Author: Josh Wolford

Roku has just announced a pretty significant milestone: 5 million players sold.

Roku first launched in 2008, and the device was called “the Netflix player,” basically because its only function was streaming Netflix.

Over time, Roku broke out of the “Netflix box” moniker by adding plenty of other high-profile apps – Hulu Plus in 2010, HBO GO in 2011. Spotify and Time Warner Cable support more recently. As of now, Roku boasts around 750 channels. And with 5 million players sold, it’s clear that Roku holds a firm place in a market filled with streaming options. It’s about half of what Apple TV has sold (globally), for a competitive reference.

“What are people streaming on Roku? Tons of TV shows and movies. Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, Crackle, HBO GO and VUDU are all top favorites. Music is extremely popular, and consumers enjoy Pandora, VEVO and Spotify among other choices. News, sports, science and foreign languages from around the world are also big hits. Did I mention games? In 2011, we introduced casual games to the Roku platform with the debut of Angry Birds, which took the leap from mobile to TV for the first time. Angry Birds remains the most popular game on Roku today – by our count more than 3 billion bad piggies have been eliminated!” says Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood.

Roku says that these 5 million boxes have streamed over 8 billion individual items of content of video and music, and that 25% of all Roku players stream over 35 hours per week.

Roku just launched their new device, the Roku 3 box, last month – and it’s been getting some good reviews. Are you a Roku user? What do you think the furutre holds for set-top boxes that pretty much exclusively stream online content to TVs?

After testing the new feature back in January, Facebook has officially launched their new action-based statuses that let you share how you’re feeling or what you’re doing with a fun little emoticon.

And and automatic link to the relevant Facebook page, which is the key aspect of this new feature.

Starting today, Facebook is rolling out the new sharing option to U.S. users. The rollout will take a couple of weeks, according to the company. What you’ll find is the inline ability to share action verb statuses – “feeling,” “watching,” or “drinking,” for instance.

“Josh Wolford is watching Jurassic Park,” maybe. Alongside the statues will we a little icon specific to the action (for watching, a little movie cut scene board. The object of the action will also get its own link in your status – leading users to its Facebook page.

It will also be added to the appropriate box in your Timeline (Movies box, in this case).

As we touched on back in January when Facebook first began to test these action-based statuses, this is clearly not just Facebook bringing back emoticons for the hell of it.

At the time, Facebook said:

“It’s just a new way for people to visually represent what they’re doing and how they’re feeling through their Facebook posts. It will only be available to small set of people. This isn’t integrated into Graph Search. It’s just a small test to see if people are interested in sharing their actions in a more visual way.”

But you have to imagine that this sort of data could be integrated into Graph Search. Using an action status already automatically adds the direct object of the actions (whether it be a movie, food, book, musical artist, etc) to your Timeline.

“These updates, and the stories added to your timeline, respect the privacy settings you choose for your post,” says Facebook. So as long as you have your privacy settings tooled correctly, these action statuses shouldn’t open you up any more than a regular status update or “liking” the product in question would.

But this structured status update makes it much easier for Facebook to collect data on your activities, the same way they do with Open Graph actions. And more information means that Facebook knows which pages to suggest to you, and which ads to target you in both the news feed and otherwise. It’s also another format for Facebook to use in Sponsored Stories. If you post one of these action statuses that says you were drinking coffee at Starbucks, you know that at some point, your friends will be shown that status as a sponsored post in their news feed. It’s simply Facebook taking the page-tagging out of your hands, and doing it for you.

Is it a data grab? Sure. But as Facebook says, it’s also a fun new way to more visually express your activities. Use it or not, it’s up to you. Which is the great thing about all social media, really. You give up just as much data as you want to give up.

Facebook has just announced that their antivirus marketplace has been opened up to 7 new languages: French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, and Portugese.

“Last October we expanded our AV Marketplace to include new vendors in order to provide even more choice and protection to the over 1 billion people who use our service. Today, we look forward to opening up the Marketplace to even more of our users,” says Facebook.

“We hope this will help you protect your devices both on and off of Facebook.”

Facebook launched their AV Marketplace back in April of last year. The marketplace offers free versions of popular antivirus software for users, originally launching partnerships with Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos and Symantec.

Free antivirus is beneficial to Facebook users, obviously. The marketplace offers free trials of the software, upon which they can decide if they want to fork over the cash for full version.

