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This is it, gamers — the moment you’ve been waiting for. Nintendo (NTDOY) was the first major console vendor to unwrap its next-generation offering, but the Wii U isn’t quite shaping up to be the smash hit Nintendo was hoping for. Microsoft’s (MSFT) next Xbox is expected to be unwrapped later this year at the E3 conference, so Sony (SNE) is looking to get a jump on the competition by unveiling its new PlayStation 4 at a special event in New York City on Tuesday. Rampant rumors already paint a pretty impressive picture of Sony’s next home console but Sony may very well have a few surprises in store as it gears up for the imminent next-generation console battle.

Bookmark this link, which will go live shortly before the event begins tonight, and make sure to head there for our live coverage of Sony’s press conference! Coverage will begin just before 6:00 p.m. EST / 3:00 p.m. PST.

Earlier, we shared the new Google Glass video, which shows a bunch of interesting use cases for the device. This video was part of a new site Google has up about Glass, which also includes an application you can fill out to get one.

Don’t get too excited though. You have to convince Google you’re worthy of getting it.

“We’re looking for bold, creative individuals who want to join us and be a part of shaping the future of Glass,” the company says. “We’d love to make everyone an Explorer, but we’re starting off a bit smaller. We’re still in the early stages, and while we can’t promise everything will be perfect, we can promise it will be exciting.”

Google requires that applicants use Google+ or Twitter to tell it what they would do if they had Glass. You have to include the hashtag #ifihadglass (which is currently trending on Twitter). The application must be 50 words or less, and can include up to five photos. It can also include a short video (15 seconds max).

You have until February 27th to submit an application. If Google selects you, the company will let you know with an invitation to become a “Google Glass Explorer”. Explorers must pre-order Glass Explorer Edition for $1,500 plus tax, and attend a special pick-up experience in person. These will take place in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles.

You also have to follow +ProjectGlass on Google+ or @projectglass on Twitter, so they can contact you directly.

More terms here.

Server-side flash memory is a big thing. It puts fast storage right next to the compute nodes, which speeds things up, but that model is not particularly virtualization friendly. Startup PernixData, once known as ProximData, wants to change that — it aspires to be what it calls “the VMware of server flash.”

The company co-founders know from VMware. CEO Poojan Kumar once headed up data product initiatives at the virtualization giant, where he worked on vFabric Data Director and other projects. Co-founder and company CTO Satyam Vaghani was principal engineer at VMware, where he worked on the vSphere kernel and created the company’s VMFS clustered file system.

PernixData’s software, now in beta, will aggregate all of a customer’s server-side flash into one shareable pool. “We make a flash virtualization platform that sits between your apps and the primary storage system and acts as a read/write acceleration tier for all the data in motion,” Vaghani said in an interview.

No rip and replace

The software itself runs on the servers — actually within the hypervisors. It only works with VMware initially but Microsoft Hyper-V and KVM support is promised. That means customers don’t have to replace existing servers or their existing primary storage, and that’s an attractive proposition for many businesses that don’t want to rip out and replace perfectly good hardware.

PernixData claims its software-only approach to this problem is unique. That may be but many other vendors are also attacking the issues associated with server-side flash performance, says Howard Marks, founder and chief scientist of Deep Storage LLC. “There are 22 products in my database that in one way or another use solid state flash to accelerate access to shared storage and make things go faster,” he said.

Making server-side flash virtualization friendly

Legacy giants like HP, NetApp, and EMC, all have their takes on the problem but none of those products fit very well into a virtualized world, analysts said.

“If you put flash in a server, then flash is owned by that server,” Marks said. And that causes problems for companies that want to use Vmotion to move their workloads around. PernixData writes the data to SSDs in at least two servers, which means that if one goes down, the surviving server can flush that data to where it needs to be, said Marks.

Marks does give PernixData credit, which received an unspecified amount of A Series funding from Lightspeed Ventures, for its software-only focus, noting that last year Dell spoke of a similar strategy called Fluid Cache, based on technology acquired from RNA Networks, but it’s not on the market yet.

But as Marks pointed out, there are many other ways to skin the server flash storage cat. “Flash is a complicated space and there are so many startups and technologies it’s hard to see where they all fit. Pernix seems to be the only software-only way to unlock server-side flash to be more scalable but there are many other companies working to enhance flash,” said Stuart Miniman, Wikibon analyst.

