 | Top 5 Kids Apps of the Week Dec 9th 2012, 19:41  Ages 2-6 Overall rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars Why we like it: Twenty well-designed, extremely simple mazes are found in this excellent starter app; ideal for introducing even very young children to the mechanics of multi-touch screen operation. Need to know: This is an excellent app for younger children that provides a solid spatial learning experience, though it would be nice if children could see the trail of their fingers. Ease of use: 10/10 Educational: 8/10 Entertaining: 9/10 $1.99 Click here to view this gallery.  Looking for great apps for your kids? Here are the top 5 apps for kids this week.
More About: Top Kids Apps, contributors, features, mobile apps  | | Apple and Google Reportedly Working Together to Buy Kodak Patents Dec 9th 2012, 19:07  Typically vicious enemies in the patent wars, Apple and Google are reportedly forging an alliance to snatch up photo-sharing patents from Kodak, the now-bankrupted company whose once-innovative products brought instant photography to the masses.
Apple and Google are offering more than $500 million to buy Kodak patents that "relate to the capture, manipulation and sharing of digital images," reported Bloomberg while citing "people familiar with the situation." Bloomberg also reported the two companies each led separate groups in failed quests to buy the patents last summer before joining forces in this fresh bid. The report of the joint Apple-Google effort comes in the midst of a spa… Continue reading... More About: Business, Google, Kodak, Mobile, Tech, apple, technology  | | 5 Innovations Transforming the Entertainment Industry Dec 9th 2012, 18:25 We all know that Justin Bieber is the Midas of social media. But he doesn't work alone -- he has a stellar team behind him, including a certain filmmaker. If you've seen Never Say Never or the Biebs' newest music video, Beauty and a Beat, you've probably admired the creative handiwork of director Jon M. Chu. He's also the brains behind dance films Step Up 2: The Streets and Step Up 3D, which have grossed more than $300 million, and he's currently in post production on his next film, G.I. Joe: Retaliation.  Chu does more than feature films and music videos -- he's also the writer and creator of The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, an original web series that was described as "the most beaut… Continue reading...
More About: Entertainment, Innovation Index, digital entertainment, gopro, mashable, tablets  | | Top 10 Kisses of 2012 [PICS] Dec 9th 2012, 17:49 In 2012, love was in the air. From the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy to the running of the bulls in Pamploma, Spain, kisses all over the world were captured in photos. Here are our top 10 picks. 10. Underwater  Fran Calvo and Monica Fraile celebrate their wedding in a Sea Life Aquarium on August 6, 2012 in Benalmádena, Spain, where two couples took the opportunity to get into the pool to get married. (Jorge Guerrero/AFP/GettyImages) 9. Lassie and Uggie  Uggie, the dog who starred in the Academy Award-winning film The Artist, gets a kiss from Lassie, a descendant of the original Lassie, at his hand and paw print ceremony outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California,… Continue reading... More About: kissing, photography, romance  | | Johnny Manziel Tweets Heisman Trophy Thank-You Dec 9th 2012, 17:02  Texas A&M Quarterback Johnny Manziel became the first freshman in history to win the Heisman Trophy on Saturday night. Soon after he received college football's top award, he took to Twitter to celebrate.
Such a special night I cannot even put it into words. Such a blessing and an absolute dream come true! Aggieland I love you all!! #gigem— Johnny Manziel (@JManziel2) December 9, 2012 As of Sunday morning, the tweet's been retweeted nearly 5,000 times. Known by fans of the sport as "Johnny Football," Manziel had a combined 4,600 total yards and led his team to a 10-2 record in their first season as members of the SEC. He's also the first freshman to throw for 3,000 yards and… Continue reading... More About: Sports, Twitter  | | John McAfee Just Wants to Come Home Dec 9th 2012, 15:59  Anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee has been on the run for weeks, avoiding Belize police who want to question him about the death of his neighbor.