It’s not just about giving users the ability to download free trials of anti-virus software. These partnerships allow Facebook to to incorporate their databases into Facebook’s own URL blacklist database, so that Facebook is better able to identify potential threats on the site before they become major problems.

Facebook beefed up the AV marketplace back in October, adding partnerships with avast!, AVG, Avira, Kaspersky, Panda, Total Defense, and Webroot.

Along the way, Facebook also launched the Malware Checkpoint, which lets users self-enroll in anti-virus protection. They also created a new [email protected] email address, where users can send reports on any phishing attacks they come across on the site.

You can check out all the products offered for PC, Mac, and Mobile here.

Foursquare has been improving their service in the hopes of “moving beyond the check-in” for some time now. Today, they’ve released the all new Foursquare version 6.0 for both iOS and Android. With this update, search and recommendations (what Foursquare calls “Explore”) is now a bigger part of the experience than ever.

Here’s how Foursquare describes all the changes they’ve made to the app:

With the new Foursquare 6.0, we’re crunching all our data to show the best of what’s nearby, anywhere in the world, the second you open up the app. To help you discover all this, we totally redesigned the Foursquare app into four main sections. Here’s what you’ll see:

Search is now front-and-center at the top, so you can quickly find what you’re craving, or see things like trending places (in real-time) and top picks. Below that, you’ll see a map with nearby friends and interesting places highlighted. Tap on the map to expand it so you can see great places around you. After that, we show you the best things at that moment – our top personalized recommendations, along with your friends’ check-ins around the world. And, at the bottom, we have the new check-in button, for when you want to share and remember the places you go to.

Gone are the three tabs at the bottom of the screen that graced the previous versions (friends, explore, and me). Explore and your friend feed is all contained in the main feed, with search front and center. This is your “Home” screen. To access your profile and history, to-do lists, and more – just swipe right.

“Our goal with the new Foursquare is to reveal more of the world around you the moment you open up the app, and help you find exactly what you’re craving,” says Foursquare.

And to that end, Foursquare has completely redesigned both their iOS and Android apps to help achieve what the company has been working toward the last couple of years – moving beyond the check-in.

You may have heard that phrase a lot in reference to Foursquare in the past year or so, and with good reason. Foursquare launched back in 2009 with a focus on check-ins – and that’s about it. You checked in, earned some points, and maybe unlocked a badge. Yes, the app had a small social networking element to it – in that you could track your friends’ check-ins and see how you stacked up on a points leaderboard. And yes, you could browse nearby places. But in 2009, nobody would have called Foursquare a “local search” app. And they certainly wouldn’t have called it a premier place for “local discovery.”

Like I said before, Foursquare hasn’t just launched version 6.0, with its heavy focus on local search and recommendations, out of the blue. There has been a long march to this new vision of Foursquare. Let’s look at that march, starting about a year ago when Foursquare unveiled the “all new Foursquare.”

That update brought a completely redesigned friend feed to the mix – with larger photos, more information on tips, comments, and the ability to “like” individual check-ins. But the real work was done on the Explore tab. Foursquare integrated even more of their millions of data points to give users a better idea about what was going on around them, and why they should frequent nearby locations. The Explore tab began to notify users of nearby specials, “top picks” that ranked venues on the popularity in the Foursquare community. They added new categories to search like “food,” “nightlife,” and “trending,” all of which relied heavily on you and your friends’ past check-in data.

“This isn’t just a fresh coat of paint, it’s a whole new app. And, as such, it’s just the beginning. We’ve got lots more coming…” said Foursquare at the time.

Shortly after that, Foursquare updated their app to improve the map and give it even more search categories. Then, they introduced a new kind of rating for venues – a number between 1 and 10 that is based on user likes. Later, they added a “recently opened” category to the Explore tab. A few weeks after that, location pages were improved with larger, highlighted location photos. In the past couple of months, Foursquare crammed even more recommendations onto the Explore tab and bolstered the info on venue pages.

See what I’m saying? Foursquare has made tons of small tweaks leading up to this new Foursquare, one that truly looks and feels like a culmination of Foursquare’s true goal of becoming a top local search and recommendation engine to compete with the likes of Yelp, Urbanspoon, and yes, Facebook.

Of course, Foursquare isn’t abandoning the check-in. The check-in is one of the metrics that powers the service. Without it, the whole recommendation engine falls apart. That’s why you’ll see an ever-present check-in icon front and center at the bottom of your feed at all times.

