TechBlog

Poor iPad. It’s only been on the market for a month, and it’s already been crashed to bits with a baseball bat, blended and generally abused in every possible way. In hopefully the last act of agression against this beautiful piece of technology, the iPad has now also been microwaved. As always, it’s not hard to guess what the outcome is, but you just have to see the inevitable result. ...

If you’re a fan of cloud storage service Dropbox and own an iPad, it’s your lucky day. The iPhone version was already quite good, but Dropbox have now updated the app for better iPad support. The new version of the app, available for free here [warning: iTunes link], makes great use of the extra screen real estate afforded by the iPad and takes advantage of both portrait and landscape modes. A few other visual niceties separate the iPad from the iPhone version, making an overall slicker appearance and implementation on the larger device. ...

When consumer electronics shopping site Retrevo prepared for Mother’s Day by conducting a survey of parents’ social media practices, it found that nearly half (48%) of parents add their children as friends on Facebook. Parents admitted that “it can be awkward at times” when they follow their kids’ Facebook updates, but think that it’s probably worth it to keep tabs on them. Of course, savvy teens could easily exclude their parents from seeing potentially incriminating updates using Facebook’s advanced privacy features. ...

The Android Team today published a snapshot of the platform which shows the versions of Android most commonly in use. Though the platform is frequently criticized for being highly fragmented, there are three versions used far more than the rest. Out of the six supported versions of Android, it is a close three-way split between 1.5 (37.2%), 1.6 (29.4%), and 2.1 (32.4%). Version 1.1, 2.0, and 2.0.1 combined only make up 1% of Android users. ...

PayPal users are at risk of getting their credentials stolen if they follow instructions given in a scam email. “We have reason to believe that your account was accessed by a third party…. PayPal will verify it with your bank records for your own protection. If you provide a wrong PIN your account will be suspended or limited for unauthorized account access.” ” Please visit the Resolution Center and complete the steps to remove limitations.” ...

When I was a child, I was fascinated by ATM machines. I had a savings account which my mother would deposit money regularly and I waited for the day that I could raid the account with the ATM card for frivolous spending on console games and fast food. Nigerians have developed a cunning method to transfer millions of dollars to lucky winners worldwide. Yes, it is indeed the humble ATM card. ...

Email hoaxes are nothing new, dating back at least as far as 1994 with what is widely believed to have been the first email hoax—referred to as the “Goodtimes virus” or the “Goodtimes virus hoax” after the subject of the email. The message in the early version was short and to the point, advising recipients not to open email messages with the subject “Good Times” because doing so would ruin their files. This, of course, was not true, but in cases where the recipient complied with the warning, it obviously had the effect of ruining their chances of actually reading any legitimate email messages with that very subject. ...

For the first time, Microsoft’s share of the browser marked has slipped below 60 percent, according to figures from Net Applications, a Aliso Viejo, Calif., web app and metrics firm . Browser market share: Microsoft — 59.95 percent Mozilla’s Firefox — 24.59 percent Google Chrome — 6.73 percent Apple’s Safari — 4.72 percent Opera — 2.30 percent. Story Here.

Another mainstream media outlet is dipping their toes into online. “TODAY in 2 Minutes” is a new online-only feature of The Today Show. The show will feature host Natalie Morales and will include two minutes of Today content, including weather, news headlines and other stories. Each segment will appear on TODAYshow.com and MSN.com at 6:30 a.m. ET every weekday. The spots will initially be sponsored by Buick. “In 2009, TODAYshow.com had more video streams than the combined total for all of ABC News and CBS News sites,” said Today Executive Producer Jim Bell in a statement released today. “TODAY in 2 Minutes is for people who can’t wait until 7 a.m. to quickly get the news of the day from a place they know and trust.” ...

Many bloggers and commentators are making much of the fact that San Mateo police served a search warrant on the home of Gizmodo blogger Jason Chen and confiscated computers, servers and other equipment, probably as a result of his postings about the capabilities of the lost prototype Apple 4G iPhone. Gawker Media, which owns Gizmodo, made public the fact that it paid $5,000 for the prototype iPhone which was accidentally left in a bar by one of Apple’s software engineers last month. ...