10 7 Things We Didn’t Know a Week Ago [Week 03]

1. Claiming a Twitter username that's already in use is easy as long as the account is dormant. It essentially involves one step.
   

   Submit an impersonation claim to Twitter.
   testlio

2. Get a fake Facebook girlfriend. Or if you're cheap an ex-girlfriend. 99 Brazilian Dollars (about 50 bucks at the time of writing) buys you a relationship status update valid for 30 days, including 30 comments by your "girlfriend".
   Once paid and registered you get to pick your girlfriend from a series of photos. That profile will send you and invite and you in return send them the messages you want to see posted.
   Why go through the trouble? The site mentions; to make yourself more popular, to show your real ex that you're so over her, or to stop family from pestering you into a relationship.
   PS: Namoro is hiring. Women ready to share their profile this way get a 50% cut.
3. We're moving to tablets. PC shipments are down 6% (IDC). Those in the market to buy something new opt for (cheap) tablets instead, says Gartner.
   

   "Whereas as once we imagined a world in which individual users would have both a PC and a tablet as personal devices, we increasingly suspect that most individuals will shift consumption activity to a personal tablet, and perform creative and administrative tasks on a shared PC. There will be some individuals who retain both, but we believe they will be exception and not the norm. Therefore, we hypothesize that buyers will not replace secondary PCs in the household, instead allowing them to age out and shifting consumption to a tablet."
   -- Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst @ Gartner

4. Advertorials suck -- also for those who publish them. The Atlantic found that out the hard way this week when it ran a sponsored "article" on how utterly awesome Scientology and its current leader David Miscaviage are. As the ludicrous "article" made its way across the viral web people left feedback on just how badthis was. Those comments in turn were deleted by the marketing department.The article -- and remaining comments -- were finally removed with The Atlantic doing the only right thing; making an unequivocal apology.
   

   "We screwed up. It shouldn't have taken a wave of constructive criticism " but it has " to alert us that we've made a mistake, possibly several mistakes.

5. You can opt for MySpace Classic if you don't like the new design. Didn't know there was a new design? Don't know MySpace? We understand. (via The Guardian)
6. Sport radio presenter Steve Czaban says Twitter is wayyyy too dangerous, especially when you're in the public eye. He has quit Twitter.
   

   "Basically, it's too damn dangerous for somebody like me. Brick-and-mortar companies that pay your salary treat Twitter as if it's the highest form of communication that can ever be written. And it lacks context. People say you can still be funny, just be careful about what you tweet. Be careful, sure - but you don't know the way something is going to take off. There's something very dangerous about the viral nature of Twitter. ... And so I just decided, you know, it's just not worth it."
   Steve Czaba

7. Sixteen year old Yaya Lu came up with a language independent voice controlled wheelchair that will allow a complete quadriplegic to control the wheelchair. She built the prototype out of Lego and presented her findings to the 5th Biomedical Engineering International Conference in Bangkok. (Sydney Morning Herald)

* As extreme cold (wind chill -30C / -22F) battles the region from whence this is posted variables have aligned favoring seven instead of ten items this week. Ah, life.