Each day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks.

Ever dated a guy/girl who was more apt to stare into his/her iPhone than into your piercing eyes? Well, have we got a song for you.

The above video, set to the tune of “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” comes courtesy of Break Media and stars Elliott Yamin (from American Idol on vocals), Sarah Hyland (Modern Family) and her boyfriend, actor Matt Prokop (High School Musical 3).

Make sure to share it with your significant other — preferably on Facebook.

More About: humor, music, pop culture, social media, trending, video, viral video, viral-video-of-day, youtube

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Your donation for keeping this series up and running would be much appreciated.

The main news this month is that Android finally passes Nokia and becomes the third-largest mobile browser. It has taken its time; I’ve been expecting this ever since April or so.

Other than that not much happens. NetFront wins a point after recovering from a StatCounter bug and is back to its customary 4%; Opera loses a point but is still clearly ahead of Safari for the second month in a row, and there are some minor changes at the bottom of the market.

All in all yet another boring month.

Year-over-year

Let’s spice things up by doing a year-over-year comparison for July. The main conclusion must be that Android won an immense amount of market share, and that most of it comes form Opera and Safari. Surprising.

More interesting is the long tail. Four browsers that still marginally made the threshold a year ago have now all but disappeared globally: Sony PlayStation, Openwave, Bolt, and Palm. Instead, the Samsung browsers, Obigo and UC now rule the long-tail roost.

Also interesting is that in one year the Big Five have retained exactly 89% of the market. The story of the past twelve months is one of the shifts within the Big Five. The other browsers don’t matter all that much — yet.

Finally, take a look at the last row. Mobile browsing has more than doubled in importance in a year: from 3% of all browsing to 7%. That’s growth.

Browsers by OS

Let’s spice up things even more and assign specific browser percentages to specific OSs. Which browser, exactly, do the Symbian users use?

This is necessarily a rough estimate; I don’t want to use fractions, and I’m not totally certain of the exact spread of Opera and NetFront among the various OSs. So what follows is only an indication.

iOS and BlackBerry are easy: there is so little mismatch between OS and browser figures that other browsers (mainly Opera) don’t even make it to 1%.

Symbian and Android are also easy. There is a mismatch between OS and browser figures (in the case of Symbian a significant mismatch), but the only browser that can possibly fill it up is Opera. That accounts for 16 of Opera’s 22%; and also for Nokia’s dislike of Opera.

From here on things get more sketchy. I give the larger part of the Unknown OS to Opera, because Opera Mini does not always give platform information, which forces StatCounter to count it as Unknown. Still, I give the Other browsers a little bit, too.

As to Samsung and the other OSs, this is more guesswork than anything else. I give Opera a little share here, but the main share goes to the other browsers, especially NetFront.

I’m working with various browser vendors to get a better idea of what’s going on in the long tail of the market. I hope to be able to make better guesses next month.

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Online travel website Kayak has just released a new Mac app that lets users plan their vacations, customized by destination and budget.

The app, Kayak Explore for Mac [Mac App Store link] is free and available in the Mac App Store. It’s an expanded version of the “Explore” feature on Kayak.com, but it adds a better user interface and options like sorting by type of trip. You can choose what time you want to travel or find optimum travel times for your intended destination.

Users are given an overview of various hotel and flight options for their trip, including access to reviews and photos. A flight or trip can then be booked on the web by clicking on the app.

We played with the app briefly and were impressed with its speed and ease of use. It certainly makes planning a trip or looking at vacation options more pleasant.

What do you think of Kayak’s new Mac App? Let us know in the comments.

More About: Kayak, mac apps, mac apps store, travel

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Online travel website Kayak has just released a new Mac app that lets users plan their vacations, customized by destination and budget.

The app, Kayak Explore for Mac [Mac App Store link] is free and available in the Mac App Store. It’s an expanded version of the “Explore” feature on Kayak.com, but it adds a better user interface and options like sorting by type of trip. You can choose what time you want to travel or find optimum travel times for your intended destination.

Users are given an overview of various hotel and flight options for their trip, including access to reviews and photos. A flight or trip can then be booked on the web by clicking on the app.

We played with the app briefly and were impressed with its speed and ease of use. It certainly makes planning a trip or looking at vacation options more pleasant.

What do you think of Kayak’s new Mac App? Let us know in the comments.

More About: Kayak, mac apps, mac apps store, travel

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Foursquare has added photos inline with checkins in an update to its iPhone application Tuesday. The new version adds color to the activity stream and refreshes the look and feel of the app.

With the update, Foursquare for iPhone users will now see friends’ photos and checkins coupled together in the activity stream — just as they would on Foursquare.com.

Users can even select “here now” to view all the photos and shouts from friends at the same venue in a single stream. “Commenting on a friend’s night out? You’ll see all the other photos and comments as you’re composing your witty retort. Everything is in one place,” says Foursquare’s blog post.

The location-based social network — which added U.S. President Barack Obama as a celebrity user Monday — also retooled its iPhone application to make for a crisper and cleaner user experience. “There’s a new design scheme and a cleaned-up header, and, as has been frequently requested, bigger tap targets,” Foursquare says.

In early August, Foursquare gave its website a photo-facelift and started displaying images inline with checkins, foreshadowing Tuesday’s iPhone app release. Foursquare promises its Android and BlackBerry users that similar features are on the way for them as well.

Image courtesy of Flickr, steve

More About: foursquare, iphone app, Photos

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Foursquare has added photos inline with checkins in an update to its iPhone application Tuesday. The new version adds color to the activity stream and refreshes the look and feel of the app.

