The electronic teacher bulletin board was created as a better alternative to the traditional teacher bulletin board. These particular boards are large displays that sync a computer and projector. Ideally then the electric board is mounted on a door stand or a wall. The computer then creates a replicated image on the board of the PC desktop where the instructor or educator becomes the interface between the computer and the electronic whiteboard.

Instructor Benefits:

The question of whether or not they are worth the value of a purchase would obviously come down to the usefulness both the educator and students place on the device. As far as the educator using this kind of device can make their job  much easier; They allow the instructor to store notes and annotations electronically in different transferable formats so they save a great deal of time.

Learner Benefits:

For students the value is also immense seeing that they can access the lessons in the form of digital video files for continual review, make up for missed lessons, or step by step tutorials. The fact is these boards like all technology are tools and tools make life easier. They create a more interactive learning environment which heightens learning and cuts down the distraction of personal recording of information. Electronic whiteboards have been proven to affect learning and instruction positively, and are seen as an effective and advanced means of teaching.

So what’s the final conclusion? Electronic whiteboards are worth every dollar and every second invested in them and it is advisable for teachers the world over to embrace them as the next level of transference of knowledge in a class, home or business environment.

Interactive Teacher Board

Booker originally called the Obama campaign’s attack ads against Republican rival Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital “nauseating,” suggesting that the company’s record isn’t as bad as the Obama campaign has been making it out to be. Booker was equally critical of a Republican Super PAC’s reported plan to invoke Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a controversial pastor from President Obama’s former church, in advertisements.

During the discussion, Booker said that negative ads distract from the real issues which most Americans worry about every day.

Republicans almost immediately took advantage of the gaffe by launching a web petition and Twitter hashtag, “I Stand With Cory,” labeling Booker a campaign surrogate gone rouge. Republicans across Twitter are using the hashtag to lambast Booker’s comments and Obama’s anti-Romney ads. The GOP has also purchased sponsored tweets and Google ads which appear when searching for “Cory Booker” and direct users to the petition.

On Sunday evening and into the earlier part of the week, Booker used Twitter and YouTube to explain his statement and launch a hashtag of his own, #IStandWithObama.

“I made it clear on Meet the Press this morning how I believe that President Barack Obama has done such a strong job as a leader of our nation and how he more than deserves re-election,” said Booker in his YouTube video. “I also expressed my profound frustration with the kind of the campaigning that’s becoming too much the norm in our nation, which is generally negative campaigning. And this campaigning is about to become an avalanche, and in many ways, I believe, could risk muting out the important voices of the candidates themselves talking about the issues that matter.”

Is Booker’s use of social media to defend and explain his comments appropriate? Sound off in the comments below.

More About: 2012 presidential campaign, Politics, US

If you’re itching to get your hands on Samsung’s new Galaxy S III, you may not have to wait much longer. Amazon put the phone up for pre-order on its website, with a delivery date of June 1.

Priced at $800 the handset isn’t exactly something you’re going to pick up on a whim, and comes with a few compromises beyond the hefty price.

The $800 model for sale on Amazon is the unlocked international version on the phone. Samsung has yet to announce a version of the phone for the U.S (although that announcement is expected this summer). So you’ll be getting the same version of the phone that’s up for sale overseas.

Since the phone is unlocked, you can use it with any GSM carrier you’d like, which in the U.S. means you can use a SIM card from T-Mobile or AT&T (the only GSM carriers in the country) in the phone and make calls. Unfortunately, the phone doesn’t support the data network T-Mobile uses, so while you’ll be able to make calls using a T-Mobile SIM, you won’t be able to hop on the data network to surf the web or use any of the phone’s cool new S-voice capabilities.

The international version of the phone is also not compatible with AT&T’s LTE network, so while you’ll be able to use the phone on the carrier’s HSPA+ network (slightly faster than 3G), you won’t be able to speed along on the much faster LTE network with all your friends who hold out to buy the U.S. version of the phone later this year.

What you will get, however, is a quad-core 1.4 GHz Exynos processor. That particular processor isn’t compatible with LTE, so chances are good when the S III does make it to the United States it will be rocking a slower dual-core processor instead. We’ll have to wait and see what difference the processor might potentially make in the phone when Samsung releases the U.S. version of the phone later this year.

Are any of you planning on buying the Samsung Galaxy S III? Are you tempted to buy the unlocked international version rather than hold out for the U.S. version of the phone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Galaxy S III

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More About: android, galaxy sIII, samsung, trending

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#BeyHive is the new mobile home for fans. The colorful app — which looks like a mix of Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare — was built for Beyonce buzz.

Users must sign into the free app with a Twitter account. Fans can access Beyonce-related news, her entire discography (with sample audio and links to buy tracks) and current concert schedule. Badges are also up for grabs with activity.

Fans are encouraged to generate their own news. They can earn points for tweeting about #BeyHive, checking in at events and liking photos within the app. Hashtags such as #BeyVideos, #BeyNewSite and #BeyLove are used.

Tweets with the #BeyHive hashtag are collected and showcased in a live stream on the website.

See the video above for more about the app’s social features. The digital community, with Queen Bey, at its center has its own vocabulary — to which it’s good to have a guide handy.

Do you think digital fan bases for celebrities will be a hot trend? Sound off in the comments.

