NYC

Man, social networks have taken on a loose definition as of late, haven't they? Toyota just announced plans to launch one for its customers, and while our initial reaction was an eye-roll and sighs of "what the world needs now," the truth is that it's really just a system that uses Twitter and Facebook to let you know when something's amiss. Dubbed Toyota Friend (and built on Salesforce.com's private Chatter network), the service will dish up battery power warnings to electric vehicle owners, along with maintenance tips -- advice that can pop up on phones, tablets, and "other advanced mobile devices." In addition to their friendly neighborhood car dealerships, folks can befriend other cars and the friends and family who own them, though it's unclear from the press release below why you'd care. (Okay, we suppose if we had a teenage driver we might want to know if they were about to break curfew.) If that all sounds like bunk, you probably won

One of the world's most (in)famous names has picked a side in the browser battles -- last night saw the debut of a new Google Chrome commercial, starring Lady Gaga and her "little monsters." Spanning a minute and a half of Gaga and her fans singing and gyrating their way through her latest single, the ad is intended to illustrate the power of the web and its creative new modes of interaction. To be fair, said interaction is mostly Lady Gaga saying "jump" and a crowd of YouTubers doing it without bothering to ask how high, but hey, the result is fun to watch. You just need to disable your sense of shame for all humanity and click past the break. googlechrome (YouTube)

It seems like the ongoing rivalry between Facebook and Google has taken a turn for the subversive. Last night, a spokesman for the social network confirmed to the  Daily Beast  that Facebook paid a top PR firm to spread anti-Google stories across the media and to encourage various outlets to examine allegations that the Mountain View company was violating user privacy. The PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, even offered to help blogger Chris Soghoian write a critical op-ed piece about Social Circle -- a service that allows Gmail users to access information on so-called "secondary connections," or friends of their friends. Social Circle, in fact, seems to have been at the epicenter of Facebook's smear campaign. In a pitch to journalists, Burson described the tool in borderline apocalyptic terms: "The American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloging and broadcasting every minute of every day-without thei

Oh, that old adage: smoke, be cool, make friends. Die. Well, e-cigarette manufacturer Blu is now trying to resurrect that image, albeit perhaps without so much of the death bit, by making its packaging more sociable. It's new "smart packs" are equipped with radio sensors that detect when a fellow Blu smoker comes within 50 feet, causing your box to light up and vibrate. This is meant to encourage you to go over and make conversation, like "Hi, so, er... you also spent $80 on a pack of battery-powered smokes. Is that fur real?" NY Times

We awoke this morning to a deluge of hype surrounding Tweetbot, the version 1.0 Twitter client from Tapbot. So we sucked down some legal stimulant and ponied up the entrance fee to give it a go on an iPhone 4 (the app requires iOS 4.1 or later). Granted, we're still in the honeymoon period but we're definitely impressed. The design elements, animations, and audio tones are slickly implemented and the functionality is rich and intuitive. We're especially smitten by the right and left swiping actions used to reveal conversations and replies, respectively, and the customizable tab bar that gives quick access to lists and retweets. In fact, the list integration is so good as to finally make Twitter lists useful on a smartphone. We also applaud Tapbot's plucky release in light of Twitter Inc.'s preference that developers stop reproducing the Twitter client experience, especially since the result is superior to Twitter's own  free  iOS app. Sure, the user interface c

Remember the olden days? When honor and valor were the only things that mattered and vast metallic armor suits were less of a laughing matter and more of a practical necessity? Neither do we, but that doesn't stop us from enjoying a good video gaming romp through such settings when we have the time for it. We don't know that we'd necessarily care to reenact medieval battle scenes physically , but that's exactly what a witty new marketing campaign for Washington's Lottery has done. It asks simply "what have you and your friends always wanted to do" and then answers its own query with the nutty answer of Segway jousting . See the resulting video, which was partially shot in Phantom slow-mo, after the break. Autoblog , CrunchGear Creativity-Onine