1. Obama on Skateboard

Jay Leno first featured a super-imposed clip of President Obama making an entrance at the Nuclear Security Summit in South Korea by riding on a skateboard. It has since been turned into a GIF.

Click here to view this gallery.

A GIF made of President Barack Obama making an entrance at the Nuclear Security Summit in South Korea by riding on a skateboard has been making the rounds online. The super-imposed clip — which of course didn’t actually happen — first appeared on Jay Leno’s late-night talk show. The original clip is in the video below.

But since then, a GIF has been made, causing many to question whether or not Obama actually made such an entrance in Seoul.

Obama is no stranger to being the subject of viral GIFs. We scoured the Internet looking for gems and invite you to check out the gallery above.

SEE ALSO: 10 Tumblrs Serving Up the Best Animated GIFs

What’s your favorite Obama GIF? If we missed any good ones, paste the URLs in the comments below.

More About: barack obama, comedy, GIFs, humor, memes, Politics

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Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world. Today, we're looking at three particularly interesting stories.

LinkedIn to Buy SlideShare For $119 Million

LinkedIn has announced plans to acquire professional content sharing community SlideShare for approximately $118.75 million. The transaction will be approximately 45% cash and 55% stock, and the acquisition is expected to close during the second quarter of 2012.

John McAfee Arrested in Belize

John McAfee, founder of McAfee Antivirus, has been arrested in Belize on an illegal firearm charge. In a statement to Belize’s News5, McAfee claims he is innocent, and that Belize’s Gang Suppression Unit killed his dog, took his passport and arrested him on a “bogus charge.” In a story that reads like an episode of CSI, McAfee also claims the arrest came after he refused to donate money to a local corrupt politician.

Facebook IPO Details Revealed

Facebook announced on Thursday that it will sell 337.4 million shares at a price range of $28 to $35 in its initial public offering. This means the company’s co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg will make at least $846 million, and possibly over $1 billion, from the IPO.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, mattjeacock

More About: facebook ipo, features, first to know series, John McAfee, linkedin, mashable, slideshare

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Are you worried about the online safety of children? The European Union is, and it’s taking protecting children one step further.

On Wednesday, the European Commission released a new action plan for protecting kids online, a “pan-European framework for electronic authentication.” Simply put, it’s a system that could prove people’s ages online, specifically targeted at teens and younger children.

In the press release for the proposed “electronic authentication” system, European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstrom outlined the reasons behind it:

“We are living in the digital age and the younger generations are those most active online. These young people are particularly at easy with the use of the Internet but they are still vulnerable to online threats.

It is our duty as parents to keep our children safe — and this includes on the web. We have to reinforce cooperation at European and international levels to combat cybercrime, and especially the most horrible acts such as sexual exploitation and the dissemination of child sexual abuse material online.”

In the U.S., websites must comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which states that sites can’t collect information from children without their parents’ permission. Still, many children bypass this rule by simply adjusting their birthdays when they sign up for accounts on sites like Facebook.

In the U.K., regulating childrens’ online activities has also proved difficult.

SEE ALSO: HOW TO: Talk to Children About Online Safety

How exactly the European Commission will enforce this “electronic authentication” is unknown at the moment; a proposal outlining further details is expected at the end of this month. However, some suggestions include the following: developing easy-to-use systems for reporting harmful content and conduct online; teaching online safety in EU schools; and encouraging creative, educational online content geared toward kids.

Do you have any ideas for how to better protect kids online? Let us know in the comments.

Thumbnail courtesy of Flickr, tinkerbrad

More About: Children, privacy, United Kingdom

Today’s Google Doodle is a tribute to Keith Haring, an artist who rose to prominence in the 1980ies, leaving a strong mark on the pop culture of his time.

Haring was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on May 4, 1958. His father was a cartoonist, and Keith was interested in art from an early age. He studied art at The Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh, and he later moved to New York City, continuing his studies at the School of Visual Arts.

Just like fellow artist and friend Jean-Michel Basquiat, Haring was inspired by graffiti art. His bold lines and vivid colors were one of the most recognizable traits of the eighties aesthetic, especially music.

Haring often collaborated with musicians: he painted Madonna’s jacket for a performance of her song “Like a Virgin,” and the body of Grace Jones for her music video “I’m Not Perfect.”

Haring died on February 16, 1990 from complications due to AIDS. He was only 31 years old.

The Christmas Google Doodle

Each package gets larger with a mouse-over, and a click on it returns search results pertinent to a specific country or the particular items featured in a scene. This one is from December 24, 2010.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Google, google doodle, keith haring

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An adorable Kickstarter campaign to create a children’s book about the election met its fundraising goal of $30,000 on Thursday.

Support from almost 400 backers will help to make the book Roger Nix, President at Six available for purchase by the U.S. presidential election in November 2012.

Author Nick Dazé says he would have never met his fundraising goal without Facebook.

“Being a guy that’s very internet savvy, I was astounded that more than 80% of the backers came from Facebook,” Dazé told Mashable. “It’s not that I didn’t expect Facebook to be huge, but it was even bigger than direct email. Twitter was only 2%.”

Kickstarter’s analytics just show the traffic sources for people who back the project.

The illustrated fable aims to get children thinking and talking about the election, which creator Dazé thinks should be easy, since almost all kids aspire to be president when they grow up. The story focuses on how a kindergartener is determined to defeat an evil candidate for president.

Dazé explains that he wants to instill kids with the belief that “changing the world isn’t just for adults.” He included the below excerpt from the book on his Kickstarter page:

“Kids need their KID-ness, and summer vacation,
And cool superheroes with awesome mutations!
They need paste and paper and cardboard juice boxes.
They need dogs and worm guts and striped baseball soxes.

They need, most of all, their imaginations.
Let grown-ups worry about jobs and bus stations
And traffic and stock markets, 401(k)s
If that's how a grown-up spends his or her days.