More About: beyonce, Mobile, Social Media

Berkeley, Calif. Police Chief Michael Meehan and a crew of 10 police officers searched for his son’s missing cellphone on taxpayer dollars this January after it went missing from the boy’s unlocked locker at school.

After that, eight members of the department’s drug task force worked on overtime to track down the cellphone, which was equipped with the Find My iPhone tracking software.

The search was unsuccessful, but did succeed in stirring up more controversy for the police chief.

In March, Meehan sent a sergeant to a reporter’s home at around 1 a.m. to ask for changes to an online article, Inside Bay Area reported.

The city of Berkeley hired a San Francisco law firm to investigate the chief’s actions that night.

Another issues with the January incident is that no report was filed. “At minimum there should have been a police report. If a department is going to put people onto an investigation, they should have a police report,” said Michael Sherman, vice chairman of the Berkeley Police Review, according to Inside Bay Area.

A spokesperson from the department said it’s not “uncommon” for patrol officers to track a stolen phone if they get an active signal while on the streets.

The Berkeley Police Department offers these guidelines for phone theft cases online. It did not respond to our request for comment.

If you walked into your local police department to report a missing cellphone and had the cellphone finder app, do you think the police in your area would jump on the case right away? Tell us in the comments.

‪Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Antonprado ‬

More About: cellphone, iphone, legal, police, smartphone, trending

For the next two days Google is hosting what it calls a “HIRL” or “Hang Out in Real Life,” bringing together some of the biggest photographers with presences on Google+.

The conference is designed to help photographers to refine their photography skills, grow their brand and get the most out of their Google+ experience.

“We are photographers ourselves,” Bradley Horowitz, VP of product at Google, said during the opening keynote for the conference Tuesday. “We are geeks. Photography geeks are a sublayer of geek, and there are a lot of us on the Google+ team”

While Google+ may be not be as popular on the social networking side as Facebook, the service is exceptionally popular for photographers, partly for how it handles content.

“Photos are the lifeblood of our service,” says Horowitz. “We wanted to make the content the hero.”

Photos on Google+ are typically displayed larger than they are on other services and offer several advantages for photographers, including the ability to carefully tailor which groups of people are able to see the photos uploaded to the service.

If you’re not in San Francisco for the conference but love photography and Google+, you can still participate in the various sessions taking place over the next two days virtually via Google+ hangouts. Sessions are streamed live, and if you sign up for sessions via the Google+ Photographers conference app, you can ask questions during the talks and participate as if you were attending in person.

What do you think about Google+ from a photography perspective? Will you attend the conference virtually? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

More About: Google, photography

The Morgan Stanley consumer Internet analyst, Scott Devitt, revised his forecasts as Facebook was in the midst of its roadshow, according to Reuters.

Devitt lowered his projections for Facebook’s revenues in both the second quarter and full-year 2012, according to Reuters, which did not provide further details.

Devitt’s report may have contributed to the stock’s so-far lackluster performance. Though analysts like Devitt operate independently of the firm’s investors, it is highly unusual for the lead underwriter or a looming IPO to declare such a bearish opinion on the company at such a late date.

The report came after Facebook amended its prospectus on May 9 to highlight caution about the company’s lack of monetization strategy for the consumer shift to mobile devices. Two other underwriters on the IPO — JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs — also cut their estimates based on that filing, according to the report.

Reps from Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs could not be reached for comment on the report.

More About: facebook ipo, Morgan Stanley

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In other words, she’s North America’s first avatar airport customer service representative.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey unveiled the virtual assistant Tuesday morning. It works by projecting video from a human spokesperson onto a life-size cutout of a woman.

In early July, the hologram-like gadget will be installed in terminals at Newark Liberty, LaGuardia and JFK airports. New York City airports handled a combined 106 million passenger-trips last year.

“I never take a break, don’t charge overtime, hardly ever take a sick day and I don’t need a background check,” says the avatar in a promotional video from the company who created her, Arius Media.

Each avatar costs about $250,000, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Port Authority purchased its new virtual help as part of a broader effort to improve airport customer service that includes a 20% increase in human customer service staff, additional power poles for charging hand-held devices and cleaner restrooms.

More About: Airports, avatar

In celebration of Robert Moog’s 78th birthday, Google has created an epic Google Doodle to honor the electronic music pioneer.

The Doodle, which is scheduled for Wednesday but already visible on Google’s Australia landing page, presents an interactive Moog synthesizer.

Users can adjust dials on the synthesizer, turn switches on and off and play sounds on the keyboard. You can also record and playback your creations — even layering multiple tracks over each other.

It seems Google is also allowing users to share their music via Google+ and via a regular weblink — though at this time those links are not working for users who aren’t logged into Google.com.au.

This isn’t the first time Google has created a playable Doodle celebrating music legends. Last year the company released a Les Paul Google Doodle celebrating the guitar legend.

Readers sent us their Les Paul Doodle recordings; here are seven of the best.

What do you make of this Moog? Let us know in the comments — and send us your killer synth tracks.

More About: Google, google doodle, moog synthesizer, robert moog, trending

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Using mobile phones to report malaria outbreaks in Africa has been stunningly effective — reducing the government response time to an outbreak from four weeks to three minutes, according to a new report.

HP, along with partners Positive Innovation for the Next Generation (PING) and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), and mobile network provider MASCOM, announced the results of the first year of a mobile disease response pilot program last week.