With the update, Foursquare for iPhone users will now see friends’ photos and checkins coupled together in the activity stream — just as they would on Foursquare.com.

Users can even select “here now” to view all the photos and shouts from friends at the same venue in a single stream. “Commenting on a friend’s night out? You’ll see all the other photos and comments as you’re composing your witty retort. Everything is in one place,” says Foursquare’s blog post.

The location-based social network — which added U.S. President Barack Obama as a celebrity user Monday — also retooled its iPhone application to make for a crisper and cleaner user experience. “There’s a new design scheme and a cleaned-up header, and, as has been frequently requested, bigger tap targets,” Foursquare says.

In early August, Foursquare gave its website a photo-facelift and started displaying images inline with checkins, foreshadowing Tuesday’s iPhone app release. Foursquare promises its Android and BlackBerry users that similar features are on the way for them as well.

Image courtesy of Flickr, steve

More About: foursquare, iphone app, Photos

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Foursquare has added photos inline with checkins in an update to its iPhone application Tuesday. The new version adds color to the activity stream and refreshes the look and feel of the app.

With the update, Foursquare for iPhone users will now see friends’ photos and checkins coupled together in the activity stream — just as they would on Foursquare.com.

Users can even select “here now” to view all the photos and shouts from friends at the same venue in a single stream. “Commenting on a friend’s night out? You’ll see all the other photos and comments as you’re composing your witty retort. Everything is in one place,” says Foursquare’s blog post.

The location-based social network — which added U.S. President Barack Obama as a celebrity user Monday — also retooled its iPhone application to make for a crisper and cleaner user experience. “There’s a new design scheme and a cleaned-up header, and, as has been frequently requested, bigger tap targets,” Foursquare says.

In early August, Foursquare gave its website a photo-facelift and started displaying images inline with checkins, foreshadowing Tuesday’s iPhone app release. Foursquare promises its Android and BlackBerry users that similar features are on the way for them as well.

Image courtesy of Flickr, steve

More About: foursquare, iphone app, Photos

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Lady Gaga was all set to launch her latest music video (via her 1,000th tweet) on Thursday. But it looks like the Internet has beat Mother Monster to the punch.

Perez Hilton has the vid in question, for the song “Yoü and I,” which Gaga has been teasing via Twitter for the past couple of weeks. The country-esque jam, in its visual incarnation, features appearances by Gaga’s male alter-ego, Jo Calderone, and her mermaid self, Yuyi.

NSFW: Mermaid sex.

Update: Shortly after the video appeared on Perez Hilton, Lady Gaga posted her 1,000th tweet, which says:

More About: Lady Gaga, music, video, you-and-i

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Lady Gaga was all set to launch her latest music video (via her 1,000th tweet) on Thursday. But it looks like the Internet has beat Mother Monster to the punch.

Perez Hilton has the vid in question, for the song “Yoü and I,” which Gaga has been teasing via Twitter for the past couple of weeks. The country-esque jam, in its visual incarnation, features appearances by Gaga’s male alter-ego, Jo Calderone, and her mermaid self, Yuyi.

NSFW: Mermaid sex.

Update: Shortly after the video appeared on Perez Hilton, Lady Gaga posted her 1,000th tweet, which says:

More About: Lady Gaga, music, video, you-and-i

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Something new has popped up on Starbucks’s menu: free iPhone apps.

This week, the coffee giant started dispensing gift cards good for the free apps in stores, according to various reports. Starbucks has been offering free songs from iTunes since 2007, but the apps appear to be something new. Reps from Starbucks could not be reached for comment.

The first app to be offered under the plan is Shazam Encore, a music-identifying app that sells for $5.99 on iTunes.

Image courtesy of Flickr, re-ality

More About: apps, iphone, starbucks

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As part of an effort to support LGBT teens, an online campaign wants Sesame Street‘s Bert and Ernie — the male puppet roommates with an Odd Couple-esque relationship — to say “I do.”

The campaign includes a petition on Change.org and a Facebook Page that has already amassed a rather large following. The petition has garnered close to 8,000 signatures in nine days.

“We are not asking that Sesame Street do anything crude or disrespectful,” it reads. “Only that they allow Bert & Ernie to marry, or even add a transgender character to the show. It can be done in a tasteful way.”

The petition’s creator, Lair Scott, was inspired by the “It Gets Better” series of videos launched by columnist Dan Savage. “The videos are giving support and hope to the youth out there, and I am just trying to do the same,” says Scott.

Sesame Streetresponded to the petition Thursday on its Facebook Page — pointing out that the puppets are neither gay nor straight.

“Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves,” says the post. “Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.”

What do you think of the petition’s aim? Should everyone’s favorite roomies tie the knot?

More About: Bert and Ernie, change.org, facebook, sesame street

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We don’t know about you, but by the time 3:30 p.m. ET rolls around on a Friday, we’re dancing on the ceiling. Luckily for us (and you), that’s about the time when our Summer Fridays Turntable.fm room gets into full swing.

If you’re unfamiliar with Turntable.fm, get ready for bouncing avatars to start haunting your dreams. The service, which is still in beta, comes from the Stickybits team and resembles AOL chatrooms of old — a series of user-created, browser-based chatroom/listening rooms where “DJs” (a.k.a. you and others) can play songs, vote on how “lame” or “awesome” those songs are, score points for picking good tunes, and chat with others. You can choose songs from a MediaNet-powered library or upload your own. Sadly, the site is no longer open to anyone outside the U.S. because of Turntable’s efforts to stay DMCA compliant.

This Friday, Mashable staff, MuseBox and The Glitch Mob will be manning the decks, spinning tracks and taking you through the dregs of your work week.