Because, as you know, kids turn into teens,
And teens go to college and come out Marines
And doctors and shoe-shines. Adults, every one.
How can you de-kid your daughters and sons?”

Though the project has already hit its fundraising goal, you can still preorder a copy until Friday morning, when the campaign expires.

Will this book get kids excited about presidential politics? Would you give to this Kickstarter?

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BONUS: The 10 Craziest Kickstarter Projects of 2011

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1. Portals

Funded: $1,934

This project uses a box and an old monitor to simulate virtual reality. It is an incredibly cool project, but its Kickstarter backers shouldn't expect anything in return other than a "big happy thank you."

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Children, election, kickstarter

Consumer Report’s annual State of the Net study found that people are increasingly concerned with their privacy on Facebook. The report breaks down social privacy into a handful of categories: over-sharing by users, underuse of privacy controls, over-collection of data, over-sharing of data by apps and cyberbullying or harassment.

2,002 online households were surveyed, including 1,340 Facebook users. Based on those numbers, Consumer Reports extrapolated its results upon the rest of Facebook’s 188 million North American users.

The study raises alarms about Facebook’s privacy practices — but does the author do enough to back up his or her claims?

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Over-Sharing

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4.8 million Facebook users have posted their plans for the day on the site, according to the report’s extrapolation. Consumer Reports suggests that’s a potential tip-off for thieves who can use that information to plan a robbery.

The report was unclear about how many of those 4.8 million users set their location sharing to “friends only,” which would drastically reduce the threat of theft. Jeff Fox, technology editor at Consumer Reports, told Mashable that 10-15% of Facebook users set their sharing to “public,” rather than friends-only. That’s about 500,000 of those 4.8 million location-sharers.

Fox also pointed to a recent story of thieves who robbed a house using information shared on Facebook, but he couldn’t provide statistics indicating whether that’s a common occurrence or an isolated event.

Consumer Reports also said that Facebook users who publicly “like” a page about a disease, such as diabetes, may tip-off insurers who can then deny those users coverage. Fox was unable to cite statistics showing whether that actually happens, however.

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Underuse of Privacy Controls

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13 million users, says Consumer Reports, either haven’t set or don’t know about Facebook’s privacy tools. However, with 188 million users in the U.S. and Canada, that means more than 90% of users do change their privacy settings from the default.

Facebook has been responding to privacy concerns, albiet not to everyone’s satisfaction. It rolled out broad new privacy changes over the summer of last year.

Information about privacy settings is available on Facebook’s site. Users are expected to set their privacy protection to levels with which they feel comfortable and protected, but some privacy groups call for Facebook to deliver this information more directly and to make the default settings more secure.

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Over-Collection of Data

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Facebook “collects more data than you may imagine,” warns Consumer Reports, and that’s certainly true. The website keeps tabs on users’ activity both on and off the site, sometimes even if they’re not logged in. Facebook manages this via cookies that follow Internet users who visit sites that embed the ubiquitous “like” button on their pages — an ever-increasing number of websites.

Facebook has said that it uses this information to improve security, but privacy advocates warn that such information could potentially be sold to advertisers — which Facebook denies doing.

However, as Consumer Reports points out, Facebook is planning to release more of the data it stores about users, such as IP addresses and facial recognition patterns.

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Over-Collection of Data

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Consumer Reports‘ study argues that Facebook users often pay little attention to the permissions they give to third-party apps. All third-party apps on Facebook require users to “opt-in” by granting permission for an app to look at your news feed, update your status, and so on. It’s up to each individual user to pay attention to these permissions and decide if they should continue installing an app.

Some apps, warns the report, can look at users’ information even if they haven’t installed the app themselves. They do this, says Consumer Reports, by accessing information about users from their friends that have the app installed. Such a grab can be prevented through careful modification of privacy settings.

“Even if you have restricted your information to be seen by friends only, a friend who is using a Facebook app could allow your data to be transferred to a third party without your knowledge,” says the report.

Fox was unable to cite any examples of an app which performs this roundabout information grab.

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Cyberbullying and Harassment

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Consumer Reports says that “problems are on the rise” — 11% of households using Facebook had “trouble” last year, which ranges from a stranger using their login information to online harassment. The report highlights cyberbullying against children, claiming that 800,000 children under 13 had been “harassed or subjected to other forms of cyberbullying on Facebook.”

The report didn’t give exact definitions of “trouble,” “harassment” or “cyberbullying.” Such cases could range from commonplace teasing to more extreme and dangerous forms of social rejection, and it’s impossible to know these details from this study. Fox wasn’t able to clarify the definitions used in Consumer Reports’ survey.

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Facebook and Privacy

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Consumer Reports’ study shows that privacy is an ever-increasing concern as Facebook and other social media become a more central part of everyday life. However, careful observation of the report raises more questions than it answers. Some observers, including journalist and Internet commentator Jeff Jarvis, label the report as “fear-mongering” that’s harmful to the public’s understanding of social networks.

“My fear is that such fear-mongering will lead to more regulation and a less open and free net,” wrote Jarvis on his blog. “Consumer Reports is not fulfilling its mission to protect us with this campaign. It will hurt us.”

More About: Facebook, privacy, Social Media, trending

1. World of Goo

The goo balls in this game are used to build structures that get you to your final goal. The challenge comes from the limited goo ball supplies, especially as a certain number of goo balls must travel along the structure to the end in order to complete the level. This game is a must-have for tablet owners.

Click here to view this gallery.

Mobile puzzle games, whether they're falling block versions or object-matching genres, are so addictive that players have been known to lose a few hours on them.

And yes, most of the time it’s Apple’s iPhone we associate with this digital affliction, but Android has a handful of equally-addictive versions. In fact, there are at least ten that are worth your time.

Do you have a favorite Android puzzle game? Share it in the comments section below.

More About: android games, contributor, features, mobile games

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Reserve My City

Quick Pitch: Reserve My City makes it easy to book restaurant reservations on your Foursquare to-do list.