“We see technology having a profound impact on disease surveillance, which has a highly antiquated process,” says Paul Ellingstad, HP’s director of global heath.

According to Ellingstad, it can take three to four weeks to send a list of sick patients to a district health clinic and then to the Ministry of Health of a respective country. Electronically automating disease surveillance speeds up the communication time to three minutes, meaning the government can immediately send bed nets and and alert citizens to take precautions.

Some 1,068 notifications were reported to Ministry of Health officials since the program first rolled out in June 2011 in Botswana’s Chobe region. Healthcare workers have been trained to use mobile devices to collect malaria data and report outbreaks to authorities.

The collected data is then plotted on a geo-tagged map, providing health workers context for their responses. Using the program’s technology, 89 potential outbreaks were identified during the pilot year.

Speed isn’t mobile’s only advantage to the dated paper process. Ellingstad says reporting potential cases of malaria has increased from about 20% to 93% compliance.

“This is an example of the role technology can play in fundamentally transforming and improving existing programs within the public health sector,” Ellingstad says. “What’s critical in doing so is partnering with governments and other leading NGOs to appropriately implement technology, rather than providing technology and letting the process sort itself out.”

HP and CHAI have also started working with Kenya’s Ministry of Health and are in talks with Mozambique’s government to continue their expansion. Kenya’s government is already using the platform to track the spread of 11 diseases, including malaria. Botswana’s government hopes to add another 16 diseases in the near future.

HP and PING plan to open another 20 health facilities in Botswana by June 1 and an additional 80 by October 2012. In August, the program will begin tracking other diseases, starting with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.

PING, a Botswana-based NGO, plans to develop a game-like mobile phone tutorial, to ease the training of new health workers.

When it comes to future uses of mobile phones in public health, Ellingstad says he feels like the sky’s the limit.

“Mobile phones in the health space feels like the Internet and e-commerce in 1994 and 1995,” he says. “Right now, we know it’s a connection point, since 5.7 billion people have access to a mobile phone. With that sort of pervasiveness, you can provide health information, education and prevention to millions at risk of death.”

How else do you see mobile phones being used in the global health space? Share your ideas in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, franckreporter

Interested in technology’s role in sustainable development? Join Mashable and partners in Brazil for Rio+Social. If you can’t make it to South America, you can join in the discussions on Facebook and Twitter. Click on the image below to learn more.

More About: developing countries, malaria, Mobile, sustainable development

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Design makes all the difference. It determines a concept’s usability, interactivity, clarity and scope, and can mean the difference between a business’s success and demise.

Firms like IDEO help organizations in the public and private sectors achieve “human-centered” design goals. IDEO’s approach is multi-faceted; it applies overlapping principles of design, like viability, desirability and feasibility, to account not only for the linear progression of a company, but for its organic, layered progress.

Founder of IDEO Duane Bray spoke at this year’s Mashable Connect about how to anticipate the future of digital behavior. How will we navigate the ever-expanding ocean of data? How might we build a different narrative style as digital communication changes over time?

Answering these questions means factoring in a thousand different components and trends, not the least of which is design.

Mashable editor in chief Lance Ulanoff caught up with Bray backstage at Mashable Connect, where he asked, “How much is a good design worth?” Bray responded that it’s imperative that companies invest design efforts up-front to ensure they won’t have to make incremental adjustments down the road.

More About: design, mashable connect, Video

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The Webby Awards

Now in their 16th year, the Webby Awards are legal to drive!

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The 16th Annual Webby Awards were held Monday night in New York City. Celebrities, tech luminaries and viral stars turned out for the big event.

In addition to a star-studded tribute to Steve Jobs (introduced by the great Richard Dreyfuss), the Webbys showcased a bevy of talent from across the Internet landscape.

After all, where else can you see Scumbag Steve and Juliette Lewis at the same event?

Host Patton Oswalt kept the show moving, whether it was by satirizing the rise of the “first” commenter phenomenon or helping remember the memes that passed on in 2012.

Tumblr’s David Karp presented New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work with Bloomberg L.P.. Meanwhile, the founders of Instagram received the “Breakout of the Year” award for the mobile photo app.

Spike Lee was on site to present Grantland’s look at the year of social media and sports, including special guest Jeremy Lin. Icelandic music goddess Bjork accepted her award for “Artist of the Year” for her album, Biophilia.

One of the highlights of the night was the presentation of the Webby for Cultural Institution. It went to the “Remember Me Project,” which used the web to help identify more than 300 young children who survived the Holocaust. Survivor Tibor Sands, who was identified because of the project, accepted the award to a standing ovation.

Mashable took home a Webby for our business coverage and our own Pete Cashmore presented Facebook with the People’s Special Achievement for Social Change.

The Webby for “Meme of the Year” went to none-other than Nyan Cat, with an assist from Scumbag Steve.

More About: Facebook, steve jobs, webby awards

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1. BabbaBox

BabbaBox offers crafts and activities. This model caters to kids from 3 to 6 year olds, and all materials are included to complete two or three projects. Themes vary each month. An example box is “gratitude.” Kids create a serving tray, handmade thank-you cards, and use a disposable camera to take photos of things they are thankful for. Hey, what parent couldn't use a little more gratitude and a little less attitude in their life? ($29.99 a month, free shipping)

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Who doesn’t love a business that makes life easier? Well, that’s what subscription boxes — where subscribers receive a package of goods on a monthly basis — have started to do for parents.

