Google and AOL have signed a deal that extends the search and advertising partnership between the two companies for another five years. The agreement also includes mobile search and adds a content sharing partnership with YouTube.

In a statement, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said, “After nearly a decade-long partnership in search, we’re looking forward to expanding our global relationship to mobile search and YouTube. All aspects of our partnership will be improved by this deal.”

The extension of the deal wasn’t a given by any means; the $1 billion investment Google made in AOL back in 2005 proved to be disastrous financially. Further, Microsoft has been aggressively making deals to grow marketshare for Bing, most notably with Yahoo, which now sees Bing powering Yahoo search and its related advertising.

With the renewed AOL deal, Google locks up about 2.3% of the search market according to the most recent numbers from comScore. Google currently has 65.8% of the market, while Microsoft has 27.1% between Bing and Yahoo.

Beyond web search, today’s deal also broadens Google’s reach on mobile and gets additional premium content onto YouTube –- both of which are currently high priorities for the company, as CEO Eric Schmidt noted in his statement on the deal. “It’s particularly exciting to see our relationship expand into video and mobile. These areas are now at the heart of users’ online experiences and at the core of both of our businesses,” he said.

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Reviews: Bing, Google, YouTube

More About: aol, Google, Search

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A picture is worth a thousand words. But if you include an entire database, make it interactive, and add filtering options, the word-to-picture exchange rate is even better.

Infographics at their best are more than just pictures — they can provide new understandings, succinct summaries, or just plain old fun.

In that respect, reading newspaper archives isn’t the only way to get a deeper understanding of current events. Infographics can help us get a better grasp on what’s going on.

Check out these 10 visualizations to learn more about the news with a quick look.

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1. Google’s Appetite for Acquisition

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Last month alone, Google acquired social-search service Angstro, visual shopping search engine like.com, and social currency company Jambool. Google has been on an acquisition binge for some time, and it’s getting tricky to keep track of its appetite.

This graphic shows a timeline of Google’s activity in three categories: “Building Revenue Streams,” “Cutting Competition,” or “A Little of Both.”

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2. Gay Marriage Chronology

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The campaign for gay marriage has passed a multitude of milestones over the last decade. Unfortunately for those trying to keep track of them, the victories and setbacks vary drastically by state. Decisions are reversed and in some cases overturned by higher courts, which makes progress hard to track.

This map from the LA Times shows the status of gay marriage in each state by month. Click on a state for its most recent ruling or watch the country change from being legally similar in its treatment of same-sex couples in 2000 to sharply divided in 2010.

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3. IED Attacks from Wikileaks’ Afghanistan War Logs

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The frequency and fatality of IEDs (homemade bombs) in Afghanistan was highlighted when WikiLeaks published more than 90,000 secret documents about the Afghan war. Anti-war activists published this illustrative video that includes all of the incidents reported in these leaked documents.

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4. Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

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On April 20, an explosion on a BP drilling rig started what has become the largest accidental oil spill in history. Despite numerous strategies that were deployed to plug the leak, it wasn’t capped until July 15.

This video graphic by New Orleans online newspaper NOLA wraps timeline, graphic, and cumulative damage data into one easy-to-digest piece of media.

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5. CIA World Factbook Dashboard

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The CIA World Factbook has always been a great resource for putting news stories into the context of their geographic location. But now it’s also easy to get the information at a glance.

The World Factbook Dashboard allows you to color code the countries of the world by population, population growth, infant mortality, agricultural GDP, industry GDP, services GDP, total GDP, GDP/inhabitant, or inflation. Clicking on a country zooms in for more information.

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6. Geography of a Recession

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This map from The New York Times illustrates not only which areas suffered the highest unemployment rate after the recession, but also offers the option to filter data by metropolitan areas, areas with housing bubbles, rural areas, and manufacturing centers.

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7. Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Violence Map

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The Wall Street Journal updates this map constantly with violent conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If you want to learn about the day-to-day details of the war or understand its scope, there’s no better visual resource.

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8. What Does the Health Care Bill Mean to Me?

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Even if you read through every health care bill article, it could be hard to exactly pick out what the law would change about your insurance coverage and taxes. The Washington Post made it easy by providing this nifty tool. Input whether you have insurance coverage, your family size, your income, and your marital status, and it will tell you how health care reform will impact your life.

For the broader picture on healthcare reform, see this subway-style map from GOOD Magazine.

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9. Obama’s $787 Billion Economic Stimulus Plan

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The government is still busy spending much of the $787 billion it allotted for the economic stimulus in February of last year. This infographic effectively illustrates how that huge chunk of change is being distributed.

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10. American Casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Beyond

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This chilling interactive graphic from USA Today simply illustrates the deaths in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Information seekers can search deaths by personal factors like name, age, gender, race, or home town as well as by military service details, date, cause, or place.

CNN has a more elaborate version here.

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More Graphics Resources from Mashable:

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- 5 Fab Twitter Follower Visualization Tools
- 10 Beautiful Social Media Infographics
- 5 Amazing Infographics for the Health Conscious
- 10 Essential Free E-Books for Web Designers
- 12 Beginner Tutorials for Getting Started With Photoshop

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Reviews: Google

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Mashable is excited to announce MashBash BlogWorld, the opening party for this year’s BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas on October 15-16. To kick off the Expo, we’ll be hosting the first night’s official party at Haze at Aria Hotel.