Genius Idea: A seamless way to make reservations at the restaurants you discover on Foursquare.

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Discovering restaurants and adding them to your Foursquare to-do list is easy –- but forgetting to actually go to those restaurants is even easier.

That's why Eugene Leychenko founded Reserve My City, a Foursquare add-on that lets you book restaurant reservations. The add-on makes it easier to finally make it to the restaurants you discover and to explore other hotspots nearby.

Whenever you find a new restaurant and add it to your to-do list, Reserve My City immediately sends you a personalized e-mail with the restaurant location and a "Reserve Now" link that lets you make reservations on OpenTable.

Based on proximity to the restaurant and your individual taste, the e-mail also includes recommendations for places to grab a drink before dinner, and places to enjoy dessert after dinner.

Here's what the e-mail looks like:

"Reserve My City is a real seamless, frictionless way of going from 'Okay I found this place' to 'Now I'm actually going to this place,'" Leychenko told Mashable in an interview.

Developed in January, Reserve My City is currently working on a "look-alike" feature – if a Foursquare user adds a restaurant to their to-do list that is not on OpenTable, Reserve My City will recommend a similar restaurant that does accept reservations through OpenTable.

The startup has about 500 users. In the future, Reserve My City plans to base its business model on partnerships with businesses such as dating and travel websites.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, bagi1998

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Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

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The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: bizspark, Reserve My City

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Jeremiah Owyang is an industry analyst on customer strategy and partner at Altimeter Group. As author of the blog Web Strategy, he focuses on how corporations connect with their customers using web technologies.

What if there was a way to determine the best time to share your tweets, Facebook updates, and response-worthy content? And what if you could automate the entire process?

That’s the thinking behind a new wave of companies that claim to have social media communication down to a science. Recently, I analyzed nearly a dozen vendors in this burgeoning field, which I call the “social performance” category. These firms offer software tools and methods that analyze, plan, deliver, and measure media such as ads, content, and conversations published in social channels. For a price, of course.

Although the business is young, there are a lot of players out there already. New entrants include Adobe Social, which employs Adobe acquisitions Context Optional and Omniture; BuddyMedia, which is optimizing earned content to be ads with its Brighter Option acquisition; Bazaarvoice, which has introduced a solution to launch social ads outside of traditional social networks; and Webtrends Social, which tracks social content off domain, ads and their performance back to the corporate website; and finally, Wildfire which has partnered with Adaptly to measure the paid-to-owned transition.

In addition, there's also a focused group of companies which help with optimized publishing including: Crowdbooster, which measures and optimizes when content should publish; Prosodic, which analyzes
the who, what, where, and aids publishers; Shoutlet, which helps companies manage complex publishing at scale; SocialFlow, which offers a solution to optimize content resonance and publishing timing; Tigerlily, which optimizes social content to publish by theme, audience and location; and UberVU, which first mines the data then optimizes content to be published.

For any marketer looking to get a handle on their social media marketing, these companies have a solid selling proposition. Some of them claim that average click-through rates could increase up to 50%, drive up more fans, and even influence larger order values or the ability to drive additional sales. Ultimately, though, these vendors have the potential to not only improve branding, but to disrupt Facebook’s business as well. Here’s how:

• Alternative social networks could emerge. The firms could take what they’ve learned from the social media ads they run on Facebook and apply that information to outside the network. Bazaarvoice has already used its earned content to create new forms of social ads that can appear off-domain of Facebook and Twitter.
• Brands could integrate paid, owned, and earned. Brands will start with content publishing optimization, analyze this content and re-purpose earned content into social ads ala Facebook’s sponsored stories (or its new premium ads.) Expect the media buyer to bring her chair closer to the corporate social strategist as they work together to reach communities like never before.
• Social media agencies might get in the ad game. Social media agencies will no longer offer community engagement only, but now start to offer media buying in social networks, then become or combine with existing digital agencies. The term “social media agency of record” dies out and we return to “agency.”
• The category could heat up. This would make firms prime acquisition targets. Likely suitors include existing direct and performance marketing software companies, which would incorporate them into their suites. As the tools become standard, social media content created by brands will start to become automated as these tools suggest what to say, when to say it, and to whom.

There is, of course, one possible downside to the spread of social media automation. As marketers become more targeted and eventually predict what content an audience will want, authenticity could leave the room, making social yet another over-branded, corporate medium. Consumers will then question if they're speaking to a real-life community manager or an automated robotic script. In this scenario, consumers will move on to a non-bastardized channel that we've yet to see, and the cycle will start anew. Meanwhile, Facebook’s social ads will have lost much of their potency.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, MaxUser

More About: adobe, contributor, Facebook, features, Marketing

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Here in the Mashable community room, we have a pair of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Many of our visitors notice the toy and reminisce about their own Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Ems from childhood. In addition to being an iconic toy, these friendly robots seem to evoke a fond sense of nostalgia.

Dictionary.com defines nostalgia as “a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time.” Whether the memories are purely happy or bittersweet, nostalgia can often come from a single image. 

For this week’s Mashable Photo Challenge, we want you to send us an image that represents nostalgia to you.

Take a picture of a childhood toy, a classic video game or anything that strikes a nostalgic chord with you. (We have to admit, we’ll be disappointed if no one submits a photo of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys.)

As with every photo challenge, we encourage you to interpret the theme however you like. And of course, there are no wrong answers! Just make sure to tell us briefly why your image represents nostalgia.

 

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How To Enter the Challenge

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• Take a picture that represents nostalgia to you.
• Tweet your photo to @mashablehq with the hashtag #MashPics. If you need more than one tweet to write your caption, just send us another tweet. OR
• Drop your photo into the picture widget below.

Submit your photo by Wednesday, May 9 at 12:00 p.m. EST. We’ll feature some of our favorite photos on Mashable, as well as on our Facebook page. We can’t wait to see your photos!