 QLogic, for example, bakes software into its adapters that take PCIE server side flash storage or other SSDs and turns them into a SAN device, Miniman said. And, GigaOM’s Stacey Higginbotham outlined Jeda Networks’ take on the problem earlier this week.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Cloud and data third-quarter 2012
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• Amazon’s DynamoDB: rattling the cloud market

Forget the empty platitudes; your star employee is not a “godsend.” They are a person deserving of your not infrequent acknowledgment and worthy of appreciation and respect. When was the last time you thanked them — really thanked them?

In my line of work, I frequently communicate with CEOs and their executive assistants, and nowhere is the need for gratitude more clear.

After one CEO’s assistant had been particularly helpful, I replied to her email with a grateful, “I hope your company and your boss know and let you know how valuable and special you are.”

She emailed back, “You don’t know how much your email meant to me.” It made me wonder — when was the last time her boss had thanked her?

This happens frequently. For instance, a few years ago, I was trying to get in touch with one of the world’s most well-known CEOs about an article. His assistant had done a great and friendly job of gatekeeping. So when I wrote to her boss, I included this: “When I get to be rich, I’m going to hire someone like your assistant — to protect me from people like me. She was helpful, friendly, feisty vs. boring and yet guarded access to you like a loyal pit bull. If she doesn’t know how valuable she is to you, you are making a big managerial mistake and YOU should know better.”

A week later I called his assistant, and said, “I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m just following up on a letter and article I sent to your boss to see if he received it.”

His assistant replied warmly, “Of course I remember you Dr. Mark. About your letter and article. I sent him the article, but not your cover letter.”

I thought, “Uh, oh! I messed up.” Haltingly, I asked why.

She responded with the delight of someone who had just served an ace in a tennis match: “I didn’t send it to him, I read it to him over the phone.”

Needless to say, that assistant and I have remained friends ever since.

Yes, CEOs are under pressure from all sides and executives have all sorts of people pushing and pulling at them. But too often, they begin to view and treat their teams, and especially their assistants, as appliances. And a good assistant knows that the last thing their boss wants to hear from them is a personal complaint about anything. Those assistants are often paid well, and most of their bosses — especially the executives to which numbers, results, ROI and money means everything — believe that great payment and benefits should be enough.

What these executives fail to realize is that many of those assistants are sacrificing their personal lives, intimate relationships, even their children (because the executive is often their biggest child).

There will always be people who think that money and benefits and even just having a job should be thanks enough. There are also those that think they do a great job without anyone having to thank them. But study after study has shown that no one is immune from the motivating effects of acknowledgement and thanks. In fact, research by Adam Grant and Francesca Gino has shown that saying thank you not only results in reciprocal generosity — where the thanked person is more likely to help the thanker — but stimulates prosocial behavior in general. In other words, saying “thanks” increases the likelihood your employee will not only help you, but help someone else.

Here’s a case in point: at one national law firm, the Los Angeles office instilled the routine of Partners earnestly and specifically saying, “Thank you,” to staff and associates and even each other. Eeveryone in the firm began to work longer hours for less money — and burnout all but disappeared.

Whether it’s your executive assistant, the workhorse on your team, or — they exist! — a boss who always goes the extra mile for you, the hardest working people in your life almost certainly don’t hear “thank you” enough. Or when they do, it’s a too-brief “Tks!” via email.

So take action now. Give that person what I call a Power Thank You. This has three parts:

1. Thank them for something they specifically did that was above the call of duty. For instance, “Joe, thanks for working over that three-day weekend to make our presentation deck perfect. Because of it, we won the client.”
2. Acknowledge to them the effort (or personal sacrifice) that they made in doing the above. “I realize how important your family is to you, and that working on this cost you the time you’d planned to spend with your daughters. And yet you did it without griping or complaining. Your dedication motivated everyone else on the team to make the presentation excellent.”
3. Tell them what it personally meant to you. “You know that, rightly or wrongly, we are very much judged on our results and you were largely responsible for helping me achieve one that will cause my next performance review to be ‘over the moon,’ just like yours is going to be. You’re the best!”

If the person you’re thanking looks shocked or even a little misty-eyed, don’t be surprised. It just means that your gratitude has been a tad overdue.

