Feb 26

Twitter’s Top Trending Topics of the Week: Libia, Bieber Alert, NBA, and More

Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, Today's Chili, twitter

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As Egypt left the Top 10 of Twitter trends, Libia took it’s place to rise to the No. 1 spot of what people were tweeting about this week. Besides that one actual important topic, Bieber and Gaga were back again this week, as was Radiohead. So what else was trending this week on Twitter? We rounded up the most buzzed-about topics, and compiled a nice, easy-to-read list for you.

Here are the top trending Twitter topics for the week ending on February 25:

1. Libyan Protests
Libya’s longtime leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi, is facing nation-wide protests demanding he step down. Clashes have broken out in the center of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and in the city of Benghazi. Colonel Gaddafi has made several addresses on Libyan state TV stating he will not resign. #Libia

2. Bieber Alert
Beliebers alerted other fans around the world of a Justin Beiber sighting. He played during the NBA Celebrity All-Star game. #BieberAlert

3. Lady Gaga
Like Bieber, Lady Gaga trends again. Lady Gaga was pronounced “Queen of iTunes” on February 18th after her new single “Born This Way” topped iTunes charts with over a million downloads in 5 days. #QueenGaga

4. NBA
As mentioned above in the Bieber section, the NBA All-Star Game took place on February 20. There were also a lot of trades this week, including Carmelo Anthony to the New York Knicks and, Baron Davis to the Cleveland Cavaliers. #allstargame

5. Things the Devil Invented
People are tweeting about things that are so evil they must have been created by the devil. #ThingsTheDevilInvented

Check out the next five top trending topics after the jump!

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Feb 23

Latest Sprint teaser tweet all but confirms February 24th announcement is for Windows Phone 7

Posted in: HTC, Microsoft, samsung, Sprint, teaser, Today's Chili, tweet, twitter, windows phone, windows phone 7, WindowsPhone, WindowsPhone7, Wp7

How many mobile platforms can you think of that integrate “with your home game console, like Xbox?” Unless we’re completely spacing something out, the answer is one: Windows Phone 7. We’d already figured the Thursday announcement that Sprint has been teasing this week on Twitter — and that little Arrive leak all but confirmed it anyhow — but if you needed any more evidence that the phone formerly known as the HTC 7 Pro would be formally announced in CDMA guise this week, here you have it. We’ll know more tomorrow, hopefully.

Latest Sprint teaser tweet all but confirms February 24th announcement is for Windows Phone 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 13:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 23

Twitter Lets UberMedia Clients like UberTwitter and Twidroyd Back Online

Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, Today's Chili, twitter

Twitter Bird

On Friday, Twitter revoked API access for UberMedia applications, like UberTwitter and Twidroyd due to policy violations that varied from changing users’ tweets into advertisements and a privacy issue with direct messages longer than 140 characters. Twitter noted that the decision was the result of prolonged content and negotiations with UberMedia, but a step they had to take. 
UberMedia apparently got the picture, because their developers spent the weekend retooling their apps and making adjustments to respond to Twitter’s requests. One of those requests was to change the name of the “UberTwitter” app, which Twitter reportedly said was a trademark violation. The new app is called “UberSocial.” Additionally, developers made other tweaks and changes to the apps and the service back-end. 
When the dust cleared, Twitter restored API access to UberMedia apps yesterday. Twitter still recommends that you use one of the official Twitter clients for Android, iOS, and Blackberry, but for the time being, fans of UberSocial and Twidroyd will be able to use their favorite clients again. 
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Feb 23

BMW Connected hitting 1 Series cars first, lets you tweet your disregard for speed limits

Posted in: Today's Chili, twitter
BMW Connected hitting 1 Series cars first, will let you Tweet your disregard for speed limits

The BMW Connected app has been available for a few months now, following in the footsteps of Mini Connected as it sits there, and taunting you from the App Store. We knew cars supporting the feature would be coming in March, and now we know which ones will be first: BMW’s svelte little 1 Series. To enable the streaming radio and even streaming video (when the car is stationary) on the dash-mounted display you’ll need to tick the box next to a €150 (about $205) option. In your suitably equipped car you can then get your Facebook and Twitter feeds read to you and even provide automated responses using “vehicle information such as current speed, outside temperature or navigation destination.” We’re hoping the car can apply some flowery language to such hard data, like “bat out of hell” for those particularly warm days in which you’re driving at a high rate of speed from an unpleasant point of origin.

