Maybe you're not keen to share details of your internet activity with advertisers. A Chrome extension called PrivacyFix will walk you through your privacy settings and let you make changes so advertisers cannot track what you do on the web in order to make ad revenue. It also ensures that friends you're connected to through social networks cannot accidentally pass along your information to companies.

PrivacyFix blocks tracking on more than 1,000 sites, with emphasis on Facebook and Google. The extension will show you your privacy settings on a dashboard, and let you decide what you want to share and what you want to keep private. You can change y…
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Apparently the bacon shortage was hogwash, but that doesn't make a difference to Ron Swanson -- he's prepared. Very prepared.

According to the much-beloved Parks and Recreation character, the best way to prepare for the shortage is to "Procure as much bacon as humanly possible and hide it in as many locations as you can."

SEE MORE: Ron Swanson Does a Reddit AMA

How many places is Swanson hiding his bacon? 38.

Just in his office.

More About: Bacon, Parks and Recreation, Watercooler, viral videos

Big layoffs are said to be in the works for chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). CNET is reporting the computer processor company could let go 20 percent to 30 percent of its employees within the next few weeks.

AMD reports quarterly earnings on Thursday but it has warned that it's third-quarter revenue is down about 10 percent. If true, this would be the second big staff cut in the past year for the chipmaker.

AllThingsD is reporting the cuts will affect employees involved in the engineering and sales departments.

The downturn is not unexpected. Sales of PC's have slowed this past year as mobile devices have taken off. Market research firm Gartner reports worldwide PC shipm…
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The average student finishes college thousands of dollars in debt and graduates into a world where even the most qualified candidates struggle to land a decent job. Most young adults give little thought to their credit scores or retirement savings, and longterm financial planning is nothing but an afterthought.

But can a mobile game make money management more relevant to youth before they did themselves too deep a hole? That's what Mindblown Labs, the startup behind the in-development game Mindblown Life, thinks.

The iOS game will have players navigate a series of life-simulating tasks and adventures while interacting with other friends in the game. Balancing work and personal lives…
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More About: Gaming, Social Good, Startups

Ever think you would see Snoop Dogg, DeStorm Power, Andy Milonakis and the WWE's Brodus Clay collaborate on an ode to Hot Pockets?

We didn't either. But, lo and behold, it exists.

SEE MORE: Snoop Dogg Documentary Reveals Journey to Snoop Lion

"Pocket Like It's Hot," a self-dubbed "irresistibly hot music video to end all music videos," is best described as a delicious mashup of bumpin' rhymes and the frozen food section, stuffed inside a bread-like crust.

"So bring your friends, we going on a wild ride
Herb Sauce tender meats heat yo insides
So don't change the dizzle, turn it up a lizzle
Got some cheesy drizzle dripping on my shizzle"

Poetry.

More About: Watercooler, snoop dogg, viral videos

If you added up all the updates you've posted to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and other social networks, would it tell a complete and compelling story of your life? Jonathan Gheller bets the answer to that is no.

Gheller, a serial entrepreneur who founded companies like Fashmash and Mixtent, launched a new social network in beta this week called Storylane, which encourages users to go beyond posting status updates and instead dive deeper into the narratives of their lives.

"At Storylane we are building a library of human experiences by crafting a community where people can share things that really matter," Gheller told Mashable. It's an ambitious goal to say the least, but after playi…
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More About: Startups, social network

Prepare to lose your weekend: Sega has released a pitch-perfect port of Crazy Taxi for the iPhone and iPad. As the lyrics in the game say, "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!"

For the uninitiated, Crazy Taxi is a fast-paced arcade racing game where players are tasked with picking up clients and delivering them to their locations while driving around in a tricked-out convertible taxi cab. Take too much time to deliver the passenger and you'll lose your fare. Speed is the name of the game and the craziest drivers are the ones who end up making the most money.

For people of a certain age (i.e., me), Crazy Taxi is an institution. Originally released for the Sega Dreamcast in January, 2000…
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More About: crazy taxi, iOS, iOS games, sega

1. Costa Rica

Photo by @photoblw, via @surfer_magazine

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Ah, Instagram. The photo sharing app that can't be stopped. Its gauzy filters have moved far beyond brunch photos and whimsical shoe-shots to become a hit in all sorts of other subjects, sports included. Teams, athletes and fans from the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball and pro soccer leagues have all flocked to the service to document and promote.

But perhaps no sport translates to Instagram as well as surfing. Give it just a little thought, and it's not hard to see why: Nature, waves and extreme situations are a pretty enticing recipe for photo success.

For a deeper look, we recently caught up with Aaron Carrera, social media editor at Surfer magazine. Surfer has 116,000 followers on…
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A Windows 8-styled version of Netflix is now available in Microsoft's Windows Store.

