Mereja

Author: Josh Wolford

  • Ultimate Taylor Swift ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ Edition Is (Hopefully) the End of a Meme

    It’s a strange a wonderful thing watching a meme work its way across the internet. It twists and turns and morphs in unpredictable ways. Sometimes, it even loops back around on itself, only to shoot off in another direction.

    From what I can tell, here’s how we got to what you’re about to see:

    First, a two-minute compilations of goats screaming like humans went viral a couple of weeks ago. At some time after that, someone stuck a screaming goat into the Taylor Swift song “I Knew You Were Trouble.” That revitalized an older meme – the “goat edition.” After that, people began putting screaming goats into other songs. As of right now, thousands upon thousands of “goat editions” are searchable on YouTube.

    But in the last few days, the attention has turned back on Taylor Swift. People began to replace the screaming goat with other things – like a motion-activated paper towel dispenser or Nicolas Cage’s “not the bees” bit from The Wicker Man.

    Other popular inserts included a screaming bunny and the best cry ever, an old meme from the TV show Intervention.

    All of that leads us to what is hopefully the end of all of this. Watch it and you’ll see why.

    Who am I kidding? It’s the internet – this sh*t is probably just getting started.

    [via reddit]

  • Foursquare for iOS Crams More Recommendations into Explore Tab

    Foursquare has just updated to version 5.5 of their iOS app and it brings an improved Explore tab that puts more recommendations on the screen for easier decisions on the go.

    “Whether your go-to brunch spot is too crowded, or you’re walking around looking for dinner options after a movie, it’s great to be able to find places quickly. With today’s iPhone release, we’ve updated Explore to show you more recommendations on a single screen, so you can compare results and make decisions faster,” says Foursquare.

    Nothing else about the Explore tab has changed – you’ll still see ratings, friends who have been to the locations, specials, tips, and more.

    You’ll also get info on places that are new and trending – a pretty useful feature for discovering places that you haven’t been to yet.

    Grab the update right now from the App Store.

  • Lost Creator Damon Lindelof Goes on Epic Twitter Rant About Justin Bieber’s Spiky Yellow Hat

    Overnight, Lost co-creator Damon Linedelof discovered and then spent many hour tweeting about Justin Bieber’s spiky yellow hat (pictured both above and below, for maximum emphasis).

    Here is that epic rant, presented without further commentary.

    Lindelof warned his followers that he was going to spend the next 9 hours tweeting about Justin Bieber’s hat, so at least there’s that.

    And so he did:

    Eventually, he started feeling the wrath of the Belieber army on Twitter:

    Bieber has yet to respond on Twitter.

  • The Weather Channel Resorts to Dickish Behavior to Promote Its New Android App

    The new Weather Channel app for Android lets you know exactly when weather events like rain or snow are supposed to start. Cool, right?

    What’s not cool is installing sprinklers inside a bus shelter and drenching everyone inside because they didn’t have the app so they didn’t know when the rain was going to start.

    Get it?

    Sure, they’re probably actors and they look like they’re laughing in the end. But you can’t tell me that the guy wearing the headphones is anything other than incredibly pissed off about the whole situation.

    [Adrants via Gawker]

  • Butter or Margarine? Well, It Depends [VIDEO]

    What is the difference between butter and margarine, and which one should I spread on my toast? Which one is healthier for me? Which one is better for sculpting giant busts of Paula Deen? Most of these questions, and more are answered in the following clip.

    [AsapSCIENCE]

  • Facebook Promotes Graph Search to the Less Than 0.1% of Users with Graph Search

    Let’s just say that Facebook has 1 billion MAUs. Yes, they announced that milestone a little while back so they most definitely have a few more than that, but for the purposes of this calculation just indulge me. Ok, 1 billion active users.

    In a blog post today, Facebook says that hundreds of thousands of people are currently using the beta of Graph Search, Facebook’s new in-site search product that the company unveiled in the middle of January.

    So, hundreds of thousands – no more specific that that. That could mean 200,000 or 900,000. Since we know that about 100,000 were given Graph Search at the onset – well that tells us nothing really. We don’t know exactly how fast Facebook is rolling it out. But I think we’re safe in saying that the current number of Graph Search users is probably closer to 200,000 than 900,000.

    But even if we go for the highest possible number, that still means that only 0.09% of Facebook users have been given Graph Search.

    Facebook said that the rollout would be slow. Very slow. So you really shouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t been called up to participate in the beta quite yet. But Facebook is pushing the new feature pretty hard considering a microscopic portion of the Facebook population even knows what the hell they’re talking about.