More About: community, Mashable Photo Challenge, photography

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ORLANDO — Research In Motion finally gave developers a true taste of BlackBerry 10 this week, showing off many novel features of the company’s latest mobile OS. Those developers like what they see so far, though they also want to see more from RIM.

At BlackBerry World, RIM gave all developers in attendance a special device to make BlackBerry 10 apps. However, the device doesn’t actually run BB10 — the “DevAlpha” device runs the same software on the current PlayBook tablet.

Also, the most impressive features of BlackBerry 10 that RIM previewed at the show — including a time-shifting camera and an onscreen keyboard that predicts your typing — aren’t yet available for developers to use in apps.

SEE ALSO: For Major Brands, BlackBerry Is Still the 'Wait and See' Platform

I spoke with dozens of developers about the new platform, and what they liked best about BlackBerry 10 was what RIM CEO Thorsten Heins describes as the “flow.” It’s so far an ill-defined concept, but it deepens BB10′s multitasking abilities, which keep all apps running in the background without pausing them.

As of yet, RIM hasn’t clarified exactly how that’s going to work. Although developers are excited about the how apps will integrate with each other in BlackBerry 10, many told me they want RIM to soon spell out how they can start immersing their apps in the so-called flow.

Check out the video above to see developers weigh in on the BlackBerry 10.

Are you a BlackBerry developer? What are you looking forward to most in BlackBerry 10? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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BONUS: The Best Features of BlackBerry 10

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Glance Back

Saying BlackBerry 10 is all about the "flow" between apps, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins showed how users could quickly see other apps running by "glancing back" via menus that peek out from the side.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: blackberry, BlackBerry 10, developers, research in motion, RIM

Although mentioning your competitors’ products is a no-no in most advertising campaigns, the latest print ad for Barnes & Nobles’s “GlowLight” ereader may be an exception. The ad cheekily tells Amazon’s Kindle device that it’s “not that good in bed.”

The ereader, called the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight, has a simple value proposition: It lets you read in the dark without disturbing the person next to you. Most E Ink ereaders, including the rest of Barnes & Nobles’s line as well as the Amazon Kindle, can’t be read without without a bright overhead, clip-on or external light. The new Nook is lit up by LEDs embedded in its top edge.

In addition to the two print ads above, Barnes & Noble also released a video spot highlighting the device’s main advantage:

The Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight costs $139 for the Wi-Fi-only version. Amazon’s equivalent device, the Kindle Touch, also costs $139.

What do you think of the ads? Do you think it’s ever a good idea to mention a competitor’s product in an advertisement? Let us know in the comments.

More About: amazon, barnes & noble, Kindle, nook, nook simple touch with glowlight

NBC Politics launched a new iPad and iPhone app Thursday that lets users keep tabs on the latest news coming out of the 2012 race to the White House.

The app, which is free, first opens to a page of recent headlines. Users can tap a headline to get the full story, including images and video. A daily “tip sheet,” which is a round-up briefing of the latest political news and headlines, is also included in the app. Candidate profiles give users full biographies of the presidential candidates. Also featured: Video clips taken directly from the latest episodes of NBC’s many news shows.

“With all eyes on the 2012 election, the NBC Politics App delivers the best political content and reporting -– wherever you are,” said David Gregory, moderator of NBC News' Meet the Press. “This all-access, easy-to-navigate resource puts the full power of NBC News in your hands, from the top headlines and stories to innovative features that allow serious political junkies to dig even deeper.”

For you political geography geeks out there, the app has two different sets of maps: one that shows real-time results from primaries and, eventually, the general election, and another that’s a game-based election simulator.

The real-time results map is visually inviting and simple to use, although the county-by-county results pull down from an outside web page, which can feel awkward and is occasionally buggy. However, if the data gets updated promptly on election nights, it could prove to be an excellent poll-watching tool.

The simulator presents a national election map, then challenges users to guess which way each of the 50 states will lean – heavily Democrat or Republican, slightly Democrat or Republican or neutral. Depending on your guesses, either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney is bestowed the presidential seal.

The truly nerdy amongst us will be disappointed to know that you can’t — yet — predict results on a county-by-county basis.

SEE ALSO: NBC Launches 2012 Election Foursquare Badges [EXCLUSIVE]

There’s a sharing element, too — users can easily post articles or video from the app to their Facebook or Twitter feeds.

NBC’s new app was designed by Method, and is available for download in the App Store.

More About: 2012 presidential campaign, apps, ipad, iphone, nbc, Politics, US

eBay announced its plans to open a large office in New York City Thursday, making it the latest Silicon Valley-based company to bring new tech jobs to the Big Apple.

eBay will open a technology center located at 625 6th Avenue in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood this fall. The office will include the Hunch team, a site eBay acquired in late 2011 that makes recommendations based on user preferences, and will also house more than 200 people in the next few years.

The office will be focused on building eBay’s recommendation technology and data analytics.

SEE ALSO: How eBay Is Getting Back to Its Social Roots

“There is a great trend propelling tech forward in New York, which started when Google opened up a large office there,” Chris Dixon, general manager of eBay New York and co-founder of Hunch, told Mashable. “We will be hiring new people and looking at expanding positions in the future. We are very excited.”

In January, eBay opened a new tech center in the Seattle area, which is focused on data mining.

The move comes just one day after Microsoft announced it will be opening a research lab in New York City. Meanwhile, Facebook announced in December that it would open a New York engineering office.

Do you think New York could be the next big mecca for tech companies? Let us know in the comments.

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BONUS: Microsoft Research: Bringing Sexy Back

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Microsoft: The Garage

This is the famous Microsoft Garage. It actually has two giant garage doors. It's also a place were Microsoft encourages free-form, grassroots invention.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: ebay, Facebook, Google, hunch, jobs

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One month after its $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, Facebook has added filters to one of its apps.

Users of Facebook’s app for non-smartphones, “Facebook for Every Phone,” can now tweak their photos with Sepia or Grayscale filters similar to those Instagram offers.