We would love for you to join us, so we’re giving away passes to BlogWorld. To enter, answer the following question — “What is the future of blogging?” — in the comments below. Readers with the best answers will win one of five “full access” tickets to BlogWorld, which includes MashBash. Winners are invited to attend this industry celebration where the online world comes together to meet, relax and make important business networking connections.

Date: Friday, October 15
Time: 8:00 p.m.-10 p.m.
Location:Haze at Aria. 3730 Las Vegas Boulevard, Las Vegas, NV.
Tickets: Must have BlogWorld Badge to enter.

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How To Win Tickets

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• Simply click the “Like” button on our Facebook Page (below).
• Respond to the question: “What is the future of blogging?” by noon ET on Monday, September 6, in the comments section of this post.

Please use your real identity so that we may contact you via e-mail, Twitter or Facebook to let you know that you’ve won and how to redeem your prize.

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About the Blog World Expo

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BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas on October 15-16: “Join us at the World’s Largest New Media event and learn about Content Creation, Distribution and Monetization strategies, step-by-step techniques and bleeding-edge tools from the most successful Bloggers, Podcasters, Social Media Pro’s, Internet TV and Radio Content Generators and New Media Marketing Pro’s! From the premier educational sessions at the Social Media Business Summit and BlogWorld Conference, to the resource-rich New Media Expo, to Amazing Networking events…it’s One economical trip, One weekend, One Big Show you can’t afford to miss!”

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Excited about your new Facebook page but don’t know what’s next?  What does a truly advanced company look like in social business?  They can say yes to seven or more of these ten criteria.

We’ve been interviewing the most sophisticated brands in the world when it comes to social business for our upcoming report on “Enterprise Social Strategists Role”.  We’ve come to learn which companies are advanced and why.  Secondly, I meet a variety of companies who tell me they are “Very advanced, having done this for a few years, and have dozens of Facebook efforts” but when I ask them some specific questions on their sophistication, they often retract their statement.

How to tell if your Company is Advanced: 10 Criteria Of Social Business Maturity.
Corporations that have these and other following elements in place, may truly be sophisticated when it comes to social business:

1. Clear understanding of their customers socialgraphics. Clear understanding of how their customers use social media by knowing the socialgraphics of your customers.  Granular knowledge of where their customers are, which behaviors they use, who they trust for information, and how they influence their peers in the context of their own products.
   The true test? Your company can adjust budgets of your integrated social strategy based on data –not gut feel.
2. Your organization is in Hub and Spoke, Dandelion, or Holistic formation. Social technologies enable all employees that want to talk to customers to do so.  This means a massive change inside of your organization to get ready.  Your company is sophisticated if you’ve organized in the Hub and Spoke, Dandelion, or Holistic and all employees clearly know their role, process, and contact points.
   The true test? A product crises has emerged on YouTube on a Friday evening before a three day weekend and you can sleep peacefully.
3. Corporate website integration: Social sign on. When customers come to the corporate site, they can see which one of their friends uses which product, and what they think about it.  Common technologies would include OpenID, Facebook Connect, and other social sign on technologies.
   The true test? You can disable your corporate registration page and use social logins instead.
4. Personalized corporate website based on social data. When a prospect (someone who’s never logged into you website before) arrives to your corporate website, they receive a customized experience based on their social IDs.  This would be based on Social CRM infrastructure, social sign on technology and a large inventory of personalized content.
   The true test? The voices of the consumers real world friends emerge above that of the brand right on the corporate website, see Levi’s foray.
5. Thriving advocacy program: customers are actively selling on your behalf. The sophisticated marketing program isn’t really the company talking much at all, instead they’ve a thriving advocacy program and word of mouth program that encourages customers to recruit prospects for them –all unpaid.  Learn how to do this, by reading this piece on Forbes.
   The true test? most leads are coming in through existing customers –not your sales team.
6. A community of customers supports each other, reducing support center calls. A company that has a thriving branded community where customers are self-supporting each other with little aid from the brand or the support team is a sign of a sophisticated social support program.
   The true test? A majority of customer support issues are resolved by community faster, with greater satisfaction than your dedicated support team.
7. Anticipation of prospects and customers using Social CRM technology.  Brands can anticipate before a customer has a problem, or grab leads “right out of the air” by using brand monitoring software, intelligent keyword monitoring and responding to be faster than real time using Social CRM strategies.
   The true test? sales and marketing are getting leads before the consideration phase, and the support team reduces inbound calls by triggering the community to resolve a potential issue before it’s escalated.
8. Innovation of new products with customers using web collaboration.  Companies that use these same tools to glean input from customers (ethnographic data collection) or create private communities, or use collaboration and innovation tools like Ideastorm or Uservoice and build new products and services demonstrate true sophistication.
   The true test? faster time to market on products because consumers have dictated the specifications, and less inventory as the product is built on spec.
9. Supply chain is influenced by social data in real time. Social media isn’t just about marketing and support, but is very valuable in listening to customer signals then to anticipate which products, services, and teams should be when and where.
   The true test? Your company is sophisticated if you’re using social data to adjust your supply chain in real time based on customer signals from checkins, tweets, and plancasts.
10. Real time reporting of revenues, costs and efficiency:  I’ve met with some of the most advanced teams, and they have clear reporting and can measure the increased revenues (over the total cost of the program) to tell their executives the true ROI of their business program.
    The true test? Real time dashboard measures the health of all social channels revenues, CSAT, sentiment and overall program costs.