    Today, the company shared some of its favorite searches from the roughly 6 weeks that Graph Search has existed. Not the most popular, mind you. Just some of the favorites.

    Facebook says that people are using Graph Search to find out stuff about their friends, as such:

    And people are using it to find photos, like this:

    Facebook also highlights Graph Searches related to trip planning like “Ski resorts my friends have visited,” and interest discovery searches like “TV shows liked by my friends.”

    Strangely, they don’t get into any of the more adventurous ways that people are using the new product. I know, there are just too many lingering privacy concerns for that sort of tomfoolery. Although, Facebook has attempted to mitigate those worries by taking steps to protect minors when it comes to creepy old dudes searching for their info on Graph Search.

    But what Facebook is highlighting is beside the point. It’s why – considering that pretty much nobody has Graph Search right now.

    I haven’t found myself using Graph Search all that much (yes, I have it), except in researching stories and/or the occasional oddity query. I was helped by its cross-matching abilities once, with a “people who are friends with both me and John Smith.” That particular search helped me remember the name of a person I talked to a bar one night then drunkenly forgot their name. So that was cool. Graph Search has its uses, and some kinks. But that’s to be expected, as it’s a beta.

    Plus, I’m just one guy with one experience. Sure, writing about Facebook all the time means that I’m probably more likely to use Graph Search than the average person (at least right now). But even still, it’s really really early in the game to try and pick a winner or a loser.

    But with all this promotion to a very limited subset of users, is Facebook just trying to create buzz? Are they not seeing the early adoption they were looking for? Are they trying to kickstart usage for a project that went too far off the rails of what most Facebook users really care about (the news feed, photos, the news feed, photos, and the news feed)?

    Anyway, it’ll be nice to hear from Facebook on how users are taking advantage of Graph Search when more than 0.02% have had the chance to look at it.

  • Radiohead’s Thom Yorke Hates Apple & Google’s View of Music as ‘Content’

    Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, one of the first people to give the internet what it really wanted in terms of music distribution, has some concerns about what has happened to music in the last few years.

    The Guardian has a huge, and definitely read-worthy profile out right now, in which Yorke talks his projects both past and present. For a brief bit, he also talks about music as content in the internet age.

    Here’s some interesting stuff from that interview:

    “We were so into the net around the time of Kid A. Really thought it might be an amazing way of connecting and communicating. And then very quickly we started having meetings where people started talking about what we did as ‘content’. They would show us letters from big media companies offering us millions in some mobile phone deal or whatever it was, and they would say all they need is some content. I was like, what is this ‘content’ which you describe? Just a filling of time and space with stuff, emotion, so you can sell it?”

    He went on to lament companies like Google and Apple “commodifying” music:

    “[Google and Apple] have to keep commodifying things to keep the share price up, but in doing so they have made all content, including music and newspapers, worthless, in order to make their billions. And this is what we want? I still think it will be undermined in some way. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

    Interesting words from Yorke, who in 2007 put the Radiohead album In Rainbows up online and let people choose how much they wanted to pay to download it.

    [The Guardian via The Verge]

  • The Pope’s Twitter Account to Be Put on Ice, Not Shuttered

    Despite earlier reports that Pope Benedict’s resignation means curtains for the official @Pontifex Twitter account, it looks like the account will stay alive while the Papal Conclave selects his replacement.

    At least according to the Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Paul Tighe.

    “During the period between today and the election of new pope the account will be inactive…not shut down,” Tighe told Forbes.

    According to Tighe, the Twitter account will be kept on ice so that the next pope can determine whether or not he wants to continue the social media communications unveiled under Benedict.

    “Obviously we leave all decisions to the new man. But we would hope that he might continue to use @pontifex, which would maintain continuity,” he said.

    The Pope first started tweeting out his daily messages on December 12th of last year, and has currently sent 39 tweets and amassed nearly 1.6 million followers (english language).

    We recently learned that the 117 Cardinals, whose job it is to select the next pope, will be barred from all Twitter use. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, considering the secrecy of the Papal Conclave – all outside communications will be restricted. It really should matter that much, as only 9 out of the 117 Cardinals even operate personal Twitter accounts.

  • Rihanna Sex Tape Scam Travels Around Facebook

    If you’re strolling through your Facebook news feed, bored by all of your friends’ lame breakfast statuses and baby pics, and you happen to see something about a Rihanna sex tape – keep on strolling.

    Sophos Naked Security blog tips us to a new type of a very classic style of Facebook scam – the celebrity sex tape. This time it involves Rihanna.

