Twitter’s Top Trending Topics of the Week:

twitter logo_word bubble.jpgA lot happened this week. We learned who would be going to the Super Bowl, the Australian Open went down, President Obama gave his State of the Union Address, and so much more. If you missed any of what was buzzing on Twitter, we’ve got you covered.

Here are the top trending Twitter topics for the week ending on January 28:

1. I’m Proud to Say
So, one of the biggest trends on Twitter this week wasn’t even actually news. It was just a meme that had people talking about what they are proud to say. #improudtosay

2. Andy Gray Firing
Sky Sports soccer commentator Andy Gray was fired from his position after he made (supposedly off-air) sexist remarks about female referee Sian Massey. The initial reprimand was a one-game suspension, but was changed to dismissal after other examples of inappropriate behavior came about. #AndyGray

3. State of the Union / Sputnik

The President of the United States has given his annual State of the Union address, using the phrase “this is our generation’s Sputnik moment” as a metaphor for America as a country to rise the challenges ahead. #Sputnik

Check out the rest of the list after the jump!

Next PS3 update rumored to add ‘Online Saving’ for PlayStation Plus users

Say it with us, finally a PS3 firmware update that actually does something useful! We’ve grown so accustomed to Sony refreshing the software on its console just to spite jailbreakers that we almost started to believe that’s all the word “update” entailed. But, here comes Kotaku with word that v3.6 of the PS3’s firmware will come with a neat little addition: saving games to the cloud. This seems a very logical step toward delivering Sony’s overall goal of giving users a holistic, integrated experience. Indeed, during the NGP presentation, guest speaker Hideo Kojima specifically referred to saving your PS3 game on the console and resuming it on the Next Generation Portable. “Online Saving,” as Sony’s reputed to be calling it, would be the conduit through which that can be realized, though it doesn’t appear like it’ll come for free. Kotaku‘s sources indicate it’ll be part of the PlayStation Plus subscription, at least initially. Still, we like cloud storage, and if it means never having to see another hard drive again, we’re all for it.

Next PS3 update rumored to add ‘Online Saving’ for PlayStation Plus users originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 13:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceKotaku  | Email this | Comments

German researchers prototype 6mm thick pico projector

Pico projectors just keep shrinking, and a new prototype developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Engineering is helping said shrinking along pretty strikingly. The team has developed a prototype pico which is just 6mm thick, making it the world’s slimmest ever. Better yet, the projected image is 10 times brighter than a pico projector of its size would have previously been — had it existed. The new lens on the projector is so small that it could potentially be integrated into smart phones without boosting size or weight. The new prototype is made of 45 red, green or blue microlenses, each with a 200 x 200 pixel LCD, inspired by a microlens array called a fly’s eye condenser. The resulting resolution is nearly, but not quite, WVGA with 11 lumens of brightness. The prototype will be shown off at Nano Tech 2011 in Tokyo.

[Image credit: Fraunhofer Institute]

German researchers prototype 6mm thick pico projector originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 12:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceTechnology Review  | Email this | Comments

Android 2.3 security bug shows microSD access vulnerability

A researcher at North Carolina State University is warning of an Android 2.3 security vulnerability that gives attackers access to your personal information, further proof that Gingerbread isn’t all sugar and spice (to be fair, that SMS issue has since been remedied). According to Xuxian Jiang, the bug allows malicious websites to access and upload the contents of a user’s microSD card, including voicemails, photos, and online banking information to a remote server. The flaw apparently resembles a similar bug in previous version of Android, thought to have been addressed with Gingerbread. However, as Jiang points out, that fix is easily bypassed. Apart from removing the microSD card, disabling JavaScript, or switching to a third-party browser, Android 2.3 users have little recourse in squashing the bug. The folks at eWeek reported that Google is working on a solution to the problem, but there’s no word on when we can expect to see an update.

Android 2.3 security bug shows microSD access vulnerability originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 10:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceNorth Carolina State University  | Email this | Comments

Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 Slips To July 11

This article was written on June 28, 2006 by CyberNet.

Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 Slips To July 11

Mozilla has announced that they are pushing the Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 code freeze back to July 5 and the ship date back to July 11. The ship date was expected to be July 6 so this is about a 1-week delay.

The final Firefox 2.0 will hopefully still stay on schedule with the vague release date of August. The release would probably be towards the end of August because they also plan to release RC1 in August. Let’s cross our fingers for an on-time release.

The latest meeting notes for Firefox 2.0 have not been published from yesterday’s meeting, but they should be up soon. I am looking forward to reading the notes to see if they say anything about the Visual Refresh and the new default theme.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Sony’s official NGP announcement video hits the web

Sure, you followed along with our Tokyo liveblog and breathless posts announcing Sony’s Next Generation Portable (codename: NGP, get it?) successor to the PSP. But nothing’s quite like viewing a video posted 48-hours after the event to get a true feel for the historic occasion… historic to nerds like us anyway. The power is now in your hands — use it wisely to watch a thrilling three-part trilogy after the break. More videos at the source link below.