We’ve done research on the roadmap for companies to reach these 10 levels of nirvana, but have found few companies that have done a few, or even a majority of them. If you know of any companies that have achieved five out of ten of these criteria, we’d love to know, please leave a comment.

We told you it's a busy time for laptops! Following up on its recently announced SF and NF series, Samsung's unleashing two more families of lappies and we're here to tell you all about 'em. First up is the QX series, which finally brings NVIDIA's Optimus to the the manufacturer's rigs. We're assuming overseas the QX will come in a variety of sizes, but here in the US the 14-inch QX410 (pictured above) will be a Best Buy exclusive and will pack a Core i5-460M CPU and a NVIDIA GeForce 310M GPU. Externally, we have to say it's one of the nicest systems we've seen lately -- the brushed metal lid adds some polish and the chiclet keys remind us a lot of those on the VAIO Z. The QX410 should be priced around $849 when it hits the double B this fall.

Packing a bit more muscle are the 15.6-inch RF510 and 17.3-inch RF710, which have both Core i5 and i7 options. The RF510 boasts a NVIDIA GeForce 330M GPU and Core i5-460M processor and is slated to hit for around $899, while the RF710 with an i7-720M CPU, the same graphics, 640GB of storage and a Blu-ray drive will be priced at $1,029. Those sound mighty tempting to us. Hit the break for the full release and the galleries below for some shots.

Continue reading Samsung QX and RF Series laptops roll out with Intel and NVIDIA organs

Samsung QX and RF Series laptops roll out with Intel and NVIDIA organs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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They say the first bite is taken with the eye. If so, these appetizing restaurant websites succeed in whetting our appetites, inviting us to a savoury next bite. In these designs, color scheme and introductory copy show vastly different aspects of the restaurant experience. Moody warm tones create atmosphere, vibrant greens underscore freshness, and earthy colors communicate a relaxed, friendly attitude.

Because customers are increasingly using mobile browsers to make decisions on the spot, restaurant websites are doing a better job of communicating core information quickly. Similarly, full Flash websites with no mobile alternatives are seeing some decline. Especially interesting is how these businesses are improving their online menus by replacing PDF-only downloads with Web-optimized alternatives that are more readable and easier to navigate.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that we are publishing a Smashing eBook Series? The brand new eBook #3 is Mastering Photoshop For Web Design, written by our Photoshop-expert Thomas Giannattasio.]

Showcase Of Restaurant Designs

Geogeske
This design has printerly qualities, with its eye-catching oranges and whites and oversized headings. Everything works together to establish a relaxed yet smart urban atmosphere. The JavaScript effects (sectional fades and spring-loaded logo introduction) are used sparingly and effectively. Simple navigation and short copy make scanning easy while putting the focus on the strong menu-worthy photography. However, the site could certainly use a larger font size.

Jam Restaurant
Upscale modernist and classical elements are used consistently on this website and in the menu and restaurant interior. The vibrant typographic header looks stunning while enhancing usability by prominently displaying a phone number and hours. Another nice touch is how the body scrolls beneath the stationary translucent header.

Benito’s Hat
Named after a celebrated Mexican president, this restaurant communicates authenticity and freshness with a green cilantro backdrop and clear devotion to its culinary roots. At times, the backdrops on the interior pages eat the foreground text; a little contrast and spacing would help in spots. Overall, an offbeat feel that works.

Pizzeria Napolicentrale
This website uses horizontal navigation to guide the user through photos of mood-setting rustic Italian elements. The beige picnic pattern adds just enough visual interest without competing with the copy. But in some sections, the taller content makes horizontal scrolling a bit floaty.

Barley’s
A cozy design rich in grainy colors and sturdy serifs. Small touches—like the roll-overs, and lighting effects such as in the logo hover state—give a handcrafted feel. Do not miss the nice, readable menu and beer list that feature stylishly simple beer ratings.

State
With nocturnal tones and pictures of people having a good time, the State uses a hip design to say that it’s a cool sociable night spot. Perhaps intentionally, there seems to be little focus on food; for example, the menu section feels skimped (disjointed navigation and flimsy type for the buttons). More photos of the restaurant and food might enhance the personality of this website. Also, the home page seems a tad cluttered. In general, a little more depth in the sub-pages would round out what is a good-looking piece.

Farinella Bakery
Fun and disarmingly honest, Farinella Bakery takes the cake in blending personality and usability. The bold header and fun footer become bookends for the spot-on copy and photos. Notice the slight head bob when you click on the navigation and the magnification when you roll over menu items; a tasty browsing experience. What makes this a winner is that the integrity and consistency of the design can be found in the smallest elements.

Sono
Authentic Japanese design elements and atmospheric audio effects work well to create mystique on this Flash website. A few usability concerns pop out: for example, the flaky JavaScript for the “Back” button and the small text that is in a cramped box with a small scroll bar.

The Little Cake Parlour
This more conventional website shines with gorgeous photography that almost seems edible. The design has a strong focus on typography, with various elements embedded in the elegant pink multi-column layout. Some design elements probably shouldn’t be images and would work better as simple plain text, though. Also, because all visual elements have a similar pink tone, they may be a bit difficult to recognize at first glance — for instance, the pink PayPal-button in the footer of the site.