In his strange cross-country journey, he claimed to have used a body double to distract authorities. He is accused of illegally sneaking into neighboring Guatemala, where he was denied political asylum and arrested, and he was rushed to the hospital following complaints of chest pains -- all the while keeping a blog detailing his saga. Now, McAfee just wishes it was all over. In a new interview with Reuters, McAfee said his goal "is to get back to America as soon as possible." "I wish I could just pack my bags and go to Miami,"… Continue reading... More About: John McAfee, World  | | Collective #41 Dec 9th 2012, 12:03 Inspirational Website of the Week  Tapmates is our pick this week. It has a really original portfolio and they have Geordi La Forge on their team ;) Get inspired Photobooth.js  Photobooth.js is a jQuery plugin that allows the user to take pictures directly from a website. It also offers real-time adjustments for hue, saturation and brightness and the ability to crop the image. Check it out 3D Hartwig Chess Set  Julian Garnier will blow your mind with this playable chess set. Nope, it’s not WebGL, it’s CSS 3D awesomeness plus the Photon and Chess.js library. Play! Embracing Touch: Cross-platform Scrolling (Presentation)  A visually stunning slideshow presentation by Mark Dalgleish on handling of scrolling overflow in mobile browsers. See it Case-Study: JAM with Chrome – How we made the UI rock  Learn about how JAM with Chrome was made from this great article by Fred Chasen on HTML5 Rocks. Check it out Typespiration  Rafal Tomal created this inspirational gallery for typography. Here you can find inspirational web font combinations with ready-to-use CSS codes, color schemes and web-safe font families. Check it out FloraJS: Simulate Natural Systems with JavaScript  FloraJS is a JavaScript framework by Vince Allen for simulating natural systems in a web browser. In Flora, the “world” is your web browser. DOM elements inhabit the world and behave according to rules meant to simulate a natural environment. Check it out Literally “Canvas”  Literally Canvas is an extensible, open source (BSD-licensed), HTML5 drawing widget that currently supports a minimal set of drawing operations. You can draw, erase, set the color with the eyedropper, undo, redo, pan, and zoom. It depends on jQuery and Underscore.js. Try it jQRangeSlider  A jQuery UI range selection slider by Guillaume Gautreau that supports dates and works on touch devices. Try it xCharts  xCharts by tenXer is a D3-based JavaScript library for building beautiful and custom data-driven chart visualizations for the web. Check it out How to Make a Mac OS X-like Animated Folder with CSS3  Another great tutorial by Martin Angelov on how to make a OS X-like folder with CSS3. 3D transforms, gradients, box shadows and the jQuery UI Drag and Drop are used to achieve an awesome result. Read it Sprite Sheet Animation with steps()  A great example on how to use steps() in CSS animation for animating sprites by Simurai. Check it out G+ for the Hacker News  Communities have arrived in Google+ and there are many awesome ones that you’ll definitely find interesting. The Hack News Community is one of them, make sure to check them out. Join now FastClick Ever felt that tapping in a mobile browser feels a bit laggy? That’s because of a delay between the physical tap and the firing of the click event. FastClick is a simple library that will help you get rid of that delay. It is developed by FT Labs, part of the Financial Times. Get it jHERE  Are you tired of complicated map APIs? Then you’ll love jHERE by Massimiliano Marcon, a simple, yet powerful map API in form of a jQuery plugin that will help you easily add interactive maps to your website. It’s very light-weight and you get highly customizable markers, event handling and info bubbles. Get it Cooky: jQuery Mobile Site Template  Cooky Mobile is a free jQuery Mobile website template by Anariel Design. Get it Product Landing Page – HTML/CSS Template  This free download by WeGraphics includes a PSD landing page design and a responsive HTML/CSS layout. Get it Seamless Wood Patterns  A great set of six qualitative seamless wood patterns by Pixeden. Get it GitHub’s CSS Performance  The slides of Jon Rohan on GitHub’s CSS performance, the challenges involved and the solutions applied for solving CSS performance related problems. The talk was given at CSS Dev Conference in Honolulu, HI 2012. Check it out Crumble: jQuery Feature Tours  With Crumble you can create a quirky, interactive tour on your website or app. It is developed by Tom Moor and it’s using grumble.js. Check it out Blurred Backgrounds  A set of 14 blurred backgrounds, ready to be used in your next design project. Get them Extensionizr: Boilerplate for Chrome Extensions  Extensionizr by Alex Wolkov is a simple way to jump-start your Chrome extension development. Just select the type of extension you want, choose permissions and you’re off. It’s inspired by Initializr. Try it  | | If You Use Social Networks, Watch This Video Dec 9th 2012, 03:26  Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Brady Quinn had some thoughtful words on our plugged-in, tech-obsessed society: Step away from social networks, and pay closer attention to your real-life relationships.
"We live in a society of social networks and Twitter pages and Facebook. That's fine and stuff, but you know, we have contact with our work associates, our family, our friends and it seems like half the time we're more preoccupied with our phone and other things going on instead of the actual relationships we have in front of us," he said at a press conference on Dec. 2. Quinn's comments came 24 hours after teammate Jovan Belcher murdered his live-in girlfriend, and later committed su… Continue reading... More About: social network, social networking, social networks  | | MiFi With Touchscreen is a Road Warrior's Dream Dec 9th 2012, 02:32  Meet the Novatel MiFi Liberate: the first mobile access point with a touchscreen, letting you configure it without connecting it to a computer.