Click here to join.

More About: glitch-mob, musebox, music, startup, turntable.fm

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A report from one Japanese website marks September 8 as the date of Apple’s next media event, at which some expect the company to launch the iPhone 5.

The company has historically released its new phones at its summer Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). This year, in the wake of the Verizon iPhone 4 release, that tradition failed to pan out.

Apple’s annual September media event seems like a logical alternative, although it has in the past been reserved for iPod launches.

The date of the event, like most things Apple, is still safely in rumor territory. MacRumors says that it has asked blog Kodawarisan for the source of the date, and found it came from “a source in the know.”

Even if the date is accurate, it might not be when Apple decides to reveal the iPhone 5. AllThingsD heard from “sources familiar with the matter” that the iPhone 5 wouldn’t launch until October.

More About: apple, iPhone 5

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Advertisers wishing to target Facebook members in specific zip codes can now do so. The social network has made the new targeting option available to advertisers via Facebook’s Power Editor and Ads Manager self-service tools.

Facebook has confirmed that zip code targeting, which was spotted by Politico, is now available in the U.S.

“The zip code targeting launched yesterday and this change was made due to requests for such a change,” a Facebook spokesperson tells Mashable.

Advertisers, previously able to target members by country, state or province, can now direct ads and sponsored stories to users in more localized areas.

“Over the past few months Facebook has been showing sidebar modules asking users to confirm which of several zip codes they are closest to or live within,” Inside Facebook reports.

Now that advertisers have the potential to reach hyper-local audiences, what types of ads should Facebook users expect? Local merchants and small businesses are the most likely candidates to promote products and services by zip codes. Politico also theorizes that the addition of zip code targeting will factor into upcoming elections.

“In an election cycle when social networking is expected to play such a big role, Facebook’s new program signals its intention to be a major player in the sprawling, and lucrative, market of local campaigns,” the site contends.

Image courtesy of Inside Facebook

More About: advertising, facebook

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Twtrland is a new service that converts Twitter streams into detailed profiles to try and make it easier to decide whom to follow.

Simply plug in the Twitter handle you want to analyze, and Twtrland will build a profile for you. (See mine above.) The profile includes info like how often the user is retweeted, how many times she or he tweets per day, a breakdown of tweet content (plain tweets, pictures, @replies, etc.), most-retweeted tweets (Famous Words), top followers and a sampling of tweets.

According to the service’s site, one of the main problems Twtrland is trying to solve is: “Deciding if someone is follow-worthy. These are not your real life friends, but people that are supposed to interest you. Hard to decide based on last 10-15 tweets, avatar and description. We go deep in his history, and sum it all up to the simplest profile we could think of to help you decide in a glimpse. to follow or not to follow.”

Although the service isn’t the most visually stunning at present, it is a neat way to lay out a user’s info, and analyze your own Twitter activity — as well as satisfy that burning desire to reflect on one’s own musings.

More About: trending, twitter, Twtrland

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The “iOS Crash Course” will be presented by the awesome Dave Verwer. Dave will bring you up to date on how to get started on your first app, with development tools and hints as well as tips about the app store/review process. Dave is an iOS and Mac developer, trainer and consultant who owns and runs Shiny Development, an iOS training company.

The super cool Kevin McDonagh will be presenting “Everything about Android in 40 minutes”. Kevin will delve into what you need to know to get started with your first app and how to get it into the Android Market. Kevin is director at Novoda, a software consultancy specialising in the Android platform, organiser of the London Android user group and organiser of the UK’s Android conference Droidcon.

We are psyched to have Mike Ormond from Microsoft presenting “Windows Phone Crash Course”. Mike will look into what need to know to get started building your first Windows Phone app and how to get it published in the Windows Phone Marketplace. Mike is a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft. That means he gets to spend a lot of his time talking to people about technology.

We are honoured that Dave, Kevin and Mike can join us at the Future of Mobile.

Future of Mobile Wrap Party

The Future of Mobile Wrap party will be held at the Firefly. Just a few minutes walk away from the Mermaid Conference venue, we have two floors dedicated to FOM attendees. There will be FREE beers, pool, table football or a lounge area to mingle and chat about the days sessions. The party starts at 7.30pm, FireFly in the City, 18 Old Bailey, London, EC4M 7EP.

Limited tickets are still available at just £245 + VAT, so don’t miss out!

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You’re all aware of the increase in “hacktivism” and malware we’ve been seeing over the past few months, and as it turns out, the carriers are aware of it, too. Just yesterday, Sprint announced the availability of its McAfee security apps for Android, and today AT&T is looping in Juniper Networks for its new mobile security platform.

Though it’s not quite rolled out yet, the first phase of AT&T’s security platform will be the launch of its AT&T Mobile Security app, which will be based on Juniper’s Junos Pulse client. The app won’t launch until later this year. According to the release, the application will help keep both personal and enterprise phones safe by offering control and monitoring of apps and enabling anti-virus and anti-malware on the phone.

The truth of the matter is you can never be too secure when it comes to technology, especially with our banking and personal contact information all stored away in our smartphones. There are already plenty of anti-virus and anti-malware apps available in both the Android Market and the App Store, along with various other application stores, but it’s definitely good to see the carriers get involved.

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Cat, meet the outside of the bag.

You know that “major announcement” that HTC has scheduled for tomorrow morning? The details have just made their way out a bit early.

HTC just confirmed that they will be entering a strategic partnership with Beats Electronics, a company best known for its Beats by Dr. Dre line of headphones. While they’re leaving some details for tomorrow’s call, it’s expected that HTC will announce that they’ve acquired a majority stake (at 51%) of the company.

