It's the final stage of a 54-hour competition to create a startup from scratch. Nearly 300 lanyard-clad entrepreneurs squeeze together on rows of plastic chairs to watch fellow hopefuls pitch their way to the top. Under the intense scrutiny of spotlights and judges, they present three days of blood, sweat and tech in just five minutes.

This is Startup Weekend -- specifically, Toronto. But the scenario is not unlike what happens at the more than 350 Startup Weekends worldwide. From Friday to Sunday, participants -- developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts -- gather to share ideas, form teams and build products.

Since launching in Colorado five yea…
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SugarSync - Cloud

From this main Cloud tab, which replaces the old SugarSync File Manager, you can drag and drop any folder from your computer to the blue space. Once there, it is synced across all your devices and you can access the folder from anywhere using the SugarSync app.

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A few days into the power outage in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, my sister, who was staying with me, realized she needed something from her computer. Her daughter was filling out the college common application and she needed to access some info. "Isn't it in the cloud?" I asked her. Blank stare. "Don't you back up your files?"

That was something she understood. "Of course", she said. "I started doing that last year. We have an external drive that backs up our computer." Ah, but she didn't back up to the cloud.

It was then and there I had "the talk" with my sister (with her kids eagerly admonishing her as well), and I imagine many families searching for documents to satisfy insura…
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Google's new Nexus 4 smartphone and Nexus 10 tablet are now available in the Google Play store in several countries, including Australia, UK, France, Germany and Spain.

The 8GB variant of the Nexus 4 is priced £239 ($379) in the UK, while the 16GB version costs £279 ($443). The Nexus 10 tablet will set UK shoppers back £319 ($506) if they choose the 16GB model and £389 ($617) if they go for the 32GB variant.

Availability is reportedly sketchy, though, as some variants of the devices have already been sold out in some countries. Furthermore, some users are experiencing very slow load times for the Google Play store.

The Nexus 4 is an Android 4.2 smartphone sporting a 1…
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Motorola released its first Razr handset -– a flip phone -- in late 2004. Last year the company brought the name back with a new line of smartphones, the Droid Razr and Droid Razr Maxx. Much like the original Razr, those phones earned notoriety for their ultra-thin size.

Now Motorola is back with two new additions to the Razr line: the Droid Razr HD, and Droid Razr Maxx HD. As the name suggests, this year's models are updated with high-definition screens.

Available in the United States exclusively on Verizon, both phones run on the carrier's speedy LTE network, and have an updated look that sets them apart from last year's models.

We spent a bit of time with the Droid R…
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Apple has launched an initiative called "Blue Sky," which encourages employees to devote some of their time to personal pet projects.

Not much is known about the program except that it allows a "small group of staffers" to spend "a few weeks" on their pet engineering projects, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Apple's Blue Sky is similar to Google's "20% Time" policy, which lets employees spend a fifth of their time working on personal projects. Google, however, is a very different company from Apple; the latter is known for being focused and tightly organized, with upper management controlling all important projects.

The WSJ says the program is just one of a few new initiat…
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Bill Cosby does the darndest things, and now you can see them all on one GIF-filled website.

Visit InstantCosby.com, and you're instantly greeted with a full-browser-window-sized image of the iconic comedian. Want more? The site prompts visitors to "Click Anywhere for a Fresh Cosby," and doing so provides an endless array of classic Cosby moments -- including scenes from The Bill Cosby Show -- in GIF form.

So far, a little over 435,000 people have visited the Instant Cosby website, according to its old-school hit counter.

Does this site satisfy your Cosby cravings? Tell us in the comments below.

Image courtesy of Flickr, World Affairs Council of Philadelphia

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In a farewell email to Microsoft employees, former Windows president Steven Sinofsky details why he is leaving the company.

Under the subject heading "RE: Windows Leadership Changes," Sinofsky says he wanted to "seek new opportunities" to build on his 23 years of experience developing Microsoft products.

"My passion for building products is as strong as ever and I look forward to focusing my energy and creativity along similar lines."

Sinofsky also dismisses rumors about his surprise departure, which Microsoft announced Monday.

"Some might notice a bit of chatter speculating about this decision or timing. I can assure you that none could be true as this was a personal and p…
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Oyster, a startup located in NYC, recently announced plans to launch a subscription-based book app, tailored specifically for smart phones.

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A University of Washington sports policy limits reporters' live tweeting rights at games, raising an interesting set of questions for the social media age.

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Zapd, a free app for iPhone, lets people create mini-websites from their phones in about a minute.

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Microsoft's Halo 4 earned a whopping $220 million in opening day sales, smashing previous records set by the franchise.

The largest launch in the history of the franchise, Halo 4 has earned a total of $300 million in global sales since its launch last Tuesday. In contrast, Halo:Reach, the fourth game in the franchise, earned just $200 million in global sales on launch day.

