| Foursquare Updates Privacy Policy to Display Full Names Dec 30th 2012, 18:57  Foursquare sent out an email on Saturday detailing updates to its privacy policy and planned service changes that will take place in January.
Currently, usernames are displayed with full first names and an initial for surnames (e.g., Kenneth R.) on the location-based social network. Starting next year, however, profiles will display both full first and last names. "We get emails every day saying that it's now confusing. So, with this change, full names are going to be public," the email said, adding that users can alter their full names under the "settings" tab. What's more, companies will now be able to view a more detailed overview of visitors that have checked in throughout the…
Continue reading... More About: foursquare, instagram, privacy settings  |   Steam Holiday Sale 2012 Day 11 Has Price Cuts for Far Cry 3, Doom 3, More Dec 30th 2012, 18:03 Day 11 of the Steam Winter Holiday Sale of 2012 has just started and this time Valve has slashed the prices on a new series of great games, including Far Cry 3, Doom 3: BFG Edition, Mark of the Ninja, as well as Age of Empires III Complete or franchises like Mount & Blade or Orcs Must Die.
This year's edition of the Steam Holiday Sale has featured a variety of impressive deals on great games but also plenty of impressive franchises.
The bargains on Day 11 of the promotion... (read more) |  Softpedia Exclusive Discount: 50% Off East-Tec Eraser 2012 Dec 30th 2012, 18:01 East-Tec Eraser is one of the most advanced applications developed to permanently delete files and folders and thus lend you hand when trying to enhance your privacy.
If there’s one thing that really needs to be mentioned is East-Tec Eraser’s ability to remove data beyond recovery, so no software would ever be able to get the erased items back.
You don’t really need to be a very experienced user to make the most of the app because the intuitive interface... (read more) | | 7 Bad Moves That Hurt Facebook in 2012 Dec 30th 2012, 17:57 
Facebook has made strides in 2012. A billion users and a smart new Timeline UI punctuate a banner year for the world's most important social network. But 2012 also marks aggressive moves to expand and monetize -- some might say at the expense of user experience and community. At best, Team Facebook is making tough choices in a delicate balancing act. At worst, they are tone deaf to conscientious users. While we're a far cry from mass exodus, there are only so many missteps to take before someone eats Facebook's lunch. Here's what went wrong in 2012. 1. Personal Promoted Posts In October, Facebook rolled out a curious feature called Personal Promoted Posts. Us…
Continue reading... More About: Facebook, features, Opinion, Year End 2012  |  Softpedia Exclusive Giveaway: EaseUS Partition Master Professional Dec 30th 2012, 17:01 This year’s holiday campaign had a lot of HDD-related promotions and, as the New Year approaches, we’ve got a big surprise: today, you can download EaseUS Partition Master Professional with Linux bootable disk completely free of charge.
EaseUS Partition Master provides all the tools necessary to manage your hard drive’s partitions. First of all, you’ll be able to perform basic operations, you can easily create, format, delete, explore and, of course, la... (read more) |  Script of the Day: Elefant CMS Dec 30th 2012, 17:01 Elefant CMS is what they call "in the industry" a CMF (content management framework). A combination between the power and adaptive properties of a pure PHP framework and the user friendliness of a CMS (content management system).
It does all the things a CMS does, and it also provides all the tools a framework provides, satisfying the needs of simple non-technical users and hardcore developers alike.
Developed on an MVC model and boasting a super simple content editin... (read more) | | 10 Auld Lang Syne Covers You Shouldn't Forget Dec 30th 2012, 16:03
1. Beer Bottles Because what else were you going to do with all of those empty bottles at the end of the party? Click here to view this gallery.  Should old acquaintances be forgot? Not this year, no. Actually, not any year. Bring on the Auld Lang Syne!
