In August, the Senate voted down the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 with a vote of 52-46, just shy of the 60 votes it needed to pass. The bill was an effort to ensure hackers couldn't gain access to the computer networks of private companies. It would have also made it easier for private businesses to share critical data and information with the government regarding cyber threats.

The types of businesses that would have been affected by the bill included any that contained "critical infrastructure," which means that access to the company's assets could lead to the halt of life-sustaining services (such as food, energy, or water), widespread economic damage, or the degradation of…
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NFL fans who tune in to NBC's "Sunday Night Football" broadcasts are in for a new twist on second screen and social media coverage this season. How? Erstwhile sideline reporter Michele Tafoya is now filing video reports from the field directly via Twitter during games.

The quick-hit updates are recorded by producer Mike Seib on an iPhone and posted to the @SNFonNBC Twitter account. They'll provide injury info, relays of information from coaches and team PR reps and other content similar to what typically appears in Tafoya's regular cutaways during the actual NBC broadcast. You can see a couple example reports from the preseason here and here, and during upcoming "Sunday Night Football" g…
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More About: Media, Twitter, nfl

This mom-duck is not going to win any Parent of the Year awards. But, hey -- all's well that ends well, right? The video above hit YouTube Thursday and began making its way around the social web on Friday, although other version have been floating around for a couple weeks. And, yes, the ducklings all make it.

More About: Watercooler, viral videos

If you want to share details about your sexual activity for science, there's an app for that. Or actually, there was up until last week.

As reported by Forbes, earlier this year researchers at Indiana University released the Kinsey Reporter app -- named after the same Alfred Kinsey who pioneered modern sex research, as depicted in the movie Kinsey. The app is for anyone who wants to contribute data on their sexual behavior for research.

However, the app has now been pulled from the App Store and Google Play because the university's new general counsel has raised privacy concerns. The researchers are hopeful it'll be back as soon as the review pro…
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More About: Newsy, apps, mashable video, sex, videos

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is an epic game; it takes hours to explore dungeons, travel through time and fight giant monsters. Released in 1998, it's the first Legend of Zelda game to breach the third dimension, and it was meant to take players hours or days to complete on their Nintendo 64.

Or, you could beat the whole thing in 21 minutes and 45 seconds.

This is known as a speedrun. Talented players use their skills, days of practice and known glitches to get the fastest possible time in games that were never intended for quick play. This isn't about appreciating the game for the story or the graphics, but about exploiting development holes for players to burn through.…
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More About: Gaming, features, twitchtv, video games

It's always nice to come home to a well-stocked refrigerator and make a delicious dinner for yourself or your family. Planning your grocery list can ensure that, when you make a trip to the store, everything you need to make the week's meals will be bought in one trip.

Particularly if you live with a spouse, significant other or roommate whom you split the groceries with, compiling a joint list can be a hassel. A number of apps attempt to solve this problem by either organizing your lists, or syncing your lists into one list. Check out our top four apps to make grocery shopping more efficient and just easier altogether.

OurGroceries: This is a super helpful app if you share a gro…
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Vice President Joe Biden's speech at the Democratic National Convention didn't blow up Twitter like First Lady Michelle Obama's and President Bill Clinton's did. But Biden did leave one word in his wake on Twitter -- literally.

Biden used "literally" often enough -- nine times during the 40 minutes, The Washington Post reports -- that it wasn't just the grammar geeks who took notice. The hashtag #literally quickly trended on Twitter, and people relentlessly began mocking the VP's faux-pas.

But Obama didn't take this joke sitting down; he got in on the Twitter fun.

The Obama team purchased an ad on the search term "literally," so when users went looking for tweets about the Vi…
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More About: DNC, Presdient Obama, Twitter, election 2012

Microsoft told Mashable that its Bing search engine will be the default on the Amazon Kindle Fire HD's web browser. Amazon also confirmed it.

The deal between the two companies came together recently. Adam Sohn, general manager of communications and influencer marketing at Bing, said the "last bits" of the deal were finalized only today. Sohn said Bing would be the "initial default" search engine on the Kindle Fire HD and new Kindle Fire tablets. He couldn't confirm if the terms of the deal also include Amazon's E Ink readers.

Users will be able to change the default to another search engine such as Google or Yahoo.

The site Ubergizmo first reported that Bing was the default bro…
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More About: amazon, bing, kindle fire, kindle fire hd, microsoft

1. Cat Running Up Slide

Dear Cat, you're doing it wrong. Love, the Internet.

