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Weird Wide Web: the week in online oddities

Some of the internet’s best offerings in social media, tech, science and weird news.

WELCOME TO THE Weird Wide Web – where we take a look at some of the internet’s best offerings in social media, tech, science and weird news.

If at first you don’t succeed…

Facebook could be trying to build its own smartphone (again), according to sources speaking to the New York Times. If so, it will be the software company’s third attempt to build a smartphone, with Facebook most recently reported to have teamed up with HTC on such a project (code-named ‘Buffy’). One employee said: “Mark (Zuckerberg) is worried that if he doesn’t create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms”.

Watch this space.


Remembering Jobs

The D10 conference in the US this week took time to pay tribute to Apple founder Steve Jobs with one panel dedicated to his legacy. Friends and colleagues Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Pixar’s Ed Catmull said that Jobs schooled those who came after him – namely Zuckerberg and Page/Brin – about how to turn their public companies into private fiefdoms.

They also discussed how many times Jobs watched Toy Story before he deemed it perfect:

The Internet Defence League

What do WordPress, Imgur, Reddit, Cheezburger Network, Public Knowledge, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark all have in common? They’re all signatories to the superheo-sounding Internet Defence League, which – following on from the successful defeat of proposals to introduce anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA in the US – aims to fend off threats to internet freedom.

The IDL, in their own words: “Think of it like the internet’s Emergency Broadcast System, or it’s bat signal!”


Into the interface

Kreek is a controlled interface on an elastic fabric, penetrated by the infrared beams that power Kinects and Leaps. It creates at two-dimensional, multi-touch environment – allows users to literally reach into the interface.

Prototype 2.1 is shown being tested out in the video below…


Uploaded by Lukas Hoeh

Obama: King of Twitter

Apparently not content with the small business of being the President of the United States, Barack Obama has also swooped in to pick up the (self-appointed) accolade of “Twoosh Master”.

To the uninitiated, a twoosh is a “perfect update” on Twitter – one that neatly uses all 140 characters. (Skip to 4.57)

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You have probably been sucked in already and hate yourself for it

We’re talking about the Carly Rae Jepsen thing. You know that song, Call Me Maybe that even the hipster-est of music aficionados find themselves doing their best bobble-head doll impression to? Well, just like Justin Bieber, Anthony Bandit-Rubio of New York has latched on to the craze but this time its for good, not evil:

From: Facebook/Anthony.Bandit.Rubio

-Additional reporting by Sinéad O’Carroll

See previous Weird Wide Web posts by Jennifer Wade>

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