MENLO PARK, Calif. — “Predicted population increases in this century can be expected to translate into more people dying from earthquakes. There will be more individual earthquakes with very large death tolls as well as more people dying during earthquakes than ever before, according to a newly published study led by U.S. Geological Survey engineering geologist Thomas L. Holzer.”

Holzer and his USGS coauthor James Savage studied earthquakes with death tolls of more than 50,000, which they define as catastrophic, and reported global death tolls from roughly 1500 A.D. to the present. Comparing those events to estimates of world population, they found that the number of catastrophic earthquakes has increased as population has grown. After statistically correlating the number of catastrophic earthquakes in each century with world population, they were able to use new (2011) 21st-century population projections by the United Nations to project that approximately 21 catastrophic earthquakes will occur in the 21st century, a tripling of the seven that occurred in the 20th century. They also predict that total deaths in the century could more than double to approximately 3.5 million people if world population grows to 10.1 billion by 2100 from 6.1 billion in 2000. 

“This prediction need not be a prophesy: the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP) in the U.S. can be a model for how science can inform engineering designs that are adopted into life-saving building codes in earthquake-prone regions,” said USGS Associate Director for Natural Hazards David Applegate. “I also cannot stress enough the value of educated citizens — those who understand the natural hazards of this planet and are empowered to take action to reduce their risk.”

Four catastrophic earthquakes have already struck since the beginning of the 21st century, including the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake (and tsunami) and 2010 Haiti earthquake that each may have killed over 200,000 people. The study explains this increase in lethal earthquakes. It is not that we are having more earthquakes; it is that more people are living in seismically vulnerable buildings in the world’s earthquake zones. 

Holzer’s study underscores the need to build residential and commercial structures that will not collapse and kill people during earthquake shaking.

“Without a significant increase in seismic retrofitting and seismic-resistant construction in earthquake hazard zones at a global scale, the number of catastrophic earthquakes and earthquake fatalities will continue to increase and our predictions are likely to be fulfilled,” Holzer said.

The study, “Global Earthquake Fatalities and Population,” is available online.

HTC made it known yesterday that it’s serious about gaining back some smartphone marketshare this year with the HTC One. Unfortunately, only the press was allowed at the actual unveiling, and HTC neglected to livestream the event to all its fans. That bit of oversight has been rectified today.

The HTC One unveiling is now up on YouTube for all to see. Check out 30 glorious minutes of HTC trying to sell the press, and you, on how it’s latest smartphone is going to take the market by storm. Expect plenty of buzzwords and some ham-fisted acting.

The HTC One will feature a 1080p 4.7-inch display, a 1.7GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM. There’s no price or release date announced for the product yet, but the company is offering a buyback program that will give you the value of your old phone in cash when you buy the HTC One.

Ah, but where are my manners? You may be short on time, and can’t watch the full 37 minute unveiling event. For those who can’t sit around all day watching executives pretending to be excited about their products, you can watch the condensed highlight reel from the event below.

[h/t: Droid-Life]

U.K. Electronics retailer HMV is set to close 37 more stores and lay off 464 more employees. This is in addition to the 66 store closures and 930 employee lay offs that were announced earlier this month.

No date has been set for the store closures, but individual stores will be closing in the next four to six weeks. Adding in the other closures, HMV will be left with just over 100 stores in the U.K. The individual stores to be closed have been announced:

Ashford, Basildon, Bolton, Cheltenham, East Kilbride, Enfield, Folkestone, Glasgow Argyle, Gloucester, Grimsby, Hatfield Galleria, Heathrow T5 Departure Level, Heathrow Terminal 1, Heathrow Terminal 3, Heathrow Terminal 4, Hemel Hempstead, High Wycombe, Isle of Wight, Lancaster, Leadenhall, Mansfield, Middlesbrough, Newbury, Newcastle Silverlink, Newport, Nuneaton, Redditch, Salisbury, Scarborough, Southport, Stafford, Staines, Stockport, Swindon, Taunton, Torquay, Woking.

Word of the extra closures comes via Deloitte, which was chosen to administrate HMV in Jaunary after the company failed to come to terms with its creditors. Administrators appointed by Deloitte are currently restructuring the retailer for a possible sale.

“As part of our ongoing review of HMV’s financial position, we have undertaken a further review of the store portfolio and have identified an additional 37 stores for closure,” said Nick Edwards, joint administrator of HMV. “This step has been taken in order to enhance the prospects of the restructured business continuing as a going concern. Together with the previously identified 66 closures, this restructuring will result in a residual portfolio of some 116 stores.

