Lady Gaga first to hit the online-video billion

The creative director for an image line at Polaroid was on Wednesday named as the first to achieve 1 billion views online.

Did this creative director remove clothes before achieving such astonishing Web fame? Why, yes. This creative director once removed all clothing and replaced them with plastic bubbles for a magazine cover.

Did the shareholders know? Perhaps only one or two. For this creative director is the sprightly alleged homage queen to, well, Queen, Bowie, and Madonna: Lady Gaga. Your (oh, yes, I'm blaming you for this) Fair Lady is quite an aficionada of tech, having wafted through CES earlier this year … Read more

Is Facebook to blame for U.K. rise in syphilis?

I have studied Facebook very carefully. It is clearly to blame for the awful epidemic of misspelled words, depressing acronyms, and ugly multiples of exclamation points. It is also to blame for people's rampant exhibitionism, egotism, and divestment of all senses of decorum, decency, and privacy.

But I struggle with the notion that Facebook--or any other social network, for that matter--makes it easier for people to pass on sexually transmitted diseases.

Do I bring up the notion of STDs gratuitously? Never--and especially not in this case. For according to the United Kingdom's newspaper of the year, the Telegraph, … Read more

Steve Jobs already e-mailing customers from iPad?

He's sitting at home. The thighPad is just where it's supposed to be, gently warming his lap. Who knows if he takes his sneakers off?

But in another subtle gesture to market his "magic and revolutionary" product, Steve Jobs is reportedly already using an iPad to answer customer queries.

According to Tuaw, having already begun to personally answer customers' iPad questions just a couple of weeks ago--the Apple CEO has gravitated away from replying to them on an iPhone and whipped out an iPad.

One customer reportedly asked whether he could transfer his Google Docs to … Read more

Boss' Facebook message tells teen she's fired

The lovely thing about Facebook is that it saves so much time. Why bother to call anyone or make arrangements to actually see them face to face when you can slap something on their Facebook page and, voila, we're friends?

Perhaps the management at Cookies in Leigh, in the cold, forbidding north of the United Kingdom, are busy people. Because, according to a deeply felt description in the Daily Mail, they decided to fire one of their workers by leaving her a message on Facebook.

It seems that Chelsea Taylor, a 16-year-old Saturday worker at this no doubt salubrious … Read more

YouTube cancels RealTime social video sharing

YouTube has canceled an experimental feature called RealTime, which brought an as-it-happens social aspect to Google's video-sharing site.

The move was announced early Monday on a YouTube help forum page:

We've seen some of you wondering what occurred to the Realtime Toolbar. The Realtime Toolbar was recently retired and is no longer an available feature on YouTube.

We were excited to release and experiment with Realtime and it has inspired us for new features on YouTube in the future. We look forward to introducing many new features in the coming months and are sharing them with you all. … Read more

Flinc will turn your car into a taxi (fare included)

PALM DESERT, Calif.--Flinc is one big idea that could save us all from the horrors of pricey cab rides. Unfortunately, it's years away from showing up in a major U.S. city.

The idea, as pitched in 90 seconds at this year's DemoSpring conference here, is that people who are driving around are often in a position to pick someone else up in return for some cold, hard cash--yet for much less than a taxi.

Sure, it's ride sharing with a receipt, Flinc's organizational system happens entirely in the cloud. The commands get sent … Read more

Wiesenthal study details online hate, terror groups

An online game that lets you bomb victims of the Haiti earthquake. A Facebook group that compares gays to rats and vermin. An eBay auction selling rings supposedly taken from concentration camp prisoners during the Holocaust.

These are just a few of the Web sites and pages uncovered in the latest study of hate and terrorism on the Internet by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The report "Digital Terrorism and Hate 2010," released last week, highlights a growing number of Web sites and social networks used by people propagating hateful, racist, or terrorist ideas and activities. In combing through … Read more

Teen gets carpal tunnel from texting, wants iPhone

A 100-a-day habit isn't good for you. Everyone knows that. It's just hard, sometimes, to explain it to kids who think it's so cool.

Cigarettes? Lord, no, those things smell. We're talking texting.

According to ABC News, 16-year-old Annie Levitz from Mundelein, Ill., began to sense a little disharmony in her hands. They would feel tingly, numb, or merely hurt like hell. Had she been practicing her free throws in preparation for March Madness? Had she been attempting to become Mundelein's Chopin? If only. Levitz had merely been texting her friends up to 100 times a day.

Finally, she went to the doctor, who diagnosed her not with text dependency, but with carpal tunnel syndrome.… Read more

iPad ad goes viral

It seems that when it comes to the company's sweetly controlling nature, Apple has slipped a Xanax into its perfectly still martini and let the online show begin.

Figures from those delightfully modern bean counters at Visible Measures suggest that the new iPad TV spot--you know, the one in which thighs play a leading role--has become the second-most-watched piece of viral footage after the E*Trade Super Bowl ad in which Lindsay Lohan most definitely does not appear.

More than 2.4 million people have already feasted their tired but excited online eyes on an ad that covers the … Read more