Click here to view this gallery.

YouTube is full of many wonders. Among the millions of amazing animal videos, we found a niche category that can't be beat: critters on slides.

Whether water slides or garden slides, and whether canine, feline or another animal varietal, these 10 clips will have you in stitches.

SEE ALSO: 10 Infectious YouTube Clips of Babies Laughing at Dogs

Take a look through our video gallery of furry fun. Let us know in the comments below which ones made you smile.

More About: Video, Watercooler, YouTube, animals, features

During Facebook's emergence as a key sports marketing channel in recent years, social media agency Movement Strategy has been among the companies making the biggest mark.

It's built more than 200 custom Facebook apps for teams and leagues since its launch in 2008. In the past week alone, the New York Knicks, Detroit Lions, St. Louis Rams and University of Michigan have all launched products designed by Movement.

Mashable recently caught up with co-founder Jason Mitchell to learn more about how the Facebook app marketplace has developed in four years and what the keys are for sports teams looking to put out an engaging product. The biggest shift Mitchell has seen in sports executives'…
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More About: Facebook, Marketing, Sports

Season two of terrorism thriller Homeland doesn't premiere on TV until Sept. 30, but you can get an early glimpse of what's to come Friday during a live-streamed red carpet event featuring the cast and producers.

The one-hour live stream (below) begins Sept. 7 at 6:30 p.m. ET and will capture the action from the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City.

Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, other actors and producers will answer questions submitted to them via Facebook. During the live stream, viewers can use Twitter and hashtag #Homeland to ask questions.

SEE ALSO: Two FOX Comedies Debut Online Before Their TV Premieres

Viewers will also get a sneak peek of Showtime's season t…
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More About: Entertainment, Live Stream, Showtime, TV, celebrities, social tv

A gunman holding a RadioShack employee hostage after a robbery attempt gone bad in Denver posted dire Facebook messages during a tense standoff with police, according to news reports.

Police officers responded to a robbery call just before 10 a.m. Friday, according to The Denver Channel, Denver's ABC News affiliate. Shots were fired near the intersection of Glencoe Street and Colfax Avenue, and scanner traffic reported two gunmen in masks holding at least one person hostage inside the RadioShack store. (Above is an image of the store taken from Google Street View.)

The Denver Channel reported one of the alleged gunmen's identity as 19-year-old Taveuan Williams. Williams has written Fa…
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More About: Facebook, police

If you couldn't get enough of the "Shit Apple Users Say" video we posted yesterday, be sure to check out the sequel.

Aptly titled "Shit Apple Fanatics Say, Part 2," the video just hit YouTube. The original video has earned almost 300,000 views since we first wrote about it and with any luck, the sequel will also hit it big.

So does it live up to the original? Does it ever.

SEE ALSO: Apple Confirms: It's the iPhone 5

There is some debate around Mashable HQ about whether the video is better, but either way, it certainly brings on the funny.

My personal favorite moment is the reaction the Apple fanatic (played by co-writer and director Scott Rose) to learning someone…
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More About: Watercooler, apple, humor, shit people say, viral videos

Growing up in the White House may not be a normal experience for adolescents in most accounts. Most of us don't spend the night before our first day of school on stage at the Democratic National Convention. Many of us won't spend holidays and birthdays with dignitaries and royalty from across the globe.

And most certainly, many of us don't have parents, or are parents, who crack the whip when it comes to tech use.

The presidential parents though are as tough as they come, only letting Malia and Sasha -- 14 and 11 years old respectively -- use technology on weekends, The New York Times reports. Malia's cellphone use is restricted to weekends as well. During the week, computers ma…
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More About: Presdient Obama, parenting

The FCC recently released a broadband deployment map that revealed that barely half of American households have Internet connections fast enough to stream Netflix.

Eye-opening stuff -- but the FCC map only tells part of the story. Most of its data comes from theoretical speeds, not what users actually experience.

That's why video host Wistia compiled its own comprehensive report of how download speeds are dispersed across the United States.

Using data from 500 million viewing sessions across the U.S., Wistia put together a viewing report that gives a little more color the the status of connection speeds and the ability to stream content in the U.S..

You can download the entir…
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More About: fiber, online streaming, stats, streaming video, wistia

UK-based graffiti artist Banksy uses his street art as social commentary. His thought-provoking work has been extensively shared around the web and brought the anonymous Brit notoriety, even though no one knows his true identity.

