Latest Posts from Switched

Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web.

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Short and Funny, Part 1: Conversations with Twitter's Top Comedy Writers

Twitter is like this big landfill where you can basically dump anything that pops into your head, without regard to format, audience, sensitivity, or urgency - the Outback Steakhouse of 140-character social messaging boards. And on my neurotic comedy writer's end, it's the quickest way to get a dose of validation.

One Step Back From the Digital World

This is most obvious in the darkest of places, including bars and restaurants, where a warm blue sheath of digital paint blankets people's faces as they stare down into their smartphones, foreheads pointed to one another. They are grazing on a conversation that is not the one taking place before them.

Watch:

• U.S. Navy railgun test fire. [From: YouTube]
• Bill Moggridge, Mark Zuckerberg and Jimmy Wales weigh in on the future of media design. [From: FastCoDesign]

Know:

• Grab Engadget's shiny new iPad app, chock full of Tumlbr, Twitter, podcast and commenting support. [From: Engadget]
• This year's annual Year in Ideas from the New York Times goes typography-heavy and highlights emotional spell-check, turbine-free wind power and a real-time inflation calculator. [From: New York Times]

Got a tip? Want to talk to us? In need of more choice links like these? Drop us a line on Twitter and check out our Tumblr blog.

It's not a good week to be a Winklevoss. Today, Time magazine crowned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as its 'Person of the Year,' just a few days after the embattled brothers launched a new legal campaign against their former Harvard classmate and longtime nemesis. And, as if that didn't rub enough salt in their wounds, they now have an entirely new courtroom war to wage, against a guy who claims that the twins swindled him out of millions of dollars. Allow us to explain.

In 2008, the Winklevii reached a settlement with Zuckerberg, after a lengthy dispute over their proprietary rights to Facebook. The agreement reportedly stipulated that Zuckerberg would pay them $65 million -- a sum that the brothers are now disputing. Last December, however, a 27-year-old entrepreneur named Wayne Chang filed his own suit against the Winklevoss duo, claiming that part of that $65 million settlement belongs to him. Chang says that his own company merged with the brothers' ConnectU social network to create the Winklevoss Chang Group (WCG). The Winklevoss brothers' lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the suit, but Chang appealed. The two parties will head to court in January, for a scheduled hearing on the motion.

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Today, Facebook is home to over 500 million users -- and plenty of scams. The site, after all, is tailor-made for viral sharing and provides an all-too easy way for hackers and spammers to spread malicious worms. And, unfortunately, many of them succeed, simply because Facebook users continue to fall for their tricks. There are, however, a few steps you can take to guard against such virulent evil.

Many Facebook scams entice users with intriguing Wall posts that usually advertise some sort of lurid photo, or offer extra Facebook functionality, such as seeing who viewed your profile or installing a 'dislike' button. The notorious 'Koobface' scam is a perfect example. This scheme spread via links that reportedly led to racy videos. Clicking on the link, though, would infect a user's computer, and plaster the exact same message all over their friends' Walls. Since then, others have used essentially the same formula.

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Big things come in small packages, they say, and, as undernourished, nerdy shrimps, we're here to prove that adage correct. Pint-size protagonists have long been a gaming staple, from the compact physique of 'Mario' to the robo-twerp dimensions of 'Mega Man.' This week, we'll take a look at a new generation of microscopic mascots who star in games that are big fun.

'Tiny Hawk' may take its title's inspiration from the legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk, but it plays quite differently than the line of skateboarding games named after him. In 'Tiny Hawk,' you control a diminutive skater who must travel through 32 stages, collecting a set of gems in each in order to pass to the next. Each level consists of a series of ledges, rails, pools of water and other obstacles that your small skater must surmount using a limited set of skills. Your skater will automatically move forward, while you control his direction and jumps using the arrow keys. While you'll gain momentum on solid ground, rails and grass will slow you down, and landing in a pool of water will send you right back to the beginning. Wall jumping is key to ascending each stage, but, thankfully, all you have to do is hold the up arrow after jumping at a wall to bounce back and forth with ease. Speed strips will, naturally, speed you up, while springs will launch you into the air. Although it's not especially difficult, 'Tiny Hawk' provides some quick fun, and is certainly better than the lamentable 'Tony Hawk' series' latest forays.