To survive, Foursquare cannot simply be about the check-in. It has to be more. This update shows that it is more – a lot more. But whether or not users recognize this is left to be seen. You can grab the update today in the App Store and Google Play.

Is Facebook losing its stranglehold over young social media users? According to some data from an bi-annual survey, the answer is yes. And it’s not that social media in general is losing its cool factor, it’s that other networks like Twitter and even Instagram (owned by Facebook, of course) are stealing Facebook’s mojo.

The data comes from Piper Jaffray’s 25th bi-annual “Taking Stock with Teens” survey that looks at everything from online shopping and fashion, to tech, social, and gaming.

The survey looked at which social networks are the “most important” for teens. It found that Facebook still holds the top spot – but barely. And it’s been declining over the past year.

Facebook is the most important social network for 33% of the teens surveyed, which is down 9% from 42% back in the Fall of 2012 (the last time this survey was published).

Twitter, on the other hand, saw an increase from 27% to 30% in teens claiming it as the most important social site in their lives. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook but has stayed independent, grew in popularity from 12% to 17%.

Watch out Facebook, Twitter is nearly as important to teens as you.

The only other significant change in social media loyalty among teens in the past few months is in the “other” category. Piper Jaffray notes that the top 5 “write-in” picks for most important social media service were Wanelo, Snapchat, 4chan, Kik, and Twitter’s just-launched six-second video app Vine.

Another interesting find from Piper Jaffray’s survey: Teens still love their iPhones. Nearly half (48%) of those surveyed said that they already own an iPhone (up from 40% in the Fall) and 62% said that they plan on buying the iPhone as their next device. Compare that with Android, which had 23% of teens expressing future desire.

[Image via toodlepip, Flickr]

Sometimes you just need to contact and be contacted with a temporary number. And the iOS app that has popularized that practice since last August has just launched on Android.

You can grab Burner at the Google Play Store today.

Burner allows users to easily create disposable phone numbers for both voice and SMS communications. All you have to do is open the app, tap to create a new burner, pick an area code, and tell the app which number the burner should forward all messages to. Now you have a temporary number to use in any variety of dealings, one that prevents any contact from knowing your true phone number.

Upon downloading the free app, users are given one free burner applications. After that, additional numbers can be purchased through credit packages starting at $1.99.

“We’re really excited to launch Burner for Android. Android is a huge market opportunity for us, and along with making Burner for iOS free, is a key step in making Burner available to everyone,” said Greg Cohn, CEO Ad Hoc Labs. “As privacy is becoming an increasingly hot issue in the mobile space, Burner is an important tool for users to protect themselves by adding an extra layer of anonymity to their phones.”

If you’re like me, the word “burner” brings up thoughts of The Wire and cheap dumbphones that can be used for illicit activities. But in reality, there’s a host of reasons why you would want to call and text from a number that’s not your own.

Think communications with buyers on a service like Craigslist. Or even dating – you sure don’t want that guy to have your real number if he turns out to be a creep. Burner suggests that their service is perfect for things like job searches, short-term projects, and social networks. It’s also ideal for professionals who don’t really want clients ringing them at all hours of the night – think doctors, lawyers, or teachers.

Along with the big Android launch, Burner has also made significant improvements to their iOS app:

“Burner has also made significant upgrades to its iOS app. New features include: customizable voicemail greetings; the ability to manage call history by starring, renaming or hiding conversations; improved notifications of in-bound calls, missed calls and voicemails; and other enhancements. In addition, consumers can now refer Burner to friends to earn credits for their account.”

Although you’re not going to be able to use the Burner app to completely hide yourself from the prying eyes of the law, it’s an incredibly useful app when you want to hide yourself from people you don’t know, don’t trust, or don’t particularly wish to have long-term communications with.

If this is the look of waining popularity, I’m sure Apple is quite content to let it continue.

Piper Jaffray’s 25th bi-annual teens and devices survey just came out. And in continuing what has been a trend over the last few surveys, Apple comes out on top. Although Android OS smartphones made some (very) small gains, the iPhone is far and away the most desired smartphone on the market among our nation’s bright future.

According to the survey, 48% of teens already own an iPhone. That’s up from 40% in October (the last time this survey was published), which is in turn up from 34% in the spring of 2012. So, in a year, we’re looking at a 14% increase in the iPhone’s market share among teens.

And 62% of teens said that their next device purchase will be an iPhone.

On the Android side, 23% expressed future plans to buy a smartphone, which is up 1% from last October.