Pizza Luce
With playful tattoo-like scribbles and quirky photography, Pizza Luce makes clear its immutable place in Minneapolis’ food culture. Check out the oddly captivating home page illustration. For all of these strengths, the community section feels slapped together and in need of a bit of refinement.

La Vista
The clever use of the Flash overlay here adds intimacy and life to the crisp photography. The menu is noteworthy: simple to browse and very clean.

Georgian Wine Society
The backdrop feels like a matte painting that draws us into the headspace. With that, we are receptive to the interesting narrative about Georgia’s role in wine-making. The e-commerce system is well integrated; a more generous margin between elements would augment the shopping experience.

Catered by Kate
This website’s “About” page is one of the top in this showcase. It opens with Kate smiling warmly, giving the page a welcoming human touch. Next, it summarizes (in only two sentences) three very compelling reasons why you would use Kate for your catered event. Just one distracting but easy-to-fix minus: a call-out to an empty Flickr page that is supposed to hold more images.

Can Jubany
This clean layout on deep chocolate brown feels elegant even while containing a surprisingly large amount of content. The home page sets the right tone with the large yet quick-loading video that tells a story. Two more unique touches are the simple sliding navigation and the tantalizing, well-written recipe section.

Caravan
This simple and savvy composition uses negative space to focus on the coffee while adding depth with subtle textures. If the placeholder is this solid, then our expectations are high for the full website!

Chipotle
Humor, earthy tones and engaging (and notably non-Flash) animations make for an experience that is engaging and relaxed yet expertly crafted. Consistent with its corporate message of “Food with integrity,” Chipotle focuses much of the website on its brand rather than the burritos. Be sure to tug the rope in the footer for some hidden and delightful interactivity.

Le 28 Thiers
Here are tangerine and rose hues mingled with crisp photographic elements and textures. The simple wooden table distinguishes the layout and grounds the content visually. Subtle gradients in the typography, quality photography and the curved navigation inject elegance and dimension.

Brooklyn Fare
This playful design achieves a unique charm through imagery that consists of real employees, bookish serifs and a stylish seafoam background. Especially nice is the consistent layout, with its cheerful copy and gritty photography, which avoids appearing repetitive.

Canela
Canela (Portuguese for “cinnamon”) employs a conventional layout, energetic reds and generous imagery to give a sense of flavor and sophistication. The three-column PDF-only menu makes browsing on a mobile device more challenging.

Last Click

Brew Shop
The Brew Shop is not really a restaurant website, but it is still worth mentioning. The site establishes personality at first sight with a hilarious photo and beery good humor. It backs the funny with substance, such as a very usable e-commerce system, effective copy and scannable icon-enhanced navigation. Especially nice are the swaths of red as call-outs and the subtly scrambled type.

Related Posts

You may be interested in the following related posts:

• Corporate Website Design: Creative and Beautiful Solutions
• Showcase of Sweet Chocolate Websites
• Showcase Of Delicious Coffee Websites

Would you like to see more similar posts on SM?

(al)

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Post tags: showcases

Apple certainly took its sweet time releasing iTunes 10 yesterday, and we're beginning to think it's because the company was making a last-second change to its new Ping social-network-for-music: the removal of Facebook Connect for finding friends. Seriously -- although an option to find friends via Facebook was conspicuously present during Steve's keynote demos, it's not there anymore. Oddly, the option was there at the very beginning -- several Engadget staffers definitely saw a Facebook button when they signed up for Ping last night, and there's a whole thread on Apple's support site of people who also saw it and are now wondering where it's gone.

Just to make things even more confusing, Kara Swisher at All Things D got two very different statements from Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller at the event yesterday: Schiller was enthusiastic about finding friends via Facebook, while Jobs said Zuckerberg and co. were demanding "onerous terms" that Apple refused. We're assuming Jobs was talking about something deeper than just finding friends via Connect, but it's still all very strange -- and as it stands, finding friends on Ping right now requires a fair bit of guesswork and searching, so we're hoping this all gets sorted soon. Check the video of Phil Schiller talking about Facebook and Ping after the break, as well as a snap of it (sort of) working from last night.

Update: We can't confirm this, but we've just gotten a tip saying the problem is primarily on Facebook's end -- the service is currently denying requests from Ping, and the resulting errors apparently caused enough other problems for Apple to pull the plug on the connection entirely until it's fixed. That certainly would explain why Ping has seemed buggy and slow from the outset, but we're still waiting for some official explanation of what's going on.

Continue reading Why did Apple take Facebook Connect out of Ping?

Why did Apple take Facebook Connect out of Ping? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not an understatement to say the once this whole social networking business got booming, every company, big or small, has gotten a much busier schedule to maintain. Keeping up with what goes on has almost become a full time job, and finding the right tools to keep track of the fast changing trends can sometimes be hard, if not impossible. There are; however, a few tools in development to keep us more at ease and more structured.

It’s a concept project that is looking into the possibilities of creating a gadget that will alert you to the subjects and trends you are interested in. This project, designed by Pedro Gomes, is a truly brilliant solution to a big problem. Not only will it be the mega delivery of online information, but it will also track heart rate, calorie intake, who’s calling you and a lot more.

It will be somewhat like an information funnel in which you decide what’s coming through. It will come in the form of a headset or a bracelet, and it will utilize the bluetooth technology to make it seamless and easy to use and carry around. Also, when inactive, it will work as a storage device which securely keeps your data close at hand. It’s one of the coolest gadgets this week for sure. When will it be available? Well, at this point, it’s only a concept design, but I will follow this development closely and will deliver any new information I might gather.

