Tech News

If You Want to Get Retweets, You’d Better Pay Attention to This

This is something that has always been obvious to me, but it’s nice to see some actual data on it: if you want to get a higher chance of retweets, your tweet’s length should be 71 to 100 characters. That’s long enough to be informative, short enough to let people add their own commentary to…

This iPad Mini Ad Parody Is Actually Better Than the Original

Apple’s iPad mini ad is almost as adorable as the shrunken tablet itself, featuring it and its larger sibling playing a duet of Heart and Soul. But what about the rest of Apple’s hardware? They’re seemingly given the cold shoulder, which is what prompted the folks at Cinesaurus to create this all-encompassing parody that even…

You Can Finally Charge Your iPhone 5 with Normal USB Cords

The new iPhone (and new iPads’) cable connector has been about as controversial as a gadget cable connector can get. It’s smaller, which is nice, but it’s expensive and incompatible with everything. Which is why I love this little adapter. The EU already forces Apple to sell this adapter, which will turn any Micro USB…

Conan Uncovers Michael Moore’s Star Wars 7 Audition Tape

The first question everyone asked when it was announced that the now Disney-owned Lucasfilm would be producing Star Wars Episode VII was “why?!?” But the second question on everyone’s mind was “who’s going to direct it?” and as Conan O’Brien discovered, everyone in Hollywood, and Flint, wants the job. And frankly, we wouldn’t mind Michael…

Apple’s Not Saying How Many iPad Minis It Sold

Apple doesn’t hesitate to trumpet its successes, but its first public acknowledgement of iPad mini sales is mostly notable for how much it doesn’t say. The company’s crowing this morning focused on total iPad opening weekend sales of three million; that’s iPad mini and fourth-generation iPads combined. And, for all we know, still-available iPad 2…

Best Buy’s Got (Slightly Less Than Usual) Free iTunes Money Today

While it’s not quite the 20 percent firesale we’ve grown accustomed to, Best Buy’s 15 percent off of iTunes gift cards still represents a healthy discount on your possibly overpriced movie rentals and season passes. Get it while it’s hot! Which it should be all day. Oh, and if you ever wanted a strong argument…

Anonymous Claims To Have Stolen 28,000 PayPal Passwords

Hacking collective Anonymous claims it’s stolen around 28,000 user details from a server used by PayPal, with what appears to be email addresses, names and associated passwords appearing on a selection of online sharing services. However, as with some other recent Anonymous claims, the hack is being disputed by the attacked party. PayPal says it…

How the Most Iconic Hurricane Sandy Image Was Captured

Iwan Baan photographed New York City from the air last Wednesday, and his image has become perhaps the most iconic record of Sandy, gracing the cover of New York magazine and flooding the internet. This is how he got the shot. Poynter caught up with Baan to ask him about how the image came about.…

Google: Nexus 10 Is an Experiment to Rescue an Underpowered Tablet Market

Interesting, if damning, commentary from Google suggests that the Nexus 10 is an experiment in resuscitating a tablet market which is overcrowded with expensive and underpowered 10-inch tablets. Speaking to the New York Times, Google’s director of business development for Android, John Lagerling, explained that the 10-inch tablet market is “overpriced and underpowered, and we…

Seems movie ticket purchasing may be coming to Siri with iOS 6.1: a Fandango backend will help buy tickets. [9to5mac]

Apple Only Pays 1.9 Percent Tax Outside the US

According to an international financial statement filed by Apple, the company manages to pay just 1.9 percent income tax on its foreign earnings, meaning it pays a mere $713 million in tax on earnings of $36.8 billion. Despite making less the year previous, earning just $24 billion outside the US in the fiscal year ending…

The Complete Story of Sandy: a Timeline of Horror and Recovery

This time it was no hype. Sandy rampaged through New York, New Jersey and the rest of the Northeast. The damage has been enormous: more than a hundred dead, massive flooding everywhere, collapsed buildings, generator malfunctions in hospitals, multiple fires, city-wide blackouts and explosions in power plants. This is the complete story of Sandy, one…

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

One of the biggest commercial flops of the late 1980s also happens to be one of the most wonderfully imaginative, whimsical, and downright silly movies of the last several decades. Not that you’d expect any less from Terry Gilliam, especially when he was in his prime. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a fable within…

Dinosaur Jr. – Don’t Pretend You Didn’t Know

I hadn’t thought much about Dinosaur Jr. since the mid-90s. Why would I have? They broke up in 1997, and got back together without much fanfare in 2005. But the group’s latest album, and particularly this lead track, hits me with a jolt. It belongs in 2012, but feels like 1994. It’s a thread strung…

The Surest Way to a Viral Hit: Professional Clicking

Need a viral smash? No point leaving it to chance. Just get Buyral on case. Their team of expert clickers will get your views up in no time; whether or not anyone actually sees it is another matter altogether. As Buzzfeed points out, it’s a great parody of the viral rat race that drives so…

Maybe We Wouldn’t Pirate Music If There Were Anywhere Else to Hear It

It may not be totally fair to blame piracy’s ascension on MTV’s decline. But you know what? Neither was sending Snooki to the Vatican. Look, I’ll be honest, all I want is 120 Minutes back. Wait, it is? Okay, then let’s just get Bill Bellamy’s career back on track and all will be forgiven. [The…

Amazon Really Does Lose Money on Every Kindle Fire HD (But Microsoft, Not So Much)

Fresh on the heels of an iPad mini teardown that revealed $188 worth of components, IHS has pegged the Kindle Fire HD bill of materials at $165. That means that only about 20 bucks’ worth of hardware separates devices with $130 price tag differential. Yeesh. It was no surprise that the Kindle Fire HD was…

Copyright-Infringing Tweets Will Now Be “Withdrawn” Instead of “Disappeared Forever”

Twitter received 4,410 DMCA takedown notices last year alone. But while previously a successful claim would lead to a tweet being vanished under dark of night, from here on out it will be replaced by a notice that it’s being withheld. The tweet in question will still be gone and irretrievable, so this won’t lead…

Hackers Replace NBC Sites With Smörgåsbord of Hacker Cliches (Updated)

Those in search of SNL and 30 Rock clips over at NBC’s videos page have been met with something quite different: a hacked page of weirdness with a surprisingly catchy soundtrack. It’s most prominent website hack we’ve seen in a while, and also one of the least coherent. Here’s the message as it reads in…

The Onion’s TED Talk Parodies Keep Getting Better (And More Scathing)

We haven’t checked in on The Onion’s brutal TED Talk parody series, but now’s as good a time as any to get caught up. Above is the most recent, a breakdown of farm animal noises with rapidly escalating pretension. And below? Maybe the purest distillation of TED yet. Ridiculous theme? Check. Absurd invention? Double check.…