find something on the Internet.

Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million Tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we've seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results.

We're concerned that as a result of Google's changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that's bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.

SEE ALSO: Mashable’s Complete Guide to Google+

We reached out to Facebook for its take on Google’s search tweaks; the social network refused to comment. But what do you think? Is Twitter being oversensitive, or did Google misuse its monopoly power? Have you spotted any difference in your search results? Let us know in the comments.


Google Search plus Your World Personal Results




Integrated social search is immediately evident in three spots on your search results page. You have to be signed into Google+ to see all this.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Google, social networking, trending, Twitter

Google Maps Game for Google+ Revealed in Video

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 02:14 PM PST

Google has quietly released a promotional video for a Google Maps-driven game for Google+ Games. In the video, Google pimps a “Play your world, like never before” slogan and a link to “Start here,” which leads to entertaining demos on how to use Google Maps.

The game comes out next month and appears similar to On the Ball, Marble Madness and Rolling Madness 3D — all games in which a player navigates a ball through courses. We also noticed in the teaser video that players will likely earn points for rolling over Zagat-rated venues. Google acquired local reviews giant Zagat in September.

The Maps team developed the game for the Google+ Games platform, which went live Aug. 11. The game runs on WebGL, a technology that creates 3D web graphics viewers can see without installing extra software.

When Google bought Zagat in 2011, Google’s Marissa Mayer said, "Moving forward, Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering — delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world."

This effort could be a new way to push the popular Zagat Ratings further into the spotlight using gamification.

SEE ALSO: Man Uses Google+ Game to Propose to Girlfriend [VIDEO]

What are your predictions for this game? Sound off in the comments.


Using Google+? Add Mashable to your circles. You’ll get the latest about new Google+ features and tips and tricks for using the platform as well as top social media and technology news.

More About: gamification, Gaming, Google, Google Maps, zagat

Tablets Will Replace Laptops, Say 46% of Americans [STUDY]

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 02:02 PM PST


A full 46% of Americans think tablets will replace laptops in the future, according to a poll of 1,155 American adults.

This is especially true among adults ages 30 to 64. Young adults (ages 18 to 29) and those older than 65 are a little more skeptical. Only roughly a third think that tablets will eventually eliminate the need for laptops, according to Poll Position’s findings [PDF].

The numbers are a bit surprising, even as I consider that my mother has successfully replaced her MacBook and her paperback collection with an iPad — which she finds perfectly sufficient for reading, web browsing and sending short replies to email.

For my part, I find my laptop absolutely indispensable. But perhaps I don’t make a good case study: I am, after all, a blogger on the go, and I don’t have a desktop computer at home. And according to this 2010 study I dug up from Pew, more adults 18 to 29 own laptops than desktop computers, which could explain, in part, why that age group finds them irreplacable.

It’s true that as more data is stored in the cloud, devices with greater storage capacity will become less necessary. Likewise, as more device form factors emerge on the market, consumers will strike different combinations to meet their needs. A 45-year-old English teacher might find a smartphone, ereader and desktop computer sufficient, while a 28-year-old traveling consultant could do without the ereader and desktop in favor of a smartphone, tablet and laptop.

SEE ALSO: Tablets Drive Deeper News Consumption [STUDY]

What do you think? Has a tablet replaced your need for a laptop? If not, do you expect one will in the future?

More About: ipad, laptops, study, survey, tablets, trending

Comcast App for iPad Lets Users Watch Live TV

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 01:56 PM PST

Comcast AnyPlay

Comcast has started rolling out a new service that allows subscribers to turn their iPad into an extra TV screen to watch live shows.

The company launched a set-top box called AnyPlay at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. The box allows Comcast customers with Xfinity Internet service to watch live TV on their Apple tablet.

Through the Xfinity TV app on the iPad, AnyPlay allows users to watch the channels that are included in their subscription lineup. This means that while someone watches an episode of a show on the couch in the living room, you can catch up another show elsewhere in the house through an iPad.

[wp_scm_ces_highlights]

"The AnyPlay device works the same as any other set-top box in the home, but instead of delivering the incoming channel lineup to a television, it delivers the lineup via a Wi-Fi router on the home network," Comcast said in a statement. “The router then distributes the secure video signal to the iPad over that network.”

The Xfinity TV app also offers 8,000 hours of free On Demand movies and TV shows: “Soon, we’ll be bringing On Demand content to even more devices, such as the Xbox 360 and Samsung connected TVs,” Comcast added.

The company is currently making AnyPlay available for free to Xfinity HD Triple Play customers in areas of Denver and Nashville and it plans to roll the service out to more markets in the next few months. In addition, Comcast said the device will also be coming to the Motorola Xoom in the near future.

Would you watch live TV on a tablet device? Do you think this is the start of a bigger trend to watch live TV on mobile devices?

For more coverage from 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, click here.

CES 2012: Mashable’s Photo Coverage From the Ground

Check out more gadgets, booths and appearances from our team on the ground at CES 2012.