Facebook has become the social media channel everyone loves and loves to hate. It is a powerful platform to share your content as well as being a soapbox to share feelings and thoughts whether they are appropriate or not.

Social media seems to have hit such a nerve with people sharing anything and everything online with such gay abandon.

It continues to provide great online fodder that keeps us amused and entertained in an almost voyeuristic fashion.

The reaction to a post that I wrote titled “30 Things You Shouldn’t share on Social Media”  revealed to me the high interest in other people’s online Faux pas with 69 comments so far.

Many people seem to have their common sense gene removed when they leap on a computer in the quiet of their home and think that no one is listening (only the entire planet). It does seem that this thing we call “the social web” is so new that that our evolutionary development hasn’t caught up with the technology and we are still thinking analog when it should be digital!

It seems that sharing online is still so very novel and so early in humans social digital development stage, that we are like young children before we had all our brain cells lined up in the correct sequence that provided logical thought capabilities.

It is like when a child covers their eyes and says “you can’t see me” because they cannot see you.

So when I came across an article from Forbes.com that displays the world’s best examples at the genius level of non thinking on Facebook, I just had to share it.

Here are 10 real world examples of  how people lost their jobs and even careers due to Facebook Faux Pas.

1. The Absent Minded Professor

Gloria Gadsden, an associate professor of sociology at Pennsylvania’s East Stroudsburg University, enjoyed cracking wise on her Facebook account. In January she wrote, “Does anyone know where I can find a very discreet hit man? Yes, it’s been that kind of day.” In February: “Had a good day today. DIDN’T want to kill even one student.” Gadsden’s University, made aware of the posts, found reason to be alarmed given the tragic events at colleges in recent years. The school put Gadsden on indefinite paid leave that lasted a month before she was allowed to return in late March.

2.An Undercover Cop With Loose Lips

An Atlanta police officer was terminated in December after posting sensitive information about his job on Facebook. Among his alleged leaks: his current cooperation with the FBI on a drug case; explicit times when he would be working as a plain-clothes cop; and the fact that he was frustrated at work. The officer’s Facebook account was private, but that didn’t stop the department from booting him.

3. A Loving Supportive Daughter

In December, after General Motors’ chief executive Fritz Henderson left the company and was replaced by Ed Whitacre, Henderson’s daughter, Sarah Henderson, logged on to the automaker’s Facebook page. What she said: “HE F—— GOT ASKED TO STEP DOWN ALL OF YOU F—— IDIOTS. IM FRITZ’S F—— DAUGHTER, AND HE DID NOT F—— RESIGN. WHITACRE IS A SELFISH PIECE OF S—, WHO CARES ABOUT HIMSELF AND NOT THE F—— COMPANY. HAVE FUN WITH GM, I HOPE TO NEVER BUY FROM THIS GOD FORESAKEN COMPANY EVERY AGAIN. F— ALL OF YOU.” Dad must have been proud.

4. A Prison Guard Who Likes Sharing but Not Caring

A Nebraska prison guard allegedly bragged on Facebook in February about smashing an inmate’s face to the ground. Soon thereafter, two more Nebraska prison guards jumped in to voice their support. The state was decidedly unimpressed. All three guards lost their jobs in March.

5. Dead Wrong

The public typically isn’t allowed to see murder victims. So it would seem a bad idea to broadcast photos of dead victims on the Web. But that’s what an emergency medical technician in New York City did last spring, when he allegedly posted Facebook photos of a victim who had been strangled with a hair-dryer cord. He lost his job.

6. A Football Fans Fanatical Support Gets Him Fired

Dan Leone, a Philadelphia Eagles stadium operations worker, was unhappy with the NFL team’s decision to let Brian Dawkins, a safety, sign with the Denver Broncos. So Leone vented to his pals on Facebook, declaring: “Dan is [expletive] devastated about Dawkins signing with Denver … Dam Eagles R Retarted!!” He later deleted the post, but the Eagles fired him over the phone a few days later.

7. Naughty Nurses

Thirteen emergency room nurses and other staffers at Harrisburg Hospital in Pennsylvania were fired after a rousing–and racist–group chat on Facebook. Several of the nurses sued for unemployment compensation; that suit is still pending. They also plan to sue for wrongful termination.

8. Time Off  For Bad Behaviour

When 16-year-old Kimberley Swann decided to chronicle her new job as an office administrator at Ivell Marketing and Logistics in Essex, U.K. on Facebook, she didn’t waste any time. Her first post read: “First day at work. Omg (oh my God)!! So dull!!” Two days later, she complained, “All I do is shred holepunch n scan paper!!!” Her boss discovered the posts three weeks later–and fired her.

9. Flying The Unfriendly Skies

Virgin Atlantic fired 13 of its cabin crew members after they aired nasty thoughts about the airline’s safety standards and calling passengers “chavs”–English slang for poorly educated young people. The critics also claimed that the planes were full of cockroaches and that the airline replaced its engines four times in one year.

10. Teacher Sets A Bad Example

Ashley Payne, a teacher at Apalachee High in Winder, Ga., posted some off-color language along with photos of herself traveling, and drinking, throughout Europe. That’s not exactly the kind of example the school principal thought she should be setting, and asked Payne to resign. Payne later sued the school district; the suit is pending.