    What’s a little different about this one is that it hides inside an event: [VIDEO] RIHANNA SEX TAPE. Once you access the actual event page, you’ll be met with the text “I lost all respect for her after watching this” and a y.ahoo.it link. Don’t click it.

    Rihanna isn’t the only celebrity with a recent sex tape scam on Facebook. Earlier this month, a viral scam made the rounds suggesting that Taylor Swift’s iPhone had been hacked and a sex tape had been leaked. Clicking on the provided link directed curious Facebookers to an online survey scam that phished for users’ personal info.

    As always, be vigilant. And don’t let your curiosity cloud your better judgment.

  • Taylor Swift Can Be Adequately Replaced by a Motion-Activated Paper Towel Dispenser

    First, we learned that you could just throw a screaming goat into Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” and everything would work out just fine. Now, we learn that you don’t even have to use a living creature to produce the same effect.

    [via reddit]

  • Conan Knows What You’re Really Using Your iPad For

    You’ve seen those new iPad ads, right? The ones with the rapid-fire words and the yelling? If you’re unfamiliar, go here and familiarize yourself.

    And then watch Conan’s much more accurate version of said ad.

    [TeamCoco]

  • Vimeo Launches ‘Looks,’ Adds Over 500 New Visual Effects to Their Enhancer Tools

    Vimeo has just gone a little Instagram and unveiled new video enhancement options to their “Enhancer” toolbox.

    Adding to the already available selection of musical accompaniments for your videos, you can now add new “Looks” to your videos. Looks are described as “high quality, stylistic visual effects” and Vimeo is starting off by offerring over 500 of them.

    Vimeo has partnered with visual enhancement platform Vivoom to bring you the new Looks.

    Vimeo notes that the “recommended” offerings will be show an “optimal set of creative choices based on technical analysis of the user’s video and social data,” meaning that it will learn about you the more you use it. Hopefully, that will make the recommendations actually useful when you’re deciding how to enhance your videos.

    “By adding Looks, Vimeo continues to provide the tools that help people easily make better videos,” said Vimeo CEO, Kerry Trainor. “Nearly every minute you see on TV or in movies has been visually enhanced. Everyone wants the same quality as the pros, but it’s out of reach for most people. Our aim is to make these types of high quality visual effects easy and accessible to everyone.”

    To refer to Instagram is to sell the new features short, most likely. At first, it does feel a lot like simple filters but the sheer breadth and depth of the options make Looks a powerful new tool to Vimeo-using filmmakers.

    You can browse (and try out) all the new Looks today. It will be completely free to play around with for 90 days, after which things will begin to cost money. Many of the Looks show a $0.99 price tag, which is currently crossed out and labelled as FREE. For now.

  • iTunes U Tops One Billion Content Downloads

    Apple’s educational arm of iTunes, iTunes U, has just hit a significant milestone according to the company. Apple has just announced that iTunes U has served over one billion content downloads since its launch back in 2007.

    “It’s inspiring to see what educators and students of all types are doing with iTunes U,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “With the incredible content offered on iTunes U, students can learn like never before―there are now iTunes U courses with more than 250,000 students enrolled in them, which is a phenomenal shift in the way we teach and learn.”

    According to Apple, iTunes U currently caters to over 1,200 colleges and universities as well as 1,200 K-12 schools. In all, iTunes U offers more than 2,500 public courses, and “thousands” (unspecific) of smaller private ones.

    iTunes U courses can be created in 30 countries, and are accessible in 155. Although Apple touts strong interest in the U.S. (a single Ohio State chemistry course enrolling 100,000 in just one year) over 60% of iTunes U app downloads come from an international audience.

  • Pandora Puts 40-Hour/Month Cap on Free Mobile Listening, Says It’ll Only Affect 4% of Users

    Streaming music radio service Pandora has just announced that it will be ending free unlimited streaming for mobile users. Before you grab your pitchforks, Pandora is assuring users that this will only affect a very small portion of its mobile listeners.

    Starting this week, free mobile listening will be limited to 40 hours per month. According to Pandora, most users won’t have to worry about this change because the average listener only streams about 20 hours worth of music per month. They say that less than 4% of the company’s total monthly active listeners will even be affected by this.

    It appears to be all about costs. Apparently, Pandora’s per-track royalty rates have gone up over 25% in the last 3 years, and are only going to go up over the next few years.

    Pandora knows that this isn’t something users want to hear, but the costs must be mitigated.

    “Limiting listening is a very unusual thing to do, and very contrary to our mission,” says the company in a blog post.