Instagram had nothing to do with the new feature, a Facebook spokesperson told Inside Facebook. Rather, the apps were developed at an employee hackathon.

The New York TImes reported in August 2011 that Facebook was developing a set of filters for its mobile app “with the hopes of drawing off fans of Instagram.”

Given its recent $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, that is no longer Facebook’s motive. But it could help users of phones that can’t run the Instagram app understand what the fuss is all about.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it would be expanding the feature to its other apps.

More About: Facebook, filters, Mobile, trending

Could this guy be the one true hipster to rule them all? Could be. Let’s take inventory.

Micro-managed facial hair? Check. Vintage coat? Check. Stack of vinyls? Check. Legs crossed, European style? Check.

Portable vinyl player, with headphones? Bonus points. Hipster babe companion in retro dress? More bonus points. Sitting outside at a bar, during what may well be normal working hours? The deal sealer.

The photo, uploaded to the image sharing site imgur, has been viewed there more than 617,000 times in 11 hours. That may just make it the most viral hipster photo of all time, pending further research and confirmation.

The hat-tip here goes to Twitter user @burnSTYLEr, who hat-tips @MarcusAHall, who hat-tips @ramit…clearly, this thing has been making its way around the Interwebs.

But who saw it first, before it was trendy? Could it possibly be … the second hipsterist hipster in hipster history?

More About: trending, viral

Your computer is more likely to contract a virus by visiting a religious website than a porn site, according to the surprising results of a study released this week.

According to the company behind the report, Internet security firm Symantec, websites featuring religious or ideological themes are three times more likely to host infectious malware compared to sites with adult or pornographic content.

Websites categorized as “blogs/web communications” are the most likely to contain malicious code: a full one in five websites in that category were identified by Symantec as “infected.” They’re followed by “hosting/personal hosted” sites (15.6%) and “business/economy” (10%).

Approximately 2.4% of pornographic sites contain malware. The reason porn sites are relatively malware-free?

"We hypothesize that this is because pornographic website owners already make money from the Internet and, as a result, have a vested interest in keeping their sites malware-free; it's not good for repeat business,” the report reads.

More About: porn, symnatec

The Facebook IPO continues its long march towards actually happening.

The company cleared one of its final hurdles on Thursday when it announced a range for it’s opening-day stock price of between $28 and $35.

Instantly, the Internets began debating the Goldilocks conundrum: Is it too high? Too low? Just right?

Now we’d like you to weigh in. An IPO is, after all, an an initial public offering. And you’re the public.

Do you think this stock is priced attractively? Or should it have reflected the iffy performance of other recent social media stock introductions?

Take our poll, and let us know in the comments if your view is more nuanced.

More About: facebook ipo, polls, trending

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From digital advertising conferences to programming hackathons and everything in between, you’ll definitely find a swanky locale to suit your professional and personal interests from the selection of more than 65 events on Mashable’s new Events Board. Whether you’re an event organizer or an event-goer, our Events Board is an essential resource for helping you build relationships, engage face-to-face and learn about new trends in the business.

In addition to featuring events all over the world, exciting new listings are always added to Mashable’s Events Board in a variety of industries. Every week, we round up five freshly-posted events that you should definitely add to your calendar. Keep checking the board for the newest listings of conferences, meetings and expos spicing up the tech scene around the world.

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Business

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The Cable Show 2012

Date: 5/21/2012 – 5/23/2012
Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Cable networks and providers unite for The Cable Show 2012, an annual conference that discusses the power and capabilities of cable in the digital world. Many cable personalities will speak at the event, including Conan O’Brien, Piers Morgan and Erin Burnett. For those located in New England and along Eastern seaboard, Amtrak is offering a special 10% discount to attendees of the conference.

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Social TV World Summit

Date: 5/22/2012 – 5/23/2012
Location: London, England

Focusing on in-depth discussion of social media integration and multi-screen interactivity for television programs and properties, the Social TV World Summit will include expert advice from companies such as Shazam, Trendrr and Facebook. The two-day conference will also feature an exhibit floor and multiple networking sessions throughout the schedule.

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Structure 2012

Date: 6/20/2012 – 6/21/2012
Location: San Francisco, California

Hosted by GigaOM, Structure 2012 will discuss the state and future of cloud computing. With speakers from Amazon, AppFog and IBM, Structure 2012 will comment on the business, structure and technology of cloud computing. In addition, GigaOM will host a LaunchPad, granting the opportunity of an unknown company to show off its product to conference attendees. Sales for tickets end on May 19, and nominations close on May 11.

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Social Media

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PR News Social Media Summit & Taste of Tech

Date: 6/21/2012 – 6/22/2012
Location: New York, New York

PR News Social Media Summit & Taste of Tech is actually two events in one. PR and communications professionals are invited to attend either conference, which focus on key takeaways for marketing and communications throughout all social media platforms, or to combine both for the most insights and networking. May 18 is the last day for the event’s Early Bird rate, which takes $100 off the general admission combined event rate of $1,295.

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The Google+ Photographers Conference

Date: 5/21/2012 – 5/23/2012
Location: San Francisco, California

Google+ photographers will come together in Northern California for The Google+ Photographers Conference. Hosted by Kelby Media Group, the conference will offer training and tips for photographers looking to get the most out of their Google+ account. Also, if you register now, you will get speaker Guy Kawasaki’s book and OnOne software for free.

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More About: Events, features, mashable

iHeartRadio has just released a major update to its iPad app adding support for the retina display, custom radio stations and improved Facebook integration.

Last fall, Clear Channel released a major update to iHeartRadio, giving users the ability to create their own custom radio stations — Pandora style. The new iPad update includes this custom station functionality, which takes advantage of iHeart’s massive library of 14 million songs and 400,000 artists.

Users can then tune these Custom Stations to various levels of discoverability, by turning a dial to “Familiar” “Mixed” or “Unfamiliar.” And like Pandora, users can thumb-up or thumb-down a track so that the system can better learn their listening habits.