Overall preference for the OS – 59% of teens say they’re likely to buy an iOS device (unchanged) compared to 21% likely to buy an Android OS device (up 1%).

Proclamations of the iPhone’s decline in popularity among today’s youth have been coming for a couple of years now. Upon the launch of the iPhone 4S, you may remember HTC President Martin Fitcher said that the iPhone is a dad phone, and that kids don’t find them cool anymore. Then, a couple of months later, a Nokia product manager called iPhone’s “black mono boxes” and said that the youth are fed up with the ubiquitous Apple product.

More recently, you may have read one of the many articles discussing the iPhone’s loss of cool with teens. “Teens are telling us Apple is done,” said one youth marketing director.

Sure, the U.S. smartphone market still has room to grow. And that means that all types of devices have room to grow. And with the gains we’ve seen recently from manufacturers like Samsung, it’s possible that Apple loses some of its dominance over the next few survey periods. But for now, it’s clear that teens love their iPhones.

[Image via heyheygig, Flickr]

After a highly publicized split nearly a year ago, it looks like Facebook and General Motors are getting back together.

GM has confirmed to Ad Age that they have decided to once again throw some advertising dollars into Facebook.

“Chevrolet is testing a number of mobile-advertising solutions, including Facebook, as part of its ‘Find New Roads’ campaign,” said Chris Perry, VP Chevrolet marketing in the U.S. “Today, Chevrolet is launching an industry-first, ‘mobile-only’ pilot campaign for the Chevrolet Sonic that utilizes newly available targeting and measurement capabilities on Facebook.”

Big news for GM, sure. But why is this big news for Facebook? Let’s take a brief walk through Facebook and GM’a relationship over the past year.

In May of 2012, just days before Facebook’s IPO, GM announced that they would be pulling all of their Facebook ads. They stated that they simply weren’t convinced that Facebook ads were truly effective, and furthermore were unsure how they fit into their future marketing strategies. It was a high-profile move, at a time when Facebook’s ability to monetize was on everyone’s mind.

Immediately, it felt like a pretty big slap to the face. A public vote of no confidence. A few days later, GM noted that they were making many big advertising decisions at the time. Basically, hey – no hard feelings. It’s all just part of a comprehensive retooling of the strategy. Of course, this did little to neutralize the sting, especially right around the IPO. Facebook’s stock price tanked, people started talking monetization issues, which led to talks about advertising strategies, which of course led to GM as the big example of a company who pulled the plug.

A couple of months later, GM’s marketing head Joel Ewanick resigned – although it wasn’t really tied to the Facebook, specifically.

Since then, multiple reports have suggested that Facebook and GM had reestablished talks. The most recent indicating that the two companies were “actively talking” about a return to a paid advertising partnership.

“We’re still actively talking to them and looking at opportunities that come our way…I wouldn’t tell you that there’s a Mexican standoff here. We just didn’t see the value [in the ads],” said GM’s interim marketing head Alan Batey back in January.

Ad Age says that part of the reason GM pulled out of Facebook in the first place involved the inability for the company to run bigger, “higher-impact” ads. Although that’s still not really possible, Facebook advertising has changed quite a bit in the last year – mainly with the launch of the real-time, cookie-based Facebook Exchange retargeting system.

“We’ve had an ongoing dialogue with GM over the last 12 months and are pleased to have them back as an advertiser on Facebook. We look forward to working even more closely with GM in the coming weeks and months,” said a Facebook spokesperson.

Any way you look at it, it’s a good thing for Facebook that GM has decided to try it again. There’s a chance that it could signify to other companies that it’s safe to open up their Facebook ad budgets a little bit. In the end, we’re not talking about a huge ad budget here that’s going to make or break either Facebook or GM. Before GM yanked their ads last May, it was reported that they had only been spending around $10 million on Facebook ads – hardly a game changer.

[Image via Chevrolet.com]

Holographic Tupac or not, Coachella looks like it will be a blast this year. And if you’re going to be unable to make it this year, and sadly most of us fall into this category, YouTube is offering a small lifeline.

For the third year in a row, YouTube is streaming the entire first weekend of the festival on Coachella’s official YouTube channel.

“Starting this Friday at 3:30 p.m. PT, YouTube’s three-channel feed, which is presented by T-Mobile, will live stream performances from five stages (including, for the first time, the Sahara Tent). You’ll be able to catch artists’ interviews with and live shows from more than 60 bands, including the xx, Passion Pit, Vampire Weekend and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.”