    Pandora promises that they will alert anyone who is fast approaching the 40-hour limit. If you’re about to cross the barrier, you have three options. You can simply stop listening, or you can pay $0.99 for unlimited access for the remainder of the month. There’s also the option to purchase Pandora’s premium subscription, Pandora One, which will keep your listening unlimited and knock out all advertising.

    It’s important to note that this limit only affects mobile listeners. You can still stream as many hours per month as you want at home.

    Last month, Pandora announced that users had listened to over 13 billion hours of music and created over 1.6 billion stations in 2012.

  • ‘Game of Thrones’ Director Backtracks on Pro-Piracy Remarks

    In that was totally out of context news…

    David Petrarca, Game of Thrones, Big Love, and True Blood director, made headlines earlier for his apparently lax stance on piracy. Speaking at the Perth Writers Festival last weekend, Petrarca commented that piracy doesn’t matter to the overall success of the show and that shows like Game of Thrones survive on cultural buzz.

    Apparently, Petrarca didn’t mean to imply that he supports piracy or that it helps generate buzz for TV shows and films.

    “I am 100 per cent, completely and utterly against people illegally downloading anything…Nobody wins by illegally downloading content.” he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

    According to Petrarca, his comments were meant to imply that the piracy (and boy is there a lot of it) for shows like Game of Thrones was only a signifier of its popularity, not a cause of it.

    HBO provided this statement on the matter to Wired:

    Game of Thrones is sold worldwide, available legally on a large variety of viewing platforms and is one of HBO’s most popular series. With that kind of success comes a great amount of social media chatter, so can’t say we see an upside to illegal downloads.

    Still, many feel as though HBO doesn’t quite do all they can to make their content available to all who want it.

    “I think most people would be willing to pay for a show they love,” said Petrarca.

    Yes. Agreed.

  • Scott Weiland Fired? It’s News to Him

    Has Stone Temple Pilots lead singer Scott Weiland been fired from the band? Yes, according to a statement from the rest of the band. But apparently it’s all news to him.

    Earlier today the band announced that they had fired Weiland in a one-sentence release:

    “Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland.” That’s all it said – nothing more.

    According to Rolling Stone, the rumors all began a couple of months ago and were perpetuated by Slash.

    “Slash doesn’t know anything about STP. We’re talking right now about when we want to tour next,” he told the magazine on Tuesday.

    Within the last hour, Weiland issued a statement on his Facebook page. In it, the singer seems a bit perplexed as to how he has been fired from his own band:

    Scott Weiland1 hour ago

    Per Scott Weiland:

    I learned of my supposed “termination” from Stone Temple Pilots this morning by reading about it in the press. Not sure how I can be “terminated” from a band that I founded, fronted and co-wrote many of its biggest hits, but that’s something for the lawyers to figure out. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to seeing all of my fans on my solo tour which starts this Friday. Powered by socialditto  1,000+ likes ·  750 comments

    Either way, Weiland is scheduled to begin a solo tour next month.

  • ‘Unconstitutional’ LGBT Internet Filters Land School District in ACLU’s Crosshairs

    The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Pennsylvania have sent a letter to the Governor Mifflin School District in Shillington, PA which threatens legal action if the district doesn’t address the claims of high school student Maison Fioravante. While performing research on Governor Mifflin High School computers, Fioravante discovered that many educational LGBT sites were being blocked by the school’s content filter.

    When she tried to access certain LGBT sites for research purposes, Fioravante was met with a filter notice that cited a “sexuality” filter as the reason for the blocking. She posted a YouTube video detailing her situation and also began a petition on change.org asking the high school to stop blocking LGBT sites. The petition has amassed over 3,300 signatures and drew the attention of the ACLU.

    In their letter, the ACLU notes that this sort of filtering is considered viewpoint discrimination that was recently ruled unconstitutional in a recent court case.

    They state that the “sexuality” filter seems to be only blocking LGBT-oriented sites.

    But it’s not just LGBT sites that the school district’s filter (running Smoothwall software) is blocking. Apparently, the firewall is preventing access to anti-gay websites from organizations like the National Organization for Marriage and the the Family Research Council. The reason given is that these sites are blocked due to “intolerance.”

    The ACLU says that this is also ill-advised, as blocking even an “intolerant” viewpoint is an independent violation of the First Amendment.

    The ACLU gives the school district until March 14th to address their concerns before they proceed with legal action.