The actual size of the investment varies a bit depending on who you’re talking to: CNET says over $500 million, while AllThingsD pins it at $300 million.

As you’d probably expect, HTC will be utilizing this investment to squeeze Beats technology (along with the “Beats” brand, of course) into their phones, with the first Beats-ified handsets hitting the shelves sometime this fall. At the very least, this means that the music that some people insist on blasting out of their phone’s crappy speakerphone while riding on public transportation might sound a wee bit less crappy in the future.

To celebrate, here’s a picture of a much younger version of me (and TechCrunch alum Peter Ha!) hanging out with a totally-excited-to-be-there Dr. Dre:

We’re still planning on liveblogging tomorrow’s event just in case any interesting details get tossed in the ring.

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iOS users turn out to surf about 4 times as much as the average phone owner, while BlackBerry and Android users surf about 2.5 times as much. The real surprises, however, come from Windows and Symbian.

Comscore released its calculations of April-to-June mobile phone usage in the US, and gives percentages for the five largest device vendors and the five largest smartphone platforms. Since Apple and RIM figure in both lists, we can calculate that 33.6% of Americans currently uses a smartphone, and from there we arrive at the overall market share of the other smartphone platforms.

StatCounter provides mobile OS surfing market share over the same period, allowing us to calculate a platform’s “smartness” by dividing browsing share by penetration share. I do not count the 0.6% PlayStation browsing share, since this device does not occur in the Comscore stats due to it not being a phone.

Surprising results. Not iOS but Symbian appears to be the smartest platform around, while Windows is basically a non-smartphone platform.

Windows

I’m at a loss to explain the lousy Windows result.

• Do Windows users hate IE so much that they won’t browse? (Users tend to use whatever comes to hand, so I don’t believe it.)
• Do they use Opera, which does not always pass platform information on to StatCounter? (Unlikely; they’d use Opera Mobile, which is pretty good in providing such information.)
• Or are people who buy Windows phones less inclined naturally to browse? (If so, why?)
• Or does StatCounter misdetect Windows phones as Windows desktops? (Possible, I suppose, though I haven’t yet found such a mistake in my tests of StatCounter.)
• Or is the Comcast sample skewed in favour of Windows phones? (Possible but unprovable.)

I just plain don’t know.

Symbian and S40

I’m also at a loss to explain the excellent Symbian result. I see three options:

1. The Comscore sample of 36,000 Americans is somehow skewed against Symbian users. Could be, but we’ll never be able to prove it.
2. The StatCounter Symbian numbers are incorrect. Now I know for a fact that currently S40 is detected as Symbian, so this could definitely be the case.
3. My calculation is correct and Symbian users surf about 30% more than iOS users.

If we want to preserve our world order and keep iOS at the top of the smartness chain, we must choose option 2 and decide a significant amount of “Symbian” browsing in fact comes from S40 and should be compared to the Other OS category. Thus Symbian’s smartness would fall, and the Others’ would rise.

So let’s say that half of the “Symbian” browsing share comes from S40. That would bring Symbian’s smartness down to Android/BlackBerry levels: still pretty good, but at least lower than iOS’s.

How many S40 phones are used in the US? No study will ever answer that question because S40 is not hip and happening. Still, we can make an estimate. The last time Tomi Ahonen gave general phone sales numbers, for 2009, Nokia sold 432 million phones of which 68 million were Symbian. Assuming that all other phones are S40 we arrive at a 1:5.35 ratio. That would mean 4.3% of all phones used in the US are S40.

Let’s re-calculate:

Now S40 users surf more than Windows users! It’s almost enough to start to doubt the entire methodology.

So let’s wait a while, hope StatCounter implements my suggestion to separate Symbian and S40, and see what happens next.

One thing is certain: these surprising US numbers, combined with my earlier research, where Symbian (+ S40) ended a good second, mean that Nokia’s platforms aren’t as dumb as people seem to think.

Unless you disagree with this entire method of calculation, of course.

Non-smartphones and app downloads

The Comcast research contains two more factoids that should be studied. In the April-June period, 40.1% of phone users used their browser, while 39.5% used a downloaded app.

The point here is that only 33.6% of Americans uses a smartphone at all. So 6.5% of Americans browsed while not being on a smartphone, and 5.9% downloaded apps while not being on a smartphone.

Do all smartphone users browse and download apps? I’m not certain they do. I’m especially thinking of youth users of BlackBerry, who don’t care about browsers or apps, but only about BBM. The non-smartphone numbers may be even larger.

So let’s change our conclusion: at least 6.5% of Americans browsed while not being on a smartphone, and at least 5.9% downloaded apps while not being on a smartphone.

In other words, at least 9.7% of non-smartphone users browsed, and at least 8.8% downloaded apps. Now browsing is not a function that’s necessarily restricted to smartphones, but downloading apps is. After all, the very definition of a smartphone is the fact that you can install apps on it (and that it runs on a recognizable OS).

This means that the definition of smartphones in studies such as Comcast’s should be extended. Right now there’s an arbitrary fixed set of platforms that is deemed a smartphone, and everything else isn’t.

That state of affairs should change. Several former feature phone platforms have already made the jump to smartphone and should be counted as such. I’m especially thinking of S40, but the new Brew MP may also be a candidate. And we have to go through the countless Java ME platforms and figure out which of them are still important.

We need better stats; stats that pay attention to platforms deemed non-smartphone, as well as to the long smartphone tail. With the current crop we’re never going to figure out how the mobile market works.

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They could be right, they could be wrong. The question is: How do you measure a platform’s “smartness?” Unfortunately the article does not offer any answers to this crucial question.