Tumblr blog Made By ABVH was inspired by the art of Banksy and produced a series of GIFs that animated his work.

SEE ALSO: Keyboard Cat Spoofs Banksy's "Exit Through the Gift Shop"

The GIFs, which first appeared in 2011, bring the powerful street art to life one simple movement at a time.

What is the most beautiful, unexpected GIF you have ever seen? Share a link with us in the comments.

Images courtesy of madebyabvh

More About: GIFs, Watercooler, art, street art, trending

Amazon is reportedly updating its Silk browser for the new Kindle Fire HD tablets, and with it will come a "Trending Now" section. Although users will be privy to knowing in real time which webpages are most popular among other Kindle Fire users, this means that the company is keeping track of tablet user behavior.

TechCrunch is reporting that Amazon's signature browser will be undergoing a series of updates to better its performance, from enhancing HTML5 support and speeding up page load times to adding a Trending Now section. The news comes on the heels of the company announcing a new line of tablet devices, including a 7-inch and 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD tablet and the Kindle Paperw…
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Telethons have been streaming on American televisions for generations using the same model: Celebrities entertain while soliciting charitable donations for a worthy cause. Stand Up to Cancer is trying to change it up a bit for its third annual nationally-televised special on Friday.

Rather than simply giving callers the chance to speak with a celebrity, as is the expected tradition, Stand Up to Cancer is offering donors the opportunity to interact on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram though its Interactive Media Bank.

"The idea for the show this year, to make it different, is to put a new spin on a phone bank," Jules DiBiase, director of digital media for Stand Up to Cancer, told Ma…
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More About: Social Good, Social Media, TV, charity

It's not much of a stretch to imagine Apple creating a personalized streaming music service in the style of Pandora, something the company is reportedly investigating.

The company already has Pandora-like technology in the form of its tune-matching feature, Genius. It has access to an unrivaled library of music, and a decade-long business partnership with the major labels. It has plenty of leverage with which to negotiate lower royalties, which Pandora would dearly love to do (its royalty fees are eating up revenue faster than ever, leading us to wonder whether Pandora can ever be profitable).

And yet, as much as I'd love to customize some Apple radio stations, I find the news…
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More About: apple, itunes, itunes-match, pandora, trending

What is the secret to great achievement? You're about to find out from the most successful person we know: Success Kid.

Also known as Sam Griner, the 5-year-old became an Internet meme associated with personal achievement when a candid photo of him at the beach caught fire on the web.

SEE ALSO: What to Expect When Your Kid Becomes a Meme

Mashable is chatting live with Sam at 4:00 p.m. EST. We'll talk about school, what it's like to be a meme and, of course, what his biggest moment of success has been so far.

Got a question for Sammy? Leave it in the comments below.

More About: Google Hangouts, Live Chat, Success Kid, Watercooler, memes, trending

1. Monster Anatomy HD

Knowing your anatomy backwards and forwards is a must for biology and pre-med students, so download the Monster Anatomy app to help navigate the human body. There are two apps — one for the upper limbs and another for the lower. Each delves into bones, muscles and vessels, and provides up-close representations of their structures. At $18.99, the apps are more costly than most, but it's a solid career investment — the 384 MR slices are used even in the professional world. If you're looking for a cheaper alternative, give Skeletal 3D a shot. It's only $0.99 and lets you examine the 206 bones of the human body.

Click here to view this gallery.

The future doctors, engineers and chemists of the world will undoubtedly spend most of their college days knee-high in beakers and microscopes, researching and inventing the world's next greatest technology. But in order to invent and use future technology, we often have to rely on current innovation.

Mobile apps can help simplify densely complicated topics, such as human physiology, or visualize complicated systems, from the inside of a human heart to the microcosms of cell life.

SEE ALSO: 9 Sites to Save You Big on College Textbooks

Instead of simply relying on textbooks to gain the edge, use these 10 efficient apps to expand the amount of information at your disposal. Then, head…
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More About: Mobile, apps, back to school, college, education, features, medicine

Mashable is thrilled to announce that actress and humanitarian America Ferrera and actress Alexis Bledel will join the 2012 Social Good Summit to discuss social media advocacy of poverty-stricken women and girls.

The Social Good Summit is a three-day conference that will unite global leaders as they share how to use the power of innovative thinking and technology to solve the world's greatest challenges. Tickets are available for all three days, and you can purchase them here.