11. A Pervy Boss Gets His Revenge

In the U.K. a Facebook user named Lindsay told her friends: “My boss is a total ‘pervvy wanker.’” Too bad her “wanker” boss was also a friend on Facebook. His reply, on Facebook: “Don’t bother coming in tomorrow.”

So have you heard of anyone losing their job from what they shared on Facebook?

Image by frippy

Think what you will about the ultra-widescreen, 21:9 format Philips is pushing, but you can’t deny that its cinema-proportioned Full HD LCD TV is gorgeous. Now, Philips plans to push it even further, with a 58-inch, 3D version of the device.

The device, called Philips 3D Cinema 21:9 Platinum, sports a direct lit LED screen with a 2560×1080 resolution, 400Hz picture processing, and Philips’s Ambilight technology, which illuminates the area behind the TV in order to reduce eye fatigue and produce an immersive viewing experience.

And if you think you’ll never use all that horizontal screen estate due to the lack of titles available in 21:9 format, you can watch regular TV programming on one side while browsing Philips’s Net TV on the other.

The price tag, of course, is too high for most consumers. At around €4000 ($5,100), there are plenty of high-end TV sets to be found on the market, but this TV is truly unique. For those who want to enjoy their movies as they were meant to be seen on the big screen, and in three dimensions, there are currently no better options out there.

The Philips 3D Cinema 21:9 Platinum is slated to launch in the UK later this month. No date has been set for a U.S. release.

More About: 21:9, 3D, aspect ratio, full HD, LCD, Philips, tv

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Interconnecting natural philosophy, theoretical physics and quantum mechanics, astronomy and cosmology, natural history, geology and paleontology, genetics, chemistry, microbiology, neurology, medicine, and even the closed Chemistry line, this map of the subway is a fascinating summary of human sciences. More »

Alexander Hotz is a freelance multimedia journalist and public radio junkie based in New York City. Currently he teaches digital media at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Follow Alex on Twitter at @hotzington.

With another long hot American summer coming to a close, many students are scrambling to get back into “learning mode” before school starts. One of the simplest ways to ease that transition is with podcasts. Whether your passion is American History or Algebra, there’s probably an educational podcast out there for you.

While these programs probably won’t mirror your lesson plan, they will explore topics covered in class. Below is a sampling of some of the exceptional podcasts that both teach and entertain. Best of all – they’re free. Read on for your “2010 Downloading Curriculum.”

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Science

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Radiolab investigates some of world’s most intriguing scientific questions in a unique conversational format. Recent episodes have examined the importance of words in human development and time. First time listeners will probably notice that the show also just sounds different.

Before becoming a radio producer, Jab Abumrad, one of Radiolab’s creators, was as an experimental musician. Abumrad’s passion for ProTools is apparent in the show’s textured soundscape, which is layered with a variety of sound effects and quick edits. Perhaps the show’s only downside is its frequency. There are only a handful of episodes every season because one Radiolab episode requires months to produce.

Outlet: WNYC, New York City’s Public Radio Station
Time: An Hour
Frequency: 5-6 every season

Additional Listening: The Naked Scientists Podcast

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History

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In Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History, Carlin, a veteran journalist turned podcaster, dissects the textbook version of events. In shows that often run over an hour, the host passionately retells some of history’s best stories.

Hardcore History has become one of the most downloaded podcasts on iTunes, and Carlin’s widespread appeal can also be attributed to his insight. One podcast asked, “Could widespread child abuse in earlier eras explain some of history’s brutality?” Another show was based off the question, “Does the toughness of peoples play any role in history?” Don’t let the name fool you; all material is appropriate for younger listeners.

Outlet: Dan Carlin
Time: 1 – 1 1/2 hours
Frequency: 5-6 every year

Additional Listening: Stuff You Missed in History Class

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Economics

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Planet Money is NPR’s podcast on global economics and business. Initially created by veteran public radio reporters Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson to explain the recent financial crisis, the show quickly became one of the most popular and praised podcasts available.

Planet Money’s success lies in how it tackles complex subjects with great storytelling. A financial instrument like a Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO) may sound impossibly boring, but Planet Money routinely makes these types of things the heart of a thrilling narrative. The team continues to explore the financial collapse, but they’ve expanded their scope to include all aspects of the global economy.

Outlet: NPR
Time: 15-30 minutes
Frequency: Twice a week

Additional Listening: Freakanomics Radio

Disclosure: The author interned at NPR.

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English

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For those of us who couldn’t make it through Wuthering Heights, Cliff Notes Cramcast would have been a lifesaver. This free podcast reviews some of the stuff you need to know for the big test and does it in three to four minutes. Of course, these podcasts can’t cover every detail. To do that, you would — you know — need to read the book.

Outlet: Cliff Notes
Time: 15-30 minutes
Frequency: Twice a week

Additional Listening: Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips

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Foreign Language

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The Internet is full of podcasts that cater to students learning foreign languages. For those interested in the major European languages, Radio Lingua is a good bet. Another reliable hub is Open University, which in addition to the European languages also has a set of Mandarin podcasts. These outlets are mainly for beginners or students who need a quick review. Both are rated highly on iTunes by users.

Outlets: Radio Lingua and Open University
Time: 15-30 minutes
Frequency: Lesson plan

Additional Listening: Other reliable podcasts include Discover Spanish and Learn French.

