The mythical speeds of Google Fiber have been just that until now – mythical. Like the leprechaun’s fabled pot of gold, the service’s high speed riches have existed only in lore, but as of late last week it now has a basis in reality. Even though the Goog’s still busy laying the fiber groundwork in Kansas Cities, a limited Beta apparently launched in a Stanford residential neighborhood recently.
via Maximum PC | Google Fiber Delivering Face-Melting Speeds Near Stanford.
Art is about freedom of expression, and it sometimes results in controversial pieces that challenge the social norms or intentionally push the boundaries of decency for one reason or another. But does there ever come a point when artwork crosses the line? A 1TB external hard drive sitting on a white pedestal at the Art 404 gallery begs that very question, the one you have to ask when someone crams $5 million worth of illegally downloaded software into a storage device and calls it art.
via Maximum PC | Dude Downloads $5 Million of Stolen Software to 1TB Hard Drive for Art Exhibit.
Researchers at The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University just released a study that’s sure to ruffle a few feathers, and may freak out parents of Facebooking teens. What the study found is that teens who regularly hop onto Facebook, MySpace, or other social networking sites are much more likely to do things they shouldn’t be doing, like drinking alcohol and smoking pot.
Compared to teens that don’t spend any time on social networking sites, regular users are five times more likely to smoke or chew tobacco, three times as likely to drink alcohol, and twice as likely to use marijuana, according to the “National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XVI: Teens and Parents.”
via Maximum PC | Study: Social Networking Teens More Likely to Smoke, Drink, Use Pot.
Facebook unveiled a massive wave of privacy changes on Tuesday. It’s one of the biggest privacy overhauls in the company’s history, one that includes more than a dozen changes to profiles, status updates, locations and tags.
Additionally, while all of us celebrate our ability to multitask, it’s really “serial” tasking that we’re doing. In effect, we’re requiring our brain to act like a teenager learning to drive a five-speed: We’re shifting gears quickly and abruptly, and slamming on the breaks in the process. As it sounds, this is not always the best way to get from point A to point B.
As introduced/coined by Ethan Marcotte in both his article “Responsive Web Design” as well as his recently released book, one needs three elements to make a site responsive:
A flexible/fluid grid
Responsive images
Media queries
There are plenty of other great articles that cover motives, concepts, and techniques regarding responsive web design, so we’ll keep the focus of this article on some top tools that will help you become responsibly responsive.
via 21 top tools for responsive web design | Feature | .net magazine.
The new annotations appear when a user hovers over the +1 button. Hovering over it will display a list of friends and contacts that have already clicked the +1 button for that page. Google has also unveiled new code for the +1 button that will display the faces and names of friends that have used the +1 button. This feature works much like how the Facebook Like button appears for Mashable stories, displaying how many people have +1′d the page and which friends have +1′d it.
Although banner ads may be experiencing big growth this year, they’re not getting any more effective. The average click-though rate for banners fell in 2010, according to a survey by Google.
American Express OPEN announced Monday a new Business Gold Rewards Card, which gives double points for all spending on marketing — online and off. The points are good for a range of products and services, including retail purchases, access to dining and entertainment events, travel and gift cards. A program introduced in June also lets users cash in those points for Facebook ads.
via American Express Offers Businesses Points for Buying Online Ads.
Screwing around on the Internet is the new Solitaire; it’s what you do at the office when the boss isn’t hovering over your shoulder. But is all the secrecy really necessary? A new study doesn’t seem to think so. In fact, the researchers behind the report say that blowing off some steam on Facebook or YouTube makes workers more productive than any other type of break.
via Maximum PC | Report: Goofing Off Online Increases Workplace Productivity.