Continue reading BMW Connected hitting 1 Series cars first, lets you tweet your disregard for speed limits

BMW Connected hitting 1 Series cars first, lets you tweet your disregard for speed limits originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 21

Twidroyd and UberTwitter (now called UberSocial) back online

Posted in: Android, BlackBerry, RIM, Today's Chili, twitter

We know you had a rough weekend, managing your micro-bloggin’ and social networkin’ with a web interface of all things, so we’ll keep this one short and sweet: the kids at UberMedia have their once-banned apps back online! That includes Twidroyd and UberTwitter — the latter being renamed UberSocial, but one of a few changes that the company made to ensure that it wasn’t violating Twitter’s usage policies. If only everything could be resolved this quickly, right?

Twidroyd and UberTwitter (now called UberSocial) back online originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 12:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 19

Google Social Search update makes your friends more relevant, difficult to ignore

Posted in: Google, search, social networking, SocialNetworking, Today's Chili, tweet, twitter, update, YouTube

Google’s been talking up its Social Search function for sometime, but up until now your friends’ tweets probably haven’t made it to the top of your search results — unless of course you’re besties with TMZ, and you’ve been searching the Miley Cyrus bong salvia rip again. Thankfully, it looks as if that could change with El Goog’s latest update to the socially minded search function, which now mixes updates from your contacts’ various online accounts, like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, in with the standard search fare — pulling them up from their previous position at the bottom of your results. Google’s also included a photo and annotation to show the origins of relevant links, and given you the ability to manage how you connect your accounts — either publicly through your profile or privately through your account. The new functions started rolling out yesterday, which means you could be seeing a whole lot more from those contacts you regretted friending in the first place. Isn’t social media a wonderful / disastrous thing?

Google Social Search update makes your friends more relevant, difficult to ignore originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Feb 2011 08:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 18

Twitter suspends UberTwitter and Twidroyd for ‘violating’ its policies (update: apps are fixed, should be live soon)

Posted in: Android, BlackBerry, RIM, Today's Chili, twitter

Without elaborating, Twitter has just posted a help document titled “I’m Having Problems Logging In to UberTwitter or twidroyd” that gives little hope for an immediate fix: turns out the company has outright suspended both apps — among the most popular Twitter apps for the BlackBerry / iPhone and Android platforms, respectively — for “violating [its] policies.” They go on to say that they suspend “hundreds” of apps on a daily basis for policy violations, but decided to call out these two in particular because of the high number of users potentially affected. Considering the popularity factor, we imagine this’ll be solved one way or another before too long — but in the meantime, you might want to fall back to the official apps for all three platforms.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: We’ve received a statement on the issue from Twitter, which says that the violations here “include, but aren’t limited to, a privacy issue with private Direct Messages longer than 140 characters, trademark infringement, and changing the content of users’ Tweets in order to make money.” Follow the break for the full text.

Update 2: Pocket-lint says that Echofon is also suspended. Things are getting pretty serious here.

Update 3: UberMedia — which owns UberTwitter, Twidroyd, and Echofon — has said that it has “completed the changes, and new apps are currently being posted to their respective stores.” They’ve apparently gotten an assurance from Twitter that the apps will be flipped back on as soon as the changes are live. Oh, also: UberTwitter will become UberSocial, which must be the “trademark infringement” Twitter was referring to.

