Update: the Apple Store is back up, and yes, you can now pre-order the iPad. We haven’t seen any other significant changes in the Store. It’s finally here; the moment where the iPad actually comes into some sort of contact with the market. As we announced before, iPad pre-orders begin at 5:30 AM PT (in about 1:30 hours), and the Apple Store is currently down, indicating that pre-order forms will be available when it comes back up (and possibly something more – you never know.) Of course, u..   show all text

What do you do when you first fire up your browser? Most probably, you log into various sites that require a username and password – Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and the like. For me, personally, it’s quite a chore, as I need to log into over 10 different services before I start doing anything. Now, Mozilla sets out to alleviate this issue with a new Firefox plugin called Account Manager. It currently doesn’t do much; it recognized that you’ve signed in into a website and displays an icon that..   show all text

On November 19th, 2006, Nintendo launched its fifth home console to the world. The Nintendo Wii was both ridiculed and praised for its unique controller system — the Wiimote — which detects movements in three dimensions. Three and a half years later, the Wii has dominated the market, shattered sales records, and put its two main rivals, Microsoft and Sony, on the defensive. Both companies are responding with motion-based controllers of their own though. Microsoft has generated some big buz..   show all text

Apple fanatics will be able to place their iPad orders at 5:30 AM Pacific time (8:30 Eastern) tomorrow, Friday, March 12th. The pre-orders will be available through Apple.com, and are expected to ship in the United States next month — April 3rd to be precise. The Unofficial Apple Weblog learned about the pre-order time after it asked Apple for the information in an e-mail. Let’s assume you’re the sort of person who wants an iPad; if so, you can still wait for the launch date and pick up an..   show all text

Live TV can be tough, especially if you’re in a cranky mood. Case in point: WVLT TV Volunteer News reporter Gordon Boyd, whose on-air freak-out has gone viral this week. Reporting from a courthouse in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, Boyd seems to be having a bit a trouble wrapping up a story about a harrowing sentencing. As he goes to deliver the final sentiment, he botches the line, saying gravely: “Staying and doing nothing is as heinous as doing at all.” The slip of the tongue prompts th..   show all text

Last week, an App Store error got the latest version of Foursquare for the iPhone into a few users hands a little bit early. That hiccup resulted in the app briefly disappearing from the App Store before finally returning early yesterday. Now the newly designed version of the app is in the App Store and available for everyone to check out. Foursquare 1.7 features a new design, faster checkins and shouts, plus an easy way to view your checkin history. The app also features pull-to-refresh,..   show all text

A new study from security firm Barracuda Labs provides some interesting insights into the state of the Twitterverse. Unfortunately for the microblogging startup, the stats say that most of its users aren’t very active. The study looked at around 19 million Twitter accounts (PDF) in order to figure out how people are using Twitter. It started with one assumption: an active or “True” Twitter user has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people, and had tweeted at least 10 times. By tha..   show all text

Google has just released an alternative player for Google Reader that gives those with a penchant for browsing news the ability to do so in an image-heavy, TV-like fashion. Dubbed Google Reader Play, the new tool is an experimental Google Labs project that presents stories one by one — based on their Recommend Items technology — using enlarged photos and auto-playing videos (in lieu of text) on a black backdrop. Viewers can redefine categories and star, like or share stories, with those be..   show all text

When it comes to competition, CNN president Jon Klein fears Facebook. The man at the top of the news network believes that the social network is more of a threat to his business than other broadcast media organizations. In a recent question-and-answer session with BusinessWeek, Klein specifically states, “We want to be the most trusted source,” and, “I’m more worried about the 500 million or so people on Facebook versus the 2 million on Fox.” The intriguing statements come just weeks after..   show all text

Bikers rejoice, Google has just added intelligent biking directions for more than 12,000 U.S. bike trails as a new option inside Google Maps. The company writes that the new biking features will “include as much bike trail data as possible, provide efficient routes, allow riders to customize their trip, make use of bike lanes, calculate rider-friendly routes that avoid big hills and customize the look of the map for cycling to encourage folks to hop on their bikes.” The new option now sits..   show all text

Welcome to Act III of the OK Go/EMI drama: According to EMI, the pop band has decided to leave the record company and form their own independent label, Paracadute Recordings, under which they will take over control of their third album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. Here is the full statement from EMI: “OK Go, the band whose inventive internet campaigns and self-directed music videos have set records and won the band a GRAMMY® Award, and EMI Music’s Capitol Records, the band’s label sinc..   show all text

You think the iPad will be the only tablet we’ll talk about in 2010? Not even close. According to Arm’s worldwide mobile computing ODM manager Roy Chen, we can expect as many as 50 tablets before the year’s end. “The first tablet devices will launch in the second quarter by [mobile network] carriers. You’ll see a lot more in the third quarter,” said Chen. He declined to name specific companies that will launch the tablets, but he did say some of the top 10 telecoms will launch a tablet. Ar..   show all text

In November, Phonebooth.com released the beta version of Phonebooth OnDemand, which is a full-featured phone service that lives in the cloud, but can communicate with both cellular phones and IP desk and conference phones. Today, that service — which costs $20 a month per user — is becoming generally available. Phonebooth.com is also leveraging its own private VoIP network to launch Phonebooth Free, a free version of its hosted phone system, which is very similar to Google Voice but aimed ..   show all text