It’s not quite like being there, but hey, it’s something.

When Facebook first announced the new look for the news feed back in early March, the social network made a point to let everyone know (a few times) that they would be rolling it out very, very slowly. That shouldn’t have surprised anyone, considering that’s the same strategy they’ve taken with the Graph Search beta, which launched back in January.

No point in rushing, we get that.

But Facebook is really taking their sweet time with the new news feed.

At the bottom of their about page for the news feed redesign, Facebook taunts those still living with the boring, old news feed of the past by letting us know exactly how many of our friends have switched over. Facebook did this with Graph Search as well.

Facebook tells me that 15 of my friends have made the switch. Neat. I have 609 total friends. That means that Facebook has given roughly 2.5% of my friends access to the new news feed.

Of course, some of these friends were simply given access, and other probably used the waiting list signup option. Although that little trick doesn’t seem to have worked the well, as commenters on previous articles on WebProNews about the new news feed confirm that they signed up for the waiting list immediately after it became available, and Facebook has chosen to bestow the new news feed on their friends, who didn’t sign up. Bollocks.

Anyway, this got me wondering exactly how many people on Facebook are currently rocking the new news feed. So I did an incredibly unscientific poll of a couple dozen people to find what percentage of their friends have the new news feed.

The average was just shy of 2.2%. Extrapolate my embarrassingly tiny sample size, and take into account Facebook’s billion monthly active users, and we find that about 2.2 million users are currently sporting Facebook’s slick new news feed.

I was just wondering why I had seen so little public bitching about the new news feed – compared to the bitching associated with every other change that Facebook makes. I thought that it may be that Facebook had finally delivered on a product that garnered unanimous approval – or at least the closest to it that Facebook is ever going to get. In reality, it just looks like nobody’s seen it yet. I guess that’s the point. Well, one of the motivations at least.

Google, after a few days of speculation, has officially announced that Austin, Texas will join Kansas City, KS, and Kansas City, MO as the next Google Fiber-connected city.

“Today, we’re pleased to announce with Mayor Lee Leffingwell that Austin, Texas is becoming a Google Fiber city. It’s a mecca for creativity and entrepreneurialism, with thriving artistic and tech communities, as well as the University of Texas and its new medical research hospital. We’re sure these folks will do amazing things with gigabit access, and we feel very privileged to have been welcomed to their community,” says Google in a blog post.

Google hopes to begin construction in 2014, and will be asking neighborhoods about the service to determine the areas of the highest interest. That’s where they’ll start building first. Google hopes to get their first customers up and running by the middle of 2014.

Google says that they are still trying to work out pricing, but they think it will be similar to what’s happening in Kansas City: $120 a month for Gigabit internet plus TV, $70 a month for just the Gigabit internet, or free internet with a $300 one-time construction fee.

Public institutions within Austin are going to get the Google Fiber hookup for free. This includes schools, hospitals, libraries, and more – to be determined alongside the city of Austin.

“We believe the Internet’s next chapter will be built on gigabit speeds, and we hope this new Google Fiber city will inspire communities across America to think about what ultrafast connectivity could mean for them,” says Google VP of Access Services Milo Medin.

If you live in Austin, and want to sign up to be notified when you can sign up, check here.

President Clinton may understand the social media is and will continue to make the difference in today’s grassroots politics, but that doesn’t mean he participates in all of it.

Although you may have seen plenty of Bill Clinton-themed Twitter accounts floating around – none of them are real. Former President Clinton does not currently tweet.

Well, until now.

At the behest of Stephen Colbert, Bill Clinton is now on Twitter, tweeting under the handle @PrezBillyJeff (because everything else was taken).

So far, @PrezBillyJeff has only sent one tweet and only follows one other account. I’ll give you three guesses as to which one, but you won’t need them.

Just spent amazing time with Colbert!Is he sane? He is cool! #cgiu

— Billy Jeff Clinton (@PrezBillyJeff) April 6, 2013

But he has amassed over 55,000 followers already, showing both the power of the Colbert Nations and the undeniable interest that Twitter users have in former President Clinton actually operating an account. It’s probably unlikely that he’ll keep tweeting as PrezBillyJeff, however.

Check out Colbert and Clinton talking Twitter below:

“There’s nothing worse than a friendless Tweeter.”

Wise words, Bill.

