Google is prepping Google Maps for the iPhone, offering a fix for customers dissatisfied with Apple's poorly received Maps app, according to a report.

Citing "a person with direct knowledge of the matter," The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is distributing a test version of its mapping app to people outside the company. Google is "putting finishing touches" on the app before it hits the App Store. However, it's unclear exactly when that will happen. If and when that comes to pass, consumers will have an alternative to Apple's Maps app, which comes preinstalled with iPhones.

Apple declined to comment on the matter. A Google rep told The WSJ: "We believe Google Maps are the…
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Google has launched updated versions of its Blogger mobile apps for Android and iOS, bringing the version number on both platforms to 2.0.

The biggest new feature in the iOS app is iPad support, and other notable improvements include an improved user experience, landscape support, additional language support, sharing posts with Google+ and the usual array of bug fixes.

Android users also get an improved user experience and additional language support. Other new goodies include the ability to view a scheduled post time and automatic sign in when you view a blog on the web.

You can get the Android app over at Google Play, while the iOS app is available at Apple's App Store.

More About: Google, blogger, iOS

1. The "Chesapeake" (1887)

The "Chesapeake," a USPS steamboat.

Click here to view this gallery.

The Internet is a great way to gather news and information instantly. But before that what were the channels through which we could distribute and receive news? Before Gmail and other email services we relied heavily on the United States Postal Service. The USPS has delivered news and personal mail long before the invention of the web (and still does).

SEE ALSO: Email: It's a Love/Hate Thing [INFOGRAPHIC]

With photos from the Smithsonian Institute's archives we can relive the earlier years of USPS mail delivery and watch them advance from on-foot mail carriers, to horses, airplanes and into the automotive era.

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Sony has sold more than 70 million PlayStation 3 gaming consoles, the company has announced. Sony also claims it has sold more than 15 million PlayStation Move motion controllers to date.

The milestone comes almost exactly six years after November 2006, when PS3 was launched. PlayStation Move was launched in September 2010.

Sony has updated the PS3 several times in those six years -- most recently, in September 2012, it launched a thinner version of the console.

There's no word, however, about PS3's successor. For comparison, PlayStation 2 was launched in March 2000, meaning it took a little over six years for Sony to launch a new version of the platform.

More About: PS3, playstation 3, sony, sony playstation

Complicated itinerary planning just got a lot easier with the Anchornote app, which gives users to ability to make and organize location-based notes.

Organizing trips can be an informational nightmare. There's often complicated logistical information like plane tickets, transportation and hotel stays to organize, as well as itineraries to plan and manage.

And then there's a whole other layer of information to manage: remembering that this boutique has a coupon code you can use for a discount, this museum has an exhibition you want to see, or simply a family member you're visiting has cats and you'll need to remember to bring your allergy medicine.

Anchornote offers a solution to…
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As a part of a greater push into e-commerce, Facebook announced a whole slew of retail partnerships Thursday night at a press event held at the iconic FAO Schwarz toy store in New York City.

The social network launched in September a service called Facebook Gifts, allowing users to buy and send real gifts to friends. Now these partnerships have added hundreds of gifts to its product offering lineup.

New retail partners include babyGap, Fab, Brookstone, Lindt and ProFlowers. Users can also send TV shows and music with subscriptions to Hulu Plus, Pandora and Rdio.

SEE ALSO: Facebook's iPhone App Now Lets You Send Friends Real-World Gifts [HANDS-ON]

All of these products will…
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It's the 60th anniversary of Mr. Potato Head, and to celebrate, Hasbro has commissioned several "portraits" of 60-year-old icons as their Mr. Potato Head counterparts.

The images, created by Nacho Tamez and Leo Kambayashi of Mexico-based Media Bullys, were inspired by "60-year-old personalities that represent a moment in time and still keep making history through different kinds of media."

Happy Birthday, Mr. Potato Head. We hope you're able to keep yourself together.

Mr.T

Dee Dee Ramone

Alfred E. Neuman

Alex Lora

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Looking for a way to prevent fumbling around with your smartphone while wearing gloves this winter? How about not touching it at all?

BEARTek gloves, currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, are the world's first pair of gloves that offer built-in Bluetooth controls for your smartphone.

On three fingers are six pads for controlling basic smartphone functions. Answer or drop calls, change the song you're listening to or lower the volume all while keeping your hands inside your gloves. The gloves pair with most Android and iOS devices.

Blue Infusion Technologies' Kickstarter campaign to fund the gloves has raised $7,600 of the $50,000 goal, wi…
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More About: bluetooth, kickstarter, winter gloves

This accidental full-moon photobomb is probably one of the funniest social media gaffes in NFL history.

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Oh, the humanity!

Those were the timeless words uttered by radio reporter Herbert Morrison when the last hydrogen airship ever to float above American soil -- the Hindenburg -- crashed and burned in a field in New Jersey in 1937.