Solar-Powered Car




Covered in HIT photovoltaic modules, this super-sleek vehicle won the World Solar Challenge race

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: apple, CES, CES 2012, comcast, ipad

Twitter Revealed Epidemic Two Weeks Before Health Officials [STUDY]

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 01:35 PM PST


Health providers have suspected for some time that social media might be an early indicator of an epidemic. Now they have proof.

In particular, a new report shows that Twitter provided an early account of the 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti. According to the study published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Internet news and social media were faster transmitters of information in tracking the cholera epidemic in Haiti than health officials. The tweets provided information that health officials wouldn’t report until two weeks later.

“We can definitely use these sources to get early information about how a disease is spreading, and consequently help inform control or response efforts sooner,” says the report’s lead author, Rumi Chunara, Ph.D.

Chunara and the other two authors of the study, Dr. Jason R. Andrews, MD, and John S. Brownstein, Ph.D., determined sites like Twitter can help doctors and epidemiologists pinpoint the speed at which epidemics grow.

“One of the great benefits of these novel data streams is that they are available in real time,” Chunara says.

The next step, she said, would be determining how to utilize real-time data concurrently, or even prospectively, to control outbreaks.

SEE ALSO: How Twitter Tracks the Spread of Disease in Real Time

To conduct the study, the researchers created a timeline by searching for the term cholera and the #cholera hashtag on Twitter from Oct. 20 to Nov. 3, 2010. In the two weeks before health officials reported the outbreak, 65,728 tweets with the word “cholera” were posted on Twitter.

The authors also used free information from HealthMap, a website that monitors news of outbreaks around the world. From HealthMap, they compiled 188,819 tweets in the first 100 days after the initial upsurge.

“Of course any data type will have its own biases and noise, and that is one of the main challenges in working with social media,” Chunara says.

Examining social media could also help health officials tackle up-to-the-moments needs of the infected public and keep disease from spreading. Since the epidemic, 520,000 Haitians have been infected with Cholera and nearly 7,000 have died from the infection. Cholera is an acute intestinal infection caused by tainted water and food supplies.

Of course, there’s a downside to social media reporting of epidemics as well. Tweets about swine flu in 2009 created a panic on Twitter while actual cases were at the lowest number. As real-life outbreaks increased, talk about swine flu on Twitter decreased. Still, Twitter provided researchers additional real-time data to track the disease and the public’s reaction.

More About: disease, haiti, Harvard, Twitter

For more Social Good coverage:

Meme Machine: 5 Hilarious Viral Topics Trending Right Now

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 01:07 PM PST


The Mashable Meme Machine is a daily look at five hilarious viral topics spreading across the web right now.

Welcome back, boys and girls! The Meme Machine is sizzling hot today, with the latest topics that tickled our fancy from Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Reddit, and the vast reaches of the internet. The menu is complete with a rejected teenager, ridiculous cults of personality, and Microsoft’s CES speech to round it all out. The Internet is a really weird place, but that doesn’t mean it can’t also be funny, right?

Good memes are also able to transcend the event from which it was birthed. This package has some great “sleeper memes” that are still funny long after the original event has passed. I don’t think you can get the late, great Kim Jong-il’s likeness to do anything that doesn’t immediately garner a snort or a giggle, especially when it’s him dropping some serious tunes at some of the world’s hottest dance events.

So take some time out of your hectic, busy day and melt your brain with these memes. You may laugh, you may cry, you may feel like you’re on the verge of meme Nirvana, but it’s all in a day’s work. No worry, there’s no need to thank me.

Do you have some favorite up-and-coming memes that you think we should cite? Tip us off in the comments, and you may just see your inspired work in the next batch.


1. Friendzone Johnny




After Reddit user Shakee posted his epic push into the friendzone on r/funny, it exploded in a wave of upvotes to dominate the website for the rest of the day. Some users offered advice, and others moved his likeness to r/AdviceAnimals to mock his failure with the object of his affection. But, the joke is on them: looks like FriendZone Johnny got the girl.

Ah, young love. Now you'll have an embarrassing meme frozen in time to commemorate the occasion forever.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: kanye west, Kim Jong-Il, Meme, Meme Machine, microsoft, portal 2, reddit, trending, tumblr, viral

For more Entertainment coverage:

How a Niche Email Newsletter Grew to a Million Subscribers [VIDEO]

Posted: 10 Jan 2012 12:47 PM PST


CEO Geoff Bartakovics launched Tasting Table in 2008, to bring the world of niche and gourmet dining to discerning foodies. Four years, five cities and one million subscribers later, Tasting Table is becoming the de facto insider’s guide to adventurous dining.

Check out our interview with Bartakovics to find out how Tasting Table is distinguishing itself in the already-crowded online food recommendation market, what he’s learned (the hard way) about proper money management and what some of his most recent challenges have been (hint: the not-so-glamorous side of scaling a company).

Follow Venture Studio, in association with Mashable, which is brought to you by Square1 Bank. The show is hosted by Dave Lerner, a 3x entrepreneur and angel investor. To join Venture Studio’s Facebook page, click here.

More Recent Episodes of Venture Studio:

More About: email, foodies, mashable mashable, newsletters, Startups, tasting table, trending, venture studio, Video

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