“We are extremely grateful to the staff for their continued strong support and commitment during an understandably difficult period. All other key stakeholders including suppliers and landlords remain supportive and we appreciate their ongoing assistance.”

Let’s be honest — an Apple (AAPL) wristwatch doesn’t at first glance sound like the most exciting product the company has come up with over the past decade. But if past patent filings are any indication, the long-rumored ‘iWatch’ could be much more interesting than some might think since they could help make the classic wristwatch work a lot more like an iPod. Researcher Nickolay Lamm, best known for his pre-release renders of the iPad mini and his futuristic iPhone design concepts, passed along some new renders showing what an iWatch could look like if Apple chooses to incorporate some key design elements from some of its older patent filings.

Continue reading…

Even though BlackBerry 10 has launched, there are a lot of you out there looking for BlackBerry 7 OS tips. Today we’ve got tips for the Social Feeds app. How do you get your news? We’ve looked at people who get their news via their BlackBerry devices, but what about social networks? What’s the first thing you do when a huge news story breaks? For me, I check the RSS Feeds tab on my Social Feeds app and then tab over to see what the reaction is on Twitter and Facebook.

The Social Feeds App is like a Puppy

Available on BlackBerry 6 OS devices and later, the Social Feeds app does a great job of giving you a view of what’s happening in the world via RSS, social networks, and podcasts. Over on the Inside BlackBerry Help Blog, Ty has a solid blog post on how to set up Social Feeds, but I want to focus on how you can train it for maximum awesomeness — just like a puppy.

• Stay: The Flagged Items feature lets you save an update or feed for viewing later. Facebook feed tells you it’s your anniversary? Flag it so you can remember to pick up a gift, or else prepare to download the “I’m sorry” app.
• Fetch: Filter results based on very specific keywords (“Walnut double-chocolate brownies” instead of “brownies”) for smarter results. Since you can search across all feeds, it saves a ton of time over searching Facebook or Twitter individually.
• Roll Over: Social Feeds also allows you to login to bit.ly to shorten links on the fly. Business users that rely on bit.ly for analytics will find this feature especially helpful.
• Lay Down: Click the “Do not show here” button on any feed you’re not using to make it faster to swipe across the social landscape. This is your Social Feeds puppy; take out the stuff you’re not using.

I’m hoping that these quick training tips will help speed up your use of Social Feeds, or at least provide you with the inspiration to share your Social Feeds power tips in the comments below. Mmm, walnut double-chocolate brownies.

Groupon’s Breadcrumb announced today that it has updated its iPad POS app to include new inventory management features, and some other stuff. The update, the company says, is based on conversations with hundreds of merchants and insights gained from over 10 million menu items sold with the offering.

In the inventory management area, the app adds “seamless uploading” of new and existing menu items and inventory counts to all Breadcrumb terminals. It also displays how much is let of a specific menu item, which the company says is ideal for venues with large, but limited wine lists or daily fish specials. Breadcrumb says this also facilitates easier tracking of food costs.

There are also some expanded features for delivery businesses in the update. For example, it integrates caller ID functionality without additional hardware. It also includes faster phone order entry by automatically pulling up customers’ addresses and saving them in the system for future use. Users can also import/export customer data.

Finally, the update includes improved tip application and monitoring. It prints recommended tip amounts on receipts, permits venues to track declared server tips, and adds an automatic gratuity based on party size.

“Our venues never want to be in the awkward position of promising something to a customer that they don’t have,” says Breadcrumb founder Seth Harris. “Among other important upgrades, Breadcrumb 1.4 displays what’s in stock in real time, so operators can provide a better customer experience.”

About a month ago, Breadcrumb launched its AirLift emergency parts replacement service. More on that here.

Quentin Robinot is better at table tennis than you are, and here’s the proof.

I love that all his opponent can do is clap. Oftentimes, that’s all you can do.

[H4ks3IR via Clip Nation]

NetApp (NTAP) announced a new all-flash array and high-end flash-optimized storage systems.

EF540 Flash Array plus FlashRay architecture

NetApp announced the availability of the EF540 all-flash array for extreme performance-driven enterprise applications. Built on the SANtricity operating system the EF540′s fault tolerant achitecture delivers 300,000 IOPS and sub-millisecond data access.

