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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Twitter Admits Verifying Fake @Wendi_Deng Was a Mistake

On Tuesday morning, the world learned that the account bearing media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s wife’s name, Wendi Deng Murdoch, is not run by her or anyone connected to her.

And less than two hours after the revelation, Twitter admitted in a tweet that it had mistakenly verified the @Wendi_Deng account (see tweet below), causing users to poke fun at the legitimacy of Twitter’s verification process.

The impostor sent these tweets between 9 and 10 a.m. ET calling out Twitter on its blunder.

News Corporation original told a few media outlets the Deng account was legit, but the company backpedaled and that’s when the fake Deng came clean in the above series of tweets.

Mashable had previously reported that “an unverified account” using Deng’s full name had persuaded the News Corporation CEO to delete an insulting tweet. Shortly after the exchange, the tweet went missing from his accurately verified Twitter account.

Murdoch joined Twitter on New Year’s Eve and has since accumulated more than 90,000 followers.

Do you think this incident shows a major hole in Twitter’s verification process? Sound off in the comments.

KGB Spy Kit Is Not Just for the Movies [VIDEO]

There may be more truth than you’d think to the James Bond-like spy gadgets in movies. Entertainment blogEnglish Russia released photos of a KGB spy kit that includes a lip stick gun, pipe gun, cyanide gun and other various small firearms.

Check out the video above to see some of the items in an authentic KGB spy kit.

Mashable - [via Gizmodo]

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Casey Anthony named most hated person in US

Poll: 57 percent of Americans find her ‘creepy’; she beats out O.J. Simpson, Paris Hilton

LOS ANGELES — Casey Anthony, the Florida woman who was found not guilty recently of murdering her two year-old daughter, is the most hated person in America, according to a new poll that tracks public perceptions of celebrities.

Anthony, 25, who is now in hiding after being released from jail in July, was more disliked than California's "Octomom," former football star O.J. Simpson and socialite Paris Hilton, according to the poll released on Wednesday by E-Poll Market Research.

Anthony was acquitted in July of murdering her daughter Caylee in 2008, to the surprise and outrage of many legal pundits and millions of Americans who had watched her six-week trial live on television.

Story: Balloons, memorial mark Caylee Anthony's birthday

California-based E-Poll's E-Score Celebrity research for the first week of August showed that 53 percent of those questioned were aware of Casey Anthony and her story, and 94 percent of those people disliked her.

Anthony was also considered "creepy" by 57 percent of those questioned and "cold" by 60 percent of respondents.

Former "The Hills" reality TV show star Spencer Pratt was second in the "total dislike" category, followed by Nadya Suleman, the unemployed single California woman who gave birth to octuplets in 2009 despite already having six children.

O.J. Simpson — who was acquitted in 1995 of murdering his ex-wife and a friend in 1994 — came fourth.

Monday, August 1, 2011

What Does Social Media Mean for the Future of Mortality? [VIDEO]

MASHABLE

What Does Social Media Mean for the Future of Mortality? [VIDEO]

With 48 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute, 200 million tweets being posted every day and the average Facebook user creating 90 pieces of content each month, this generation is publishing an unprecedented amount of data that will live in the cloud indefinitely — even after we’re gone.

Back in July at TED Global in Edinburgh, Scotland (which I also covered for Mashable), I gave a 5-minute talk about the implications that the social media boom will have on the future of mortality, and what might become possible as technology’s ability to understand and process the hundreds of thousands of pieces of content we’re creating in our lifetimes continues to grow exponentially.

In my talk, I discussed a number of services that are already emerging for figuring out what happens to ouronline identity and social media accounts after we die, as well as a couple of examples of how people are already planning their digital legacy. Ultimately, I hypothesize that technology will one day be able to recreate a realistic representation of us as a result of the plethora of content we’re creating converging with other advances in machine learning, robotics and large-scale data mining.

At the very least, the 1 billion or so people currently making use of social media will leave behind a legacy unlike anything created by any previous generation. At the most, we’ll soon have a number of philosophical questions to deal with about the nature of our existence and what comes after it.

Check out my talk in the video below and let me know what you think in the comments.

Lindsay Lohan Gabs With Air New Zealand Puppet [VIDEO]

MASHABLE

Air New Zealand is continuing its use of celeb cameos with a new video featuring Lindsay Lohan being interviewed by Rico, the airline’s puppet mascot.

The five-minute video shows Lohan playing the straight man to Rico, a Borat-like character who hosts a talk show with a laugh track. Lohan, a fixture of gossip blogs, answers questions about Kim Kardashian, the paparazzi (or “papsmearazzi” as the malapropism-prone Rico deems it) and, oh yeah, New Zealand, before pretending to fall asleep after being hypnotized.

It’s a weird little cameo to be sure and in keeping with other recent Air New Zealand stunts, like a David Hasselhoff interview with Rico and a safety instruction video featuring Richard Simmons.

Air New Zealand, which fancies itself a “high-energy airline,” is clearly going beyond what even the boldest players in the category — like Virgin Atlantic, for instance — have already done on the marketing front.

What do you think? Is it working or does this actually make you less likely to book a flight with ANZ? Let us know in the comments.