It takes one kind of dirtbag to simply rob a person. It takes a different level of lowlife to steal from a 15-year old. And it takes a very special kind of scum to then post photos posing with the stolen goods on the victim's Facebook page. Marc Fisher's home in D.C. was invaded one night. The thief simply kicked in the aging wooden basement door, and ransacked the house. Fisher, who wrote about the incident to the Washington Post, said his 15-year-old son was hit the hardest. The robber made off with his iPod, his laptop and several hundred dollars in cash and savings bonds -- but not before stopping to take a snapshot of himself posing with the rest of his haul (right), and posting it on the boy's Facebook page for all his friends to see.

Unfortunately, the clear photo of the criminal has not yet led to an arrest. The truth, officers on the scene confided to Fisher, is that police rarely push hard on burglary arrests because judges often let the crooks off with only probation. Facebook is providing some help in the case, though. The company immediately locked up Fisher's son's account, and did its best to trace the burglar's movements. The company is now waiting on a subpoena from the D.C. police to provide information in the case. The only irreplaceable thing lost to the theft was the son's meticulously kept database of every film he'd ever seen -- with comments on each. We'd say he should have backed it up to a hard drive, but the thief probably would have stolen that, too.

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During this holiday season, electronics manufacturers and retailers were counting on new tech like 3-D and Internet connectivity to help push TV sales, but it looks as though consumers have little interest in the latest gimmicks. According to Reuters, Best Buy chief exec Brian Dunn told analysts on Tuesday that 3-D TV sales were not living up to industry expectations. He blamed consumer confusion over 3-D and a lack of compelling content. Jay Vandenbree, head of the home entertainment division for LG, told Reuters that he expects 3-D content to eventually trickle down the same way that HD did, starting with sports and movies -- but the wait for 3-D to go mass market may be longer than expected.

Many consumers only recently purchased their first flat-screens and HD sets, and running out a year later to spend $2,000 on a 3-D display and expensive glasses for only a limited amount of content just doesn't make much financial sense. Similarly, sales of Web-connected TVs, such as the Google TV-infused Sony sets, are selling more slowly than retailers would like. Consumers realize they can get many of the same services, such as Netflix Instant, from cheaper add-on devices like the Roku and Apple TV.

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We're not entirely sure what the duo of Erin Sparling and Nicholas Hall do at Apartm.net -- and that's even after reading a profile of them over at Fast Company. All we know is that this Web development team inhabits one of the most geek-friendly offices we've ever seen. The company scored a minor viral hit with a video invitation to their New Year's Eve party. That video showed off the key to unlocking the office's door: Foursquare (video after the break). The company has a Mac Mini checking for Foursquare check-ins at Apartm.net every three seconds. When it detects a check-in from one of the white-listed employees or visitors, the computer sends a signal down to the front door triggering the buzzer and unlocking it without the need to call up on the intercom. On New Year's Eve, the door will unlock for everyone.

That's not the end of the geeky goodness, though. The company's site is hosted on a G4 model Xserve mounted inside a glass-top coffee table, where the team likes to throw caution to the wind and rest their beers. There's also a mini Nintendo museum in the living room, featuring every console the company ever released, including the Japan-only Famicom and Super Famicom, as well as an original Game Boy with both the printer and camera accessories. (The office is really just an apartment with desks.) The one piece missing from the collection is the R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) accessory for the original NES. So, if you've got one, give Sparling or Hall a call, they'd appreciate it.

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A reader asks: I recently got a new laptop that supposedly has super-fast Wi-Fi, but I honestly don't see any difference from before, which is a disappointment. I've been googling around and discovered that maybe I need to upgrade the device thingie that my DSL service provides. I honestly don't understand all this, but I really feel the need for speed, so Just Tell Me What To Get!


Dear Reader: You aren't the first person to contact us befuddled by the intricacies (and pitfalls) of Wi-Fi. Despite the leaps and bounds that engineers have made in simplifying things for consumers, setting up a Wi-Fi home network can quickly get technical and frustrating. But, with a little background info and a few recommendations, you won't need to become a network IT guy or HAM radio enthusiast to get a handle on these wireless wonders.

At the risk of presuming some of our readers are complete newbies, we'll start at the very beginning. (We've heard it's the best place to start.) So, if you're already a networking wizard, feel free to skip ahead for our specific recommendations.

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Anyone with an Internet connection and some extra time on their hands can access the secret diplomatic cables recently published by WikiLeaks -- except, of course, anyone who works for the Air Force.

Yesterday, the Air Force confirmed that it had blocked all sites that had published the full cables, including the New York Times, the Guardian, and more than 25 other news organizations. Personnel trying to access the marked sites on work computers will now be greeted with a message that reads, "Access Denied: Internet usage is logged and monitored." Anyone who tries to circumvent the rules will face punishment.

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