“A new class of arrays is unlocking flash’s full potential and delivering capabilities that accelerate the performance, reliability, and efficiency of enterprise data centers,” said Jeff Janukowicz, research director, Solid State Storage and Enabling Technologies at IDC. “For all-flash arrays to gain broader market adoption, it is important to look beyond the performance improvements and deliver must-have reliability, availability, and supportability features. The continued growth of NetApp flash storage systems, underscores the value of the company’s approach to managing and storing the massive amounts of data being created today.”

NetApp also previewed the architecture of its new, purpose-built FlashRay product family, which will deliver scale-out and efficiency features to maximize the benefits of all-flash arrays. The new product line will combine consistent, low-latency performance, high availability, and integrated data protection with enterprise storage efficiency features such as inline deduplication and compression. The product line will be generally available in early 2014.

Flash-optimized enterprise storage systems

NetApp introduced new high-end storage systems – the FAS/V6220, FAS6250, and FAS6290 – to address the demanding performance and capacity requirements of enterprise organizations. The FAS and V-Series platforms are designed for 99.999 percent availability and leverage clustered Data ONTAP for nondisruptive operations even during upgrades. The new enterprise storage systems can scale to over 65PB. All models support flash offerings, which increases IOPS over 80 percent and reduces latency by up to 90 percent.

“Enterprises need storage and data management solutions that have the scalability for short-term efficiencies and long-term growth,” said Brendon Howe, vice president, Product and Solutions Marketing, NetApp. “NetApp’s FAS storage platforms and integrated flash portfolio are architected for mission-critical SAN and NAS environments to deliver agility at scale, nonstop operations, and ease of management. These systems have the performance and scale for virtualized and cloud environments, enabling IT administrators to make the appropriate infrastructure decisions, whether it is on-premise or in the cloud.”

Prepublication Now Available

The potential for using fusion energy to produce commercial electric power was first explored in the 1950s. Harnessing fusion energy offers the prospect of a nearly carbon-free energy source with a virtually unlimited supply of fuel. Unlike nuclear fission plants, appropriately designed fusion power plants would not produce the large amounts of high-level nuclear waste that requires long-term disposal. Due to these prospects, many nations have initiated research and development (R&D) programs aimed at developing fusion as an energy source. Two R&D approaches are being explored: magnetic fusion energy (MFE) and inertial fusion energy (IFE).

An Assessment of the Prospects for Inertial Fusion Energy describes and assesses the current status of IFE research in the United States; compares the various technical approaches to IFE; and identifies the scientific and engineering challenges associated with developing inertial confinement fusion (ICF) in particular as an energy source. It also provides guidance on an R&D roadmap at the conceptual level for a national program focusing on the design and construction of an inertial fusion energy demonstration plant.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Energy and Energy Conservation | Engineering and Technology | Math, Chemistry and Physics

Kim Dotcom’s Mega launched last month with a ridiculous launch party that included a fake FBI raid on Dotcom’s mansion. After the launch, the file-sharing service managed to snag over a million users in just a few days. According to Dotcom, the latest numbers show that Mega continues to grow.

In a Twitter post yesterday, Dotcom revealed that Mega now has over 3 million users and over 125 million files hosted on the service. He also revealed that Mega would be getting a mobile app soon:

Dotcom also revealed usage statistics by country, and found that most of Mega’s users come from France, followed by Spain, Brazil and Germany. The U.S. brings up the rear at number five. TechDirt points out that France leading the world in Mega usage is interesting as the country recently put in a “three strikes” system to punish those who pirate content on torrents and P2P networks. They note that correlation is not causation, but it is interesting to think that Mega is becoming a file-sharing haven for those in countries, like France and Spain, that have implemented harsh file-sharing laws.

As the year goes on, expect Mega to grow even larger with the help of a mobile app and the recent announcement that Mega would be accepting bitcoins as payment. The security and anonymity promised by Mega may also help the file sharing network grow as more countries around the world implement systems intended to punish file-sharers.

[h/t: The Next Web]

To help new and existing businesses get started with their transactions system, Square has unveiled a brand new package deal that starts at just $299.

It’s called the “Business in a Box” and it’s “all the hardware you need to run Square Register on your counter.”

For $299, you’ll receive two Square Readers, a Heckler Design WindFall iPad Stand, and an APG Vasario 1616 Cash Drawer. That’s the paperless route. If you want to add the receipt printer to your package, it will force the price up to $599.

