With 500 million people using Facebook and Twitter seeing more than two billion tweets per month, one would assume that social media usage is skyrocketing. New research from Forrester suggests that while participation is on the rise, actual content creation may not be.Forresters Social Technographics Profile analyzes consumer social behaviors and trends on an annual basis. Forrester classifies social network users by type: Creators, Conversationalists, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators and Inactives. In the past year, their research shows no measurable growth in the Creators category the audience that creates social content.In the U.S., the Creator audience has actually dipped a percentage point from 24% in 2009 to 23% in 2010. Japan was the only country measured to show a rise in Creators, growing from 34% to 36% in the past year.When it comes to social media, it would seem then that the average user feels most at home taking more passive actions, and that a majority of...

With iOS and Android, two major mobile operating systems taking up a valuable share of the market and becoming increasingly popular, it may be easy to disregard the new kid in town, Windows Phone 7

ONYX Apps announced the immediate availability of Oscilloscope 1.0 for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad on Tuesday. The app turns iOS devices into a digital oscilloscope for analyzing audio signals as well as a signal generator.






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There are plenty of apps meant to help us remember and accomplish our tasks throughout the day, but Alarms by Stefan Furst, is one of simpler and more unobtrusive new offerings on the market.






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People in the U.S. are clearly not downloading enough music - legally that is. The numbers have been crunched and sadly digital music sales in the US are slowing down – fast.

Google may finally join others in bringing Google Voice back to the App Store based on tips early this morning. A contact near Google has reportedly indicated that the official Google Voice app for the iPhone has already been approved and that Google is simply holding off to finish iOS4 and iPhone 4 support. The source for TechCrunch claims it could be in the App Store within the "next few weeks."...

GoogleVoice - iPhone - Google -...

Six generations on, and the cost of materials has decreased dramatically from the first-ever iPod Nano, which cost $89.97—for just 2GB. The 8GB version that came out recently has parts totaling $43.73.

Even the second-gen iPod Nano, which was double the capacity of the first one, cost a whopping $72.24. Of course, this was back in the day when a 4GB iPod Nano cost $199 upfront, compared to the $149 an 8GB-er costs now.

iSuppli has listed manufacturing costs at around $1.37, and while this is the first model to contain a touchscreen component, the screen...

Spam me once, shame on you. Spam me twice and it's time to get better moderators. For the second time in three days, Digg has become the pitiful victim of a major spam attack on their Top News section. This isn't the case of a complex algorithm breach or a hidden exploit being passed around the darkest corners of the Internet. The same spam sites that attacked early in the morning on September 26th hit again before midnight on September 28th.

We've seen several third-party Google Voice iPhone apps make their way into the App Store, but we'll be seeing Google's official version soon too according to a report by TechCrunch. Apparently Apple may have even approved the app already:

[TechCrunch has] gotten word that the official Google Voice application is on its way to the iPhone in the next few weeks. In fact, [they've] heard from a source close to Google that it's already been approved - Google just needs to revamp the application to work with the iPhone 4 and iOS's multitasking capabilities.

Sounds like great news, particularly since an official Google Voice app could include features which third-party versions are...

XMarks co-founder and CTO Todd Agulnick has posted an open letter on the company's blog informing users of his bookmark-syncing and recommendation engine XMarks that the service will shut down in 90 days. In his post, he explains that the lack of a profitable, growth-driven business model and inability to sell to another company led to the decision to close down the service....

XMark - Foxmarks - Bookmarks -...

Microsoft have today updated their free Bing search app for the iPhone and iPod Touch to version 1.3, revamping the travel features, simplifying maps and adding relevant business and neighborhood labels to help users quickly find locations....

iPhone - Bing - Handhelds - Smartphones - ...

The jailbreaking attempts on iOS 4 devices continues as one of the major players, the dev-team, posts a video of a new iPod Touch running a beta version of the latest exploit in iOS 4 called SHAtter.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

Weighing the risks of increased government surveillance

Despite persistent reports suggesting RIM's market share has been eroded by the growth of Android, data gathered by analytics firm StatCounter suggests web usage on BlackBerry handsets has actually grown at the same pace as Google's mobile platform. As Android and BlackBerry show parallel growth from the third and fourth positions, respectively, web usage on the iPhone has slid behind Symbian and within 10 percent of BlackBerry....

BlackBerry - Handhelds - Smartphone -...

Tagalicious is a $20 Mac application from the The Little App Factory (best known for their excellent DVD ripper RipIt), which will clean up your iTunes library metadata, fetch artwork, and even find lyrics. So far, it's been extremely impressive both in accuracy and price.

I had a Guns N' Roses song "1-01 Sweet Child O' Mine.mp3" with existing metadata saying it was the song "Sweet Child O' Mine" from their Greatest Hits album. Tagalicious said it was "Welcome to the Jungle." I played the file in iTunes, and sure enough, my metadata was wrong. It was "Welcome to the Jungle." I have no idea how Tagalicious figured that out, but I suspect it is guilty of practicing witchcraft.

