According to National Alliance to End Homelessness report The State of Homelessness in America 2012, the estimated number of homeless people in the United States was 636,017 at the end last year. That's a 1% decrease between 2009 and 2011, but there's still cause for concern -- economic and demographic indicators show that homelessness might escalate over the next few years.

The 100,000 Homes Campaign is trying to change that with its new mobile-friendly app, Homeless Connector. The campaign, which is a national movement to find permanent homes for 100,000 chronically homeless individuals and families by July 2014, created the app to empower peopl…
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More About: Mobile, Social Good, homeless, smartphone

1. Triforce Lamp

Know a Zelda fan in need of some power, wisdom and courage? This beautiful wood and acrylic lamp can be hung or shelved. The pixelated carvings on each side warm the room with dappled light. Price: $95.00

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Got a gamer on your holiday shopping list? Start here. We've gathered some super fun products that will tickle anyone versed in video game culture.

SEE ALSO: 10 Hot Indie Games to Watch

From stocking stuffers to big ticket items, check the heaping list above for inspiration. Already found the perfect gamer gift? Share the love in the comments.

More About: Gaming, Gifts, features, holidays 2012, video games

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.

B&N Launches Nook Reading App for Windows 8

Barnes & Noble has launched a Nook reading application for Windows 8, bringing 3 million titles to users of Microsoft's latest desktop OS. The app also runs on Windows RT devices, and lets users read books, magazines, newspapers and comics.

The app is available in the Windows Store.

Google Updates Transparency Report

Google has updated its Transparency Report, detailing the percentage of user data requests it complies with…
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More About: Google, blackberry messenger, features, first to know series, mashable, nook

Internet activists are warning that next month's meeting of the International Telecommunications Union, a United Nations body charged with overseeing global communications, may have significant and potentially disastrous consequences for everyday Internet users.

Called the World Conference on International Telecommunications, the meeting is intended to update some of the aging international law that governs the flow of information online. The meeting is mostly closed to the public, so the few details we do know about various proposals are largely thanks to leaks, many of which are published on WCITleaks.

What we do know is that at least some of the proposals could allow government…
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More About: ITU, United Nations, WCIT, World

The clickwheel of the first iPod worked by measuring electric field disturbances in one dimension. The first iPhone touch screen functioned similarly, but in two dimensions.

This week, Microchip Technology, a large U.S. semiconductor manufacturer, says it is releasing the first controller that uses electrical fields to make 3D measurements.

The low-power chip makes it possible to interact with mobile devices and a host of other consumer electronics using hand gesture recognition, which today is usually accomplished with camera-based sensors. A key limitation is that it only recognizes motions, such as a hand flick or circular movement, within a six-inch range.

"That's the bigges…
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More About: 3D, gesture control, smartphone

With 5,000 students at his Staten Island high school, Jordan Goldman said he didn't get much face-to-face time with one of the few college counselors on his campus. And it wasn't financially feasible for his family to take him to every university he was considering. Instead, at the start of his senior year he emailed hundreds of college students who attended the universities he was considering. He asked them about their experiences and told them to give his email address to friends who could offer additional advice. By the end of his senior year, Goldman amassed nearly 3,000 emails in his inbox from college students.

Goldman found a university to attend (Wesleyan University). He also pi…
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More About: college, college tours, virtual tours

Google Play Music unveiled the latest version of its Android app, adding gapless audio playback and automatic "instant mixes."

More About: Google Play, android, apps

There are always those people who are difficult to buy for. But two new studies might shed some light on who wants what. If you're buying a techie gadget for a kid, it's likely he or she will desire a laptop more than a tablet. Adults, on the other hand, are hoping to see tablets in their stockings this year, at least according to two separate surveys.