In the past few years the breadth of products available via subscription boxes has become incredibly diverse. And If you’re a parent, you know what it’s like to juggle work, kids, and extracurricular activities. You simply don’t have the time to research the “best of” whatever you’re looking for.

So if you’re in need of items like kids’ clothing, activities, or diapers, there’s likely a subscription model out there that will get these to you with very little effort. Tempted to give one of these services a try? Here are ten aimed at families like yours.

Know of a subscription service we didn’t mention? Share it in the comments below.

More About: contributor, features, kids apps, parents, Subscription service

The Leaders in Design Series is presented by Volvo.

Dyson is a company that embodies the word “disruptive.” Before it arrived on the scene, the world of vacuum cleaners was boring and stagnant, and the machines themselves were essentially commodities. Dyson — with its novel solution of getting rid of irritating disposable bags by using different suction technology — shook up the industry and became a household name along the way.

A fair bit of that disruption came from the design of Dyson’s vacuums, which eschewed broom-closet aesthetics for iMac-like modernity. With transparent parts, simple shapes and strategic placement of color, Dyson’s vacuums are instantly recognizable. The company has since spread its air-blowing technology into hand dryers and fans.

The man behind those designs is Alex Knox. One of the longest-serving members of the Dyson team, Knox has seen the company grow from three people to more than 3,900. He works at the company headquarters in the UK, where the 650 scientists and engineers based there are greeted every day by elaborate cutaway models on display. Each is an iconic example of great design, and the collection includes the original Mini and a Harrier jet.

Dropping by Mashable‘s offices, Knox talked with us at length about his design philosophy, why Dyson hasn’t made a robot vacuum and how sustainability factors into his work.

Q&A with Alex Knox, Senior Designer at Dyson

How did you first get interested in design?

My father was an architect, and I almost never had any doubt that I would do anything other than architecture or design. I enjoyed designing and playing with things that I could actually get my hands on. Dad was always up all night drawing things, and product design was always something I was attracted to.

How did you hook up with Dyson?

I was working for a design consultancy in Italy, and I had just read a magazine article about James, who had just released this brand new vacuum cleaner. I was really fascinated. I just thought it would be an amazing place to go and work. So I wrote them a letter and got a job. It was tiny then — there were just two of us and James.

Was there a moment where things turned, when you knew Dyson had really arrived?

When I first started, it was basically a startup company. I remember thinking, “I just don’t know if this is going to work or not. In a month’s time, I might not have a job.” But then sales just kind of picked up. The sales charts were almost like comedy graphs, going up and up and up and up and up. It been just like a roller coaster ride from then on.

How do you approach design?

By breaking it right down and starting with, “What’s the fundamental problem?” We don’t worry about what it’s going to look like — it’s all about the problem we’re going to solve and how we’re going to solve it. And then we start thinking about maybe tackling that problem in a slightly different way than perhaps everyone else did.

The vacuum cleaner is a great example. The problem was this bag that clogged up, and by coming up with a new technology, a new idea, a new way of solving the problem of separating dust and air, you can come up with a really interesting machine that doesn’t have all the disadvantages of the conventional way of doing it.

And at some point a sexy product just pops out? How does design factor in?

The way our machines look is kind of derived from the way they work. The final embodiment of it all is just kind of a process of fine-tuning the way it works and looking at the usability and just experimenting. There’s no time where we sit there doing a sketch and think, “It would be really nice if it looked like this.”

Would you say Dyson is “green” tech?

We don’t really do green. Green is this word that gets bandied about all the time, and actually sustainability is the important thing. And we think that by doing good engineering, you automatically design something that is going to be sustainable, because it’s all about efficiency, and that’s what green is all about.

Why is Dyson’s technology more efficient?

Because we set ourselves some pretty challenging targets in terms of what we’re trying to get out of whatever technology that we’re using. And so it’s all about what we can get out of that and minimizing what we need to put in to do it.

How important is the design process at any company that sells products?

You’d think it would be central. I’m not sure it always is. It certainly is for us — it’s one of the key things that we do. It’s something James Dyson is incredibly passionate and involved in, so even now he spends most of his time in our R&D center. And that’s not just looking at things in a top-down strategic view — it’s right down to the tiny little details of design. So he’s involved right the way through.

So design and engineering — since we don’t really separate the two things — is just a fundamental part of what it’s all about.

How does failure factor into the design process?

Failure is really important, actually. If you want to push something to the limits, you want to see failures because otherwise you know you haven’t pushed it hard enough. So if you’re testing or developing anything, you want half of the things you test fail and half of them work. By seeing failures, you can then work out where the limits are — how far you can push a certain technology or design.

The Leaders in Design Series is presented by Volvo. Experience the newest Volvo for yourself. Step inside the 325hp 2011 Volvo S60 T6 R-Design at volvocars.us.

More About: dyson, features, Leaders in Design Series, mashable, vacuum

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What would President Barack Obama and presidential candidate Mitt Romney look like if they hopped on board Carly Rae Jepsen’s infectious “Call Me Maybe” train? Something like the parody The Tonight Show host Jay Leno showed the world Monday night.