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Math

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For those of us who struggle to calculate a 15% tip, The Math Dude’s podcast is a must-listen. Every week, affable nerd Jason Marshall explains basic concepts like how to calculate the area of an object or how to add faster. When Marshall isn’t podcasting, he researches “infrared light emitted by starburst galaxies and quasars” at Caltech, which just means his left-brain knows what’s up.

Outlet: Quick and Dirty Tips
Time: About 7 minutes
Frequency: Weekly

Additional Listening: Mathgrad.

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Current Events

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Every Sunday, comedians Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver recap the week’s events in The Bugle, a satirical podcast that is easily one of the funniest listens on the Internet. Think an audio version of The Daily Show, where Oliver is also a regular. The Bugle’s focus tends to be on the biggest international news, but the duo’s separate locations – Zaltzman in London and Oliver in New York City – ensure a focus on the English-speaking world’s antics. Although the pair has a leftward slant, there are no sacred cows. The Bugle even takes aim at itself in its tagline: “An audio newspaper for a visual world.”

Outlet: The Times (UK)
Time: 30 minutes
Frequency: Weekly

Additional Listening: NPR News, BBC World Service

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More Educational Resources from Mashable:

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- 10 iPhone Apps to Get You Back to School
- Why Online Education Needs to Get Social
- 5 Innovative Tech Camps for Kids and Teens
- 5 Organizations Helping Women Get Ahead in Tech
- 5 Fun Ways to Help Your Kids Learn Math Online

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, mattjeacock

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Reviews: Internet, iStockphoto, iTunes

More About: back to school, cliff notes cramcast, current events, dan carlin, economics, education, english, foreign language, history, itunes, math, planet money, podcast, podcasts, radio lingua, radiolab, Science, the bugle, the math dude

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Twitter has just announced the service’s official iPad app.

It’s free and comes with a slew of touch interface bells and whistles built right in. The app is intended to allow for seamless navigation between tweets, photos, web pages, videos and other media and updates. It’s also usable even for those who don’t have Twitter accounts.

Twitter for iPad [iTunes link] has a few new UI touches that you haven’t seen elsewhere. These features are custom-designed for the larger screen and touch capabilities of the iPad. It also caters to what the iPad was made for: media consumption rather than creation. Twitter’s Leland Rechis, a mobile UX designer, writes on the Twitter blog that the iPad is “a device that really lets content shine.”

The main interface is a series of panes that can expand and retract based on the kind of content the user wants to access. “Tapping on a Tweet opens a pane to the right. Depending on the content in that Tweet, you’ll see a video or photo, or maybe a news story, or perhaps another Tweet. You can continue tapping on Tweets, opening new panes, and getting new content as long as you’d like,” wites Rechis.

Media viewing is optimized for the iPad, as well. Videos play in-line with other content and can be loaded while you’re browsing through your timeline. You can pinch a video to view it fullscreen, too.

Finally, Twitter has really done some interesting things with touchscreen capabilities in this app. When you pinch a tweet, you’ll see details about the author and have a list of actions you can take, including reply and retweet. A two-finger pull-down gesture will show the entire conversation around a tweet.

It’s a creative way to approach multitouch app building, and we look forward to playing with it ourselves. We’re also really looking forward to what apps may come to other tablets in the future.

The iTunes release is rolling out right now; if you can’t get the latest version of the app right now, wait a bit and try again. And of course, let us know what you think of Twitter for iPad in the comments.

More About: apple, ipad, twitter

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It's really not that hard to win friends and influence people.

If Samsung's Galaxy Tab reads like a how-to for making a decent Android tablet, Toshiba's Folio 100 seems to serve an opposite purpose (starting with that unfortunate name), which is disappointing for a company like Toshiba. The tablet just got official here at IFA, after being spotted on the show floor earlier today, but there's nothing in the press release to change our initial impressions of the device. There's a 1024 x 600 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen, Tegra 2 under the hood, 16GB of built-in storage, SD card expansion, HDMI out, 802.11n WiFi, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, and Android 2.2 with Flash 10.1 running on top of it all. Toshiba claims 7 hours of battery of "regular" use (65% web browsing, 10% video playback, 25% standby), and everything is packed into a 0.55-inch thick form factor that weighs 1.7 pounds. Software-wise Toshiba has baked in Opera, Toshiba Media Player, FBReader, Fring (for video calls), Documents To Go, and Evernote, with Toshiba offering its own app marketplace and developer platform for tablet-specific apps. Unfortunately, the tablet ends up in person as less than the sum of its parts, and while Toshiba might be able to redeem itself slightly with perhaps a surprisingly low pricepoint, we don't imagine ourselves yearning for this device to escape the bonds of its initial Europe, Middle East, and Africa launch markets. PR is after the break.

Update: Toshiba just said that the suggested retail price will be €399.

Continue reading Toshiba Folio 100 goes official, lands in Q4

Toshiba Folio 100 goes official, lands in Q4 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(Cross-posted from the Google Chrome Blog)

Watching the 1985 classic Back to the Future last night, I was struck by how much things can change with time. The main character Marty McFly travels 30 years back in time, only to find that his house hadn’t been built yet, skateboards hadn’t been invented and nobody had ever heard rock ‘n roll.