SEE ALSO: 6 Amazing Tech-Inspired Holiday Decorations [PICS]

A survey of PriceGrabber.com asked 4,958 U.S adults what they want this holiday season and 59% said they want tablets. Only 0.24% of the people surveyed were under the age of 18. Another survey by Harris Interactive, conducted for Ebates, shows 17% of 8-18 year olds wan…
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More About: holiday shopping, laptops, tablets

In addition to selling their iPhone images for $10 each, users of Foap's moneymaking app can now make commission off of their friends' photos.

Starting next week, users who invite their friends to Foap can earn a 10% cut of all their future sales. To turn their pictures into cash, users simply take a photo or upload one from their phone's album, and submit it to the Swedish startup for approval. Once approved, the images go live on Foap Market, and each sale is split 50-50 between the user and Foap.

Since launching in June, the app has been downloaded nearly 150,000 times, and 1.4 million images have been uploaded to the market.

What do you t…
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More About: App, Foap, iphone

NASCAR thinks Brad Keselowski's Twitter addiction has gone a little too far.

More About: NASCAR, Sports

By the year 2020, 70% of the population will find themselves on the other side of 50. And despite the fact that many optimists call 70 "the new 40," researchers agree that once you hit 40 -- "new" or "old" -- it's a downhill slope.

SEE ALSO: Tech-Savvy Seniors: Half of U.S. Adults Over 65 Are Online

Instead of throwing up our flabby arms and surrendering, we're seeing a generation facing the slow decline of the senses with clever tech ideas to make aging more manageable and less humiliating. Whether it's vision, hearing, memory or just driving skills that are beginning to dim -- and, trust me, they will dim -- technology is coming to the rescue.

Can't See

A personal f…
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More About: apps, contributors, features, senior citizens

The iPad app SportsBoard brings "Moneyball"-style analytics and new evaluation capabilities to college sports.

More About: Sports, college sports

The black market for mobile phones stolen in the United States extends beyond its frontiers. Now the U.S. and Mexico will be cooperating on a plan to make sure that mobile devices purloined here aren't reactivated south of the border.

In a deal signed Tuesday in Washington, D.C., Mexican telecommunications providers will participate in an international database of stolen phones and mobile devices. Further, the Federal Communications Commission and Mexico's Secretariat of Communications and Transport will cooperate on a report to monitor the performance of mobile carriers in fulfilling their pledge not to allow the activation of stolen phones on their networks and collaborate on a…
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More About: U.S. government, mexico, stolen phone

About nine hours ago, I locked my iPhone 5 in my desk drawer. It will remain in that drawer for the next 10 days. In its place, I will be relying on Nokia's Lumia 920 running Windows Phone 8.

Most of my day with the phone has consisted of getting my various accounts and necessary passwords, authentication tools and banking information onto the new device. I've also had some time to test some apps and I have some early impressions on the hardware.

SEE ALSO: Can Mashable's Apple Fangirl Switch to the Lumia 920?

Hardware Thoughts

As Emily Price said in her review, the Lumia 920 is a large phone. While its screen size is consistent with…
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More About: Lumia 920, Windows Phone 8, living with lumia, microsoft

1. Employers Can't Ask for Your Facebook Login

A handful of states, including Illinois, California and Maryland, passed laws making it illegal for employers to ask for your Facebook or other social media passwords. While not a common occurrence, it was apparently happening to warrant legislative action in the U.S. We're not saying the law is unbelievable; we're saying the fact that we even need this law is unbelievable. We realize economic times are tough, but no would-be employee should hand over the social keys as part of the interview process. Image credit: Flickr, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

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The year 2012 was a wild ride for tech policy. Right off the bat, the United States witnessed a heated debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, which was ultimately defeated. Next up was the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act -- CISPA -- which passed the House but didn't make it through the Senate.

SEE ALSO: Why Citizens Demand More Social Media in Law Enforcement

While none of those bills were signed into law, we have seen some pretty crazy laws passed in individual states and elsewhere around the world (for good reasons and bad). In the gallery above, Mashable has collected a handful of the most notable new technology laws of the year, involving everything from cyb…
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More About: Politics, Tech, US, World, features, law

Google released its sixth Transparency Report on Tuesday, showing what it believes is a clear trend: around the world, government requests for user data is on the upswing.

