Hasta La Gadget!

The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, has condemned social media as a “the worst menace to society” following a weekend of anti-government demonstrations across his country. He singled out the “scourge” of Twitter in particular, since protestors have been using that platform to share information and vent anger at the government. Small-scale riots started over plans to build a shopping mall or mosque (depending on who you believe) on the grounds of a popular park in central Istanbul, but they quickly spread to other areas and to a broader set of grievances about Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian stance. None of these disturbances were especially visible on national TV stations, however, as there have recently been heavy crackdowns on press freedom within Turkey. From the sound of it, Erdogan would prefer a more tightly controlled internet too — or perhaps none at all.

[Image courtesy of Adem Altan/Getty Images]

Filed under: Internet, Mobile

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Source: The Times (paywall)

Twitter has introduced a couple of subtle changes which makes it easier for users to update their profiles. The changes include inline profile editing and drag and drop support for header and profile pictures.

Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It Original content from Ubergizmo.

We’ve seen heat maps from Foursquare before, but we haven’t seen anything from Twitter in a while. However, the micro-blogging service showed off a handful of heat maps today that map out all geotagged Tweets that make the maps look like a blue-and-white blotch of paint that spilled onto a canvas.

The maps are of Europe, as well as populous cities like New York, Tokyo, and Istanbul. What’s perhaps most impressive is that the maps are only comprised of small blue dots for each Tweet, meaning that all those Tweets merely outline the city by themselves, and you can clearly make out roads and coastlines.

The maps incorporate every geotagged Tweet since 2009, which Twitter says are in the obvious “billions,” with every dot representing a Tweet, the more Tweets there are, the brighter the blue is. The maps are really neat to look at, and they give you a sense at just how many Tweets have been sent over the last five years or so.

Twitter has a ton more of these heat maps on their Flickr page, including cities like Sydney, Boston, Seoul, Seattle, San Francisco, and Moscow, as well as the entire US and all of Puerto Rico, which are perhaps even more impressive. If you live in one of these big cities, be sure to check it out, because it’s always fun to see your hometown lit up by Tweets.

Twitter splays out heat maps with geotagged Tweets is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Minddrive is a non-profit program in Kansas City, in which students have designed an interactive car-powered by social media. This car is powered through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The students converted a vintage Volkswagen Karmann Ghia into an electric car operated via tweets, shares, and likes. They have a tablet linked to the engine’s circuitry that controls the power flow, converting each mention of Minddrive project on the three social networks into energy or “Social Watts.” A new like on an Instagram photo adds one watt, and a comment or share on Facebook gives three watts and a new follower on Twitter translates as five watts.

They are trying to raise awareness about the non-profit so the team will use this social fuel to drive the car from Kansas City to Washington, DC. They will need 71,040 social watts to get there. Hit their website to help them out.

[via Damn Geeky]

Dish is a little late to the social television party, but it has finally arrived with the aptly (if not creatively) named Social app. The app, available on Hopper DVRs, shows personal Facebook, Twitter or Now Watching feeds — which displays tweets relevant to the show and channel being viewed — in a right rail alongside the video window. Social also enables full tweeting functionality and the ability to post Facebook status updates to up to four accounts for either social network. Lastly, the app delivers data about the amount of Twitter action related to the program being watched, such as the number of tweets in the past hour and where those tweets are coming from. Not bad, eh? All you Dish customers no longer need a second screen to spew forth your digital vitriol the next time David Benioff and D.B. Weiss kill off your favorite resident of Westeros.

Filed under: HD

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