Tag: TRENDS

There's a load of great tech news happening out there every day, and, unfortunately, we just can't cover it all. Here are a few of the other noteworthy things we saw today on our never-ending journey through the wild, wild Web. Hack n Mod shows you how to take a clunky gadget scratched from months of abuse to a sleek, brandless futuristic device with just a few simple polishing tips. [From: ...

If you've been on Facebook lately, you've seen the advertisements lining the right side of the page. We usually don't pay them much attention, but every now and then, an ad pops up that catches our eye -- rarely for the right reason. According to The New York Times, many companies are festooning Facebook with self-service ads, which promote products you might like by scanning the information ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2010/03/03/wi-fi-finders-helping-thieves-locate-and-steal-laptops/'; We don't recommend leaving your laptop in the car for any reason, but, if you must, make sure you turn off the Wi-Fi signal first. According to Network World, thieves are using devices meant to locate Wi-Fi networks to detect laptops and steal them. Apparently, just closing the screen won't ...

Studies linking violence and video games are a dime a dozen, but, according to The Washington Post, Iowa State University psychologist Craig Anderson claims that playing violent games definitively leads to violent thought and action. Set to be published in the American Psychological Association's (APA) March journal, his research claims that data from previous studies, of 130,000 people total, ...

A great mystery recently surfaced on YouTube, and like any great mystery, it involves murder (as imagined by a TV show anyway), intrigue, and dogs. Yes, dogs. Earlier this week, the folks at Boing Boing found a funny video of a dog howling every time its owner played the 'Law and Order' theme song (you know, "BUM BUM..."). A quick search revealed the howling pup wasn't an isolated phenomenon. ...

When you think of Stanford University, you probably think of a pristine campus shining as a beacon of academic excellence on the West Coast. But, believe it or not, there's a seedy trend happening at this California school. According to The New York Times, cheating is running amok in the university's computer science classes. Last year, copy-and-paste cheaters made up about 22-percent of the ...

Share If you keep up with the news, you know that 2009 saw its share of tragedy. There was the Air France crash, Michael Jackson's sudden death, and the swine flu epidemic, just to name a few. While these tragic events were bad enough, spammers (or the vultures of the Web) took bad to worse -- capitalizing on people's curiosity and compassion with malware-infected e-mails that claimed to regard ...

If you've logged on to Facebook in the past week or so, you've probably noticed a string of new profile pictures on the News Feed. But these aren't your typical pictures. Instead, they're pictures of Scarlett Johansson, Ms. Piggy, and various brothers Jonas. Why would your friend insert a photo of a celebrity on her page? It's part of a new trend that recently surfaced on the social networking ...

With the job market more competitive than it has been in years, people must get creative, whether hiring or searching for a position. We all know that Twitter can be used for nefarious means, but, as it turns out, the social networking site has emerged as a useful tool for employers and job candidates, alike. Thanks in part to job search engines like TwitJobSearch, more and more people are ...

If you've missed the recent late-night imbroglio at NBC, you have missed a great deal of comedy, and some tragedy. The shakeup, which involves bumping Conan O'Brien to the midnight time slot, and moving Jay Leno back to his old time slot for half an hour, has been widely panned by the media and the online community alike. So what's the best way to fight back against the suits at NBC? A good ...

Thanks to some data from the online movie-rental service and an interactive map from The New York Times, we have more insight into what our rental patterns say about us, our communities, neighborhoods, cities, and regions. The Google-powered map shows the top 50 rentals in each ZIP code of 12 major U.S. metropolitan areas, which include New York City, Miami, the Bay Area, and Chicago. There's ...

The era of a grease monkeys spending their days on their backs, underneath a car, are long gone. Now, mechanics spend just as much time staring at a computer -- sifting through online manuals and searching for specialized tools. According to USA Today, independent auto-repair shops are struggling because proprietors can't afford the automakers' online manuals, which can cost as much as $11,000 ...

The year 2000 loomed over the world way before 1999 -- see Prince songs, Y2K concerns, and even hordes of science fiction movies set before the end of the millennium. But on January 1, 2000, nothing much changed, jet packs didn't suddenly appear, and we didn't all get rad Jetsons-style hair. While we can't speak for our readers, launch any member of the Switched staff through time from 1999 until ...

We kinda had a hunch that texting was getting out of control. But a recently released survey shows just how text-trigger happy America's become in a year's time. According to the latest statistics coming out of the Census Bureau, Americans sent more than 110 billion texts in December 2008, or roughly 407 per cell phone owner. The Huffington Post reports the latest figures represent a huge ...

With short-form publishing becoming more popular each day, people are frequently using URL-shortening services to make their posts full of content instead of cluttered with characters. When a new trend like this emerges, everybody wants a piece of the pie. That's why both Google and Facebook have recently introduced URL-shortening services. The Official Google Blog gives a rundown of the new ...