"As you can see from the graph below, government demands for user data have increased steadily since we first launched the Transparency Report," wrote Dorothy Chou, senior policy analyst at Google, in a blog post. "In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts."

Government requests for Google to remove content rose dramatically over the past six months, too. "In the first half of 2012, there were 1,7…
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More About: Google, US, World

1. Rage Face Shoes

CTRL-F shoelaces. Price: $35.00

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Dial up your wardrobe with Internet-inspired clothing and accessories that won't cause a 404 fashion error.

Style trends change more often than Facebook's layout, so keep your closet fresh by browsing the gallery above for 21 webby ways to dress. From memes to HTML, we have you covered from head to toes.

SEE ALSO: Fall's Hottest Fashion Trend: Internet Memes

Thumbnail courtesy of Etsy, Nyanpanties

More About: Watercooler, fashion, memes

Social gaming company Zynga announced several huge changes in its executive team Tuesday.

CFO David Wehner is leaving Zynga for a senior finance position at Facebook, and will be replaced by Mark Vranesh, who previously served as the company's chief accounting officer. Vranesh previously served as CFO of Zynga from May 2008 to August 2010, when he assumed the position as the company's chief accounting officer.

In addition, David Ko was appointed COO of Zynga, Barry Cottle was appointed chief revenue officer, and Steven Chiang was appointed president of games at the company. All three are making those moves from other positions inside the company.

"Dave remains a good friend to…
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More About: Facebook, Zynga

NBA fans who want to get their favorite player into this season's All-Star game can for the first time cast votes through Twitter and Facebook.

More About: NBA, Sports

YouTube recently announced which contracts for its funded premium channels -- featuring programming from chef personalities to The Wall Street Journal -- are up for renewal and which are not. The video-sharing platform also said it will be adding new channels to the mix this year.

The team at FanBridge -- a tool for monitoring audience growth and retention -- has put together an infographic of funded and non-funded channels that highlights how channel owners are monetizing YouTube and keeping viewers engaged.

About 86% of survey respondents said they upload three or fewer videos each week, which places more emphasis on engagement rather than quanity.

SEE ALSO: 10 Essential YouTube T…
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More About: YouTube, infographics

Microsoft shocked the tech world this week when it announced the immediate departure of Steven Sinofsky, the company's president of Windows, who oversaw the development and recent launch of Windows 8. With Sinofsky gone, the Windows ship now officially has a new captain: Julie Larson-Green. So who is she?

Like Sinofsky before her, Larson-Green is a career Microsoftie. She started at the company in 1993 and was "discovered" when she gave a talk about Microsoft compilers, writes longtime Microsoft observer Mary Jo Foley. Her first role at the company involved working on developer tools, but she soon joined the Internet Explorer team.

It was her wor…
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More About: Julie Larson-Green, Steven Sinofsky, Windows, microsoft

Ridley Scott's Alien prequel Prometheus was highly anticipated by sci-fi fans everywhere. To a certain extent, though, it ended up disappointing many. The most common qualms fans had with the movie can be found in this hilarious Honest Trailers parody. But jokes apart, many people were definitely expecting a different movie.

Now, after a fan site published an early draft of the script, we can take a peek at an alternate universe in which Prometheus is really a different movie. How different? So much so that it's not even called Prometheus. Its title is Alien: Engineers.

The script was written by Jon Spaihts before Damon Lindelof, of Lost fame, t…
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More About: Movies, prometheus

A Norwegian technology company is bringing touchless gesture controls to Windows 8 devices.

The company, Elliptic Labs, launched a series of tools to help electronics companies enable a hands-free control feature into their products (think: Tom Cruise's computer in Minority Report).