Are you a fan of the epic HBO series Game of Thrones? Do you somewhat resemble Robb Stark? Do you live near New Orleans? Are you into kinky fantasy lovemaking?

If you answered yes to any or all of those questions, have I got a Craigslist ad for you.

Posted a few days ago to the “casual encounters” section, this anonymous sex ad supposedly coming from a 25-year-old woman in the New Orleans area is probably one of the best Craigslist ads that you’ll ever see.

The poster, a self-described avid fan of the George R.R. Martin series on which the HBO series is based, is looking for a man to fulfill her sexual fantasy between Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen, Mother of Dragons (her) and Robb Stark.

“When I come to Robb Stark, our eyes lock and something moves inside of me. I realize I need to have him, want him, and I can tell he is thinking the same. I order my guards to throw him in the dungeon and later that night, I have him brought to me, in the throne room. There, on the Iron Throne I’ve so recently won, I make wild and passionate love with him, repeatedly,” she says.

Aw yeah…

Here’s the entire ad:

I am an avid fan of George R. R. Martin’s series Game of Thrones (both the books and the show). I have recently purchased a replica of the Iron Throne as seen in the television show, and need a partner to play out an elaborate fanatsy.

In my fantasy, I am Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, and Rightful Heir to the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms. After crossing the Narrow Sea and defeating the forces of Westeros, it is within my power and right to slay all of those who betrayed my family and denied me my rightful place for so many years. The most vile enemies of house Targaryen, House Stark and House Baratheon must pay the highest price. All of those who fought against the Mother of Dragons are slain – all except one. When I come to Robb Stark, out eyes lock and something moves inside of me. I realize I need to have him, want him, and I can tell he is thinking the same. I order my guards to throw him in the dungeon and later that night, I have him brought to me, in the throne room. There, on the Iron Throne I’ve so recently won, I make wild and passionate love with him, repeatedly.

Please only respond to this post if you look like Robb Stark! I would appreciate pictures, but please, no names. In order to stay as true to the fantasy as possible, I ONLY want you to refer to yourself as Robb Stark. You will need to provide your own clothing. Please keep in mind that you will have recently participated in a battle and been thrown in a dungeon, so you will not be wearing your nicest furs.

I’m looking for a Stark in the streets but a wildling in the sheets.

That last line…I just…can’t…take it.

Thanks to a recent court ruling by a California appellate court, it doesn’t matter that you were only checking your smartphone to update Google Maps. That’s because the law, as it currently reads, bans any sort of hands-on use of phones while driving.

The case comes on an appeal from the Superior Court of Fresno County. Last year, Steven Spriggs was cited for violating section 23123, which bans the use of wireless technologies while driving.

Specifically:

Section 23123, subdivision (a) provides: A person shall not drive a motor vehicle while using a wireless telephone unless that telephone is specifically designed and configured to allow hands-free listening and talking, and is used in that manner while driving.

Spriggs argued that the statute was only enacted to limit talking on a cellphone, and didn’t originally apply to any other use of the device. Also, since the state had to amend the rules later to add language banning texting while driving, it supports his claim that the original intent of the law only applied to conversing while driving.

But the court rejected that claim.

“Our review of the statute‟s plain language leads us to conclude that the primary evil sought to be avoided is the distraction the driver faces when using his or her hands to operate the phone. That distraction would be present whether the wireless telephone was being used as a telephone, a GPS navigator, a clock or a device for sending and receiving text messages and emails,” said judge Kent Hamlin.

Furthermore:

Neither the plain language of the statute nor the legislative history support the conclusion that section 23123, subdivision(a), was designed to prohibit hands-on use of a wireless telephone for conversation only. Notably, the legislative history acknowledges that the statute as worded does not eliminate a “potentially more significant” distraction of carrying on a conversation while driving. The statute instead focuses on the distraction a driver faces when using his or her hands to operate the phone, specifically including “the physical distraction a motorist encounters when either picking up the phone, punching the number keypad, holding the phone up to his or her ear to converse, or pushing a button to end a call.” That distraction would be present whether the phone is used for carrying on a conversation or for some other purpose.

Basically, the law in vague enough to cover any sort of hands-on use of the wireless device. This includes mapping in any form.

Of course, if someone wanted to program their route into Google Maps and then never touch it again while driving, that would be ok. If they wanted to make alterations to the route, they would presumably have to pull over first.

In the end, the court ruled that the law may have been enacted arbitrarily and could very well need retooling – but that’s a job for the legislature, not the court.

