Go Ahead, Keep Being Mean to Celebrities on Twitter

We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today: RELATED: The Honey Boo Boo Nature Special; Everyone's Favorite Sleepwalking MomWe usually don't condone...

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Samsung seeks broader chip base as Apple cuts loose

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co is looking to supply chips to more Chinese and other emerging smartphone makers, the head of its system chip business said, to counter any fall-off in demand from Apple Inc, which is weaning itself off Samsung chips used in its iPhones and iPads.Samsung and its main U.S. rival, and biggest customer, together account for more than half the global smartphone...

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Aereo CEO: Hollywood Apathy, "Irrelevant" Ads Inspired the Controversial Service

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Sorry, networks, but Aereo - the streaming TV service you love to hate - has no plans to go away. In fact, CEO Chet Kanojia and company are planning a major expansion thanks to $38 million in new spending money.That's not just to fund the service's move from New York into 22 other major cities, as announced Tuesday, but onto videogame consoles, Smart TVs and the Android operating...

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Hillary Clinton released from the hospital

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been released from a New York hospital after being treated for a blood clot, the State Department announced on Wednesday."Her medical team advised her that she is making good progress on all fronts, and they are confident she will make a full recovery," State Department spokesman Philippe Reines said in a statement. A date has not been set for her to return...

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Runaway Alaska oil rig dragged two tugs for miles

 The runaway oil rig that ran aground in Alaska on New Year's Eve dragged two vessels trying to control it more than 10 miles toward shore in just over an hour before the crews cut it loose to save themselves in "near hurricane" conditions.Details were still emerging on Wednesday from the U.S. Coast Guard and Royal Dutch/Shell, the company at the center of a controversial and accident-prone Arctic...

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Fiscal Cliff Compromise: Winners, Losers and Those in Between

The ink was still wet on Congress' fiscal-cliff fix Wednesday morning when Americans started lumping themselves into the winners and losers circles.And like a Venn diagram of politics, the circles overlapped with many dubbing themselves as part-loser, part-winner. Compromise is one way to view it: While Congress compromised over who qualified as wealthy, families across the country saw comprise in...

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Senior trapped in Mississauga, Ont., nursing home elevator for more than a day

BRAMPTON, Ont. - Officials are investigating after an elderly woman was trapped in an elevator at her Mississauga, Ont., nursing home for more than 24 hours.Peel Region chair Emil Kolb said Wednesday in a statement that the senior was trapped in the elevator at the Malton Village Long Term from the evening of Dec. 23 until early Christmas morning.Kolb says the woman had been out with her family on...

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McConnell: Fiscal cliff deal not great, but it shields Americans from tax hike

Editor's note: This op/ed is by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.The first day of a new Congress always represents a fresh start. This year, it also presents a perfect opportunity to tackle the single-greatest challenge facing our nation: reining in the out-of-control federal spending that threatens to permanently alter our economy and dim the prospects and opportunities of future generations...

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Telepresence robots let employees 'beam' into work

 Engineer Dallas Goecker attends meetings, jokes with colleagues and roams the office building just like other employees at his company in Silicon Valley.But Goecker isn't in California. He's more than 2,300 miles away, working at home in Seymour, Indiana.It's all made possible by the Beam — a mobile video-conferencing machine that he can drive around the Palo Alto offices and workshops of Suitable...

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The Parenting App You'll Never Download

When the evening news anchor said "Big Brother is watching," little Jake thought that meant something totally different.[More from Mashable: Life-Size Lobster iPhone Case Helps You Stand Out From the Crowd]SEE ALSO: Parenting Hasn't Changed in 5,000 YearsComic written by Larry Lambert, illustrated by Jerry King[More from Mashable: What Facebook’s $1 Messages Mean for Journalists]Parenting Hasn't Changed...

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Tablet as teacher: Poor Ethiopian kids learn ABCs

The kids in this volcano-rim village wear filthy, ragged clothes. They sleep beside cows and sheep in huts made of sticks and mud. They don't go to school. Yet they all can chant the English alphabet, and some can spell words.The key to their success: 20 tablet computers dropped off in their Ethiopian village in February by a group called One Laptop Per Child.The goal is to find out whether children...

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How Ex-RIM Employees Are Fueling Ontario's Startup Scene

Mashable's Anita Li contributed to this report from Toronto.Research in Motion, maker of the once-treasured but now beleaguered BlackBerry, is in trouble. RIM cut 5,000 jobs -- 30% of its workforce -- this past summer. Its most recent earnings report beat expectations but still isn't much to celebrate, as subscriber numbers are down and the report shows nearly a 50% drop off in sales since the same...

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The Most Popular Scientific American Stories of 2012

The top 10 most popular stories published in 2012:1. Men and Women Can't Be "Just Friends"2. The World’s Last Worm: A Dreaded Disease Nears Eradication3. NASA Crushes 2012 Mayan Apocalypse Claims 4. How Hollywood Is Encouraging Online Piracy5. Scientists Discover Children’s Cells Livingin Mothers’ Brains6. Psychiatry's "Bible" Gets an Overhaul7. “Once in a Civilization” Comet to Zip Past Earth Next...

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Facebook just realized it made a horrible mistake

Facebook (FB) announced on Tuesday that it will begin opening Facebook Messenger to consumers who do not have a Facebook  account, starting in countries like India and South Africa, and later rolling out the service in the United States and Europe. This is a belated acknowledgement of a staggering strategic mistake Facebook made two years ago. That is when the messaging app competition was still...

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Pope gets more than half million Twitter followers

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Even though he hasn't sent a single tweet yet, Pope Benedict  had more than half a million Twitter followers in eight languages on Tuesday, the day after the Vatican unveiled his handle: @Pontifex.They included people ranging from the simple Roman Catholic faithful to a Jewish head of state."Your holiness, welcome to Twitter. Our relations with the Vatican are at their...

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Facebook Messenger for Android now accessible with only a name and phone number

Like it or not, Facebook (FB) has become a mainstream communication channel, much like Twitter  has become more than just a place to tell the world what you’re having for lunch in 140 characters or less. In an effort that is sure to bolster Facebook Messenger adoption, Facebook is cutting itself out of the picture — sort of. The social network announced on Tuesday that its Facebook Messenger...

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Student group takes Facebook privacy gripes to court

VIENNA/DUBLIN (Reuters) - An Austrian student group plans to go to court in a bid to make Facebook Inc, the world's biggest social network, do more to protect the privacy of its hundreds of millions of members.Campaign group europe-v-facebook, which has been lobbying for reforms at the U.S. company for more than a year, said it would appeal against decisions by the data protection regulator in Ireland,...

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Flight attendant out of job after Facebook remark

BANGKOK (AP) — A Cathay Pacific flight attendant is out of a job after writing on her Facebook  page that she wanted to throw coffee in a passenger's face because she happened to be the daughter of someone she dislikes intensely: ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The flight attendant caused a stir in the Thai online communities last week for posting hostile comments about Thaksin's...

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