SEE ALSO: Make 3D Holograms With an XBox Kinect [VIDEO]

The technology is similar to that of the Xbox Kinect, which uses cameras to detect motion. Elliptic's technology, however, uses ultrasound and microphones, which give the synched devices a wider field of view, is more responsive to gestures and doesn't require lights to work, the company said.

Elliptic s…
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More About: Newsy, Windows 8, computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, videos

It's fair to say that neither General David Petraeus nor General John Allen will be delivering any lectures on email security any time soon.

Both men have become ensnared in scandals that could easily have been avoided, had they and their supposed paramours simply remembered the cardinal rule of email. Which is this: write every single one, even your draft emails, as if it were about to be broadcast to the entire nation.

The more of the story that gets uncovered, the more we learn it turned on dumb email practices. Petraeus and his biographer Paula Broadwell, the AP reported Monday, communicated to each other via his personal Gmail drafts folder. Apparently the director of the…
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More About: general petraeus, gmail

Dropbox, a cloud storage service, has hit 100 million users, the company's founder announced in a blog post Tuesday.

More About: Dropbox

For the latest Bond movie Skyfall, three 3D-printed Aston Martin replicas were made in order to keep the original one out of harm's way.

More About: 3D printers, 3d printing, James Bond, Skyfall

While Gen. David Petraeus may be out at the CIA after resigning, he does appear in Call of Duty's newest title Black Ops II with a serious promotion. In Call of Duty's fiction, Petraeus is the Secretary of Defense in the year 2025.

Petraeus is also riding aboard the U.S.S. Barack Obama, which might be a little fresh for some so soon after the president's re-election. Kotaku has a full clip of Petraeus' appearance.

Last week, the CIA director resigned from his post on the grounds that he'd had an extramarital affair that could be a risk for security.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II is out Nov. 13 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, and Nov. 18 for the Wii U. According to VGChartz, th…
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More About: Gaming, call of duty black ops, general petraeus

Parents: prepare for your living rooms to be filled with loud shouts of "Expelliarmus" and "Lumos." Your kids aren't learning Latin; they're practicing spells from Sony's new Wonderbook: Book of Spells.

This PlayStation accessory uses augmented reality to bring players into the world of Harry Potter. The Wonderbook kit comes with a large, soft plastic book with a few pages inside, each emblazoned with AR symbols designed to work with the PlayStation Eye Camera. It also includes the Book of Spells by J.K. Rowling software, indicating this peripheral has future software potential.

Players can purchase kits bundled with the Eye Camera and PlayStati…
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More About: Augmented Reality, Gaming, Video, features, sony playstation, video games

Following months of building a new infrastructure from the ground up, Google has officially started connecting homes in Kansas City to its new lightning-fast Google Fiber network.

The first town to receive Google Fiber is Hanover Heights, Kan., the company said in an official blog post. To bring Google Fiber to town, the company installed fiber optic cables through the neighborhood and has started connecting subscribers to the network.

SEE ALSO: How Google Fiber Stacks Up Against Verizon FiOS

"There are two stages to getting you connected," Google said on its official blog. "First, we'll pull your Fiber from the street to the side of your house; we've already done this for sev…
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More About: Google, US, google fiber, technology

The only total solar eclipse of 2012 happened today at 3:35 p.m. EST. While it was visible from just a small area in northern Australia, NASA set up its Slooh Space Camera near the city of Cairns and broadcasted the event online.

According to Slooh officials, the eclipse's path of totality -- mostly over the South Pacific Ocean -- was about 108 miles wide and traversed about 9,000 miles over a three-hour period. After leaving Australia, the umbral shadow drifted over the ocean without landfall for the remainder of its track.

A total eclipse happens when the moon overlaps the sun in the sky, blocking our view. The total solar eclipse of 2012 occurred at the Moon's ascending node in ce…
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More About: NASA, australia, eclipse, space