Continue reading Sony’s official NGP announcement video hits the web

Sony’s official NGP announcement video hits the web originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 09:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourcePlayStation, PlayStation.Blog  | Email this | Comments

This week in Crave: The supersonic edition

This week Sony’s PlayStation people showed off a sexy new portable, Kindle books outpaced paperbacks on Amazon, and NASA tried to keep sonic booms quiet.

Layar Player lets AR loose on iPhone apps

Layar’s been the go-to platform for augmented reality on Android since 2009, bringing you the useful, the creepy, and the just plain weird — and now it’s unleashing the beast on iOS, again (it’s already available as a dedicated app). The Netherlands-based company just launched Layar Player, a free tool that allows anyone — with a little developer know-how — to create their very own AR iPhone app. Accompanying the announcement are three brand new Layar Player-enabled apps: the Bing-sponsored Snowboard Hero, which incorporates a special AR mode for collecting points; a contractor locator called Layer Trade; and VerbeterdeBuurt, an app that acts as an AR community bulletin board. The company’s press release touts the “democratization of augmented reality,” and while we can get behind their AR-for-alll message, we’ve already seen Layar used in ways that give us the willies. Don’t get us wrong, we’re still excited about the endless AR possibilities, but we’re hoping, at least for now, that iPhone app developers can keep the AR monsters at bay.

Continue reading Layar Player lets AR loose on iPhone apps

Layar Player lets AR loose on iPhone apps originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 08:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceLayar  | Email this | Comments

Get Your Five-Minute Multiplayer Game Fix with OMGPOP

This article was written on October 16, 2009 by CyberNet.

Have a few minutes to spare for a quick online game? OMGPOP has over ten different multiplayer games (and counting) that have one thing in common: they’re excellent at getting your productivity down a notch! And thanks to the site’s obligatory social networking features, it’s really easy to challenge your friends to a Bomberman game over the internet. Here’s a selection of some of their best games.

Hover Kart Racing is a 3D racing game. Even if you’re not good at its more advanced counterparts such as Need for Speed, it’s pretty easy to get the hang of this game. Watch out for mines, bombs and other Super Mario Kart-ish dangers. Expert tip: to cut corners, use the Shift key to drift.
How to play it: Up accelerates, Down brakes, Left/Right steers, Shift jumps or drifts, Space activates power-up.

hoverkart.jpg

Balloono is an excellent Bomberman clone, with a small difference. Instead of dropping bombs to blow up your opponents, you have to use water balloons. On the plus side, you no longer need to share your keyboard with your friends to play against them.
How to play it: use the arrow keys, hit the spacebar to drop bombs.

balloono.jpg

Ballracer is a 2D racing game. Every time you play it, you’ll be dropped in a random level from Ballracer’s large level set. There are plenty of speed powerups, hidden shortcuts and pitfalls to separate the men from the boys.
How to play it: use the arrow keys, press Up to jump.

ballracer.jpg

If you consider yourself a button masher, you might like Hit Machine. The concept is no different from Guitar Hero or Tap Tap Revenge: when a note hits the bottom of the screen, you have to hit the appropriate button. The music in Hit Machine is limited to unknown songs, so if you’re looking for Lady Gaga’s newest hits or that old Beatles classic, you’re out of luck. The multiplayer element of this game is limited to a leaderboard.
How to play it: use the letters ASDJKL on your keyboard.

hitmachine.jpg

oldblockles.jpgIn the early days of OMGPOP, their games were largely cool adaptations of popular games. You used to be able to play a killer Tetris clone with power-ups called Blockles on OMGPOP but – you guessed it – the lawyers from The Tetris Company weren’t too happy with that, so OMGPOP had to kill it. The current version of Blockles is a Dr. Mario clone. A few other “clone” games such as Tracism (Pacman with a fun twist) seem to have shared that same fate.

Fortunately though, most games that are worth playing are still available so play ‘em while you still can! Be careful though… don’t get caught visiting this site at work. ;)

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Study shocker! Mobile users piddle around on the internet while watching TV

Shocker of shockers, folks: people do more than just watch TV when they’re watching TV. A study of over 8,000 willing individuals from Nielsen and Yahoo recently discovered that some 86 percent of mobile internet users tinker around on their devices while situated in front of the tube. It seems that Googling random facts, checking their Facebook news feed and seeing who has tweeted in the past 30 seconds were atop the list of activities to do while watching, but strangely, a full 20 percent confessed to search for more information about a commercial they recently saw. Hit the source link below (PDF) to be instantly bombarded with facts and figures, but first, refresh that TweetCaster feed. Ah, so much better.

Study shocker! Mobile users piddle around on the internet while watching TV originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 07:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceNielsen / Yahoo [PDF]  | Email this | Comments