The current version 1.0.1 shows a great deal of promise, although it lacks some more advanced features. Then again, that is what version 1.x...

CineTap for Netflix (US $0.99) is the newest and nicest Netflix management app that I've seen so far. It won't replace the Netflix app, since you still need to have that installed in order to instantly watch movies. But CineTap adds some great features to the experience that the Netflix app doesn't include. The app is amazingly fast and absolutely gorgeous, taking full advantage of the iPad's screen real estate. Instead of lists, it uses posters to represent movies that can be scrolled left or right, or if you tap the Show All button, the line expands to fill the screen with posters that can then be scrolled up or down. In Show All mode, you'll see 20 posters plus a...

You’d better be sitting down for this one: The Pew Research Center has found that Apple gets more coverage from the mainstream press than any other tech company in the U.S. We know, that’s not really a surprise, but in sharp contrast to the not-so-distant past, the organization also found that “the bulk” of that coverage was positive.






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iCodeBlog.com has posted the first part of their tutorial in creating a Blackjack card game for the iPhone. In this first part of the series we are going to introduce the core of the game; the deck. We will be building a very generic deck of cards that could be used in any type of [...]

Mac gamers who use the Steam gaming service can finally get a taste of the popular Supreme Commander series now that the recent sequel Supreme Commander 2 is available via Virtual Programming's Deliver2Mac download service. The game, first available for the PC and XBox in March, is a top-selling futuristic real-time strategy adventure featuring online multiplayers (up to 8), skirmish mode and spectacular environments that is set 25 years after the original....

Supreme Commander - Games - ...

CWmike writes "A majority of mobile app developers see Android as the smart bet over the long run even as they vote for Apple's iOS in the short term, according to a survey conducted jointly by Appcelerator and IDC. The survey polled more than 2,300 developers who use Appcelerator's Titanium cross-platform compiler to produce iOS and Android native apps. Of the 2,300 polled, 59% said that Android had the 'best long-term outlook,' compared with just 35% who pegged Apple's iOS with that label. But three out of four said that iOS offers the best 'near-term' outlook, with 76% tagging Apple's operating system as the best revenue opportunity."

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The iPad's finally got some competition; in the past few weeks, the HP Slate made a brief appearance, the Samsung Galaxy Tab debuted, and just BlackBerry unveiled its business-minded PlayBook today. Here's how they all measure up:

It should be noted that there are still some things we don't know about the PlayBook, and the HP Slate specs are taken from a...

HP may have bought Palm and that company’s WebOS for use in its own Whole Widget tablets and smartphones, but the company is not out to be like Apple, according to one of the company’s executives. Todd Bradley, Executive Vice President, Consumer Products, made the comments at TechCrunch Disrupt 2010 when asked if his company was trying to follow Apple down the iOS path.





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Google and Apple may be at each other’s throats as often as not, but it doesn’t mean they still don’t carve out some private time--just for them. Apple also finds itself on the business end of another vague patent claim, and the Droid you may or may not be looking for has finally arrived.






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Our utilities update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though a utility can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems.

Microsoft will phase out Windows Live Spaces in favor of Automattic's hosted blogging service WordPress.com.

The 7-inch tablet unveiled by BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Monday targets enterprise users and will run a new operating system developed by QNX Software.







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Previous versions of the Audible.com iPhone app required users to buy books via their computers. No more.







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As expected, Research In Motion unveiled a new tablet Monday, a device the company is calling “PlayBook.” The device has a 7” display and is 10mm thick. It is powered by a dual-core 1GHz processor, and as expected is run on a new operating system called BlackBerry Tablet OS that  was built on technology acquired when RIM purchased QNX Software Systems earlier this year.





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A new Gadget Census study, released by Retrevo, has looked into substantive differences between habits of iPhone, Android and Blackberry users on both their handsets and other high-tech devices. Android users were deemed the most "cutting edge," with iPhone users positioned as young, satisfied consumers and Blackberry owners as older and tending to hang on to older technology for longer periods of time. Mac owners tended to have some PCs in the house, while PC-dominated households rarely had Macs around....

IPhone - IOS (Apple) -...

In an interview with TechCrunch, HP executive VP of the Personal Systems Group Todd Bradley revealed a few strategies of the division as it relates to tablets. Because he estimates that the tablet market will eventually be worth more than $40 billion, the division will focus on developing the webOS software for mobile devices, growing its app market and improving the interface. HP now owns webOS after purchasing Palm earlier this year, and Bradley said the software platform was the driving force behind HP's decision....

Apple - Macintosh -...

Apple's iAd service is a relative newcomer to the mobile ads industry, which is probably why it's completely falling apart. No, sorry Carol, we're kidding -- Apple's service is doing extremely well, and it's already threatening established mobile advertising services like Google and Yahoo!. IDC claims that Apple will end the year with 21 percent of the market, which means that in less than a year's time, the company will have picked up almost a quarter of a rapidly growing and expanding industry. Google's share is dropping, and that's in addition to the AdMob purchase it made a while back as well. That is a phenomenal start for the iAd platform.