SEE ALSO: 'Halo 4′ Heralds a Dark New Chapter for Master Chief [REVIEW]

"We're thrilled that Halo 4 has emerged as the biggest U.S. entertainment launch of the year," said Phil Spencer, corporate vice president of Microsoft Studios in press release announcing the milestone. "Thanks to the million…
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One Microsoft Surface owner learned the hard way just how durable the tablet is.

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Microsoft has announced that Windows president Steven Sinofsky is leaving the company, effective immediately.

No reason was given for the sudden resignation, which the company was presenting as a mutual decision. Coming a couple of weeks after the official launch of Windows 8, however, it clearly wasn't the best timing.

"I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed to the company," CEO Steve Ballmer said in a statement. "To continue this success it is imperative that we continue to drive alignment across all Microsoft teams, and have more integrated and rapid development cycles for our offerings."

Sinofsky, above, who in looks and style bears more than…
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In the clash of the world's supercomputing titans, a new U.S. supercomputer named "Titan" is king.

The $100-million Titan seized the No. 1 supercomputer ranking on the Top500 List with a performance record of 17.59 petaflops per second (quadrillions of calculations per second). The supercomputer, a Cray XK7 system based at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, leaped past the former champion, the Sequoia supercomputer at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

These are the top five supercomputers in the world:

Titan Cray XK47 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (17.59 petaflops/s)
Sequoia BlueGene/Q at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (16.33 petaflops/s)…
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How often do you wish you could see notifications on your phone but not hear them? At the movies, or in a quiet office or waiting room, the existing iOS "LED Flash for Alerts" feature is extremely useful. But how can you use this feature if the flash is covered?

SEE ALSO: 14 iPhone 5 Cases You'll Love

Sparx is a protective case that lights up when you receive a notification night or day. Normally, the flash alert feature works if your iPhone 5 is face down and the camera's flash is face up. Sparx uses the flash for incoming alerts and, through a translucent hex window in the upper corner, you can see that you're receiving a phone call, text or…
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1. Victory Embrace

"Four more years." - Barack Obama Photo stats: 621,437 retweets

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What a week. U.S. President Barack Obama's "Four More Years" photo -- released just after he was re-elected Tuesday night -- became the most-shared photo in Twitter's history. Other top photos this week ... well, they were all from Justin Bieber and One Direction.

Our friends over at Skylines went through 34,458,200 unique pictures and compiled the ones that were most shared and retweeted.

SEE ALSO: Obama's 'Four More Years' Tweet is Most Popular of All Time [REPORT]

Browse through the gallery above to see them for yourself. Which photos do you think should have made the top 10? Any people you wish would post more photos on Twitter? Let us know.

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As those of us who spend our days on the social network (for research purposes, naturally) know, there are two ways to view your News Feed on Facebook: sorted by "top stories" and by "most recent." You switch from one to the other via a menu at the top of your feed.

Many of us assume that "most recent" means you get posts from your friends unfiltered, without Facebook's algorithm determining what's a "top story." In fact, even "most recent" is filtered for your reading pleasure, based on whose stuff you've interacted with in the past.

So users are always interested in different ways of looking at their feed. One programmer stumbled across one on Monday -- a URL that leads to a ve…
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Going digital doesn't just save the environment -- it could save your business as well. This infographic reveals some fascinating stats.

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Three technology executives are reportedly among a handful of top business executives headed to the White House for a meeting with Barack Obama on Wednesday.

Tech execs on the list include Ginni Rometty, President, Chairman and CEO of IBM; Ursula Burns, Chairman and CEO of Xerox and David Cote, Chairman and CEO of Honeywell, who will join decision makers from American Express, Walmart, Ford and more. That's according to a list provided by an "insider" to Politico.

While many in the business community favored Obama's challenger, Mitt Romney, the full list of attendees includes a bipartisan mix of Republicans and Democrats.

The purpose of the meeting? It's likely part of Obama's a…
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The members of the Baseball Writers Association of America just made the easiest decision they've ever made since deciding to watch sports as a career: They named Mike Trout as the 2012 American League "Rookie of the Year."

Trout had a historic rookie season; and he has become well-known in sports circles. Other than with the fantasy sports crowd and truly engaged baseball fans, however, Trout seems to be flying under the radar -- or perhaps swimming under the sonar.

Either way, Trout is an absolute pleasure to watch, and he should be well on his way to becoming a household name at this point. The 21-year-old plays centerfield for the Los Angeles Angels. He finished the season wit…
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After 25 years of fighting for relevancy, the GIF has received the acknowledgement it deserves -- as Oxford American Dictionaries' official 2012 word of the year.

Formally known as grapics interchange format, the GIF also physically redefined itself in 2012. What used to be an outdated format has appeared across the web as not only online entertainment, but political debates, sports coverage, fashion and art.