Unlike some other personalized radio stations, iHeartRadio’s custom stations are ad-free and will remain that way for the foreseeable future.

Of course, custom radio stations are only half of the iHeartRadio experience. Users can also tune into more than 800 broadcast radio and commercial-free digital radio stations. Music is delivered in high quality.

Users can tune into their favorite local station — or their favorite station in a different city — and listen live. In addition to Clear Channel’s network of stations, iHeartRadio also offers live access to various public radio stations, college stations and stations from Univision and EMF. At the end of the month, more than 500 Cumulus stations will be coming to iHeartRadio.

The goal with the iHeartRadio iPad app update — as was the case with the releases for Xbox 360 and Ford Sync — is to bridge the worlds of live live radio and custom radio stations.

The new is a nice one-stop offering for radio fans and the addition of a Pandora-like system (and without ads) is a nice touch.

Like Spotify, MOG and Rdio, iHeartRadio can publish users listening activities directly to Facebook’s Social Graph. This will display what stations a user is listening to on the Timeline. The new iPad app not only allows Facebook login, but it can also auto-publish listening activities to Facebook. For those who value their music privacy, this feature can easily be turned off.

In light of Spotify’s new iPad app, we had a crazy idea: What if iHeartRadio and Spotify worked together? That would be the near-holy grail of the online music experience.

iHeartRadio’s iPad app [iTunes link] is available now.

More About: clear-channel, iheartradio, internet radio, ipad apps, pandora

Samsung has unveiled its latest flagship smartphone the Galaxy S III and brought with it an unexpected passenger: Flipboard, the popular app that turns all your social-network feeds into a digital magazine.

Flipboard’s icon is clearly visible in Samsung’s demo video of the Galaxy S III’s many features. Up till now, Flipboard has been an iOS-only app, though the company has previously said it’s working on an Android version. In response to our query, Flipboard said Samsung was previewing some of the work they’ve been doing together, but had no specific launch date.

Slashgear reports that the Samsung-Flipboard partnership will bring the Android verion of the app exclusively to Galaxy S III, at least for a short time.

Neither Samsung nor Flipboard would confirm this, however. Flipboard’s teaser page for its Android app says it will be coming to “select Android phones” in the coming months.

SEE ALSO: Flipboard Updates iPad App, Launches French Edition

Flipboard debuted for the iPad in 2010, and was named Apple’s App of the Year. Since then the app has spread to iPhone and added many features, but so far hasn’t made the jump to other devices or platforms.

What’s your take on Flipboard coming to Android, and possibly the Galaxy S III exclusively? Have your say in the comments.

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BONUS: Samsung Galaxy S III in Pictures

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Galaxy S III

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: android, Flipboard, Samsung Galaxy S III

Ever eat something that doesn’t taste as good as it looks? Luckily, a lioness named Kya at the Oregon Zoo didn’t have a chance to find out how this little boy tasted.

The lioness was going after a zebra — which was actually a one-year-old named Jack, who was wearing a black and white striped sweatshirt. Jack, thankfully, was behind a thick glass wall, so no injuries occurred.

The unforgettable moment, which happened on April 26, was captured on video and uploaded to YouTube. The video has since gone viral, with more than 155,000 views.

“It was Jack’s first trip to the zoo,” Jack’s mother Heather Baltzor told the Huffington Post. “We didn’t even realize he looked like a zebra until we got home but a lot of the animals in the zoo — the crocodiles and the jaguars — apparently did. They would come up to the glass and look at him.”

In the video, the family appears to laugh throughout the ordeal. Even little Jack seemed unfazed as the lioness tried to wrap her jaws around his head. At one point Heather even attempted to get Jack to say hello to the lion.

“We weren’t worried,” Heather said. “We thought it was hilarious.”

More About: viral, viral videos

The Elder Scrolls franchise, lauded for its expansive single-player campaigns and rich fantasy worlds, will jump into online gaming in 2013.

According to a sneak preview in Game Informer magazine, Bethesda Softworks says The Elder Scrolls Online will be as immersive as its single-player predecessors in a massively muliplayer online (MMO) environment. It will be replete with factions, player-vs-player conflict and open-world warfare.

The story is set a millennium before the events of Skyrim (the latest installment in the series), and the project’s director, veteran Matt Firor, tells Game Informer that his team is “committed to creating the best MMO ever made — and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.”

Little more has been revealed about the upcoming title, and developer Bethesda Softworks is keeping things fairly hush-hush for now.

The news marks a significant shift for Bethesda, which until now has focused on creating deep single-player experiences, both in The Elder Scrolls and its Fallout franchises. While MMOs offer a rich social layer, storyline complexity can suffer when thousands of players affect a game world.

Are you an Elder Scrolls fan? Are you excited about this development, or concerned about the direction of the series? Let us know in the comments below.

More About: Gaming, skyrim, The Elder Scrolls Online

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Professional social network LinkedIn on Thursday snagged presentation-sharing platform SlideShare for $118.75 million.

Often described as the “YouTube for slideshows,” SlideShare has let people store and share presentations as well as documents, PDFs, videos and webinars since 2006.

The website now attracts 29 million monthly visitors, while LinkedIn sees 107 million unique monthly visitors.

LinkedIn — now 161 million members strong — also announced quarterly earnings Thursday, setting Q1 revenue at $188.5 million compared to $93.9 million last year.

The SlideShare sale is expected to close this quarter with 45% of the $118.75 million coming as cash and 55% as stock.

“This deal enables professionals discover people through content, and content through people,” Deep Nishar, LinkedIn's svp of product and user experience, said Thursday. “We're excited to figure out the best ways our offerings will work together to help professionals around the world be more productive and successful.”

SEE ALSO: 7 Ways Businesses Can Get More Social With SlideShare

SlideShare hosts more than 7 million presentations, which have been embedded on nearly 1.5 million different domains.