Looking back today on Chrome’s second anniversary, it’s amazing to see how much has changed in just a short time. In August 2008, JavaScript was 10 times slower, HTML5 support wasn’t yet an essential feature in modern browsers, and the idea of a sandboxed, multi-process browser was only a research project. All browsers have come a long way in the last two years and the web has become much more fun and useful.


Since Chrome’s first beta launch for Windows, we’ve brought our Mac and Linux versions up to speed, and continued to make the browser faster, simpler, and safer across all three platforms. We’ve also introduced a boatload of features, including a more customizable New Tab page, browser themes, side-by-side view, password manager, better privacy controls, built-in Adobe Flash Player, Autofill, automatic translation, HTML5 capabilities and synchronization of various settings such as bookmarks, themes, extensions and browser preferences—just to name a few. Finally, there are now more than 6,000 extensions in our gallery to enhance your browsing experience.

Behind the scenes, we continue to extend the security features that help you browse the web more safely. This includes Chrome’s Safe Browsing technology—which serves as a warning system if you’re about to visit a site suspected of phishing or hosting malware; Chrome’s auto-update mechanism—which helps ensure that the browser is always up-to-date with the latest security updates; and the browser’s “sandbox”—an added layer of protection which prevents malicious code on an exploited website from infecting your computer.




Today, we’re releasing a new stable version of Chrome that is even faster and more streamlined. Chrome is now three times faster than it was two years ago on JavaScript performance. We’ve also been working on simplifying the “chrome” of Chrome. As you can see, we took the already minimalist user interface and stripped it down a bit more to make it easier to use. We combined Chrome’s two menus into one, revisited the location of the buttons, cleaned up the treatment of the URL and the Omnibox, and adjusted the color scheme of the browser to be easier on the eyes.

Sliding back into Doc Brown’s DeLorean and setting the dial ahead by a few months, we have more in store for Chrome. As always, we’re hard at work on making Chrome even faster, and working on ways to improve graphics performance in the browser through hardware acceleration. With the Chrome Web Store, we hope to make it much easier to find and use great applications on the web. We also ratcheted up the pace of our releases so that we can get new features and improvements to everyone more quickly.

If you haven’t tried Chrome recently, we invite you to download our new stable version today at google.com/chrome. For those of you who have been using Chrome, thanks for a great second year! We hope that Chrome has made your life on the web even better, and look forward to the next year.


Posted by Brian Rakowski, Product Manager

OpenFeint PlayTime brings cross-platform multiplayer gaming to iOS, Android originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since Yammer launched as the “Twitter for businesses” at TechCrunch 50 in 2008, the startup has continued to improve on its already solid product, releasing mobile apps and new desktop clients, adding threaded conversations, hosted versions and more. The fact is that in just under two years, Yammer, which we use at TechCrunch for internal communications, is being used by more than one million users and 80,000 companies worldwide (which includes 80% of the Fortune 500). That’s impressive growth for the startup, which has raised $15 million in funding and is doubling revenue every quarter. But the social enterprise arena is competitive with Salesforce Chatter, Jive, Socialcast and many others vying for a piece of the pie. However, Yammer is going to be releasing a new version of its application at TechCrunch Disrupt this fall which could be a game-changer.

The new Yammer will essentially turn the microblogging application into a full fledged social network. Yammer plans to add a number of applications to its platform that will increase its functionality beyond just a communications platform. An events application will allow you to invite co-workers to company or group events and track responses. Attendees can also download the event into their calendar.

An ideas application will help employees and administrators create, find and categorize the best ideas within a company. Employees can rank ideas through voting, and ideas can be created separately or can be promoted from existing conversations on Yammer.

Yammer is also going to be upgrading content sharing by allowing users to preview information in shared links. The startup has also added a Q&A app that encourages workers to ask questions and find answers from a database, and includes a polling application. Additionally, the new version of Yammer will allow users to assign a task resulting from conversations and track its completion, and will include the ability to tag content with topics, making it easier to find conversations by subject.

Another integral part of Yammer’s transformation into an open social platform is the ability to install third-party applications. Yammer will soon give third-party developers the ability to sell and create applications like those that Yammer will now offer. It’s similar in theory to the Google Apps marketplace.

In terms of communications functionality, Yammer is adding the ability to send Direct Messages to multiple parties, and a chat feature, which will allow users to create chat rooms that can be archived or searchable. Missed chats will automatically become direct messages.

A new Activity Feed will aggregate stories about co-worker actions within all of their enterprise apps (both on and off Yammer) and will allow users to follow content. And a new notification feed will alert users in real time about co-worker actions that affect them.

Yammer CEO and founder David Sacks tells me the feed is one of the key components of social networking and existing enterprise platforms have been built before the concept of a realtime feed. Yammer’s next-generation application, he says, will help enterprises create a social communications platform around data and communications.

In terms of the big picture view of the social enterprise, Sacks believes that the ability to create a go-to corporate social network is a Facebook sized opportunity. Half of the social web entails sites like Facebook and Twitter, explains Sacks, and the other half will be around enterprise social networking. And he makes it very clear that Yammer hopes to be the de-facto application for companies, both big and small, to use for their social networking efforts.

Of course, it’s safe to assume that either an existing social enterprise player, such as Salesforce, or even Google may want to purchase Yammer to boost their own offerings. Sacks says he’s received considerable interest in his company, but for now he wants to focus in creating the best product in the space. That, he says, is going to be the new version of Yammer.