The app takes advantage of Microsoft's Windows 8 design style (don't you dare call it Metro) and is designed to work with both touch gestures and the traditional keyboard/mouse.

The app looks great and provides easy access to new releases, recommendations and genres. If you've used the Xbox 360 Netflix app, you'll feel at home. It still uses Silverlight -- but Netflix says that the app was designed to use the CPU and battery more efficiently.

If you're running the Windows 8 RTM release, you can download Netflix from the Windows Store now.

Windows 8 will be officially released on Oct. 26, 2012…
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This weekend, One Kings Lane will join the roster of young e-commerce startups testing out the effectiveness of TV advertising.

The site, which specializes in limited-time sales on designer and vintage home goods, has tapped ad agency Wieden+Kennedy to create two 30-second spots. Both illustrate how a room can evolve in beauty and sophistication as elements are upgraded and rearranged. The theme: "Design Is Never Done."

The first commercial (above) will air nationally during ABC's show Revenge on Sunday. It will be complemented with online display ads and a series of interactive social media elements. The campaign will extend to print in 2013.

SEE ALSO: 3 Ways Content a…
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More About: Advertising, TV, ecommerce, one kings lane, retail

Oh, Sons of Anarchy? Yeah that's based off of me and my bros.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Through a lens, darkly

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The next time Kathie Lee Gifford opts for a dog segment on the fourth hour of Today, she might want to consider a canine that already has his own helmet. Or she should just let Hoda hold the puppy -- she's way too put-together to drop a dog on its head.

We found 11 pups who would make suitable guests for the 17th hour of the Today show. Plus, they all have their camera-ready outfits prepped, so no wardrobe department needed.

More About: dogs, kathie lee, today show

1. Poe Money, Poe Problems

Image courtesy of Put a Poe On It

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If you like it, then you better put a Poe on it -- Edgar Allan Poe, that is.

Tumblr Put a Poe On It busts out the rhyming dictionary for a punny mashup of the dark bard with "po" things like poelice, Harry Poetter and poelar bears.

SEE ALSO: 12 Celebs Doing Stuff and the Tumblr Pages That Love Them

Grab a mug of poe and poeruse the gallery above to find a little purpoese in your life.

More About: Watercooler, tumblr

Apple 5th-Gen iPod touch in Its Clear Case

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Apple's fifth-generation iPod touch is nearly everything the iPhone 5 is, with the notable exceptions of cellular service and a quite-awesome 8-megapixel camera. It's also a digital device that appears to lose more relevance with each passing year; when the iPhone surges, a standalone device seems silly, especially when it can do the same thing an iPhone does except make cellular calls. Yet, this iPod touch makes sense.

I think it's the perfect device for a child or pre-teen -- someone who may be too young for a phone, but is constantly stealing Mom's iPhone from her purse. No, they don't want it for calls; people use their iPod touches for games, TV shows and movies, and taking ph…
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More About: MP3 players, apple, iOS 6, iPod Touch, trending

Thursday's vice presidential debate between VP Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan has just undergone the auto-tuned treatment at the hands of the people who gave you "Songify the News" and "Bed Intruder Song."

The Gregory Brothers teamed up with Maker Studios this election season to create hilarious debate songs featuring the digitally manipulated voices of the presidential candidates and VP contenders.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Sound Bites From the Vice Presidential Debate

The "songified" video cleverly edits scenes from the debate and incorporates a new moderator.

Their clip for the Oct. 3 presidential debate (watch below) has notched more than 2 million views.

More About: 2012 presidential campaign, Joe Biden, Music, Politics, Viral, Watercooler, gregory-brothers, paul ryan, viral videos

Marketers Get Memetastic

Marketers have found that playing off memes is an effective way to insert themselves in popular online conversations -- and pick up a little press. See, for example, the Obama campaign's response to Clint Eastwood's "Invisible Obama" routine, which took place at the 2012 Republican National Convention in August. The next day, staffers tweeted a picture of Obama in a chair marked "the President" with the caption, "This seat's taken." In other instances, PBS purchased the keyword "Big Bird" on Twitter after Mitt Romney said in the first presidential debate that he wanted to withdraw government funding from PBS despite his affection for the Sesame Street character. Wonderful Pistachios has played off a number of others, including Honey Badger and Keyboard Cat.

Click here to view this gallery.

As marketers' understanding of online social networking evolves, their use of various platforms has become more sophisticated. Many brands and public figures, after ascertaining that consumers respond well to images and humor, for instance, have begun to use both. Others have found that new channels, like Pinterest and Reddit's "Ask Me Anything" section, are effective promotional tools. We've rounded up these and other emerging trends in the social media marketing space, above.