SEE ALSO: The History of GIFs

"GIF celebrated a lexical milestone in 2012, gaining traction as a verb, not just a noun," Katherine Martin, head of the US dictionaries program at Oxford told BetaBeat in a statement. "The GIF has evolved from a medium for pop-cultural…
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Is it possible for a dyed-in-the-wool iPhone user to switch to another platform, say Windows Phone 8, full-time? I'm about to find out.

Beginning Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012, I will be making Nokia's Lumia 920 my primary (read: only) phone for 10 days.

To keep things fair, I'm going to be giving up my iPhone 5. It won't even be in my possession -- I'll leave it locked away at work where I won't be able to touch it or play with it. I'm even going to forward my Verizon phone number to AT&T for 10 days. I'm going all in.

To say I'm invested in the iOS ecosystem would be an understatement. Since 2008, I've downloaded or purchased 945 apps. More than that, I'm a Mac user. My calendar…
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1. Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon in 1969. Armstrong began his NASA career in his home state of Ohio, first serving as a naval aviator, then joining the NACA Lewis Research Center (now NASA Glenn) in Cleveland. On July 20, 1969, Armstrong, the commander of Apollo 11, along with Col. Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., commonly known as "Buzz," directed their lunar landing craft, the Eagle, to an area on the moon near the Sea of Tranquillity. Armstrong died in August 2012 at the age of 82. Image credit: Flickr, Greg Bishop

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In 2012, we lost several historical figures who contributed to some of the world's greatest advancements. Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, passed away in August at the age of 82. And Sally Ride, the first woman in space, made incredible strides for NASA, as well as for women in STEM.

SEE ALSO: Neil Armstrong Took the Hardest Step for All of Us

This list highlights well-known people who have paved the way for others working in science and technology. They've not only impacted their professions, but also increased human understanding of the world we live in.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Valeria Gonzalez.-

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Facebook is testing a new comments format on brand and subscriber pages by placing the most engaging comments up higher on posts.

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Researchers at Stanford University have created a synthetic material that's capable of healing itself after it's been punctured.

The material is a polymer plastic mixed with pieces of nickel. It's comprised of long chains of molecules connected by hydrogen bonds; the connection is relatively weak, so it allows the molecules to easily break apart (say, when the material is sliced with a scalpel). The conductivity from the metal then helps the bonds rearrange themselves and, because of their flexibility, restore the original structure within 30 minutes.

SEE ALSO: How a Plastic Watch Is Helping Those Living on Less Than $2.50 a Day [VIDEO]

Zhen…
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Mobile computing isn't that "mobile." About 70% of tablets aren't linked to a cellular data plan, and a recent study by AOL found that 68% of time spent on smartphones occurred in people's homes. If you think about it, the mobile revolution arguably started in 2008, when laptops outsold desktop PCs in the U.S. for the first time.

For marketers, though, there's a big difference between mobile advertising and the desktop kind. The term refers to an ecosystem created by Apple for the iPhone in 2007 that has since evolved to include tablets and may in time creep onto the desktop as well. This is an environment in which marketers are deprived of most of their favorite tools from desktop comp…
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While investigating a late-October cyberattack that forced Israel to take its police force offline, Norwegian security researchers found evidence of an extensive spy network aimed at both Israeli and Palestinian targets.

This latest attack, according to Norman ASA, the Oslo-based security software firm behind the discovery, placed a remote access Trojan (RAT) onto a government network with a malicious email that appeared to come from Israel Defense Force chief of staff Benny Gantz.

The malware used in this attack, known as Xtreme RAT, has the potential to receive remote commands, transmit data, steal passwords stored in web browsers and tap into a machine's camera or microphone.…
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Earlier this month, Google rolled out its latest line of Nexus devices, including the Nexus 10 tablet and its latest smartphone, the Nexus 4.

In the Android ecosystem, the Nexus line has carved out an important, special niche for itself: It's the pure Google experience. Gone are UI skins such as HTC's Sense or Samsung's TouchWiz. Gone too are wireless carrier add-ons and software bloat.

More than just offering the pure Google experience, past phones in the Nexus line (which include the Nexus One, Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus) have also served as harbingers for the future devices on the platform. In other words, Nexus set the tone for future Android devices.

So how does the Nexus 4…
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A fantasy football fail at the worst imaginable moment had Yahoo asking irate users' forgiveness on Monday.

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Apple's recently unveiled store in Palo Alto, California has a mixed impact on the senses -- beautiful to the eyes, complete torture to the ears.

That's right: according to The Guardian, the newest Apple Store, while a pleasure to look at from the outside, is just unbearably loud on the inside.

"The store is impressive. . .but its also unpleasantly, almost unbearably noisy," writes Jean-Louis Gassée. "And mine isn't a voice in the wilderness. The wife of a friend walked in, spent a few minutes, and vowed to never return for fear of hearing loss. She'd rather go to the cramped but much more hospitable Stanford store."

Poor acoustics seem to be…
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