Sing the traditional folk classic and holiday staple from the rooftops or in front of the neighbor's house. Or keep to yourself, and record a video in your room -- like many of the videos we've found above. From a beer bottle rendition to a special meow-ledy as a bonus. Watch the videos above to see different takes on the classic New Year's song and send us your favorite versions in the comments below. We challenge the really brave to create their own cover. Photo courtesy of Flickr, bayassa More About: Auld Lang Syne, Holidays, new years, Watercooler  | | Collective #44 Dec 30th 2012, 15:02 Inspirational Website of the Week  SilkTricky is a great example of an interesting layout combined with interesting effects and slick media integration. Don’t forget to watch their intro video :) Check it out
Dive into Flexbox  An excellent in-depth article by Greg Smith from Bocoup on the new Flexbox layout mode that is considered the holy grail for layout. The article dives into the revised Flexbox syntax in technical detail and you’ll learn what you can do with it. Read it
Learn CSS Layout  This site teaches the CSS fundamentals that are used in any CSS layout. You’ll learn about all the important CSS properties involved in layout with practical examples. Check it out
Talks To Help You Become A Better Front-End Engineer In 2013  A list of great talks by various speakers for becoming a better front-end engineer by Smashing Magazine. Read it
Science!  Jon Tan takes us on an important journey of the science behind how people scan websites and interact with them. This science helps make decisions on how to design and create a better user experience. Read it
Maskew  Maskew by Dan Motzenbecker is a light-weight JavaScript library for skewing the shapes of elements without any dependencies. Get it
Free Font: Hammer  Hammer by Taulant Sulko is a modern-looking condensed slab serif typeface with a lot of character. Get it
Vintage Badge Templates  This resource by WeGraphics includes 12 brushes and 12 vector badges. The badges are blank, allowing you to layout your own text and embellishments. The download also includes 8 vintage paper textures for use with the badges. Get it
Minimal UI Icon Set  The designers of Breezi have put together a collection of 50 icons that are a great resource for adding the finishing touches to your design project. This handcrafted set is available as PSD and AI source files. Get it
Progressive JPEGs: A New Best Practice  Learn why progressive JPEGs are the new best practice and what the challenges and rendering differences for browsers currently are and what’s in for the future. Read it
Separation, Abstraction, and Cascading in CSS  An interesting article from a different perspective by Eric Normand on what he believes the problems of CSS are. Read it
Gemicon (PSD, PNG)  Gemicon is a handcrafted icon set with more than 600 icons by Turqois. It comes in three different sizes and each icon was created with a pixel-perfect shape layer in Photoshop. Get it
Free Font: Vincent  Ben Suarez created this interesting typeface perfect for strong titles. Get it
How to Create a Windows 8 RSS Reader App with HTML5  A tutorial by David Rousset for WebAppers on how to create a RSS reader app with HTML5 for Windows 8. Read it
How To Deal With Vendor Prefixes A great write-up by Chris Coyier on how to handle vendor prefixes depending on if you are a hand author that will edit CSS directly or if you use preprocessors. Read it
Elusive Icons  Elusive Icons is a webfont with 268 icons for you next project. They are Open Source and you can contribute to the project. Get it
Forward E-Commerce Platform  Forward is a open source platform for custom e-commerce with MongoDB. It comes with many features and it makes customizing easy, with powerful templates and an expressive syntax. Try it
Photobox v1.03  Photobox is a light-weight jQuery image gallery which uses only CSS3 for silky-smooth animations and transitions. It supports modern browsers and was created by Yair Even Or. Check it out
CSS3 Gradient Designer 
A sophisticated gradient generator tool by Tom Pryor with all the things you need to create a perfect CSS gradient and copy the CSS code. You can also download the source code from GitHub. Check it out
Free Font: Blocko  Blocko typeface by Jorrit van Rijt is best suited if used in capitals for large headings. If you use it in a project, make sure to drop the author a line. Get it
App Folders Plugin for jQuery  With jQuery App Folders you can effortlessly arrange items as on an iOS device. It’s very flexible and it can be used with any content. Get it
Reuze.me  Reuze is a small front-end framework that makes structuring HTML and CSS for mid to large-sized content-rich sites a breeze. It plays nice with other frameworks such as Foundation and Boostrap but also works equally well on it’s own. It’s still in beta but new useful features are coming. Check it out
 |  GOTY 2012 Game of the Year: Far Cry 3 Dec 30th 2012, 14:51 We're now at the end of Softpedia's Game of the Year 2012 awards and the main distinction – the Game of the Year one – will have two winners, one chosen by me, Andrei Dobra, and one chosen by my colleague, Andrei Dumitrescu, which both reflect our personal opinions.
For me, as you could have guessed after checking out the rest of the... (read more) |  Super Mario Bros. 3 Launches on 3DS Virtual Console on January 1 Dec 30th 2012, 12:46 Video game publisher Nintendo announces that it plans to launch Super Mario Bros. 3 exclusively in Japan on the Virtual Console of the 3DS handheld on January 1, 2013 in order to celebrate the coming of the New Year.
