“Awkward stock photos,” as covered on Mashable. [Warning: some NSFW.]

(via This Is the Internet After SOPA [PICS])

Mashable is using Storify to curate the breaking story of today’s VA Tech shootings.

(via Confirmed: Apple to Replace Defective 1st-Generation iPod Nanos With 1st-Generation Units)

Yesterday I posted speculation from Mashable about Apple’s replacement program for iPod Nanos. It looks like they’re doing a one for one. Show’s over. Nothing to see here.

Huh? Search those desk drawers, kiddies…

Do you have an old first-generation iPod Nano lying around? If so, Apple wants to replace it for you, 5 years after you bought it. Such a deal.

But watch out: There’s a slight risk of your old Nano overheating, and possibly even catching on fire because of a defective battery. Apple says if you own one of the Nanos with this problem, you should stop using it immediately. The good news is, newer iPods aren’t affected by the battery defect.

(via Apple Recalls 1st-Generation iPod Nano)

This is a succinct article for those outside of fandom. If you read one article about the iPhone 4s, this would be the one. I might add that the $99 iPhone 4 is not too shabby either, and unlike the 3gs, will run on Verizon and Sprint.

Apple has finally revealed its next iPhone — the iPhone 4S. The company is, as would be expected, calling it “the most amazing iPhone yet.” But what makes it better than the iPhone 4?

Apple fanboys and girls the world round might be disappointed that the new device does not live up to the mystique of the mythical iPhone 5, but the iPhone 4S is a dramatic leap forward in technological innovation and sophistication that will surprise mobile users — even current iPhone 4 owners.

Here are the four most significant reasons why some of us at Mashable think the iPhone 4S is worth the price of upgrading. But if none of these speak to your inner gadget nerd, perhaps a free iPhone 3GS will do the trick.

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The modularity of Web 2.0 keeps proliferating useful combinations.

Jack Cheng and his two cofounders launched Steepster, a social network for tea drinkers, in 2009. It soon occurred to them that a tea club, in which members receive a shipment of new teas each month, would be a perfect complement to the site. But they were working long hours to get their site off of the ground, and never thought about making the investment of time and money that starting such a program would entail .

Three years later, they decided to revisit the project — and while they were at it, solve the subscription program logistics problem for everyone else, too.

“With blogs, you don’t need to understand the backend [in order to make one],” Cheng says. “We wanted to give the same simplicity to running a subscription program.”

On Thursday, the team launched Memberly. The platform makes it easy to start and organize such a program — by offering a subscription page that doesn’t require coding, automatic billing of customers, auto-generated labels or a portal for handling customer correspondence.

Right now the only programs using the site are Steepster and a vegan boutique called Little Otsu that is selling a subscription for mini art books. More are scheduled to roll out in the coming weeks.

[…]

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(via Mashable “Apple Product Design: 35 Years of Consumer Electronics” [INFOGRAPHIC])

Whoops. I’m hoping the folks at Cyborgology will soon relate this to their knowledge of the existing literature on gender and computing, as well as early and other adoption.

Here’s an interesting tidbit from the Google+ stats trackers: Three quarters (or more) of Google+ users are male.

SocialStatistics, a third-party site that gathers data from select profiles, pegs the percentage of male users at 86.8%, whileFindPeopleOnPlus, which curates information from about a million users, says men constitute 73.7% of Google+.

I got an invite from a technically oriented guy I know and the one other person I know whom I was able to find on Google+ is similar, a guy in a technical field. Guilty as charged?

It’s true that the early adopters of any new technology are usually male. But Google+ will have to appeal to a mainstream audience if it’s to reach mass adoption anytime soon. Consider the gender breakdown for Google+’s biggest competitor, Facebook. The social network is close to a 50-50 split between men and women. And some of Facebook’s most addicted, most enthusiastic users are women.

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Uh-oh. Fortunately I have not seen this.

Popular microblogging service Tumblr has been hit by a largescale phishing attack over the past few days.

Following standard phishing protocol, the attack works by luring users to enter their Tumblr credentials to access something special. In this round of Tumblr attacks, the most common scenario is the offer of access to adult content. Users are directed to what looks like a standard login page and told to enter in their Tumblr login information.

The GFI Labs Blog has a great rundown of the entire attack and how it has been spreading across the network.

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