Continue reading Twitter suspends UberTwitter and Twidroyd for ‘violating’ its policies (update: apps are fixed, should be live soon)

Twitter suspends UberTwitter and Twidroyd for ‘violating’ its policies (update: apps are fixed, should be live soon) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Feb 18

Twitter Bans TwiDroyd, UberTwitter, and Others for Policy Violations

Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, Today's Chili, twitter

Twitter Bird

If you’re an avid UberTwitter user on the BlackBerry or TwiDroyd user on your Android phone, you might want to look for a new Twitter client: the company blocked both apps from accessing user’s Twitter accounts today for “violating our policies,” according to a new article at the Twitter Help Center. They also point out that every day they suspend hundreds of apps that breach their policies, but the only reason they’re talking about this one is because they know both apps have a large number of users. 
According to a post over at TechCrunch, the flap started back in April of 2010, when Twitter initially approached UberMedia — the company that owns UberTwitter, TwiDroyd, and a number of other Twitter clients -about its alleged policy violations. A Twitter spokesperson says that the list of violations is long, and includes, but isn’t limited to: “privacy issue with private Direct Messages longer than 140 characters, trademark infringement, and changing the content of users’ Tweets in order to make money.”
They note that they’re still in contact with them, but stop short of saying the action could be reversed. Ultimately, the post concludes by suggesting Twitter users download the official Twitter clients for Android, Blackberry, or iPhone instead.
Update: A Twitter spokesperson contacted us with a statement on the matter. He said:
“We ask all developers in the Twitter ecosystem to abide by a simple set of rules that are in the interests of our users, as well as the health and vitality of the platform as a whole. 

We often take actions to enforce these rules; in fact, on an average day we turn off more than one hundred services that violate our API rules of the road. This keeps the ecosystem fair for everyone. 

Today we suspended several applications, including UberTwitter, twidroyd and UberCurrent, which have violated Twitter policies and trademarks in a variety of ways. These violations include, but aren’t limited to, a privacy issue with private Direct Messages longer than 140 characters, trademark infringement, and changing the content of users’ Tweets in order to make money. 

We’ve had conversations with UberMedia, the developer of these applications, about policy violations since April 2010, when they first launched under the name TweetUp – a term commonly used by Twitter users and a trademark violation. We continue to be in contact with UberMedia and hope that they will bring the suspended applications into compliance with our policies soon.”
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Feb 18

URL Shorteners: How Short Are They?

Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, Today's Chili, twitter
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Twitter users users know that, when it comes to using posting URLs, brevity is the soul of not having to go back and abbreviate words until they’re unintelligible. But how much space is your favorite URL shortener really saving you? And is it finally time to switch to a new service?

We took at look at some of the top shortening services out there to see who is really giving you the best bang for your proverbial buck.
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Feb 18

Humanoid Robot To Calm ISS Astronauts, Tweet About It

Posted in: Robots, Robots Robotics, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili, twitter

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If Watson’s massive win over the human race in Jeopardy! was a little too close to the robo-pocalypse for you, here’s a decidedly less confrontational artificial intelligence. Japan is considering sending a humanoid robot companion up to the International Space Station that would not only talk with the astronauts, but also to people on Earth using Twitter. According to an article on Space.com, the robot would have facial expressions that mimic a human being and serve as both a companion to the astronauts and a monitor for the space station. An engineer from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said this artificial being would be “very human-like” and would monitor stress levels and other health indicators. Unlike other Twitter bots, this one might actually be worth following as it will also be responsible for taking photos and tweeting them back down to Earth.

NASA’s humanoid Robonaut 2 is already slated to join the ISS crew on Thursday with the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery, according to the robot’s Twitter account. NASA’s android is designed to help astronauts with things like cleaning, not to provide companionship and comfort like the one planned by JAXA. Similar to the Japanese robot, Robonaut 2 will be using Twitter from Earth’s orbit.

Japan is known for leading the way in humanoid robotics, so it should be interesting to see what the country’s space agency cooks up for the ISS astronauts. Hopefully something with a little less alarming facial expressions than this one.

[via Space.com]

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