The holiday is important to the Japanese and Nintendo is hoping that celebrations might include some gaming time with one of the best titles in the series, for the low price of just 500 Yen, a little over 5 dollars or just under in Euro.
It’s unclear wh... (read more) |  Alarming "You're Next" Message from Moth Goes Viral on Reddit Dec 30th 2012, 12:01 In case you ended up here by mistake and the title of this article has left you bewildered, check out a creative image one Redditor posted.
Featured above is a user's “conversation” with a moth. The scenario is quite simple: kid goes into the bathroom, kid owns a smartphone, he is scared by a moth and texts his father for help.
The dad never responds, instead his phone is taken over by an evil moth with opposable thumbs and a passion for technology.
... (read more) |  Microsoft Confirms IE Flaw, Releases Workaround Dec 30th 2012, 10:01 Hackers have recently found a bug in Internet Explorer 8 that would allow them to deploy malicious software on a vulnerable computer, but Microsoft reacted pretty fast and issued a workaround to help users stay on the safe side.
The Redmond-based technology company said in a security advisory that IE9 and IE10 are not affected by the fla... (read more) |  A Gamer's Week: December 30 Dec 30th 2012, 09:51 This week might just be the slowest in terms of news of the year, when it comes to gaming but also to other areas that Softpedia covers, and we’ve also taken some time off to be with our families for Christmas.
This means that we have no reviews for you to read from the past seven days, although you are always welcome to peruse our extensive archive... (read more) |  Highest Grossing Movies of All Times – Video Dec 30th 2012, 06:01 In case you thought James Cameron’s “Avatar” was the biggest and most spectacular blockbuster of all times, the video below should put things into perspective a bit: it wasn’t.
Yahoo! has released a list of the highest grossing movies of all times, after adjusting their box office gross to inflation. You wouldn’t believe which one sits prettily at number 1.
It’s the 1939 masterpiece “Gone with the Wind,” which made $1.... (read more) |  Worst Movies of 2012 – Video Dec 30th 2012, 04:51 Kristian Harloff and Mark Ellis are the first YouTube movie reviewers to get certification on the prestigious Rotten Tomatoes website and, while they say they’re just two regular schmoes who love to talk movies with their movie-loving pals, their word does weigh a bit in the balance.
Above is their pick of the top 10 worst movies of the year that’s about to end.
They might not agree on positions 10 through 2 (which means you actually get 2 separate top 10... (read more) |  Most Anticipated Movies of 2013 Dec 30th 2012, 04:41 Just like when you’re trying to sum up an entire year in a Best or Worst list with 10 or 15 (or even more) entries, it’s equally hard to be definite about which are the most hyped movies of the year to come. However, since 2012 is nearly at an end, we must strive to do just that.
2012 has been a solid year as far as film releases go: it p... (read more) |  Sharp SH-04E for NTT DoCoMo Receives Wi-Fi Certification Dec 30th 2012, 02:01 A new Android-based smartphone from Sharp has received the necessary approvals from the Wi-Fi Alliance, namely the Sharp SH-04E, which is expected to land on shelves in Japan via NTT DoCoMo.
The device has previously emerged over at the FCC, with a 4.6-inch touchscreen display on the front, a 2000mAh battery packed inside, and GSM / WCDMA / LTE connectivity. The mobile phone is also said to pack wireless charging capabilities, and to be Qi compliant.
The Sharp SH-04... (read more) | | Michigan Passes Law to Protect Social Media Accounts Dec 29th 2012, 23:43  Michigan passed a bill on Friday that prohibits employers and schools from asking employees and students for login information to their personal social media accounts.
House Bill 5523, signed by Governor Rick Snyder and introduced by state Rep. Aric Nesbitt, "prohibit[s] employers and educational institutions from requiring certain individuals to grant access to, allow observation of, or disclose information that allows access to or observation of personal internet accounts." This means an employer or institution cannot require that you provide them with your username or passwords for sites like Facebook and Twitter. The bill is known as the "internet privacy protection act." "Pot…
Continue reading... More About: privacy acts, social laws, Social Media  |  New Sony Xperia Phone Spotted in Ad Materials in Australia Dec 29th 2012, 23:31 Australian retailer Harvey Norman has some Sony Xperia handsets available for purchase, and is currently advertising a price cut for the Xperia sola in a recently published catalog.
However, it seems that the company has attached the photo of a new Android smartphone from Sony to that ad, since the handset that can be seen there is clearly not the Xperia sola.