If you're not familiar with mobile access points, these handy gadgets allow you to hook up to the Internet via cellular networks. It's useful, often essential, if you're in an area that has no Wi-Fi. If you're in range of a cellular tower, this MiFi Liberate lets you connect 10 Wi-Fi devices of any kind to the Internet. Mobile access points are ideal for frequent travelers, accommodating anyone who needs to get online wherever they are. Just the fact that you're no longer at the mercy of hotels and their Wi-Fi price-gouging makes it worth the… Continue reading... More About: MiFi, Mobile Access Point, Novatel, att  | | Verizon Wants to Track Your Movements While You Watch TV Dec 9th 2012, 01:59  Think watching television from home is the perfect alone time? Think again. Verizon has filed patents for a TV set-top box equipped with cameras, motion sensors and microphones that would track the movements within a given room –- similar to that of Xbox's Kinect system.
According to the company's patent application, the set-top box is a "media content presentation system" that would select advertisements based on "ambient action" in the room. This may mean seeing more commercials for singles getaways when you're snuggling with a loved one. Systems like this aren't new. In 2008, Comcast proposed a similar patent that would monitor what was happening in a room, and highlight spec… Continue reading... More About: Advertisment, TV, verizon  | | U.S. Defense Department Developing Super Precise Drone Dec 9th 2012, 01:30  The U.S. Department of Defense's DARPA arm is developing a drone that can deliver and precisely position a payload for deployment.
It can hover in place, much like a Harrier jet, and can fly like standard UAVs. What makes this drone even more special is its "precise autonomous payload placement." "A special robotic arm was designed with the capability of carrying up to one pound," the agency said in a statement. The "precision emplacement technology demonstration paves the way for precise long-range delivery of small payloads into difficult-to-reach environments." Watch the video, above, to see the incredible drone take flight and take action. Don't forget to let us know your though… Continue reading... More About: DARPA, Drones, UAV  | | How to Use Creative Commons Visuals Dec 9th 2012, 00:58  Tracking down quality visuals to accompany stories and blog posts can be difficult. Luckily, there are more than 200 million free photos on the web that are available for almost anyone to use -- as long as they follow the tenets of Creative Commons licensing.
Creative Commons licensing permits bloggers and journalists access to photos taken by other people, for absolutely no charge. It's a great way to engage readers with more visually interesting content, and to expose photographers' work to a new audience. But there are many rules and regulations you must follow to use the photos for free and without risking liability -- a small price to pay. It can get a little tricky, so familiari… Continue reading... More About: Creative Commons license, copyright, copyright law, photography  | | Top 10 Tech This Week Dec 9th 2012, 00:28 1. Here Comes the First Real Alternative to iPhone and Android  Jolla, a Finnish startup, launched a new mobile OS called Sailfish, which the company believes will become a legitimate alternative to the Coke and Pepsi of smartphone platforms: Apple's iOS and Google's Android. Learn more about the new OS. Click here to view this gallery.  It's been awhile since the big tech companies launched products in time for the holiday shopping season. So this week, tech news has mostly been filled with cool scientific developments and -- of course -- drones.
We learned about Swiss researchers who created an underwater drone that resembles a sea turtle, and a father who built a DIY drone to track his kid walking from home to the bus each morning. This week, we also took a look at new innovations: One groups of scientists created the lightbulb of the future, and another team built the largest-ever model of a functioning brain. SEE ALSO: Previous editions of Top 10 Tech This Week There was also plenty of mobile news. Read up… Continue reading... More About: Top 10 Tech, Top 10 Tech This Week, trending  | | Twitter to Offer Photo Filters by End of This Year, Report Says Dec 8th 2012, 23:19  If sources familiar with the matter are correct, Twitter might be getting into the photo-filter business before the end of this year. According to sources, the microblogging service is planning to add a variety of photo filters to its official app, and employees of the company are reportedly already testing the new features.
All Things Digital got a tip that such filters would be released on its app before the end of 2012. Meanwhile, The Next Web pointed out numerous telltale photos using black-and-white filters taken and posted by the company's chairman, Jack Dorsey. Twitter's new photo app might offer pictures in a higher resolution than those of Instagram, according to The Next Web.… Continue reading... More About: Twitter, filters, instagram  | | Contact Lenses Could Display Your Text Messages Dec 8th 2012, 22:45  You wouldn't dream of checking text messages or responding to email in the shower -- it's much too risky for your smartphone. But doing such tasks may soon be possible, as new technology will let you see information, such as a text, using special contact lenses.