At this year's Social Good Summit, America and Bledel will appear on stage with Molly Kinder, Director for Agriculture and Europe Policy ONE, Claire Diaz-Ortiz, leader of social innovation at Twitter, Inc.…
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More About: Conference, Social Good, UN week, event, social good summit

We hope you like the screensaver ads on Amazon's new Kindle Fire lineup because you're stuck with them.

Amazon is including its Special Offers and Sponsored Screensavers in its updated Kindle Fire as well as its Kindle Fire HD tablets. As Amazon states, these offers display "on the lock screen and lower left hand corner of the home screen," meaning they won't interfere with the device itself or appear in other apps.

Amazon first started implementing Special Offers on its traditional Kindle e-reader's back in 2011. The program was originally designed as a way for users to save money off the price of a Kindle, in exchange for allowing ads to appear on the screensaver and at the bottom o…
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More About: ads, amazon, kindle fire, kindle fire hd, special offers, trending

The original Hansel and Gretel fable is already an exceptionally dark story -- parents abandoning children, witches and cannibalism (they weren't called the Brothers Grimm for no reason).

The film, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters takes an even darker and more odd plunge into what happens when Hansel and Gretel stop laying breadcrumbs, grow up and start fighting back.

It's 15 years after the blind witch lured the brother and sister into her candy-coated house of horrors, and now, the duo, played by Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton, are bounty hunters that track and kill witches seeking revenge for the trauma they endured as kids.

SEE ALSO: Watch the Final 'Twilight: Breaki…
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More About: films, hansel gretel witch hunters, movie trailers

Pandora Media shares plummeted by as much as 18% on Friday following a rumor that Apple is working on a rival radio service.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday night that Apple is in talks to license music to create a free ad-supported radio service that works on mobile devices, Macs and PCs, just like Pandora. The report was enough to send Pandora's stock spiraling down as low as $10 a share Friday morning from its previous day's close of $12.57.

In the past year, Pandora has experienced increased competition in the online radio market from Spotify's radio feature and Clear Channel's IHeartRadio app. However, Apple may pose a particularly grave threat to the company.…
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More About: apple, apple itunes, pandora, pandora radio

It's only a matter of time before businesses start fully embracing Apple iOS 6's Passbook feature for mobile devices -- which will be able to store anything from boarding passes and tickets to coupons and loyalty cards -- but according to a new report, Virgin Australia airlines is already allowing travelers to check-in to flights and save boarding passes to the platform.

Australian Business Traveler is reporting that a user was able to check in and save a boarding pass for a flight via the Virgin Australia mobile site, which is currently running a preview version of iOS 6. Apple's new mobile operating system is scheduled to roll out this fall.

SEE ALSO: iOS 6: Everything You Need t…
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More About: apple, iOS 6, trending

Despite competing with the Democratic National Convention for TV watchers' attention, the MTV Video Music Awards kept viewers' fingers racing online. Their chatter made the VMAs one of the top social TV events ever.

The VMAs attracted 12.8 million comments on Twitter and Facebook, positioning the broadcast at number two on Bluefin Labs's "Most Social TV Events" chart, just behind the 2012 Grammys and ahead of this year's Super Bowl. Throw in figures from other websites such as GetGlue and Viggle, and the VMAs shoot to number one with 19.1 social media interactions, reports Trendrr.

SEE ALSO: 18 Badass GIFs From the VMAs | Sharpie Debuts Interactive Music Video During VMAs

Which ce…
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More About: 2012 VMAs, Bluefin Labs, Entertainment, Facebook, Social Media, Trendrr, Twitter, celebrities, infographics, mrank, mtv, social tv, vmas

It can be easy to underestimate the time and effort that developers invest in creating many of today's most popular apps or services. After all, these unsung heroes must navigate the challenge of building a great user experience while dealing with issues like funding.

However, there are certain crowdsourced platforms that developers can use to address the quality of their product and the money they'll need to create it. These services can range from crowd-funding platforms to community data sets. Below, are five collaborative platforms that can really help developers create the best product possible.

1. OpenStreetMap

What Is It: OpenStreetMap is often appropriately referred…
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More About: contributor, crowdfunding, crowdsourced, features

Think social media is the perfect platform for marketers? Think again. Here are five reasons why there's a better answer.

More About: Marketing, contributor, features, online marketing, social media marketing, trending

Family iBoard is a private social network designed to keep families connected no matter where they live.

More About: bizspark, family