As XperiaBlog notes, the phone sports a very thin bezel, even slimmer than the one previously spotted for t... (read more) | | NASA Sets Record with Ion Thrusters Test Dec 29th 2012, 23:19  NASA has completed a 43,000 hour stress test -- a record for ion thrusters -- on a new rocket propulsion system that could extend future space travel to farther reaches of the solar system.
Developed by NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster Project, the 7-kilowatt ion thruster can burn 10-12 times longer than the conventional chemical thrusters used today. Though not practical for manned-spaceflight, the system could power exploratory rockets that reach outer planets and their moons. To find out more, watch the video above and let us know your thoughts in the comments. Photo courtesy of NASA BONUS: 15 Twitter Accounts Every Space Lover Should Follow More About: NASA, Rockets, space exploration  | | Man Eats Entire 'Hobbit' Menu at Denny's in 20 Minutes Dec 29th 2012, 22:15 
While the rest of us are trying to shed the pounds from our holiday feasts, Jamie McDonald had a feast of his own. The professional eater downs the entire 11-piece Hobbit menu at Denny's in less than 20 minutes. Comprised of dishes such as Frodo's Pot Roast, The Ring Burger and Bilbo's Berry Smoothie, the egregious 8610-calorie menu is a truck load of gluttony. All plates total: 9.75 pounds. McDonald's finishes every plate in 19 minutes and 25 seconds, though he started the timer a little late. We bet he won't be hankering for second breakfast anytime soon. Watch the video above to witness the feat and leave us your thoughts in the comments. Image courtesy of Denny's More About: Denny's, Eating competition, the-hobbit  |  Faster Than Light Is Now 25% Cheaper on Steam for Linux Dec 29th 2012, 21:49 Faster Than Light, or FTL, is a space exploration and strategy game that makes the player feel like the captain of a real starship. You can buy it now on Steam for Linux with a 25% discount.
Faster Than Light is a “spaceship simulation rogue-like,” which has practically become a genre since the game's release.
It features a unique gameplay that will keep the player on their toes, wondering if this is the moment when they will be able to finally beat the game.<... (read more) |  Deathbed Maths Theory Proven Correct 100 Years Later Dec 29th 2012, 21:11 Back in the 1920s, an Indian mathematician named Srinivasa Ramanujan ended up coughing out several mathematical functions nobody had ever seen or even heard of before.
This “natural genius,” as people used to refer to him and still do, detailed his deathbed maths theory in a letter he sent to G. H. Hardy, a renowned ... (read more) |  Weekend Reading: The Case for Impending Industry Disaster Dec 29th 2012, 21:01 I love video games, I play them every day and read and write about them for more than half my waking hours and during recent months a feeling of doom is starting to creep around the edges of my consciousness.
I am not an industry analyst and I lack access to private data from the big publishers or hardware makers, but basic e... (read more) |  FreeNAS 8.3.1 Beta 1 Is Available for Testing Dec 29th 2012, 21:01 FreeNAS, a free implementation of a minimal FreeBSD distribution, has just reached version 8.3.0 RC1.
FreeNAS 8.3.1 Beta 1 has introduced a large number of functional changes in comparison with the 8.0.x branch.
Highlights of FreeNAS 8.3.1 Beta 1:
• Volume encryption has been added to ZFS;
• Istgt has been updated to version 20121028;
• Samba was updated to version 3.6.9;
• The ability to specify the MAC address to the bridge ... (read more) |  Weekend Reading: 2012 Was Great for Games and Gamers Dec 29th 2012, 20:51 We're close to the end of 2012 and it's time to reflect on the different things that happened this year in terms of gaming, from great moments, to not so great ones and various controversies.
Just like most recent years, 2012 was certainly filled with sequels, as all sorts of franchises have received new iterations. From the likes o... (read more) | | Google Promotes iOS Apps After Maps Success Dec 29th 2012, 20:18  Basking in the successful relaunch of Google Maps for iOS, the search company has debuted ads promoting its apps for Apple's mobile operating system.
The ad, captured in the YouTube video above, aims to recruit developers by encouraging them to "reshape Google for iOS." It then goes on to list several of its iOS apps, including Google Search, YouTube, Chrome and Gmail. In a Q&A, Google Search engineer Ken Bongort says most people don't know that the company has iOS mobile-apps teams. "People think Android is the only mobile platform that we support. But we actually have a ton of in-house iOS teams, building apps for everything from Search to YouTube to Chrome to Maps." With…
Continue reading... More About: Google, iOS  | |