The best way I can think of is measuring a platform’s occurrence in browser statistics. However you define a smartphone, browsing is a crucial part of the experience nowadays, and if its browsing market share does not live up to its sales market share, the platform is less smart.

So let’s take a look at the mobile browser market’s most recent OS statistics:

Lo and behold, Android’s share is one point less than iOS’s, while the Q1 sales figures are more like a 7:4 division in favour of Android (roughly 35 vs. 20 million).

However, it would be a mistake to compare the current browsing stats to the current sales stats. The browsing stats are mostly caused by already deployed devices, including the three-year old devices that are still the best the less affluent smartphone users have.

So it’s best to see the current browsing stats as a kind of 12- to 24-month moving average of smartphone sales coupled with platform “smartness” (and note the deliberate vagueness and huge margin of error). That explains Symbian’s continued dominance: its sales market share may plummet all it wants, people still have an awful lot of Symbian devices on hand to do their browsing with.

Calculating smartness

So let’s make a back-of-napkin calculation and make a lot of assumptions. We’ll assume that the July 2011 browser stats are a moving average of the Q1 2010 to Q1 2011 (inclusive) sales market share, since those are the only quarters I have full figures for.

We’ll concentrate on the top four platforms, since I’m still investigating the other platforms and can’t easily translate them to browser market shares. Besides, the older Samsung and Sony Ericsson OSs that make up most of the other platforms are not counted as smartphones in the sales stats, so the calculation does not work.

In addition, we’ll leave the sizable Unknown contingent entirely out of the equation and re-calculate the browsing market stats from there.

Then we divide the browsing share by the sales share. Ideally the result is 1 for a perfect match between sales and browsing shares. If it’s less than 1 the platform is less smart, if it’s more than 1 the platform is smarter.

A surprising outcome. Let’s take them on in order of “smartness:”

1. iOS comes first. No surprises here; we already knew iPhone users surf a lot more than users of other phones.
2. The comes Symbian, and I hadn’t expected that. Apparently Symbian users don’t mind surfing at all, although almost half of them use Opera.
3. BlackBerry comes next: its users surf somewhat less than should be expected from the sales stats. No surprises here.
4. Android, indeed, is the least “smart” of the big four platforms. So the article is right up to a point.

Thus I conclude provisionally that the Android platform is somewhat less “smart” than iOS. Still, the blanket statement that “not many” Android devices are used as smartphones is misleading at best: quite a few Android users do browse the web.

So the article has a point, but less than the author seems to think.

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Web Intents, based on an existing capability in Google’s Android mobile OS, will let Web apps express a simple call for an action, like ‘share’ or ‘edit,’ which receiving apps will be designed to use, without either app needing to have specific knowledge of the APIs of the other. This way, instead of having to code for each specific Web app one might want to access, developers can just use these simple requests, which will be built into the browser. The Chrome and Firefox teams are each building this functionality for their own browser, but they’re combining their proposals to use a single API for Web app developers to reach both platforms.

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In his blog post explaining the purpose behind Web Intents, Kinlan characterizes the problem Web Intents would solve:

“If I built an image gallery application and I wanted to let users edit an image so that they can remove red-eye from a photo I either have to build an application that edits the images, or integrate with a 3rd party solution. Doing this is hard and stops you from building an awesome image gallery; and what happens if the user has a favorite service that they already use to remove red-eye? Simple, you have a frustrated user.“

The goal of Web intents, says Kinlan, is “to allow developers to build applications and services that could work with each other, but not need to explicitly know about each other.” The concept was inspired by Android’s functionality, he says, but “the API bore no resemblance.”

Android has had these same capabilities for a while, which has made life easier for mobile app developers in Google’s ecosystem. With the Chrome team taking big steps to advance its browser, especially by fleshing out its Web app store, Web Intents will be a timely addition to the desktop platform.

Now that each team is working on Web Intents, some pretty interesting code examples are available to play with. Here’s Mozilla’s demo video of how they want the user side of the experience to work:

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Twitter is finally retiring the old version of its social media service, nearly a year after the launch of New Twitter.

“If you’re currently using Old Twitter, we want to let you know that you’ll be upgraded to New Twitter this week,” the company announced in a tweet.

Twitter has been warning users since the switch to New Twitter that the old version would eventually be retired. In June, the social media company made its warning more urgent. Twitter informed us at the time that a permanent switch was impending.

Will you miss the old version of Twitter, or is this change long overdue?

More About: New Twitter, Old Twitter, twitter

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The Economist rolled out both an Android tablet edition and all-access subscription options Tuesday.

The newsweekly joins Sports Illustrated and Time in its multi-platform subscription offering, which enables readers to access all versions of The Economist, including its print, smartphone, tablet, audio and web editions, for a single rate. (Prices vary by region).

A digital-only option is also available for $29 per quarter, or $110 per year. Single issues on iPad and Android tablets can be purchased for $5.99, £3.99, or €5.40, depending on your region. Access to the editor’s weekly selection of six “must-read” articles is available for free.

“We want our readers to be able to read us wherever and however they want, and we will continue to develop for platforms and mobile devices capable of delivering the unique Economist weekly reading experience, free from distractions,” says Oscar Grut, managing director of digital editions at The Economist.

We haven’t yet tried out the Android version, which runs on small and medium-sized Android tablets running OS 2.x, but the app has received mostly positive reviews in the Android Market thus far.

Try it out for yourself and let us know what you think.

More About: android, magazines, media, The Economist

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Today’s numeric date — 8.02.11 — resembles the name for the earliest set of standards for Wi-Fi: 802.11. And to no one’s surprise, the similarity has inspired netizens to declare Tuesday “Wi-Fi Day.”