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner says SlideShare’s purpose “aligns perfectly” with his company’s mission.

LinkedIn, which launched an iPad app in late April, previously acquired real-time search startup IndexTank in October 2011 and email startup Rapportive this February.

Learn more about the acquisition in this SlideShare presentation:

LinkedIn and Slideshare

View more presentations from LinkedIn

More About: acquisition, Business, linkedin, networking, presentations, slideshare

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New iPhone?

Click here to view this gallery.

What will the next iPhone look like? Recent iPhone rumors have suggested it might be made of futuristic material known as LiquidMetal. That got us wondering how such a handset might appear.

Enter designer Antoine Brieux, who took the idea of a LiquidMetal iPhone to the next level, visualizing it for us in these lovely graphics.

His flight of fancy replaces the physical home button with a virtual one, gives the iPhone a slightly larger size than earlier rumors predicted, and depicts the iPhone as a slinky, sexy and mysterious siren in these gorgeous renderings.

Do you think this is getting close to capturing the appearance of the next iPhone? Let us know in the comments.

[via Yanko Design]

More About: design concept, iphone, Liquidmetal, new iphone

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Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to make at least $846 million when the company goes public.

Facebook announced on Thursday that it will sell 337.4 million shares at a price range of $28 to $35 in its initial public offering. According to the company’s filings with the SEC, Zuckerberg will be selling 30.2 million of his own shares.

On the low end of the price range, that would make him $846 million richer. On the high end, he would net $1.05 billion.

According to the filing, most of that money will go to paying Zuckerberg’s taxes. Which, considering the 60 million shares the CEO will acquire through an outstanding stock option, are about to increase significantly.

Facebook’s valuation of $88 billion or more would make it the most valuable U.S. company at the time of its IPO, which was most recently reported to be set for May 18.

The record is currently held by Google, which was valued at $23 billion when it went public in 2004.

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Additional Facebook IPO Coverage

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• Facebook IPO Reveals How It Made $3.71 Billion in 2011
• 10 Giant Things Less Valuable Than Facebook
• Zuckerberg to Potential Shareholders: Facebook Is on a Social Mission
• Facebook IPO Filing Flings Open the Social Network Kimono
• Facebook: Zynga Generates 12% of Our Revenue and We Need Them
• Sheryl Sandberg Was Facebook's Best-Paid Employee in 2011

2004: First Offers Turned Down

Facebook launches with humble beginnings that most people have seen dramatized in The Social Network by now. It was a small social site backed by only a little money, and limited just to the undergrads at Harvard. Right out of the gate, Facebook turned down offers from an unknown investor and Friendster, each offering $10 million. This was, of course, when the company was still called TheFacebook.

Image courtesy of Flickr.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: Facebook, mark zuckerberg, trending

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Likes and dislikes are the social capital of YouTube. Great videos garner hundreds of thousands of Likes. Unloved ones receive almost as many dislikes.

This lucre, so easy to give out but so hard to earn, is what drives YouTube content creators and many of its visitors. It's shorthand that makes transparent the good, the bad and the ugly video. If that simple pair of thumbs up, thumbs down buttons were to disappear or — worse yet — be replaced, some people would be very, very unhappy.

We know this for a fact now — because actor, author and ubergeek Wil Wheaton made what he called his "rage face" and launched a full-on, profanity-laced rant on his blog and Tumblr when he discovered that the traditional YouTube "Like" buttons had been replaced with one large Google+ Like button.

Wheaton, who says he likes Google+, wrote:

“This is just as bad as companies forcing me to ‘like’ something on Facebook before I can view whatever it is they want me to "like," Wheaton continued, “Just let me thumbs up something, without forcing me to "upgrade" to G+, you d–kheads.”

Wheaton's point was that Google seemed to be steering people toward its nascent social networking platform whether they wanted to use it or not.

I did some investigating, but couldn't recreate the button, whether or not I was logged into Google+ or any of my YouTube accounts. In the meantime, I posted a public question in Google+ to Google's Bradley Horowitz about Wheaton's rage-filled post and if this was just a test. I also asked him to elaborate on the importance of leveraging all the eyeballs on Google's other services to grow Google+.

Some Google+ members chimed in. One noted that he hadn't seen the new button, while others argued about whether or not it made sense for Google to make changes anywhere that might help propel Google+ forward.

Horowitz didn’t respond, but a Google spokesman eventually did:

“We’re always experimenting to help users find, watch and share the videos that matter most to them, on YouTube and across all of Google’s products including Google+. Depending on user feedback, some of these experiments may become options for users and some may not.”

It's a clear indication that what Wheaton saw was an experiment and possibly nothing more. Considering how few people saw the Google+ Like button on YouTube and Wheaton's very public reaction, it's unlikely we'll ever see that button again.

Even so, the question remains: What can and should Google do to make Google+ as popular and pervasive as Facebook? The company has already publicly stated that with Google+ it’s actually building Google 2.0, meaning that it's the hub for everything Google does, including Search, Gmail and YouTube.

Integrating Google+ with Google's far more popular and well-established services is the most obvious path for success. So we may not see that button in that space again, but we'll certainly see a lot more of Google+.

How comfortable are you with the Google+ification of Google’s services? Will it make you any more or less likely to use the Google’s social platform? Tell us in the comments.

More About: Google, Wil Wheaton, YouTube

NFL legend Junior Seau was found dead at his Southern California home on Wednesday. He was 43 years old and mortally wounded by a gunshot to the chest when his girlfriend discovered him unconscious, according to reports.

Seau’s death is being investigated as a possible suicide. He was a six-time All Pro and made 12 straight Pro Bowls. He led his hometown San Diego Chargers to a Super Bowl appearance in 1995, and starred at the University of Southern California.

Seau’s on-field excellence, coupled with his reputation as a kind, friendly and compassionate man, led to an outpouring of grief, anger and remembrance on Twitter before his death had even been widely reported by news media.

