The White house confirms no chance of alien invasion
...Seriously...well not exactly invasion; but we've always wanted to write a headline like that. The White House has released a statement saying there is no evidence of life existing on other planets than ours.
The life of a modern day man who makes knives by hand is fascinating [VIDEO]
In an extremely interesting set of documentaris called Made by Hand, Knife maker Joel Bukiwicz was featured this week in what can only be described as more documentarily inspirational than anything you'd see on the Discovery Channel.
Google introduces business pages for Google+
After much speculation and request from business to capitalise on Google+ features, pages have now been implemented into the social network.
Announced via their blog, and still in a closed alpha state, the functionality seems to be very much in the same vein as Facebook; but with some slight tweaks in the form of introducing Hangouts to communicate with your audience, grouping particular subsections of your base into circles, and an interesting form of analytical data called 'Ripples,' allowing you to see how your posts spread across Google+.
Anonymous conquest against Zetas called off as member is freed
After a tense week for the Mexican Zeta drug cartel (and their of 'associates' ranging from policemen to politicians), the fellow member of Hacktivist group, Anonymous has been released, and the threats to expose the cartel have been called to an end.
More Google Easter eggs beyond the barrel roll
So we showed you what happens when you search for 'do a barrel roll' on Google. It's a good start; but what else is there in the field of search engine-related procrastination.
What some may know but most do not is the fact that this is one in a very long stream of quirky features that the absolute nerds up at Mountain view have incorporated. So, to lift the veil, here's a list of the best:
Researchers retrieve 250GB of personal data with socialbot
Ever had those random adds from attractive (or extremely photoshopped) ladies wearing next to nothing, who have an extremely bare profile and don't talk to you? Chances are that's a Socialbot, and as researchers from the University of British Columbia have concluded, they prove extremely effective at infiltrating Facebook's circles of friends and harvesting data.
Infographic of the day: Will your tweets get you robbed?
Editorial: 'Trusted Friends.' The ultimate Facebook rape.
Scenario: it's 3am, you're drunk and home, trying to login to Facebook. After failing too many times you're logged out and your friends each get security codes that they can all collect together to access your Facebook...Maybe I'm just hanging around with the wrong friends; but that sort of scenario would be just too irresistable.
Twitter tells your stories in more than 140 characters
Twitter have released a new 'Twitter stories' site today, curating some of the most impactful stories told via the stream of tweets surrounding the particular topics on the service.
“Today we’re launching the first in a series of Twitter stories,” Twitter said in a blog post. "Read about a single Tweet that helped save a bookstore from going out of business; an athlete who took a hundred of his followers out to a crab dinner; and, Japanese fishermen who use Twitter to sell their catch before returning to shore. Each story reminds us of the humanity behind Tweets that make the world smaller.”
Supercut relaunches as the video remix picks up viral steam
Not aware of a Supercut? There's a very good chance you've already seen one before. A term coined by tech writer Andy Baio, it is a video that takes every instance of a phrase or action and puts them back-to-back to create a montage of mass repetition.
All our Google Mail dreams come true with upgrades
The new-look Gmail, wich Google accidentally told Mashable about last week, is now rolling out to all users, and my filters have never looked so good.
Google officially made the announcements via a blog post today, giving users greater control over how their service looks. From three settings of email density (Comfortable, Cozy and Compact) to dragging sidebars to cater your perfect size of the particular sectors, and choosing from a selection of high-resolution backgrounds, the design conscious kind have been taken care of.
Life in a Day movie available on Youtube
Remember a while ago when Google put out the request for people to record moments in their life? Well, neither could we; but the results are available on Youtube for free.
To somewhat diverge from the image of Youtube being merely a place for video game griefing videos and a general cute animal storage system, Google has taken it's quest a step forward by cutting through the over 4,500 hours of video uploaded for the documentary and created a 95 minute feature piece, that made the transition from cinematic spectacle to a free piece of consumer content in a scarily short amount of time. Watch it below with 25 languages worth of subtitles (if you're reading from overseas). That's just how nice we are!
Editorial: Why Halloween has been made pointless by social media
Beforehand, the tactics of taking advantage of the holiday season for marketing purposes were merely trivial, and didn't become involved in the existential quandry of life. Now, things are a little different.
Anonymous target Mexican drug cartel for kidnapping one of their own
Online culture jammers, Anonymous, have put out a video threatening Mexico's Zetas drug cartel with the exposure of their close ties in the local police and news media this week unless the gang release a kidnapped member of the international hacker movement.
Spoof video: How Headlines are created
This may not be a UK targeted video in respects to the news outlets they use; but you're reading New Rising Media, so chances are you have a general grasp on the popular outputs of American journalism. So how do they write their headlines?
This is the question that Jest has answered in a rather hilarious fashion in their parody video, as they look through the headlines surrounding the controversial 'Occupy Wall Street.'
Editorial: Don't call it a Social Graph
“As Facebook adds more and more people with more and more connections it continues growing and becomes more useful at a faster rate. We are going to use it spread information through the social graph.” Mark Zuckerberg claimed a while ago in 2007, while explaining the secret behind the social network.
Now there's always been something that's sounded a little off to me whenever I've heard the term 'Social Graph.' At first I thought it just sounded pretentious; but the search brought forward the utmost primary reason why.
Sesame Street YouTube account hacked with porn
We can't help but think this is actually hilarious; but we can also see this is downright wrong. The YouTube account for popular kids show Sesame Street was hacked last week, with clips of my childhood heroes replaced with...graphic porn.
Streetlife.com looking to reawaken British community spirit
In a time when David Cameron tries to push his vision of the "Big society" to no avail, it's good to see social good come to the rescue as streetlife.com is introduced.
Simply put, it's the local nature of Foursquare with the interconnectivity of Facebook, and the active transactional engagement of craigslist. The team behind the site say their mission is to let users "create an online profile and connect with people, groups and businesses in their area, to share practical information, advice, opinions, skills and resources".
Anonymous targets child pornography
So after taking down the likes of Sony and threatening the destruction of Facebook, Anonymous has turned its online vigilantism and activism to the world of child pornography sites.
The “hacktivists” are targeting web host Freedom Hosting and accusing it of knowingly hosting child pornography. This marks a paradigm shift for Anonymous, moving away from hitting big corporate businesses in the name of anarchism to a more noble goal.
Obama gets a Tumblr
Caving into the temptation of Nigel Thornberry Gifs and 4Chan jokes that are a year too late, Barack Obama now has a Tumblr page for his 2012 campaign.
"We’d like this Tumblr to be a huge collaborative storytelling effort—a place for people across the country to share what’s going on in our respective corners of it and how we’re getting involved in this campaign to keep making it better." Proclaims the first Tumblr post that (yes) directly addresses the blogging service brand as if it were a real person (a rather annoying trait if I do say so myself).