Cue the horror movie soundtrack. WND has reported that the Afghani Taliban is using Twitter "to brag – and perhaps coordinate – their victories, boasting that jihadists are killing American 'cowards' in uniform."
"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, or Taliban, maintains a pair of Twitter accounts updating daily not only news and views from the front, but boasting in the numbers of U.S. and allied troops slain," reports WND's Drew Zahn.
Technology, depending on its use, can be marvelous or a Halloween horror show.
Twitter addicts rejoice!
It's Twitter heaven! Now it's easier for iPhone, iPad and iPod users to read and share Tweets. Why? Twitter has been integrated into Apple's new iOS 5 mobile operating system. Tweet sharing made simple!
According to Twitter, by downloading it from the App Store, you can "enter your Twitter login information into your device settings and you'll always be connected to your Twitter account. This means you can tweet directly from Apple apps like Camera, Maps, Photos, Safari and YouTube, along with third-party apps, such as Chomp, Flipboard, LivingSocial, Instagram, MadPad, PopSugar, Showyou, SoundTracking and Zynga's Words with Friends."
Twitter adds that this latest version for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch "also allows you upload images directly to Twitter (pic.twitter.com)." Pure ecstasy for Twitter addicts!
This ain't slapstick!
This year's @NHL (National Hockey League) season is underway and goes through June. Now hockey fans can monitor Twitter for all the action, anytime.
According to Twitter, NHL fans can follow the players, go behind the scenes, get instant updates and follow the teams.
Score!
Skyperosoft?
It's a marriage many tech watchers predicted would take place: Microsoft and Skype have tied the tech knot.
In its news release announcing an $8.5-billion purchase of Skype, Microsoft reported that the company and Skype "will remain focused on their shared goal of connecting all people across all devices and accelerating both companies' efforts to transform real-time communications for consumers and enterprise customers. The completion of the acquisition also marks the official introduction of Skype as a new business division within Microsoft."
This makes the deal Microsoft's largest takeover to date. Skyperosoft?
The news release continues, "Skype was founded in 2003, bought by eBay in September 2005, then taken over by an investment group led by Silver Lake in November 2009 for about $2 billion."
Win a few, lose a few. Buzzkill.
Though in Google's case, it's win a lot, lose a couple. Let's face it, revenue of $7.5 billion in one year isn't exactly a few bytes of chicken feed.
According to CNN Money.com, Google's revenue soared last quarter. Third-quarter earnings released last week showed that Google exceeded expectations, earning $9.72 per share, about a dollar more than analysts had predicted based on the number of Google advertisers and its ad rates. Analysts also look at the amount of money Google is burning – $680 million in the third quarter for capital expenditures. Here's a look at the full financial picture.
Speaking of credit and debit columns, Google, which employs 31,353 at last count, cut its losses on some features that never caught fire.
CNN reported that Google Plus, struggling to catch on as a Facebook competitor, reportedly experienced a drop in its usage by 60 percent since it became public. If that weren't enough, a Google engineer hung out dirty laundry when he wrote and accidentally publicly published a post in which he called Google+ "a study in short-term thinking." Additionally, when Google execs didn't themselves immediately use Google Plus, it sent a message to tech-savvy types that this was a non-starter. But Google's keeping its eggs in the Plus basket, instead pulling the plug on several failed features, including the 20-month-old Buzz, to better focus on the four-month-old Google Plus, which currently has 40 million users. Facebook, by comparison, has 800 million.
One man's trash is another man's treasure
What happens to your old mobile phone? It probably ends up at the rapidly growing number of "recommerce" sites for electronics, where you can "get cash for your gadgets."
"As sales of expensive smart phones grow rapidly, trade-in sites have also risen in popularity. Their services give customers the opportunity to make some cash off their old devices, which shoppers can use toward their shiny new handsets. At one point last week, Gazelle had offered up to $284 for some iPhone 4 trade-ins," reports CNN.
Talk about repurposing! When you send in your old phone for cash, the gold in it is then combined with thousands of others and melted into new items – even someone's wedding ring! An interesting look at just what happens to your used mobile device. And maybe in which companies you should be placing your investment dollars?
BlackBerry back to full service
BlackBerry users were inconvenienced last week when service was interrupted by a historic outage caused by huge email backup. Research in Motion, Blackberry maker said a "backlog of email messages to Europe caused a cascading outage effect for BlackBerry users around the world." The outages spread to North America as well, affecting customers in the U.S. and Canada. Also impacted were users in Asia, Latin America and Africa. The timing could not have been worse – the crisis came on the eve of the new iPhone launch!
Hectic!
Ever feel overwhelmed by everything available on the Internet? Imagine the life of a social media manager!
With more businesses and political campaigns using social media to drive sales, marketing, contributions and messaging, companies like this one show the benefits of social media marketing: View a free webcast to learn how to brand and market your business through social media sites.
Gone viral
Have you seen this? A one-year-old baby thinks magazine is an iPad that does not work!
3 ... 2 ... 1
Cool video explains the YouTube Space Lab project, launching with Lenovo and Space Adventures in cooperation with NASA, ESA and JAXA. You can view "amazing space and science videos and, if you're 14 to 18 years old, submit a space experiment idea for your chance to win out-of-this-world prizes."
What will you do? Set to spacey music composed by Aurotone. More info about the YouTube spacelab here.
The Time Capsule
1938 – Daredevil Robert "Evel" Knievel born
1944 – General Douglas MacArthur returns to Philippines
1976 – Mafia boss Carlo Gambino dies, buried in New York
1987 – Wall Street markets plunge 22 percent in panic selling
1989 – Second Great San Francisco earthquake hits
1996 – British Government plans to ban handguns
Now playing at the Princess Theater in Urbana, Ill.
Congratulations to WND reader William Meisheid of Columbia, Md., who was among the first to correctly guess actor Everett Sloane who portrayed Mr. Bernstein in the 1941 Orson Welles classic "Citizen Kane." Welles directed and starred in the drama that was loosely based on the life of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.
"Citizen Kane" was nominated for nine Academy Awards; it won an Oscar for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) by Herman Mankiewicz and Welles himself.
The quote was: "Well, it's no trick to make a lot of money ... if what you want to do is make a lot of money."
This week's quote: "We have very little choice about our life. The only thing really left us is a choice about our death. And mine will be ... glorious!"
Name the movie, the actor and the character. Send your answer to me at the email address below. Please be sure to add your town and state. Good luck!