Fans offered condolences, current players marked his greatness and former players shared memories. Reporters posted photos, videos and news accounts.

Social analytics firm Topsy tracked how the Twittersphere followed the Seau story. The first mention of his possible death, Topsy says, came from user @ceceliajonas15, who posted this message at 10:13 a.m., PST:

I hope its not true that Junior Seau committed suicide. RIP

— Cecelia noel (@ceceliajonas15) May 2, 2012

Over the next 40 minutes or so, a few more Seau-related tweets trickled out. The first one to spread widely, however, came from @HarveyLevinTMZ, who at 10:52 a.m. posted this message:

There are cops at Junior Seau’s home… we are told something really bad happened.More to come…

— Harvey Levin(@HarveyLevinTMZ) May 2, 2012

The Topsy chart below shows how frequently Twitter users mentioned topics related to Seau’s death immediately before and during the hours following that first tweet:

In the 24 hours following the reports of Seau’s death Wednesday, more than than 421,000 tweets mentioned the news, according to Topsy. As rumors spread that Seau may have committed suicide, then reports surfaced he died of a gunshot wound, then police confirmed they were investigating his death as a potential suicide, Twitter mentions per minute about the topics surged.

This chart shows how Twitter users discussed the reported causes of Seau’s death. Note how TMZ’s Harvey Levin sent a tweet which opened the floodgates:

How did you learn about Junior Seau? Did you follow the story on Twitter as it developed? Let us know in the comments.

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GALLERY: Twitter Mourns Junior Seau, Questions Pro Football

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1. @DeionSanders

NFL legend Deion Sanders expressed disbelief when he first heard the news.

Click here to view this gallery.

Thumbnail image courtesy San Diego Chargers.

More About: sports, Twitter

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Comedy Central

After a year-long hiatus, Zach Galifianakis is not only bringing Between Two Ferns back — he’s airing it on television for the first time.

The special sketch, Between Two Ferns: A Fairytale of New York will serve as a precursor to Comedy Central’s Comedy Awards this Sunday. A sneak peek of the special has just been released.

In the half-hour special, Galifianakis gets berated by Jon Stewart about his image (shown above) and gets personal with Sir Richard Branson, who he nicknames “Ricky,” about his extensive wealth. Note: both videos contain explicit language and may be NSFW.

Comedy Central

Tina Fey is also interviewed in the special, but there has been no release of that yet. However we do know that she admits to never seeing The Hangover to Galifianakis, so be on the lookout for that.

Scott Aukerman announced the news on his “Comedy Bang Bang” podcast last week, but Mashable had the opportunity to attend the taping of The Comedy Awards last Saturday — and we have to say, viewers are in for a treat.

SEE ALSO: Zach Galifianakis Interviews Ben Stiller on ‘Between Two Ferns’ [VIDEO]

Between Two Ferns is a series produced by Funny Or Die, which features Galifianakis interviewing celebrities literally between two potted fern plants.

Galifianakis has won several awards for the series, and it was nominated for “Best Viral Original” at this year’s Comedy Awards.

The special will air on Comedy Central at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT, followed by the Comedy Awards at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT.

Will you be tuning in to catch Between Two Ferns on TV? Let us know in the comments.

More About: Between Two Ferns, comedy awards, Entertainment, zach galifianakis

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Fresh off debuting a mobile app, Klout has just released a new version of its application programming interface (API) in response to demand from developers.

More than 6,000 third-party developers — up from 2,000 last year — have used the original API to infuse Klout features into their apps or platforms. Klout now serves 1 billion API calls every day, which is 80 times more data served a year ago.

Klout says its iPhone app, which arrived in late April, was built on the updated API.

“Partners have pulled data from our API since 2008 to offer a wide range of services to influencers, be it room upgrades at the Palms Hotel, targeted match-making through Tawkify or cash back rewards from Capital One based on people's Klout scores,” Klout developer evangelist Tyler Singletary wrote in an announcement Thursday.

Developers can register for version 2 of the API here. Klout stopped accepting registrations for version 1 on April 16. The old API will be shut off Dec. 31.

Klout touts these features of Version 2:

• “Instead of being Twitter-focused, it's now ‘Klout-focused;’ we offer a service that translates identifiers from Twitter to Klout IDs to facilitate speed and to incorporate influence from other networks in the future.”
• “The new API is faster, asynchronous and has a new caching system.
• “Because it’s based on our internal architecture, we'll soon release new features to the API.”

One new feature is an “oAuth2-based authentication system” that will soon let users give +Ks to people from outside of Klout.com. For example, a person might give someone else a +K while browsing Tumblr. Users distribute +Ks to vouch for people's expertise or knowledge on a certain topic (see gallery below).

Thursday’s API announcement revealed API calls have increased almost by 20 billion per month since February, hitting 30 billion per month.

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BONUS: What Else Does Klout Have in Store for 2012?

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Looking ahead, Klout is still building scoring models for seven more services (YouTube, Instagram, Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress.com, Last.fm and Flickr) that have already been integrated onto Klout users' dashboards. Klout also plans to add Quora, Yelp, Posterous, Livefyre, Disqus, bit.ly and BranchOut.

SEE ALSO: Klout Unveils Brand Pages With Red Bull as Its Sole Launch Partner

Klout likely will continue improving its Topics feature (see screenshots below) and Klout Perks platform. The Topics feature, which rolled out in September and lets you gain insights on top influencers and +K recipients for specific content areas, got a visual update in December with a “sashes” and an “Add a Topic” button.




Clickable Topics on Your Dashboard






On your Klout dashboard, you can click on a topic to open its Topic Page.

In December 2011, Klout rolled out sashes and an "Add a Topic" button. A blue sash goes to users with the most +Ks for any topic, while a gold sash is given to influencers based on Klout's algorithm. People who fall into both categories receive a blue-and-gold sash.

Click here to view this gallery.

More About: api, apps, developers, klout, mobile apps, online influence, Social Media

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