Geekly Update - 16 August 2012

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

Facebook plans to nuke 83 million fake or duplicate accounts, about 8.7% of its 955 million active users. If you, your pet, or your pre-teen child have a Facebook account, it may be deleted soon.

"Stupid Criminals: Part 4,218..." Randall J. Smith and Artie Goodwine were arrested after robbing two men in Indiana and claiming that they were making a reality TV show named "We Got Robbed" with their cell phone cameras.

Curiosity landed safely this week on Mars and took its first picture in black and white during its descent. Check out NASA's Mars Science Lab site for color photos and news updates from the 98 week mission.

"Chrome Shining Brighter Than Ever..." StatCounter's most recent browser statistics find that Google Chrome is now the world's most popular browser (33.8% prefer it), edging out Internet Explorer (32%) by a narrow margin. Firefox usage is slowly dwindling, with a market share of 24% now.

"Apparently, video didn't quite kill off radio..." Radio seems to be making a comeback as TuneIn announced that it has more than 40 million active subscribers, tripling membership over the past year. A free app gives access to 70,000 radio stations and 2 million on-demand programs to browse and play, while the $.99 Pro version also allows recording of music.

The game system OUYA has finished its KickStarter fundraising round. They now plan to work with XBMC to create a media player that will include TuneIn for radio streaming.

"Is this the party to whom I am speaking?" Those who want to remain anonymous to callers, i.e. blind Craigslist ads, can do so with Ad Hoc's app Burner. After the initial $1.99 cost, they will give you a new phone number for 20 minutes, 60 text messages or 7 days of service, with future services requiring additional payment.

It seems the folks at SiriusXM finally noticed that Pandora, Slacker and others have been offering free streaming radio for years. They're now offering On Demand with a free ad-supported iPhone/iPad/touch app. Over 200 shows and 2,000 hours of content will be available including older material, and an Android version is also on the way.

Lenovo will be releasing a lighter, thinner ThinkPad X1 Carbon this month starting at a price of $1,399. The 14-inch Ultrabook features 3rd generation wireless connectivity, starts up in less than 20 seconds, includes RapidCharge for a 30-minute, 85% recharge and weighs a mere three pounds.

Newshounds are already aware of the free news app Pulse, available for iPhone, iPad and Android devices. The award-winning mobile program that consists of colorful story bars has been around for about 2 years and is now available for the desktop on Chrome, IE, Firefox, and Safari browsers.