Thanks to some digital wizardry and video editing, the two politicians perform the viral song in a similar format that athletes from Harvard University and Southern Methodist University did this month.

Harvard University’s pitcher uploaded a clip of his teammates doing a not-so-elaborate synchronized “Call Me Maybe” dance with their arms.

Not to be outdone, Southern Methodist Univeristy’s female rowing team (see slide 11 in the gallery below) recorded a version using only their legs.

The Today Show brought both teams to New York City to battle it out. They tied for awesomeness.

The digitally edited Obama and Romney take their moves to the next level, using both their arms and legs.

“Call Me Maybe” hit number one on iTunes in the U.S. last week and still holds the top spot. The song’s original video has 71 million views while her second video (featuring a celebrity cameos from Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and Ashley Tisdale) has 39.5 million.

Jonathan Simkin of 604 Records, Jepsen’s label, told Mashable he and Jepsen “love” all of the sports covers: “It’s so flattering to see these people go to the trouble.”

BONUS: Watch 11 Sports Teams Rock Out to ‘Call Me Maybe’

1. Harvard University Baseball

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More About: barack obama, celebrities, Entertainment, humor, jay leno, Mitt Romney, Music, music videos, parody, Politics, pop culture, the tonight show, trending

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Meet Dragon Drive!, the latest in talking-car technology. Nuance Communications unveiled on Tuesday this new Siri-like voice platform designed specifically for the connected car.

The platform allows you to send and receive texts and email via voice commands in five languages, including English, French, Italian German and Spanish. For example, you can tell the system the following: “Reply to Alex, ‘Sushi sounds great. See you at 7.’”

Although hands-free voice recognition software in cars is nothing new, adoption has been slow due to the unnatural nature of some of its commands. Nuance aims to simplify the process by blending the vehicle’s internal computers with cloud technology that can access your email and text messages, so you don’t even need to use your phone during the process.

The company is working with manufacturers to get the solution integrated into new cars. Unfortunately drivers won’t be able to add the system to existing vehicles.

“The entire automotive ecosystem faces a critical challenge — keep consumers connected to the content they love without imposing dangerous distractions behind the wheel,” said Arnd Weil, vice president and general manager at Nuance Mobile, in a statement. “Dragon Drive! has been designed from the ground up with a focus on voice and natural language, bridging that gap to give consumers the ability to take full advantage of the broad range of services today’s connected car has to offer.”

Although Dragon Drive! is focused on messaging right now, the company said it will eventually allow users to download songs, locate nearby restaurants and get directions.

The industry expects the demand for connected to cars to grow significantly in the future. In fact, according to a report by IMS Research, the category is expected to jump 650% by 2017, reaching 40.5 million unit sales.

Meanwhile, a recent JD Power 2012 U.S. Automotive Emerging Technologies Study showed that drivers are interested in the trend — about 69% of study participants said they want natural language voice activation functionality and 68% want wireless connectivity.

Do you want to talk to your car? Is this truly the future of the automobile industry? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, fotografstockholm

BONUS: New York Auto Show: The Coolest Car Tech

Terrafugia's Transition Flying Car

Here's that flying car you've been dreaming of your whole life. From aircraft company Aircraft company Terrafugia comes the Transition car, which touts four wheels, two wings and the ability fly two people anywhere.

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More About: cars, siri

In the last episode of TechStars, we watched a pair of teams pivot toward new concepts and deal with the consequences of that decision.

In this episode, we’ll see why a good name and brand design can go a long way in selling a successful company. Some teams have developed winning products, but under less memorable names, which is why rebranding is sometimes a good idea.

A good product and a solid, engaging pitch is what will sell your company to customers, but a good name can get you in the door. If potential customers don’t feel inspired by its brand, a startup may lose that business before it gets a chance to sell.

Check out the latest episode above, and be sure to leave your thoughts on the topic in the comments below.

TechStars on Mashable

Getting into a top startup accelerator program can make the difference between a company making it big and being lost in the ether. Mashable is going behind the scenes of that experience by bringing the show TechStars to our community.

We’ve made the entire series available on-demand, and chopped it up into short segments that are ideal for Internet viewing. Over the course of the next couple of months, we’ll also be sharing each episode as part of a Mashable post, giving our community a chance to discuss the themes of each show in our comments section. You can read more about TechStars on Mashable here.

More About: entrepreneurship, Startups, techtarstv, Video

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The track (listen below) is Houston’s final recording and will hit iTunes June 5. The pair recorded “Celebrate” for the forthcoming Sparkle film, a remake in which Sparks plays a musical prodigy and Houston plays her single mother.

Sparks shared the song in a tweet to her fans that included a Soundcloud clip link and read, “!!!!!!!!!!!”

Houston died Feb. 11 in Los Angeles on the eve of the 54th Grammy Awards.

Sparks and singer John Legend paid tribute to Houston during the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday with their renditions of “I Will Always Love You” and “Greatest Love of All.” Houston’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina, accepted her mother’s Billboard Millennium Award.

Produced by R. Kelly, “Celebrate” premiered on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show Monday.

BONUS: How Whitney Houston’s Fellow Artists and Friends Reacted to Her Passing

@MariahCarey

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More About: celebrities, Entertainment, itunes, Movies, Music, whitney houston

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Screenshots of the new design were posted on Talking Points Memo Tuesday morning. The images (below) show a condensed version of Timeline, in which a user’s details (name, occupation, education, location) appear in reverse type on top of — rather than below — the cover photo.