To learn even more about the latest trends in the media space, attend our Mashable Media Summit this Nov. 2 at the TimesCenter in NYC. Limited tickets are still available

Mashable Media Summit Informatio…
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More About: Marketing, Social Media, features

Ellen DeGeneres likes dancing, cute animals and frightening the crap out of people.

The talk show host kept the screams rolling this Halloween season by sending staff writer Amy and her friend Jeannie to the Knott's Scary Farms Haunted House. Ellen also sent along a camera crew to capture every shriek, scream and terrified howl for your giggling pleasure.

No word if The Ellen DeGeneres Show's healthcare plan covers the treatment of nightmare disorders.

BONUS: Haunted House Reactions Will Have You Shrieking With Laughter

More About: Halloween, Watercooler, ellen degeneres, viral videos

Will next Tuesday's town-hall style presidential debate feature questions submitted by Internet users? Probably not, despite a suggestion from Google hinting otherwise.

Google Moderator, part of the Commission on President Debates' "The Voice Of..." online debate initiative, makes the following promise to users:

"This is YOUR opportunity to ask the candidates where they stand on the issues you care about most. The Commission on Presidential Debates will give a selection of your questions to CNN's Candy Crowley, who will be moderating the debate and asking questions of the two nominees."

Sounds an awful lot like the moderator will be taking some Internet users' questions, doesn't…
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More About: 2012 presidential campaign, Politics, US

1

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This giant Bat Cave made entirely out of LEGO was created by Wayne Hussey and Carlyle Livingston, each spending 400 hours building this 100-lb masterpiece.

More About: Lego, Watercooler, batman

Most people dread going to the dentist. Most appointments end with unsuspected cavity announcements, followed quickly by painful tooth operations that force you to find a "mental happy place" just to avoid crying. It's a universal fear.

Dr. Dhanni Gustiana, a dentist in Java, Indonesia, reworked one of his drills to sync to an MP3 player in hopes of relieving that oh-so-common dentist-phobia.

The idea is that hearing music while a power tool grinds away at your teeth will make the experience more bearable -- or, at the very least, serve as a major distraction. Either way, "Gangnam Style" is probably a little more inviting than the sound of…
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More About: Newsy, Tech, videos

Big data is changing business. Retailers can now compile and analyze massive, detailed datasets that standard software never could. But big data isn't just big -- it's young. A poll of marketing, retail and IT professionals conducted by Brick Meets Click found most respondents had only heard of big data within the last three years.

SEE ALSO: Voter Data: What the Candidates Know About You

It's also elusive: No two definitions provided by the respondents were the same, but they agreed on its potential to shake up the industry and change things for the better. Big data works in real time -– covering shoppers' movements within a store, their preferences and more. This could allow brick-…
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More About: baynote, big data, data portability, infographic, retail, technology

Billboard has shaken up the country, rap, rock, Latin and R&B/hip-hop music charts. The rankings now infuse Nielsen SoundScan's digital download sales numbers as well as streaming data from Spotify, Muve, Slacker, Rhapsody, Rdio and Xbox Music and other services. Charts still account for physical sales and radio airplay.

While the changes attempt to give a more accurate reflection of the overall landscape of music listeners, some people are unhappy about them because not every musician has the online fan base as, say, Taylor Swift and Rihanna, who both experienced massive jumps in the country and R&B/hip-hop charts after the makeover.

The new methodology appears to be favoring cros…
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More About: Billboard, Entertainment, Music, country, rihanna, taylor swift

Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner will make his third attempt on Sunday to break the world record for highest-altitude freefall.

Baumgartner, 43, was originally scheduled to jump from a helium balloon 23 miles in the air on Monday, but that was postponed due to wind. On Tuesday, the second attempt was aborted at the last minute because of similar weather problems.

In preparation for his third effort this weekend, we've compiled 5 quick facts to know about the dive:

1) The Height

Baumgartner will be jumping from a height of about 120,000 feet (approximately 23 miles), near the upper-middle section of the Earth's stratosphere. To put that in perspective: Mount Everest is a…
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More About: Felix Baumgartner, World, space

Flying Monster

The Guardians, Journey's main monsters, can be seen circling the page in this augmented reality feature. It's a demonstration of how the creatures fly in the game.

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Journey captured players' hearts and imaginations when it was released on the PlayStation Network in February. The game primarily used visuals to move the player forward in a desert world. Now those visuals are captured in an art book that uses augmented reality to bring in-game features to life on the page.

Journey is an entirely wordless game where a hooded character must sojourn across the world to reach the top of a mountain. The story is told through visual cues, and it allows the player to immerse themselves in the world without dialog. The Art of Journey recreates how this world was built by thatgamecompany and artist Matt Naya.