“It may be argued that the Legislature acted arbitrarily when it outlawed all ‘hands-on’ use of a wireless telephone while driving, even though the legal use of one‟s hands to operate myriad other devices poses just as great a risk to the safety of other motorists. It may also be argued that prohibiting driving while using ‘electronic wireless communications devices’ for texting and emailing, while acknowledging and failing to prohibit perhaps even more distracting uses of the same devices, is equally illogical and arbitrary. Both arguments should be addressed to the Legislature in support of additional legislation barring any use of those other devices in other than a hands-free manner, or in support of a repeal or amendment of section 23123 to allow the ‘hands-on’ use of wireless telephones for other purposes while driving,” says Hamlin.

As of today, 39 states ban texting while driving for all drivers, and another 6 ban the practice for novice drivers. But a recent survey from AT&T found that nearly 50% of people do it anyway – even though 98% acknowledged that it is indeed wrong to do so. A rule like this banning mapping will likely be ignored by even more people than that.

[California v. Steven R. Spriggs via Digital Trends]
[Photo via ~W~, Flickr]

Dry quicksand‘s prevalence in nature may be debated, but it has been created by scientists – so it exists. Of course, if you’ve ever watched The Princess Bride or Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, you know dry quicksand’s potentially devastating effects.

Well, here’s a nice demonstration into the Jenga-like principles behind dry quicksand from geologist Matt Kuchta.

[Matt Kuchta via BoingBoing]

Internet radio service Pandora has just announced a pretty significant milestone: 200 million registered users in the U.S. Pandora signed up its first user in 2005, and had hit 100 million users six years later in 2011. It only took them less than two years to add on the next 100 million.

67 million are considered “monthly active listeners.”

“We started this company to help people discover and enjoy music they love, and to help artists reach and grow their audiences. Only in our wildest dreams did we imagine what it would become. It is now clear that radio is changing, and that’s great news for music fans and for the tens of thousands of working artists who now have a home on the air,” said Founder TIm Westergren.

In celebration of the milestone, Pandora has released some interesting stats about the service:

• 200+ million songs streamed before 10 am every day, which totals out to about 8,000 songs streaming per second.
• 1.49 billion hours of music streaming in March (170,510 years worth).
• 400+ curated genre stations

Pandora last released some user stats back in January to celebrate the new year. In 2012, users streamed a total of 13 billion hours of music. If March, 2013′s numbers are to be repeated, we can expect Pandora to break this mark this year. They also saw a million+ songs froms over 100,000 artists and 1.6 billion total stations created in 2012.

Just a little over a month ago, Pandora was forced to do something “contrary to their mission” and put a 40-hour per month cap of free mobile listening – citing rising costs.

Here’s an infographic with some more figures from Pandora:

If you’re the kind of person who throws caution to the wind when choosing who to invite to your events (otherwise known as the “select all” crowd), it looks like Facebook is beginning to get more serious about restricting you.

Some users are getting a message from Facebook when they attempt to invite a large number of users to a single event.

“We’re sorry, but you seem to be sending invitations to people who aren’t interested in accepting them. Please make sure you’re only inviting people you know and think would enjoy this event. You’ll only be able to send invitations again once more people have accepted.”

So, what gives?

Facebook seems to be enforcing an event-oriented rule that only allows for 100 invites at a single time – and more importantly only 300 pending invites. That means that if you have over 300 invites out there with no response, you can’t send any more until a few people join, maybe, or decline your event.

Facebook explains the rules on its help page:

You can invite an unlimited number of people to events, but you can only invite 100 people at a time. Once you invite the first 100 people, you can then start inviting more.

Also, you can only have 300 pending invites at one time for an event. Some people will have to respond to your event invite before you’ll be able to add more.

Remember, Facebook isn’t capping invites to a single event. You can invite as many people as you want. But you just have to do it a bit more slowly.

[Mari Smith via AllFacebook]

Heading to a Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert in the near future?

You better leave that smartphone in your pocket.

“Please do not watch the show through a screen on your smart device/camera,” says the band. “Put that shit away!”

SPIN magazine tweeted out this hilarious sign posted by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at a recent show in New York.

I know it’s tempting, but they’re right. Live life through your own eyes. Maybe snap a photo or two, but you’re going to want to put away your smartphone for most of the show. If not for you and your experiences, at least do it for the guy behind you that may “accidentally” pour his beer down the back fo your shirt.