The Eureka, a modern-day Zeppelin that has run tours a thousand feet high above the Bay Area, isn't capable of crashing and burning; it runs on inert helium rather than flammable hydrogen. But it is -- thanks to the rising cost of helium -- capable of running out of cash.

Airship Ventures, the company that bought the Eureka from the Zeppelin factory in Germany and began flying it in 2009, announced Wednesday that it had been forced to suspend operations…
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More About: trending, zeppelin

Radiation levels at Martian surface appear to be similar to those experienced by astronauts in low-Earth orbit, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has found.

More About: Curiosity, Mars, Mars rover, NASA, astronauts, space, trending

Like many other things in the bricks-and-mortar world, window shopping has gone digital. This holiday season, more Americans will prepare wish lists of gifts for themselves and others by searching online or browsing digital catalogs than from physically shopping in stores or thumbing through print catalogs, a new survey shows.

The wish lists themselves, though, remain firmly rooted in the here and now.

Shopping in digital catalogs has already become a fact of life for most of us (86.5%), according to a survey of more than 2,600 consumers conducted by Catalog Spree, an iPad app and companion website that aggregates hundreds of catalogs. But digital catalogs now stand near the pinnac…
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Consumers and businesses worldwide will make more than $1 trillion in purchases from mobile devices by 2017, as the technology enabling mobile payments becomes increasingly common, according to a new report from IDC, a market research firm.

IDC predicts that the vast majority of these payments will come from mobile commerce, which includes things like making purchases through a company's mobile website. NFC payments will make up a significant chunk as well, as this technology comes to more smartphones and retailers upgrade to point-of-sale terminals.

"The growing prevalence of smartphones is enabling a variety of mobile payment methods, which combined are becoming a significant sha…
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More About: e-commerce, mobile payments, smartphone

McKayla Maroney, the Olympian who spawned the legendary "not impressed" meme face, looks pretty happy to meet President Obama. But an earlier Maroney tweet on Thursday indicates there may be be more to this story.

More About: Sports, Watercooler, olympics, trending

No one really wants to be on an airliner that loses cabin pressure, but if it happens to you, rest assured your iPad will continue to work.

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While we're busy debating Apple versus Android, here's something everyone is onboard for: joy.

Although Elluva has not yet launched its first product, the startup is already exploring other ways to spread good vibes and promote social responsibility through its "Inflict Joy" campaign.

"The whole basis of Inflict Joy is to unite and connect within the tech community and do something meaningful for the world," Elluva CEO Alex Sok tells Mashable.

Starting today, the first part of the campaign is called "Fast for Joy." In honor of the holiday season, often a time of feasting, the campaign encourages people to fast for at least one meal and donate the money they would have spent on…
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More About: Business, Marketing, Social Good, Startups, features

Twitter updated its iOS and Android apps Thursday, adding new functionality particularly in the areas of Search and Discover.

Now you can preview article summaries and photos in both Search and Discover without tapping on those stories in order to so.

Just like on Twitter's website, the Discover tab on mobile now lets you discover popular tweets. Tapping on the "View all Tweets" button will bring up a stream of stories, news, and photos being shared by people in your network.

SEE ALSO: Twitter 'Discover' Tab gets a Media-Heavy Makeover

"We want Discover to be the place where you find the best of that content relevant to you, even if you don't necessarily know ever…
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More About: App, Twitter, android, iOS, iphone

Lytro garnered a lot of interest around its idea of light-field photography when it revealed the novel technology in 2011. The concept of taking photos, then refocusing them around any object in the picture after the fact, was fascinating to say the least, leading some to speculate Lytro could end up redefining digital photography as we know it.

The company soon delivered on its promise to bring the technology to market via its own camera. The Lytro debuted in the winter of 2012. Shaped like an enlarged stick of butter, it did exactly as advertised -- taking photos that viewers could refocus just by clicking on them. Even better, it was simple and consumer-friendly, and the pics were…
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More About: Lytro, digital cameras, light-field photography

Ever wish you could feed your pet from afar? Meet Pintofeed, a device that lets you feed your pet using your smartphone.

Once connected to the wireless network in your home, you can activate the feeder from anywhere using a mobile app. Feedings can also be automated. The Pintofeed is capable of programming itself, and creating a personalized feeding schedule for you and your furry friend.

If you have more than one furball at home, you can control several Pintofeeds from the same account. Multiple users can also be given access to the same Pintofeeds, ensuring that Fido gets fed even if Mom is out of town.

Once your pet has been fed, you can c…
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It might not be mind reading, but it sure is cool.

In a YouTube game that asks how "predictable" you are, viewers are asked to place their finger on the screen and move it horizontally or vertically from tile to tile based on instructions.

SEE MORE: Doing Math Can Literally Hurt Your Brain [STUDY]

While the man in the video, British psychologist and professor Richard Wiseman, seemingly predicts your every move, it is really just a trick.