Of course, everything works wirelessly with Square Register.

“Historically, business owners were forced to piece together multiple hardware components from various manufacturers, manage complicated contracts and pricing structures, and pay for expensive software licensing and service plans. Now, they can be up and running with Square Register in minutes,” says Square.

It’s an entire point of sale system in one box. The simplicity of it all is exactly what Square is marketing. Why mess around with traditional POS systems or try to piece the parts together yourself when you can get your iPad stand and cash register straight from Square? That’s the idea here.

If you’re interested, you can check it out or get started today.

When CL Financial — the largest financial institution in Trinidad and Tobago — collapsed in January of 2009, its bailout was far more sweeping than those offered in other countries.

Afra Raymond: Three myths about corruption

“In an unprecedented fit of generosity — and I use that word carefully — the government of the day made a written commitment to repay all of the creditors,” says Afra Raymond in today’s talk. “It’s not just like Wall Street. Trinidad and Tobago is a place with different laws of physics.”

In today’s talk, given at TEDxPortofSpain — which happened to be held inside Trinidad and Tobago’s Central Bank — Raymond calls for greater transparency and accountability in his government’s financial dealings. In the talk, he takes a look at several recent examples of government corruption — as well as one that has haunted him for 30 years. While Trinidad and Tobago became wealthy in the 1970s as the value of oil increased, the government quickly ran out of funds. In 1982, the Prime Minister revealed that only 1 out of every 3 dollars that had been earmarked for development had been used to produce goods and services. Sadly, 2 out of every 3 dollars had been wasted or stolen.

To hear more about these cases of corruption — and the three myths of corruption that Raymond wants to break — watch this brave talk. And here, more talks on government corruption in countries like England, Kenya, Germany and India, that show that this is a problem without borders.

Peter Eigen: How to expose the corrupt Peter Eigen: How to expose the corrupt Pervasive government corruption is at the root of many of the world’s most challenging social problems. In this talk from TEDxBerlin, Peter Eigen shares what his organization, Transparency International, is doing to counter it.

Heather Brooke: My battle to expose government corruption Heather Brooke: My battle to expose government corruption Tenaciously following through on Freedom of Information Act requests about members of Parliament and their expenses, journalist Heather Brooke uncovered a scandal that led to six ministers tendering their resignation. At TEDGlobal 2012, she shares the importance of checking in on our leaders.

Shaffi Mather: A new way to fight corruption Shaffi Mather: A new way to fight corruption Shaffi Mather started 1298 for Ambulance, a life-saving service that brought ambulance transportation to parts of India. At TEDIndia 2009, he shares a bold idea for a company to fight corruption in public service.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: Want to help Africa? Do business here Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala: Want to help Africa? Do business here Most people know about — and maybe even expect — corruption in Africa. But at TED2008, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala shares the lesser-told story of reform in many African nations.

Sanjay Pradhan: How open data is changing international aid Sanjay Pradhan: How open data is changing international aid Sanjay Pradhan of the World Bank Institute got a taste of corruption at just 6 years old, when a contractor, hoping to get government work from his father, delivered a cart of sweets to their doorstep. At TEDGlobal 2012, he shares how the experience shaped his approach to international aid.

George Ayittey on Cheetahs vs. Hippos George Ayittey: “Cheetahs” vs. “hippos” in African politics Ghanaian economist George Ayittey unleashes a torrent of controlled anger toward corrupt leaders across Africa — and calls on the “Cheetah generation” to take back the continent.

David Bismark: E-voting without fraud David Bismark: E-voting without fraud David Bismark demos a new system for voting that contains a simple, verifiable way to prevent fraud and miscounting — while keeping each person’s vote secret.

Around one year ago, Draw Something hit iOS and took the mobile gaming world by storm. The Pictionary-type game averaged one million downloads per day during its first 50 days on the market.

Of course, this success has to be measured against more recent successes, such as Angry Birds Space, which reached 50 million downloads in only 35 days, or Temple Run 2, which reached 50 million downloads in only 13 days.

Though it turns out that Draw Something was largely a short-term fad, there are still some mobile gamers trading drawings with each other. Also, the game has spawned a TV show project (basically a reboot of Win, Lose, or Draw).

Today it was announced that Draw Something has officially reached 100 million total downloads.