The carousel of thumbnail images highlighting friends, photos, places, likes, etc. has also been compressed. Images are now replaced by thumbnails. Next to these, a new “Summary” section appears, presumably to highlight key events on a user’s Timeline.

The new version:

The old (current) version:

It’s not clear if the new design will give users greater control over the appearance of their Timelines. We’re curious to know, for instance, whether users will be able to modify the color of the type that appears on top of their cover photos.

What do you think of the new design? Do you like the reverse type? Would you miss the thumbnail images if they were removed?

BONUS: The Evolution of the Facebook Profile

2005 - The Facebook

Back in the days when The Facebook was only available to select networks, the News Feed didn't exist. Users hopped between profiles like this one.

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More About: Facebook, facebook timeline, trending

Want to host a party with friends right on Facebook? Video chat company ooVoo has rolled out its service to the social networking site, allowing up to 12 friends to chat face-to-face at once.

The company also announced upgrades to its application for iPhone, Android, PC and the web users. The Facebook integration makes the service similar to Google Hangouts, which allows users to video chat in groups of 10 on the search engine giant’s social network Google+.

On the iPad, ooVoo doesn’t just support 12-way calls but also four-way HD video chats — an industry first.

Although the 12-way video chat functionality wasn’t announced until today, ooVoo quietly rolled it out on Facebook over the past few months. Since then, nearly 350,000 people have been using the service.

“We never announced that the product was available in beta form on Facebook, but our users found it anyway — this just reinforces how much of a need and desire to connect with others through social chat,” ooVoo CEO Yuval Baharav told Mashable.

The integration between platforms is seamless. Even if a friend doesn’t have the ooVoo application, you can send them the web call link to start to the session.

The product news is the company’s first major milestone for ooVoo, which boasts more than 46 million users — up from 19 million in 2010. Although it still trails behind mainstay competitors Skype and iChat, the company has set its sights on further expansion.

“We will be releasing more innovative features in the upcoming months that will allow our users to be even more social online,” Baharav said. “We want ooVoo to be a communications platform that truly becomes a big part of our users’ social lives.”

The news comes just a few weeks after a Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project study found that nearly 40% of Teens Video Chat With Their Friends 40% of all Internet users ages 12 to 17 participate in video chats. Both teen boys and girls enjoy connecting with friends on the Internet to catch up, watch TV together and even do homework.

More About: apps, Facebook, Facebook Video Chat, ipad, iphone, ooVoo, Skype, video chat

1. Pac-Man Alarm Clock

This clock will wake you with authentic arcade sounds. Cost: $22.99

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On this day in 1980, when galactic shoot-em-up Space Invaders was all the rage, Japanese video game developer Namco released Pakkuman, a maze-based arcade game inspired by, er, eating.

As lackluster as it sounds, this was a notable release. The game was Pac-Man, and is now considered one of the most influential video games of the 1980s, if not of all-time.

To mark the milestone, we’ve rustled up a collection of accessories that feature the instantly recognizable, and let’s face it, pretty adorable characters from the title.

Celebrate this anniversary with us by taking a look through our hand-picked selection of goodies. Let us know in the comments below ones you’d spend your arcade quarters on.

More About: accessories, atari, features, Gaming, geek, pac-man

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Name: Green Spaces

Big Idea: Green Spaces provides coworking office space in New York City and Denver to social entrepreneurs and non-profits.

Why It’s Working: Green Spaces does more than provide social companies a place to work. Networking opportunities, an intern program and a referral network are available to companies that call Green Spaces home.

For Green Spaces co-founder Marissa Feinberg, the inspiration for the New York and Colorado-based green coworking network appeared simply by looking around at her network. She says that many of her like-minded peers enjoyed getting together to share ideas and discuss social entrepreneurship, so making it a full-time venture seemed natural.

“We thought, ‘Wow, look at what happens when we’re all in the same space frequently. Imagine if we worked together in the same space every day,’” Feinberg says.

Since then, Green Spaces has opened its doors to social entrepreneurs, non-profits and companies looking to work in a space that’s all about corporate responsibility. For a fixed rate, entrepreneurs and startups can access prime desk space Green Spaces’ Denver or Colorado office — each of which is eco-friendly and conservation-minded. Those with a little less cash to burn can set up shop in the building’s laptop lounge and take advantage of peer power. During the day, Feinberg says there are meetings in Green Spaces’ many conference rooms, workers composting their lunches at noon and countless pages printed using eco-friendly dyes from foods. And in the evenings, Feinberg says there are plenty of activities for members.

“By night, we have a great events hub, where people come in for networking, panel discussions, all sorts of dialogue to forward the sustainability movement and social entrepreneurship globally,” Feinberg explains.

But the social good mission runs deeper than providing a green office and mixers with eco-conscious entrepreneurs. Green Spaces offers a sustainable network of connections from its more than 100 partners in a variety of fields, including law, marketing and web design. This means that socially-conscious startups that really want to walk the walk can ensure that every aspect of the company — including who is involved as a freelancer — aligns with a larger goal towards conservation. This is Green Spaces’ ultimate mission — to offer an avenue for startups with few resources to embrace social responsibility while scaling up.