Advances in Wi-Fi use continue to emerge: For example, HP unveiled a Wi-Fi mouse earlier this year. And Underground commuters in London will have Wi-Fi access in 270 stations just in time for the 2012 Olympic Games.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers manages 802.11 protocol, but today you have the power to make us chuckle. Here’s how.

What’s the Best Wi-Fi Network Name You’ve Used or Seen?

We’ve all been there — at a coffee shop, an apartment complex or somewhere public — when suddenly you stumble upon an epic Wi-Fi network name.

Three Mashable employees who shall remain anonymous access their Internet via these networks:

• Honk if you love Jesus
• Batcave
• Dog Day

We know you’ve seen better, so in the comments, tell us what awesome network names you’ve encountered.

Image based on a photograph from iStockphoto user Petrovich9

More About: Holidays, internet, News, technology, wi-fi, Wireless

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Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC plans to launch six to eight new smartphones in the third quarter.

Continuing its upward trajectory, HTC exceeded projections and reported smartphone sales of 12.11 million units in Q2 — a 25% increase compared to the first quarter.

HTC CEO Peter Chou says Q3 will be even stronger, as the company expects to sell 13.5 million smartphone units.

The launch of at least half a dozen new phones will fuel this growth. Chou says these will be middle or high-end models; HTC has no plans to launch low-priced smartphones in the near future.

[via CENS]

More About: htc, smartphone, smartphones

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Owners of HP’s tablet TouchPad just received their first over-the-air software update, with a new version of webOS 3.0.2 which brings “hundreds” of improvements and new features.

Besides performance and reliability enhancements, this new version also brings new features to core webOS apps such as Email, Calendar and Photos.

Among the highlights are improved image rendering and faster scrolling in Email, the ability to set your wallpaper from photos in the Photos app, new layout of the Calendar, reduced audio skipping in Music when using other apps and improved speed and accuracy of auto corrections when typing.

Check out the official release notes for webOS 3.0.2. here.

More About: HP, hp touchpad, Tablet, Touchpad, webOS

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Google, Android and the security industry have been battling Android malware constantly in 2011, with DroidDream kicking off the party in late February. According to Lookout Mobile Security, mobile malware has exploded in the six months since DroidDream came onto the scene, with users two and a half times more likely to encounter mobile malware now than they were then. This new Android Trojan is not quite like the main malware that has been seen in the environment this year between DroidDream, GGTracker and DroidDream Light, but the principles of malware and security remain the same whether you are on your computer or a mobile device.

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According to CA, the new Android Trojan will download a payload to a smartphone that is triggered when a call is made. The app will record the conversation in “AMR” format and save it to the SD card. Once the malware is downloaded, it will drop a configuration file that has information on how to contact a remote server and the parameters of the app.

While an app recording and logging conversations is indeed creepy, CA also states that the app “has got many other malicious activities that we have seen in many of the earlier malware incidents targeted for Android platform.” This is where the connection to a remote server is more of a problem than phone conversation recording specifically. When malware invades a phone and gets kernel access, it essentially controls the device. CA did not specifically mention if this application has rootkit access, but if it has any of the capabilities of DroidDream, than it does or has the ability to do so.

This is where a remote server kicks in. Once malware is on a device and has communication with a command-and-control server, that malware can morph and grow as the server sends it more tasks and capabilities. What started as malware that had strange functionality permissions can turn into a device that is no longer controlled by its owner, in the same way that PC malware can make a computer join a botnet.

The best advice for avoiding mobile malware is to check the permissions of every application you download and run it through a security application (that will scan it in transit from market to device) such as Norton, Lookout, Bitdefender or NetQin, among others.

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With a little simple math, Evans was able to figure that about 222 million people use Facebook through mobile applications such as Facebook for iPhone/Android/Blackberry etc. That is not far from Facebook’s own 250 million designation and does not take into account the amount of people who access Facebook through the mobile Web. There are 86 million users that interact with Facebook through their iPhone while about 76 million do so through Android. Outside of a desktop browser, what is your preferred method of Facebook interaction?

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Evans’ numbers come from the Facebook application pages of each platform. For instance, see Facebook for iPhone. It is also important to note that Facebook lists these numbers by monthly active users (MAU), which is the de facto standard for social media metrics. There are also third-party apps to consider including those created by original equipment manufacturers. Evans predicts that Facebook has half as many third-party app users as those that use the official application.

Evans’ Android numbers are not as cut-and-paste as they seem, as nothing Android does ever really is, due to fragmenting issues. Various OEMs bake their own Facebook (and Twitter) functionality into phones, such as Motorola does with Motoblur and HTC does with its Sense skin. Facebook for Android has around 54 million users according to its Facebook application page meaning that OEMs constitute about 22 million of Android’s slice, which would make sense considering the breadth of the Android ecosystem and the near necessity of Facebook integration on mobile devices.

Facebook for BlackBerry has 39.5 million MAUs. That fits with its declining market share and the fact that many enterprises and government agencies block the Facebook for BlackBerry app as the potential for spear phishing and malware coming through the BlackBerry into the BlackBerry Enterprise Server ecosystem is high.

Facebook for Every Phone, the company’s initiative to bring Facebook to the entire world through the any phone that has a data connection, has gained in traction with about 10.3 million users worldwide. That outpaces Nokia’s Ovi application that has 5.6 million MAUs, according to Evans. Nokia’s numbers may be deceiving as certain Nokia phones have their own dedicated Facebook apps.