The announcement was made by Zynga, which acquired Draw Something developer Omgpop for $180 million soon after the the game became a sensation. Since that time, Zynga has announced massive layoffs and the company’s stock has taken a nose dive. In its latest financial results, the company announced that it hopes to shift its focus toward building social gaming franchises on mobile platforms.

(Infographic courtesy Zynga)

There’s been a rush of optimism about Yahoo lately, thanks in large part to its new CEO, much-admired former Google executive Marissa Mayer. After a number of speeches about her broader strategy to reinvent the company, the new chief Yahoo unveiled a redesigned site on Wednesday — a relaunch that garnered a bunch of somewhat lukewarm reviews from the usual suspects. The reality is that Yahoo’s latest attempt to reinvent the old “portal” approach to the web might have made sense five years ago, but it is both too little and too late.

In a post announcing the launch at Yahoo’s “Yodel Anecdotal” blog, Mayer talks about how the site has been redesigned to provide a “stream” of news and information that scrolls onward for as long as a user might like, instead of just a big static chunk of headlines. As she puts it:

“Since streams of information have become the paradigm of choice on the web, we’re introducing a newsfeed with infinite scroll, letting you experience a virtually endless feed of news articles. Whether you are a sports fanatic or entertainment buff, you can easily customize your newsfeed to your interests.”

We have a news feed just like Facebook!

Mayer is right that streams have become the paradigm of choice, but that particular boat set sail a long time ago — Facebook first introduced the News Feed, which has become the go-to news and information source for hundreds of millions of people, in 2006. Twitter, the other news source that pioneered the real-time stream of information, was also created in 2006 and how has hundreds of millions of users. Facebook, of course, recently crossed over the 1-billion-user mark.

That’s not to say a company couldn’t reinvent the real-time news stream, it just means that if Yahoo plans to do so, it’s going to have to try a lot harder than if it had embarked on such a strategy four or five years ago. All the new Yahoo page appears to do is let headlines scroll beyond the little box that the site used to put them in, something that even newspaper websites — hardly the epitome of innovation — started doing a long time ago.

A more detailed post on the changes from Yahoo’s VP of product, Mike Kerns, describes a great new feature that lets users “click a button that allows you to share the story via email, Facebook, or Twitter.” If that strikes you as something dramatically new, then you haven’t been paying attention.

We have apps too, just like Facebook!

Mayer also talked about new “applications” that Yahoo has added, so that users can always see their updated weather and sports scores, something that again feels like a revamping of a decade-old strategy. The customized portal with tiny news and information “apps” was something that was popular years ago via players like Pageflakes and Netvibes — and Google went after it with iGoogle, an offering it recently decided to mothball. Why? Because it wasn’t providing nearly enough bang for the buck, presumably.

Yahoo is also boasting about the fact that you can now log in with Facebook and see all your friends’ birthdays and other activity — a feature that Facebook first started offering with its Facebook Connect platform launch almost three years ago, and one that is now used by hundreds of thousands of news sites. This offering is not only late, but reinforces how much of Yahoo’s strategy seems to rely on partnering with others, something that is at best an unlikely route to success.

Some supporters of the company argue that Yahoo could reach out to developers of apps that it could run on its home page or in user’s streams, in the same way that Facebook has built much of its success on top of game or app companies like Zynga. But can Yahoo offer anything even close to what Facebook can, either in terms of reach or revenue? And are new versions of Candy Crush Saga or Farmville really worth banking Yahoo’s future on?

It’s true that Yahoo still has hundreds of millions of loyal users, but then so does AOL’s dial-up business — in other words, there may still be value there, but it is in a process of gradual (and likely accelerating) decline. Yahoo Finance still has its fans, and so does the site’s fantasy sports offerings, but the reality is that its overall traffic has been falling, and tweaks to its home page offerings are not going to reverse that in any significant way.

In that sense, Mayer’s much-hyped relaunch of the home page seems a lot like adding a new coat of paint and some racing stripes to your old Chevy. It may make you feel better, but it’s not going to go any faster.

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When three major news organizations scoop the same story within the span of a few days and share almost no details about the product they’re scooping, the possibility that the story was planted is very real. Forbes contributor Nigam Arora suggests that this was indeed the case with the recent wave of coverage Apple’s (AAPL) rumored “iWatch” saw, and he questions what Apple’s motivation might have been in planting the story.

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