The numbers Wiseman calls out are all odd, meaning he just has to alternate the "color" of the notes removed.

BONUS: Great iPhone Puzzle Games

More About: Watercooler, math, viral video, viral videos

A new celestial wonder has stolen the title of most distant object ever seen in the universe, astronomers report.

The new record holder is the galaxy MACS0647-JD, which is about 13.3 billion light-years away. The universe itself is only 13.7 billion years old, so this galaxy's light has been traveling toward us for almost the whole history of space and time.

Astronomers spotted the object using NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes, with the aid of a naturally occurring cosmic zoom lens as well. This lens is a huge cluster of galaxies whose collective gravity warps space-time, producing what's called a gravitational lens. As the distant galaxy's light traveled through this len…
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Starting soon you'll be able to share tweets via email, directly from Twitter's website. A feature already present in the mobile app, you'll be able to send a tweet to anyone directly from your Twitter stream or the details of a particular tweet, regardless of whether or not the recipient is a Twitter user.

In addition to sending the tweet to a friend, you can also opt to add a personal comment to go along with it. The comment is sent along in the body of the email rather than on Twitter itself, allowing you to comment about a tweet without making those comments public.

SEE ALSO: TweetDeck Update Adds Keyboard Shortcuts and More

The feature will slowly begin rolling out to Twi…
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Lytro made a name for itself with its shoot-first-focus-later photos, captured by a new kind of photography that captures an entire "light field" of a scene. Now, Lytro is going beyond just refocusing, enabling users to shift the perspective of their photos as well as add filters.

Since the lens of the Lytro camera is quite large, and it captures light-direction data, it's possible to slightly shift the perspective of any light-field image. First, the viewer needs to put the photo "all in focus" -- another feature that comes with the software update -- essentially flattening the image, focus-wise. You do that by clicking and holding (or, on a touch screen, pressing and holding), and t…
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More About: Lytro, digital photography, light-field camera

Now Nintendo Wii owners have a new way to access YouTube on their gaming consoles. YouTube announced Wednesday it's created a YouTube app that's now available for Nintendo Wii.

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I always wondered what it would be like to take a military-grade, throwable robot on a tour of Mashable's office. Now I know. iRobot's 110 FirstLook, a five-pound surveillance robot that you can literally throw into the field to gain "situational awareness," took the test and survived.

iRobot's Senior PI and Director for Research Advancement Dr. Chris Jones brought the 110 FirstLook to Mashable's New York headquarters, pitched it into the editorial bullpen and then handed me the controls. The phonebook-sized bot communicates digitally with a remote control that offers a view of what FirstLook sees via one of its four wide-angle, on-board cameras and…
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How long can you go without checking your email on your smartphone? For many smartphone owners, the ability to access email anywhere, anytime can disrupt their time spent away from the office -- and possibly get in the way of fully enjoying family gatherings this holiday season. Staying connected to email isn't necessarily a negative thing -- it just depends on what we're looking at and how often we check our devices.

Noelle Chesley, Ph.D., associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, tells Mashable that communication technology, like smartphones and social media, blur the lines between our privat…
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More About: Holidays, email, stress

Walking away from tobacco can be one of the hardest things to do in life -- Like Mark Twain once said, "Quitting smoking is easy, I've done it hundreds of times."

More About: apps, health, quit smoking

Things have gotten a little too dirty for Al Gore's liking.

The former vice president is currently in the midst of a 24 hour live streamed Internet event, Climate Reality, hoping to clean things up. He and other environmental advocates are using the forum to educate the world on the dangers of global warming, and help people see that "dirty energy causes dirty weather."

Gore is no stranger to discussing environmental issues, but in years past, his message has fallen on somewhat deaf ears. But now, Gore says he has a few new things on his side -- Nate Silver, Hurricane Sandy, social media and most of all, reality.

Gore sat down with Mashable…
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More About: Hurricane Sandy, al gore, climate change, climate crisis, nate silver, pete cashmore

They say technology has made dating an easier, richer, more multi-faceted experience. While that's true, it's also created a lot of new arguments. Let's face it: relationships didn't really need any more of those -- we already have plenty to go around.

Below, take a look at the top 10 new arguments that couples have as a result of technology.

1. Messing with DVR'ed shows

This is a mild one, sure. But if you've ever had a marathon of America's Next Top Model -- you know, the one you were saving for after your big work project ended -- deleted from the house DVR by your significant other, it's an argument worth having. The golden rule: Delete nothing, and if the DVR is getting f…
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More About: Love in the Time of Robots, contributors, features, romance

While Mashable has already declared Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" dead, this flash mob by the cast of "The Big Bang Theory" is too amazing not to cover.

All seems normal on set at first, but when the director calls "Action," the now-familiar refrain begins to chime. The cast seems confused at first, but remember -- they're actors.

SEE ALSO: TV's 'Big Bang Theory' Gives Away $95,000 Trip to Space

Leave it to Sheldon to have the last word.

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