Lady Gaga and Nelly Furtado’s Twitter Accounts Hacked

All of a sudden, Lady Gaga offered free iPad 2s to all her 17 million Monsters that follow her on Twitter. The first tweet that was published promised Macbooks to those who will click a shady link and share a few personal details. Then it was followed by another tweet with a promise to give out “free” iPad 2s.

Whoever did this obviously targeted Lady Gaga since the tweets published begun with the word “Monster,” the moniker Lady Gaga calls her fans.

15 Fun Facts About Google+

As you already know, Google+ is the newest member in the ever-growing family of social networking services. It went live on public just recently, but has been in a trial for the past 90 days, sending out limited invitations to users as it hones its service. For a short period of time, this latest social site from Google has undeniably given a tremendous impact and influence to most social media users.

Thus, in order to show you a detailed rundown of what is happening around Google+, GADG has put up a list of the 15 fun and interesting facts about Google’s social extension.

Take the leap to learn them all.

INFOGRAPHIC: Top 20 Android Apps in the US

After monitoring the Android smartphone usage by using on-device tools, the Nielsen Company has released their first mobile application rankings for Android devices. The results of the rankings are not actually surprising, but it’s surely interesting.

The chart was divided into three columns: The overall active reach, the male active reach, and the female active reach. The top half of each column features six of the most popular apps to date: Facebook, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Search, YouTube, and Android Market. Twitter, Angry Birds, Adobe Reader and Words With Friends were also included on the top 20 apps.

Learn more by viewing the infographic after the skip.

Badgeville: Turning a Publisher’s Site to Mini-social Network

A year after it was founded and right before Gammification Summit hits NYC, Badgeville has introduced tools to turn any publisher’s site into a mini-social network. With just a flick of a switch, a brand can transform its user community and on-site actions into Facebook-lite — an interactive social and consumer experience.

Social Fabric allows brands and publishers to install feed with real-time and relevant social notifications, coming from both internal site mechanics and third-party social media like Facebook and Twitter.

Seven Funny Facts You Didn’t Know About Google

Google is certainly the most-used search engine on the Web to date, receiving over millions of queries from different users each day. Despite its increasing popularity and commercial success since launching, its founders – Sergey Brin and Larry Page – have managed to keep to their word that “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.”

Google is an unconventional company, but yet, it offers people the best service when it comes to online researching. In this article, GADG brought some of the interesting and fun facts about Google that, in one way or another, could quench your thirst for information.

Know them all by hitting the break.

Five Ways Schools are Using Technology in the Classroom

If you could notice, there are already several universities and educational institutions to date that require students to have their own tech gadgets such as smartphones and tablet computers. According to these administrators, today’s advanced technology has been very helpful for their student’s learning. They utilize smartphone apps to teach the laws of physics, iPad tablets to practice writing, and Foursquare to guide new students around different campuses.

Meanwhile, although these institutions have revealed the vitality of using technology in providing education, there are still numerous debates arising with regards to this matter. Based from a national survey conducted by Pearson Learning Solutions: “Two percent of college faculty members had used Twitter in class, and nearly half thought that doing so would negatively affect learning.” The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth also made a survey and found out that “98 percent of higher ed institutions are on Facebook, and 84 percent are on Twitter.

After the skip, you can see the different ways of how schools are using technology in classrooms.

New HTML5 Version of Twitter.com, Hitting iPad This Week

Last Tuesday, Twitter announced that they will be rolling out a new version of its website designed for the iPad. The said adaptation, which is considered to be their first version for tablets, utilizes HTML5 and can be seen with partial differences compared to a regular desktop. With the HTML5-based Twitter.com, iPad users will experience better touch gestures and could even access Twitter information using the two-paned display bars.

According to Twitter mobile engineer, Manuel Deschamps, the new version for iPad mimics most of the Twitter.com features and would even offer exciting handset applications, which are also included in iPhone and Android. The HTML5 Twitter app will become available within this week, outrunning the upcoming HTML5-based Project Spartan of Facebook.

“The HTML5 app provides a great option for people who prefer to use the browser over native apps,” Twitter representative, Carolyn Penner, explained. “Its two-column view is consistent with the Twitter experience you’re used to (on Twitter.com), and it takes advantage of touch gestures and other device capabilities.”

See the screenshot above.

Toshiba-Fujitsu, to Have the First Mango Phone

A special event in Tokyo, that was held by Toshiba-Fujitsu, gave it the distinction of being the first company that will have the Windows Phone 7 Mango device. The IS12T, the first Mango phone, is a close cousin of the Regza phone. However, it has the unique touch of being waterproof and dust resistant to IPX5 and IPX8 levels. It also have one of the greatest camera, which sports a 13.2 megapixel sensor.

The design of the said device goes above official Mango chassis specs. It utilizes the soon-to-be ubiquitous second generation.

Eight Useful Websites You May Not Know

Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube — these are only three of the most well-known and trusted websites. But aside from these giants, there are also a lot of online sites that offer services, which are somehow new, unique, and innovative. Continue reading after the break and discover eight of the most useful yet unfamiliar websites to date.

PayPal UK’s Twitter Account — Hacked

Tweets posted on Tuesday criticized eBay’s subsidiary – PayPal – for its poor security, and provided links to an anti-PayPal website — PayPal Sucks. Based on IDG News, some of the tweets were claiming that PayPal freezes user accounts for no reason.

In relation to this, PayPal confirmed that its UK Twitter account was hacked. However, the account runs separate from the PayPal UK site, so no user data was affected. The hack attack on PayPal UK’s Twitter account comes in, just days after Fox News’ account was breached.

On the other hand, Twitter made no official response in relation to the recent attacks on two high-profile accounts. Still, pundits believe that these incidents could raise doubts on the security of the micro-blogging site as a means of communication.