The Art of Journey has more than 180 pages of cont…
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More About: AR, Augmented Reality, Gaming, features, playstation network, video games

A softball-size eyeball washed ashore on Pompano Beach, Fla. this week and it has experts perplexed. Is a colossal squid lurking in the ocean's depths with an eye patch or did a whale's Halloween gag go too far? No one knows for certain, but the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has fielded plenty of odd guesses since sharing the photo on its Facebook page.

SEE ALSO: Stingray Photobombs Tourists … and Other Unsuspecting Victims

The whopper peeper is currently chilling on ice as it awaits shipment to the the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg, where it will be analyzed and, hopefully, identified.

While we wait for marine biologists…
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More About: Watercooler, weird stuff

It didn't take long for the media to latch on to the news that an alleged thief stole Justin Bieber's laptop and camera backstage at a recent concert, but it turns out the whole thing was a marketing ploy to bring attention to his new single featuring Nicki Minaj.

Although the initiative was clever -- creating hype around the song "Beauty and the Beat" and poking fun at the gullible media at the same time -- it also ushered in a wave of security concerns. Cybercriminals are known to set phishing traps and lure unsuspecting consumers to click on malicious links based around pop culture news, especially when leaked photos are involved. And it didn't take long for that to happen.

Mash…
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More About: Music, justin bieber, security, trending

1. Case Zero 5

At just 0.5 mm, the Zero 5 is seriously slim. Made of durable "TR90" material, it comes in a clear matte, clear gloss or a range of colors. For: iPhone 4/4S, iPhone 5, Cost: $19.90

Click here to view this gallery.

We have found seven stunningly slimline cases for the Apple iPhone that will add 1mm or less to your phone's dimensions.

More About: Gadgets, Lifestyle, Mobile, Tech, accessories, apple, features, gallery, iphone, iphone accessories, trending

A total of 3.5 million tweets were sent during Thursday night's vice presidential debate, according to Twitter. That's about a third of the 10.3-million mark the first presidential debate of the 2012 election hit last week.

Tweets-per-minute peaked at 58,275 just after Joe Biden's "Oh, now you're Jack Kennedy?" quip. The second most-tweeted moment was Biden's comment on Afghanistan at 54,944 tweets-per-minute, followed by Ryan's line about the Democrats getting "caught with their hand in the cookie jar" on Medicare.

Which candidate had the most overall online chatter? According to social media analysis firm Attention, powered by Tracx, Ryan was leading conversations across social netwo…
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More About: 2012 presidential campaign, Joe Biden, Politics, US, paul ryan

Windows 8 Pro Packaging

Microsoft is offering up Windows 8 Pro in five differently themed packages (click through the gallery to see them all). You can pre-order your DVD copy online for $69.99, though if you buy a Windows 8 machine, you can upgrade to the Pro version, via download, for just $39.99.

Click here to view this gallery.

Windows 8 is just a couple of weeks away from arriving on store shelves, but if you want to be first in line, you can pre-order a copy of Windows 8 Pro now. The various Windows 8 machines that have been unveiled over the last few weeks are up for sale, too.

Windows 8 Pro, of course, is the "advanced" version of Windows 8, which includes device encryption and the ability to boot from a virtual hard drive, among other features (here's a full breakdown of Windows 8's suite of products). Microsoft officially opened the doors on pre-orders via this blog post, and pre-ordering gets you an actual, physical DVD copy mailed to you, not just a download. It costs $69.99.

To get it, though, you'll…
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More About: Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, microsoft, retail, trending

At just 22 years old, Jozy Altidore is one of the United States' most prominent soccer stars despite not yet having entered his prime. He has more than half a million Twitter followers and is a true member of the connected generation. So it's something of a surprise that, as an in-demand and marketable athlete, Altidore didn't have an official website until Friday.

His freshly launched site, JozyAltidore.com is a slick production with a clean, simple interface and links to social profiles, biographical information and his charitable foundation as well as sponsorship partners. Altidore says his new home on the web should fill out his digital presence well.

"I think it's really importa…
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More About: Marketing, Sports, soccer

Best Buy is gearing up to go head-to-head with Amazon on prices this holiday season.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Best Buy is planning to match prices on many items offered by Amazon and other online retailers during the holiday shopping season. The move appears to be part of a larger effort from Best Buy to crack down on the number of consumers who scope out products in bricks-and-mortar stores and then buy them more cheaply online, a trend known as showrooming.

In addition to the expanded price match policy -- which the Journal notes will likely exclude certain items -- Best Buy is also said to be introducing free home delivery for products that aren't in stock in stores.…
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More About: amazon, best buy, holiday shopping, retail