Belgian researchers are developing a spherical curved LCD display that can fit onto contact lenses. While other attempts have fallen short in the past, this technology could cover an entire lens worth of text, images and other visuals. Check out the video, above, for more. There's also a more practical use for these contact-lens screens: adaptable sunglasses. Similar to transition lenses for eyeglasses, the contact lenses woul… Continue reading... More About: LCD, contact lenses, smartphones  | | 7 Apps You Don't Want To Miss Dec 8th 2012, 21:46 Twitterific  Twitter client Twitterific released version 5 of its iOS app this week. Overhauled and redesigned, the updated app has a new customizable user interface, gesture support, and the ability to sync timeline positions between several different devices. Click here to view this gallery.  It can be tough to keep up with all the new apps released every week. But you're in luck -- we take care of that for you, creating a roundup each weekend of our favorite new and updated apps.
This week a popular mobile photo editing app for iOS finally made its way to Android, and a hot email app for iOS saw a huge update. We found an app that lets you create virtual glass art projects with your iPhone, and an app for Android that lets you find and purchase art projects that others have created. Check out the gallery above for a look at this week's app highlights. If you're still looking for more, check out last week's Apps You Don't Want To Miss. Think we left a great new ap… Continue reading... More About: App, android, iOS, weekly app roundup  | | The Top Comments on Mashable This Week Dec 8th 2012, 20:53  What a difference a few years make: Metallica announced on Thursday that it was releasing its entire catalog on Spotify. Reader Smoe noted just how much had changed since Sean Parker angered Metallica only slightly more than a decade ago. Click here to view this gallery.  It's the end of the year, but at Mashable we're looking forward. The top comments from our community this week encapsulated the sentiments common to the end of the year: reflection on the past and speculation about the future.
By now you've probably noticed we've rolled out the brand new look for the site to all of our readers. The new Mashable is social, mobile and visual. Last week at the Media Summit, we heard time and time again that media organizations need to adapt to a reader-first, mobile-first mindset. At Mashable, our new design extends to our community as well. We've overhauled our commenting system to put our readers, and your voices, first. What do you think of the new Masha… Continue reading... More About: community, myspace, top comments  | | This UPS Driver Reveals the Secret of Christmas Dec 8th 2012, 20:30 
Spoiler alert: Santa is actually a UPS man. A new YouTube video shows a man, identified as UPS delivery man Ken Jones, singing a hilarious version of "Winter Wonderland." In the video, uploaded Wednesday, Jones not only admits to being the jolly old elf who delivers cheer to all children, but also to being on a "scheduled break." Watch the video, above, and don't forget to thank your postal and parcel delivery person this holiday season. Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr, zyphbear More About: Christmas, UPS  | | John McAfee tripped up by the smartphone Dec 5th 2012, 16:19 The case of John McAfee just gets weirder. Here's how he was tracked down in Guatemala, where he is currently seeking asylum from Belize authorities. | | Proposed amendments to ECPA would make Orwell squirm Nov 26th 2012, 15:59 George Orwell wrote his famous book about Big Brother in 1948. What would he think about the Electronic Communications Privacy Act? Changes to the act are being voted on this week in the U.S. Senate. | | Connect your WordPress blog to Facebook Nov 21st 2012, 17:00 Ryan Boudreaux gives you step-by-step instructions on how to use the SharePress plugin to connect your WordPress blog to Facebook for automatic updating. | | Making sense of computer forensics Nov 20th 2012, 13:30 Alfonso Barreiro goes over the basics of computer forensics that all IT pros should know. Preparing your organization for the possibility of a legal investigation should be part of any security... | | Transform your website with HTML5 Boilerplate Nov 13th 2012, 14:00 Ryan Boudreaux introduces a tool that will help you convert your website to HTML5. The template includes HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and more files to help you move ahead. | | Get to know the Impress.js presentation tool Oct 30th 2012, 17:59 Ryan Boudreaux shows the basics of how you can use and modify the Impress.js presentation framework provided by Bartek Szopka to add sizzle to your website and web-based presentations. | | Web Platform Dot Org: How you can contribute Oct 18th 2012, 13:00 Ryan Boudreaux introduces the brand new project, announced by the W3C, that brings developers together to contribute to a cross-brand, cross-browser, and cross-platform web developer documentation... | | Create cool stitched effects with CSS3 Oct 2nd 2012, 17:53 Ryan Boudreaux illustrates how to create a stitched effect using the CSS3 dash border property and with and without background images. | |