Checking on Evans’ numbers, they seem to be fairly accurate though it is difficult to tell how many users are accessing Facebook through its mobile site either on phones or tablets.

Graphs Source: Benedict Evans

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Foxconn, a company that manufacturers parts used in Apple’s iPhone and iPad, said it aims to replace workers with 1 million robots in the next three years, Xinhuanet reports.

The robots will be assigned simple tasks currently done by human workers, such as welding and assembling parts. Foxconn currently has 10,000 robots; in the next year, this number should jump to 300,000 and up to 1 million in the next three years.

With the move, the company aims to cut labor expenses and improve efficiency, Foxconn CEO Terry Gou said at a workers’ dance party on Friday.

Foxconn has a massive operation in China with about 1 million workers. The company caught the headlines after a string of suicides that prompted HP, Apple, Sony and other companies to launch an investigation into Foxconn’s business practices.

More recently, an explosion in Foxconn’s Chengdu plant in China left two people were dead and 16 injured.

[via Xinhuanet]

More About: Foxconn, robots

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In late June, Square raised a massive round of funding, which valued the company above $1 billion. At the time of the announcement, it was revealed that Square was processing nearly $4 million in payments per day, but the company has surpassed that mark a month later. Rabois tells us international expansion is part of the next phase of growth. He expects to initial launch payments capabilities outside of the U.S. in 2012.

And iPad usage of Square is on the rise, especially after the company launched a disruptive new iPad app to replace cash registers and loyalty cards. The breakdown in terms of usage are iPad (21%), iPhone (45%), iPod (3%) and Android (31%).

In the past year, Square has shipped more than 500,000 credit card readers, is processing more than a million transactions per month. And Square devices are now sold in Apple Stores.

Basically, if you didn’t take Square seriously, perhaps you should reconsider.

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Want to test new Google+ features before they become available to the public? Now you can, thanks to a newly launched Google+ program.

To sign up to be a beta tester, head over to the Google+ Platform Preview page and enter your email address. Any address will work, so long as you’re signed in to your associated Google+ account.

You’ll need to click on a link in a subsequent confirmation email to confirm your entry into the program. After that, Google will email you every time new features are available for you to test out.

If you’re looking for additional Google+ resources, be sure to check out our roundup of 15 guides and services for Google+ power users.

More About: Google, trending

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Icelanders on Friday delivered what may set the template for other governments: a crowdsourced constitution.

A group of 25 citizens presented a draft of the constitution to Iceland’s parliament. The group, which is made up of ordinary residents, compiled the document online with the help of hundreds of others. The constitution council posted the first draft in April on its website and then let citizens comment via a Facebook Page. The council members are also active on Twitter, post videos of themselves on YouTube and put pictures on Flickr.

Iceland’s original constitution was created in 1944 when the country gained independence from Denmark. The country’s economic collapse in 2008 prompted calls for a rewrite with checks and balances to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis. The draft was due before the end of July. It may be put to a referendum without the input of parliament.

Iceland may be ahead of the curve on using social media to inform its new government, but it is not alone: Earlier this month, volunteers at a series of hackathons at Stanford University created a site where Egyptians could discuss their proposed constitution.

Image courtesy of Flickr, WorldIslandInfo

More About: crowdsourcing, facebook, flickr, Iceland, twitter, youtube

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A hotel in Ibiza is exploiting the fact that you don’t need to have a computer or even a smartphone to check in on Facebook and express your Likes.

As the video above explains, Ushuaïa Ibiza Beach Hotel is outfitted with pillars that read RFID-enabled bracelets. Guests can check in, take pictures or post a status update, depending on where they’re positioned at the hotel and what pillar is offered. Such pillars are at the beach, the pool and on the dancefloor. The object: “Make all your Facebook friends jealous.”

Mixing RFID and Facebook seems to be a phenomenon that’s happening outside of the U.S. A Coca-Cola amusement park in Israel offered a program in summer 2010 that let attendees Like certain attractions using RFID bracelets, and Renault offered similar technology at the Amsterdam Auto Show in April.

More About: facebook, MARKETING, rfid

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A hotel in Ibiza is exploiting the fact that you don’t need to have a computer or even a smartphone to check in on Facebook and express your Likes.

As the video above explains, Ushuaïa Ibiza Beach Hotel is outfitted with pillars that read RFID-enabled bracelets. Guests can check in, take pictures or post a status update, depending on where they’re positioned at the hotel and what pillar is offered. Such pillars are at the beach, the pool and on the dancefloor. The object: “Make all your Facebook friends jealous.”

Mixing RFID and Facebook seems to be a phenomenon that’s happening outside of the U.S. A Coca-Cola amusement park in Israel offered a program in summer 2010 that let attendees Like certain attractions using RFID bracelets, and Renault offered similar technology at the Amsterdam Auto Show in April.

More About: facebook, MARKETING, rfid

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In a nice break from Google‘s slick-but-cute explanatory videos and ads, someone at Microsoft has unleashed a rather vicious attack video targeting Gmail.

The video shows Gmail Man, a delivery guy who has the creepy habit of scanning your mail for keywords and then showing you a related ad. You may be fine with that when you’re online, but when dramatized in real life, it might make you question the practice. If nothing else, the attack video makes a compelling case for going with Office 365 instead.

Creatively, Gmail Man falls into a burgeoning category of videos that dramatize Internet activity IRL, like a recent ad for English National Operas showing a man trying to friend and follow people on the street and another from T-Mobile dramatizing Angry Birds played out in a park somewhere.

Maybe Google had it coming, particularly after its own recent snarky video offering a Gmail Intervention.