“We support the triple bottom-line company movement, which is about not just profit, but also the planet and people,” Feinberg says.

Feinberg believes that at large, coworking is on the rise, and she’s excited to have more companies with similar goals to adopt Green Spaces’ responsible lifestyle and deep contacts.

“We’re moving away from that rigid 9-to-5,” Feinberg adds. “People want to have a life. They want to work, they want to meet others, they want to make friends.”

The World at Work is powered by GE. GE Works focuses on the people who make the things that move, power, build and help to cure the world.

More About: coworking, eco-friendly, features, mashable, social entrepreneurship, World at Work

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Some people don’t just ‘like’ Facebook, they love it.

Deborah Torres Patel, Gianluca Verrengia, and Jeffery Anaba — the creators of the above videos — are clearly in the ‘love’ column. Naturally, they’ve even made a Facebook page to show it.

If you ever wondered what a Facebook IPO theme song would sound like, chances are you didn’t expect it ringing to a similar tune as the Golden Girls, with a little bit of rap thrown in. We’re not sure if the song is an endearing anthem or a well-done joke, but you can’t deny the lyrics will get stuck in your head.

Our favorite line is “I’m Taggin’ you, You’re Taggin’ me, And we’re makin’ history.” What’s yours?

More About: Facebook, facebook ipo, viral videos, YouTube

Sidecar wants to change that by making smartphone capabilities part of phone calls.

The app, which launched for iOS and Android on Tuesday, makes it easy for users share live video, photos, locations and contacts during voice conversations.

While it’s already possible to send a photo or contact while talking on the phone, with Sidecar, it only takes a couple of taps. When a call participant lifts the phone from his or her ear to look at the extra content, the phone automatically switches to speakerphone in order to avoid an awkward break.

Making calls through Sidecar is free whether the person you’re dialing has the app or not, but you can only use the extra functions if the other person has downloaded it as well. If not, he or she receives a text message prompt to do so after you hang up.

The startup plans to eventually charge for some communication services such as long-distance, but its grand scheme is a bit broader.

Over the last five years or so, the revenue that mobile network operators bring in from voice calls has been tanking. Sidecar wants reverse the trend by making phone calls cool again.

“Long-term,” CEO Rob Williams tells Mashable, “our goal is to define calling experience that reclaims the declining voice revenue for the industry.”

Would you make more voice calls if you could easily share content during them? Let us know in the comments.

Photo courtesy of Flickr, TravelingLauo

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The social networking giant cracked the top 20 of Millward Brown’s BrandZ most valuable brands list for the first time. Facebook weighed in at number 19, between Amazon (18) and Deutsche Telekom (20). Leading the list once again is Apple, followed by IBM and Google. (For the full list, click here.)

Millward Brown’s list takes into account consumers’ perception of brands plus “rigorous analysis of financial data, market valuations, analyst reports and risk profiles,” according to the company. For whatever reason, Millward Brown’s valuations are greatly at odds with Wall Street’s. For instance, the BrandZ list pegs Apple’s value at $182.9 billion while the company’s market cap is about $525 billion. Likewise, even taking Facebook’s post-IPO slide into consideration, Facebook’s Wall Street valuation is about $69 billion, more than double the value that Millward Brown assigns it.

The brand ranking also contrasts with the other major best brands list, Interbrand’s Top 100 Brands list. On that ranking, Apple was number eight and Coca-Cola took the top spot. Facebook didn’t make the list.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, -Oxford-

More About: apple, Facebook

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“Today we are releasing 1.7 GB of data that used to belong to the United States Bureau of Justice, until now,” reads an Anonymous press release, referring to the Department of Justice. “Within the booty you may find lots of shiny things such as internal emails, and the entire database dump.”

The hacktivist collective has been known to make bold claims, but a Department of Justice spokeswoman confirmed to Reuters that Anonymous members did indeed access a server that hosts the Department’s statistical data, including cybersecurity records.

Anonymous released the data dump online through their usual torrent-based delivery system, but an attempted download of the data for further examination failed to complete. Anonymous member @planethacks, who is allegedly responsible for the data dump, has said the download is stalling because another hacker is interfering with the download process.

The reason everyone is stuck at 94% is because zeekill, a person we have heard of before, is attacking our seedboxes.

— Joke (@planethacks) May 22, 2012

The issue will be resolved soon…….

— Joke (@planethacks) May 22, 2012

The Department of Justice spokeswoman didn’t confirm what data the hackers were able to swindle or when the hacking occurred. The Department of Justice is, however, looking into whether or not the hackers violated computer use laws.

This Anonymous data dump comes on the heels of an apparent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against the Chicago Police Department’s website during anti-NATO summit protests over the weekend.

1. CIA Website

Hacked: CIA website, in addition to several international law enforcement accounts Date of Incident: Feb. 3, 2012 What's Known: Anonymous made Feb. 3, 2012 the "day of action" of coordinated efforts to take down several government web properties. In the CIA.gov hack, personal data from Alabama court papers -- Social Security numbers, birthdays and addresses -- were exposed. Confidential emails from a Mexican mining agency were also released. The same day, hackers forced their way into a conference call between the FBI and Scotland Yard, the UK's Metropolitan Police Service. The 16-minute call was posted on YouTube with the headline "Hacked for the Lulz." Arrests: British teens Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis were arrested in connection with the hacked conference call. British officials who gained possession of Cleary's hard drive described him as “a 15-year-old kid who’s basically just doing this all for attention and is a bit of an idiot." Image courtesy of Flickr, 4d4mbr0wn

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Images courtesy of Flickr, gaelx

More About: anonymous, cybersecurity, US

In the blog post, Page said the new CEO is “longtime Googler” Dennis Woodside. Page says Woodside, an ironman triathlete, is largely responsible for building Google’s presence overseas, especially in the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia. He has served as Google’s president of the of the Americas for the past three years and played a role in increasing Google’s revenue from $10.8 billion to $17.5 billion over that period.