    “The ACLU respectfully requests that Governor Mifflin School District immediately reconfigure its Smoothwall filtering system so that it operates in a viewpoint-neutral manner or the District should find an alternate software vendor with a product that satisfies the requirements of both the Children’s Internet Protection Act (“CIPA”) and the First Amendment. Please contact us by Thursday, March 14, to advise us whether you will make the requested changes to the filter and if so, how you intend to do so,” says the letter.

    [h/t The Verge]

  • North Korea Real-Time Instagramming Made Possible After Visitors Get Mobile Internet Access

    Up until recently, visitors to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) had to abandon their cellphones at the customs gates. When travelers were finally granted the access to carry their phones with them a little over a month ago, they still had the slight problem of not really being able to do much with them.

    Yep, no internet access (or local calls, for that matter). It wasn’t until just a few days ago that North Korea finally turned on some 3G for visitors (not the people of North Korea, mind you).

    What does that mean? Social media updates from tourists, of course. And the AP’s David Guttenfelder is providing some of the first-ever real-time photographs from the notoriously closed-off country

    “I feel I can help open a window into a place that would otherwise rarely be seen by outsiders,” he says. “As one of the few international photographers who has ever had regular access to the country, I feel a huge responsibility to share what I see and to show it as accurately as I can.”

    Instagram recently highlighted his photography in a blog post. Here are some incredible shots coming in from DPRK – ones that wouldn’t have been possible until very recently.

    North Korean commuters pass by propaganda posters in #Pyongyang.

    A North Korean guide uses a pointer at the start of a tour of an historic site. On Jan. 18, 2013, foreigners were allowed for the first time to bring mobile phones into North Korea. And this week the local service provider, Koryolink, is allowing foreigners to access the Internet on a data capable 3G connection on our mobile phones. In the past I could post geolocated phone photos to my Instagram feed by turning my online laptop into a hotspot to link my iPhone or iPod touch by wifi. But, today I’m posting this directly from my phone while riding in the back of a van in #Pyongyang. The window on to North Korea has opened another crack. Meanwhile, for Koreans here who will not have access to the same service, the window remains shut.

    North Korean babies rest in a row of cribs at the #Pyongyang Maternity Hospital.

    A North Korean doctor and a bank of video monitors inside a #Pyongyang hospital.

    For more real-time photos from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, make sure to follow David Guttenfelder (@dguttenfelder) on Instagram.

  • Snapchat Sued by Guy Who Says He Helped Create the Ephemeral Messaging App

    A man is suing the creators of a popular social app, claiming that they took his idea and shut him out or what was eventually a “million-dollar-idea,” after they all worked together on it during college.

    No, this isn’t the Winklevii, and we’re not talking about Facebook. It’s South Carolina native Frank Reginald Brown IV, and we’re talking about Snapchat.

    Snapchat is the relatively new ephemeral messaging app that lets users create images or videos and send them to friends with a time limit attached. The ticking time bomb messages will then self destruct upon competition, and it will notify you if your recipient tried to make the image or video more permanent via screenshots. Much maligned at first as an app catering to sexting teens, Snapchat has grown beyond that narrow frame.

    Now, it and its creators Bobby Murphy and Evan Spiegel are being sued.

    According to the L.A. Times, Brown claims that he’s the one who came up with the concept of Snapchat. He then approached Spiegel who decided it was worth pursuing.

    Brown says that the three moved in together (all while attending Stanford) and worked on the app in the summer of 2011. Brown says that he came up with the app’s original named (Picaboo) and logo (the little ghost). Shortly after, they had a falling out and Brown alleges that Murphy and Spiegel locked him out of all their accounts and servers.

    Snapchat called the allegations “frivolous” in a statement:

    We are aware of the allegations, believe them to be utterly devoid of merit, and will vigorously defend ourselves against this frivolous suit. It would be inappropriate to comment further on this pending legal matter.

    Whether this is a legitimate complaint from Brown or simply a money grab is left to be seen. Let’s just hope that it doesn’t stretch out as long as things like this can stretch out.

    The lawsuit does contain this photo of the three, proving that they at least knew each other. Notice the Snapchat-like image on the cake (which could mean everything or nothing, depending on the context).

  • Watch Two Audis Battle in an Awesome Paintball Duel

    Sure, it’s kind of an ad for the Audi RS 4 Avant – but what isn’t an ad anymore? This is just plain awesome.

    Audi has turned two brand new 2013 models in paintball-mounted, high-speed war machines and stuck them in an aircraft hangar to let them do battle. Plus, bonus “Push It To The Limit.” Hell yeah.

    As one YouTuber comments, “did Audi just invent a new sport?”

    [AudiChannel]