More About: gmail, Google, microsoft, viral videos

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Mashable Comics are illustrated every week by Kiersten Essenpreis, a New York-based artist who draws and blogs at YouFail.com.

More Mashable Comics:

- The Job Interview
- White House Tech Support
- Online Predators
- First-Generation GPS
- It Was All Just a Huge Misunderstanding

More About: comics, Dinosaurs, facebook, humor, mashable comics, social media

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One of the last questions posed during the roundtable came from Wired’s Mike Isaac, who asked how the next version of Android, which is called Ice Cream Sandwich, would help developers produce applications that look nice across the multitude of form factors Android will spread to.

The difficulty developers face when designing for Android came up multiple times during the day (during an earlier panel I asked straight-up why iPhone apps look better), and Duarte’s message was consistent: things will be getting better as the platform becomes more mature. And the Android team is trying to do what they can to make it easier to develop for multiple form factors.

Here’s what Duarte had to say about the upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich release (paraphrased):

Ice Cream Sandwich will continue the very challenging job of trying to create an embeddable platform that has the flexibility of the web. We’re trying to make one size fits all, and there are different products for different needs. That said, we know it is hard to design in that environment. Ice Cream Sandwich gives you a lot of tools to help you build one app that works more seamlessly across a variety of screen sizes and different form factors. And before that, we’re rolling out tools that help developers focus and optimize. We recently launched features that let you have multiple APKs and specific device targeting. We’re looking to make that transition easier and create really good-looking stuff on Android.

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One of the last questions posed during the roundtable came from Wired’s Mike Isaac, who asked how the next version of Android, which is called Ice Cream Sandwich, would help developers produce applications that look nice across the multitude of form factors Android will spread to.

The difficulty developers face when designing for Android came up multiple times during the day (during an earlier panel I asked straight-up why iPhone apps look better), and Duarte’s message was consistent: things will be getting better as the platform becomes more mature. And the Android team is trying to do what they can to make it easier to develop for multiple form factors.

Here’s what Duarte had to say about the upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich release (paraphrased):

Ice Cream Sandwich will continue the very challenging job of trying to create an embeddable platform that has the flexibility of the web. We’re trying to make one size fits all, and there are different products for different needs. That said, we know it is hard to design in that environment. Ice Cream Sandwich gives you a lot of tools to help you build one app that works more seamlessly across a variety of screen sizes and different form factors. And before that, we’re rolling out tools that help developers focus and optimize. We recently launched features that let you have multiple APKs and specific device targeting. We’re looking to make that transition easier and create really good-looking stuff on Android.

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Today Couchbase made good on that promise with the release of the first developer preview for Couchbase Server 2.0, which combines the elasticity of Membase with CouchDB’s distributed indexing, bidirectional replication and JavaScript-based map-reduce querying.

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The first version of Couchbase Server, released earlier this year, didn’t incorporate features from Membase – instead it rolled up various CouchDB components into a single install. Version 2.0 what we’ve been waiting for since the merger.

Couchbase Server 2.0 also incorporates Memcached, which provides in-memory caching of data for increased speed of both reads and writes. Couchbase Server 2.0 is able to sync with other CouchDB-based servers, including Mobile Couchbase, which runs on Android and iOS.

The combined features include:

• JavaScript-based map-reduce
• Geospatial indexing
• JSON data structures
• Memory caching
• Zero downtime topology changes
• Data distribution across clusters

For more on CouchDB, see our interviews with J. Chris Anderson and Max Ogden.

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The complete Jackass series of films is now available to rent directly on Facebook.

Paramount Pictures has made Jackass The Movie, Jackass 2, Jackass 3, along with the digital-only features Jackass 2.5 and Jackass 3.5 available on Facebook. The films can be rented with Facebook Credits.

It’s another sign that Facebook is gaining ground as a movie rental platform. Warner Bros. started making its films available on the social network earlier this spring and has continued at a steady clip.

Along with the rentals, Paramount Pictures also released a new Jackass ClipApp that allows fans to assemble their own Jackass experiences, using over 100 pre-selected scenes from all five movies. The resulting clips can then be shared with friends over Facebook.

As a film franchise, Jackass already has strong digital roots. Jackass 2.5 was the first digital release from a major studio. It generated more than 20 million views in its first week.

More About: facebook movie rentals, facebook rentals, Jackass, jackass the movies, michael jackson

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Each day, Mashable highlights one noteworthy YouTube video. Check out all our viral video picks.

Ever wonder what your howling pup is on about when he aims his “ooooo”s at another beast? Wonder no longer, because this subtitled vid says it all.

This is the hottest jam since those two babies talking about the Bronz Zoo cobra. And by “hottest jam” I mean “distraction to get you through the remaining moments of your Thursday.”

[via The Daily What]

More About: dogs, humor, video, viral video, viral-video-of-day, youtube

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Learn more about 5-Miles.com in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much 5-Miles.com is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

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How does it work? Well, you stick the lens right on the device and scan the room or space from left to right. The aluminum and glass lens picks up a full 360-degree panorama and then lets you post it to Pixeet’s own servers.

The lens will also work with other devices like digital cameras and webcams. It uses a magnetic ring that sticks to the device and holds the lens in place. There are plenty of these on the market but I think the more widespread compatibility is key here. The lens costs $50.

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How does it work? Well, you stick the lens right on the device and scan the room or space from left to right. The aluminum and glass lens picks up a full 360-degree panorama and then lets you post it to Pixeet’s own servers.

The lens will also work with other devices like digital cameras and webcams. It uses a magnetic ring that sticks to the device and holds the lens in place. There are plenty of these on the market but I think the more widespread compatibility is key here. The lens costs $50.

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