Spam and phishing have been ongoing problems at Twitter for some time, and tonight the company announced that it is stepping up its efforts to stop them with some new features, described as being able to “detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of bad links.” In a blog post, Twitter writes that the protection works by “routing all links submitted to Twitter through this new service … even if a bad link is already sent out in an email notification and somebody clicks on it, we’ll be able ..   show all text

Google’s call for medium-sized cities to pilot its high-speed broadband network has attracted the marketing wit of another locale: Greenville, South Carolina. Citizens of Greenville have launched the “We Are Feeling Lucky” campaign –- an obvious play on Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button — an effort that will culminate in citizens trying to form “the world’s first and longest human Google chain.” Glowsticks will apparently be involved in the event, scheduled to take place on the evening o..   show all text

New location-based social search tool FourWhere shows Foursquare tips and comments using Google Maps so you can search and discover what everyone is saying about nearby places. Users simply input a location or address into FourWhere, right-click (control click) on the map and select display preferences. The map can display all comments nearby, all venues in the vicinity and/or remove venues without tips. It’s a simple app with a powerful purpose. For those of us preparing to journey out to..   show all text

Rebecca Zook is an online female math tutor who has been helping students get math into their brains for seven years. She blogs about learning at Triangle Suitcase. Over half a million votes were cast to decide Barbie’s newest career. But even though Computer Engineer Barbie was developed in consultation with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering, the new doll’s appearance has sparked controversy. While some have embraced coder Barbie, others have attacked ..   show all text

A couple of days ago Foursquare’s iPhone application disappeared from the iPhone App Store due to “hiccup”. If you doubted that was true, worry no more, as the application is back in the store. Here’s the official explanation of what happened: “Last week, Foursquare accidentally released to the App Store a new version of its app before it was totally ready. It was pulled shortly after, unfortunately, many users had already went through the update, and were left stuck with a non-functioning..   show all text

Foursquare is battling for your SXSW check-ins with a musical scavenger hunt. Rival Gowalla is going to go after them with free gadgets – specifically free Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus devices as part of a promotion the location-based social networking service is unveiling in conjunction with their just-launched app for webOS. The app should hit the Palm App Catalog on Tuesday, and like the company’s applications for other platforms (including its recently launched Android app) it dete..   show all text

Today at the #140tc Twitter Conference in Seattle, Washington (which I keynoted this morning), HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes announced that its popular Twitter application will be integrating with both MySpace and Foursquare, starting this week at the South by Southwest Interactive conference. HootSuite is one of the more popular Twitter applications, one specifically geared towards power users and businesses. It has been on a roll recently, launching integration with Wordpress and rolling out..   show all text

Remember the Pantless Knights of “I’m on a Mac” fame? Well, they’re back today with a new vid titled “The New Dork,” a parody of Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’s “Empire State of Mind” that pays tribute to social media adherents and hipsters alike. With shoutouts to Zuckerberg, Mashable, Valleywag, Gizmodo, LinkedIn, Twitter and tech nerds camped out in their mothers’ basements, this video is all about using your social media cache to attain new levels of irony-spun hipness. According to these tech..   show all text

BBC News has a very cool interactive chart up, showing how Internet had grown from 1998 to 2008 in various parts of the world. In 1998., the only countries with significant Internet usage were USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden. Of course, I remember using the Internet in Croatia every day back then, but it’s true: for most people, it was “this new thing” and it didn’t play a very important part of our everyday lives. Moving the slide..   show all text

Tumblr, one of the simplest blogging platforms around, is doing really well. Situated between Wordpress, which requires a bit more effort to create and organize content, and Twitter, which requires almost no effort but also doesn’t offer many features, Tumblr is the perfect tool for users who want to have a blog with photos, videos, and other content embedded, but simply hasn’t got the time or the will to struggle with a complex blogging platform. How is this working out for them? Well, ac..   show all text

According to The New York Times, the United States Treasury Department will tomorrow give Internet services license to export consumer-aimed services like instant messaging and photo sharing to countries with which trade has previously been restricted, including Iran, Cuba and Sudan. The United States defines these nations as “closed societies” because their governments sometimes try to restrict the free flow of information between citizens, however in many cases trade is restricted by the..   show all text

In a study conducted by the BBC World Service, four in five respondents said they believe web access is a fundamental right. 90% described the Internet as “a great place to learn,” and 78% considered it a source of “greater freedom.” A bit more than half said that the Internet should not be regulated by government at all. 27,000 people form 26 countries were surveyed, and their responses varied by location. While a large number of people from the United States, Mexico, Nigeria, and South K..   show all text

The iPad is breaking out in a very mainstream fashion: an ad for the Apple device just aired during the Oscars. The ad explains why Apple CEO Steve Jobs was spotted on the red carpet earlier. We’ve got a screenshot and we’ll post video as soon as it comes in (update: video added below). Apple iPad Commercial During the Oscars [img credit: TheFullM0nty] Steve Jobs on the Oscars Red Carpet [img credit: Wayne Sutton] Tags: Apple iPad, Commercial, ipad, jobs, Oscars, steve jobs, tre..   show all text