And in fact, IDC is convinced that Apple's gigantic entry into the ads market has actually buoyed...

The popular travel app now offers handier controls and an iPad-optimized interface







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Apple has updated its social network for music, Ping, which it released at the beginning of the month to less than rave reviews. The changes address a major complaint from users upon its initial rollout -- the dearth of social features. To be sure, Apple hasn't addressed all the issues -- or even the main one -- with Ping. However, the enhancements it has made appear to be mollifying social networkers accustomed to greater control over how they use a platform. Ping's main perceived failing is that it is limited to the iTunes ecosystem.

Google Apps APIs can now be accessed by the emerging OAuth authentication protocol.







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Apple’s new iAd mobile advertising platform will end the year with 21 percent of the U.S. mobile advertising market, according to a new report. Citing estimates provided by IDC, Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Apple’s percentage of the market will come at the expense of Google, which IDC also expects…

Appcelerator polled the developers who use its cross-platform app-making tools and found that most think Android has a better long-term outlook than iOS. But interest in developing apps for Apple's mobile OS remains high.






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Yes, folks, it’s time again for one of your favorite Mac Geek Gab segments: Cool Stuff Found. Today it’s an entire show packed with all the stuff you and your favorite geeks have found in the last month. Listen and find all kinds of stuff you — and your Mac — just can’t live without!






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Storage products maker OCZ has showed off its latest solid state drive, the Onyx 2 Series. The 2.5-inch SSDs are said to be priced lower than competing products but still sport SandForce controllers. Their maximum read speeds are rated at 270MBps, while write speeds peak at 265MBps....

US-Mexico Border - People - Lefthanders - Baseball -...

I saw the new iPad nano for the first time this weekend, and though I knew it was small, of course, I was surprised by just how small it was. Despite the tiny little touchscreen, it really is about the size of the old shuffle. In fact, it's small enough to fit inside one of the old Visual Memory Units from the Sega Dreamcast. Unfortunately, the original controls don't work, and because the nano doesn't actually run any apps, you can't play anything even resembling the old VMU games that the extra controller units used to play in conjunction with the old console. But it is a nice little case for the new nano, and of course, it's just dripping with nostalgia.

You can find more information and pictures on the maker's website, which is in...

Apple garners the most media headlines of any tech company, with the iPhone 4 and iPad launches among the biggest stories of the year, while coverage of the company is overwhelmingly positive, one study has found.

Sennheiser has unveiled six new headsets featuring Apple-compatible in-line remotes and mics. The IE 8i ($600) is an in-ear headphone offering clear, balanced sound, while the MM 70i ($130) are also in-ear headphones, but are designed to offer more pronounced bass. The PX 100-IIi ($120) and

With free iPhone cases abounding, an iffy economy, and a new truck project that's capable of taking every last dollar I can throw at it, why did I buy a $70 iPhone case? Because it's the one I've always wanted.

Wood is the best material. It's second only to leather for how nice it feels in the hand—and even that's debatable. It is theoretically sustainable, assuaging the tortured consumer soul with eco-positive lubrication. And it's just pretty.

While I've got nothing but respect for Dieter Rams, the legendary designer's influence over modern electronics has left us with a world of geometric shapes, cold metal, and monochromatic plastics. The age of wood panelling in...

Best free Android photo editing apps for taking images and editing them to share with your friends. Don't look anywhere else for best photo-editing apps for Android.

Apple's advertising for the FaceTime video chat feature on the iPhone 4 is emotional and effective, and now the ads are making it to the European market. All of the ads are backed with the universally-known voice of Louis Armstrong singing "When You're Smiling," and there is no audible dialog, so these ads can be used in just about any European market. So far, they've made it to the U.K., Italy, and Spain.

The ads are sponsored by carriers 3Italia, Vodafone, and Orange. Click the Read More link to view the videos.

[via Macstories.net]

TUAWFound Footage: A look at European FaceTime ads originally appeared on The...

Apple iOS and Google Android, both are widely used platforms. People usually get confused about the Operating Systems and sometimes they end up making a wrong decision.

If your Mac is laboring under the load of applications running in the background that aren't even really doing anything, St. Clair Software's new AppTamer may provide the respite you need. It can stop applications in the background, reducing CPU usage and thus helping portable Macs run cooler, quieter, and longer.

 

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Welcome to The Loop Picks for this week. The apps showcased here are Mac software applications found in Bodega that the editors of The Loop found interesting, useful or cool. I hope you enjoy this week’s choices. Clicking on one of the apps listed below will open the Bodega app and give you more information [...]

Technology journalists stumble over each other to praise Apple, while Microsoft goes neglected, according to a Pew Research Center study.







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