After Google announced its bid to acquire Motorola Mobility last August, the deal was met with surprise and some confusion, since Google had previously been content to be the steward of the Android mobile platform but to keep out of the hardware business. The acquisition made more sense as an purchase of Motorola’s extensive intellectual property, including some patents fundamental to how Internet communication works. Google, as a relatively young company, had a far weaker IP portfolio.

How Motorola’s hardware business will be integrated into Google’s operations is still an unanswered question, but there have been rumors that Google is planning to begin selling more Android devices directly to consumers (as opposed to selling them all through carrier partners). However, to avoid showing favoritism, Google is said to be planning to partner with several device manufacturers.

Motorola announced it would split into two companies in 2008, creating Motorola Mobility, a mobile communications company focused on consumers, and Motorola Solutions, a telecommunications equipment provider. That plan went into effect in January 2011, about eight months before Google announced the deal to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.

More About: android, Google, Motorola, trending

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When actor James Doohan died in 2005, the man who played Star Trek‘s engineer Scotty for nearly 40 years had one request: That his ashes be launched into space. Now, after years of delays and countless rumors, SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is not only carrying the Dragon spacecraft; according to Billionaire SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk, it has the ashes of “Scotty” packed somewhere inside the rocket.

The unmanned Dragon spacecraft, which is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) sometime within the next few days, rocketed into space at 3:31 AM on Tuesday after technical malfunctions delayed the launch twice. On Saturday, it was scuttled at, literally, the very last second. The pre-dawn launch, though, went off without a hitch this time.

SpaceX’s Dragon mission markes the first time a private company has sent a space vehicle to the ISS, but it will not be the last. The spacecraft is carrying station supplies this time, but future flights will be manned. Musk said this morning that the spacecraft can comfortably seat seven astronauts.

Musk, though, had been cagey about the almost mythical Star Trek-inspired cargo. However, when Mashable asked if “Scotty’s” remains were on board, Musk quickly replied, “We are carrying the ashes of several people and I am told Scotty is in there.” Musk did not offer any details about the identities of the other remains.

Way to go, Scotty, way to go.

You can relive the launch in the NASA video below.

More About: space, SpaceX, trending

The infographic below was designed by Sortable. It shares the latest Apple profits, revenues and cash-in-hand, along with the company’s reach — 30% of smartphone users in the U.S. have an iPhone.

Along with an impressive iPad market share (62%) and an astounding number of employees (over 30,000), don’t forget one of Apple’s most valuable properties — the App Store. You’ll currently find 600,000 apps and counting in the store, and 895 new apps are added every day.

Are you one among the millions of Apple customers? Can Apple go anywhere but up? Share your predictions in the comments below.

Thumbnail courtesy of Tibneo, DeviantArt.

More About: apple, inforgraphics, ipad, iphone, Tech, trending

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That’s the premise behind a new deal between American Express and Zynga. Starting Tuesday, the Zynga Serve Rewards program will offer “rich in-game incentives for everyday spending,” according to the companies. The initiative is available through FarmVille. Players of that game can plant a Serve Money Tree in their farms, which lets them level up to earn Zynga Farm Cash to redeem virtual rewards.

To get the card, consumers can register and then receive one in the mail. After funding the card via a bank account, debit card, credit card or cash, consumers can then earn Farm Cash rewards. Initially, such rewards will be only given out for the first five purchases of $25 or more on the Zynga Serve Rewards card. As the program expands, all purchases will net in-game rewards, which will be tracked via an in-game dashboard. The card will also link up with other games, including CityVille and CastleVille.

Zynga has been experimenting with programs that link the real and the virtual world for some time. In 2010, the company began selling prepaid FarmVille cards at 7-Eleven. Meanwhile, American Express has been an enthusiastic supporter of social media, launching programs based on Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare over the past couple of years.

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This falls in line with other recent iPhone rumors, all of which claim that the new iPhone will have a larger screen, though most of them say the screen will be 4 inches in size or larger.

The iPhone which is most likely to actually hit the market has the same screen width as the iPhone 4/4S — 1.94 inches. However, it will be significantly taller at 3.45 inches. Since these dimensions theoretically fit into the iPhone 4/4S case, it’s possible that the next-gen iPhone will stay the same size as its older sibling.

To take advantage of the new iPhone screen size, Apple is reportedly working on an iOS 6 build which adds a fifth row of icons to the home screen.

Finally, 9to5Mac’s sources claim that the iPhone prototypes currently in testing all have a home button (refuting rumors that the button will be removed from the device) and a smaller dock connector.

How do you feel about the idea of a 3.95-inch screen iPhone? Too big, or too small? Share your opinions in the comments!

More About: apple, iphone, trending

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