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Boston Marathon explosions online resource guide

People in the Boston area, and those close to people possibly affected by today's explosions there, are understandably worried about their ability to find or communicate with each other. As a result, a number of organizations have created resources to help. This is a collection of several of them.

Tracking friends and family

For those trying to track down people they worry might have been victims of the explosions, there are at least two people finders. First is one set up by Google, and a second comes from the Red Cross. A third service is a list of runners who checked in … Read more

Flipboard: Your Social News Magazine 2.0 Review

In an age of information overload, apps like Flipboard provide the much- needed organization and curation tools to keep it all in one place. By taking your RSS subscriptions, Twitter account, Facebook account, and other online accounts and combining them into one easy-to-use interface, Flipboard simplifies the consumption of information on an iPad and makes it faster and easier than ever before to get what you need from your device.

When you first open Flipboard, you'll be prompted to create an account. This account will store all of your subscriptions, and you can choose to either create a new … Read more

How Facebook and Twitter mess with DUI checkpoints

The police are sometimes accused of linear thinking, especially when it comes to DUI checkpoints.

They set them up on Friday and Saturday nights. They redouble their efforts on New Year's Eve.

Perhaps the finest example would was one police force in the wine country of Northern California that decided to put a DUI checkpoint at the bottom of a winery's driveway. Yes, on barrel-tasting day.

The police now have a stronger enemy in the people -- the people who are using social media to warn others that this particular Friday or Saturday night has been selected for … Read more

Twitter launching music discovery app

CNET Update tweets to the beat:

Twitter is launching a new music service that will suggest songs to listen to based on accounts you follow or artists that are trending. As the world waits for the official launch, Ryan Seacrest seems to be enjoying it.

Android users can experience Chat Heads on the Facebook Messenger app, rather than download the Facebook Home interface.

Also in this tech roundup, I bring you the highlights from the DigitalFocus technology showcase, which includes the Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat, the Linkase Wi-Fi signal booster for smartphones, the new Duracell Powermat iPhone 5 wireless charging … Read more

Jodi Arias dictating Twitter feed from jail

When a murder trial becomes a televisual happening, somehow the public aspects become almost as significant as the legal ones.

We're always told the jurors don't know what's happening in the media, but we wonder that they may have known more than they let on before being selected.

Then there are the defendants and the prosecutors. Each tries to gain some sort of sway in the public eye -- perhaps on a just-in-case basis.

There now, though, seems to be an usual twist in the trial that is currently capturing popular eyes -- that of Jodi Arias.… Read more

Twitter's music site goes live, kinda

Twitter's new music site went live this morning.

Well, almost. Users can currently log in with their usual Twitter credentials, but there are no features as of yet.

According to AllThingsD, only a select few will get access to the service over the coming days, with Twitter planning a more extensive rollout after that.

Reports that the service was set to go live began circulating last night, and were fueled earlier in the week by celebrity Ryan Seacrest, who bragged about having access to it in a series of tweets.

Twitter yesterday confirmed that it had purchased music discovery … Read more

Twitter will reportedly launch music app this weekend

Twitter is rumored to be preparing for the launch this weekend of its much rumored Twitter Music app.

The microblogging service plans to launch its standalone music app tomorrow, sources familiar with the matter tell AllThingsD. Still other sources say the app will launch during this weekend's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in California, but not necessarily tomorrow.

CNET has contacted Twitter for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

The report comes on the heels of Twitter confirming that it has purchased music discovery service We Are Hunted. CNET reported in March that Twitter … Read more

Twitter confirms acquisition of music service We Are Hunted

We Are Hunted announced today that it has been acquired by Twitter, confirming a CNET report that the music discovery service was already being integrated with the microblogging site's music products.

In a tweet, Twitter also confirmed the acquisition.

Welcome to Twitter! "@wearehunted: We want to share some news with you. We Are Hunted has joined Twitter. wearehunted.com"

— Twitter Comms (@twittercomms) April 11, 2013

As a result, Wearehunted.com will shut down and user accounts will be closed, a note on the music site's home page explained.

"While we are shutting down wearehunted.com, … Read more

Twitter Trends now tracking trends in 160 more locations

The San Francisco Giants are currently trending on Twitter in my neck of the woods, but it's a pretty safe bet that people in the Ukraine, Greece, or Kenya don't give a spitball about the team. To better serve the localized interests of its users, the microblogging site announced today that it has added more than 160 locations to the list served by its Trends product.

In addition to residents of the countries mentioned above, the people of Belgium, Norway, and Portugal are among those who will now have access to tailored results based on their location, Twitter … Read more

Twitter links fail for short time as t.co experiences outage

Twitter's t.co link shortener feature experienced a brief outage today, preventing users from accessing other sites when clicking on hyperlinks in tweets.

Instead of directing users to the link they chose, it sent them to a page with an error message that "something is technically wrong," and an image of a robot that had lost one of its parts. It's unclear what caused the problem, but the outage appears to have started at about 6:45 a.m. PT. The links were working again by 7:10 a.m. PT.

Twitter acknowledged the issue through a blog post, … Read more