Hurricane Adrian churned across the Pacific early Thursday as forecasters warned of dangerous surf and rip currents on the southwestern coast of Mexico.
Adrian -- a Category 1 hurricane -- could intensify into a major hurricane in the next day or two, the National Weather Service said.
The first hurricane of the season is expected to stay offshore, sparing Mexico.
But "any deviation to the right of the forecast track could bring tropical storm conditions" to parts of Mexico on Thursday and into Friday, according to the hurricane center.
Adrian's maximum sustained winds increased to nearly 80 mph (130 kph) late Wednesday.
"Additional strength is likely," the weather service said.
The storm was about 275 miles (440 kilometers) south of the town of Zihuatanejo late Wednesday.
Swells caused by the storm were expected to affect the southwestern coast of Mexico.
When you want to get your name out there - sometimes you've got to come up with clever ways to do it.
That's something Rotterdam tattoo artist Dex Moelker and his company clearly hoped for when they were named as the ones who inked the Facebook tattoo requested by a Dutch woman of 152 of her Facebook friends. And boy, did it work. The story spread like a wildfire online. After newspapers and major online outlets, including CNN.com, put the story out – it was a hot-button topic. Ironically, as of this moment more than 7,000 people recommended this story on Facebook – perhaps in part because they thought it was ridiculous. And it turns out, that's just what it was.
The tattoo that sparked the Web frenzy isn't real. First off, I think a few people can give a sigh of relief that it isn't real. And we haven't really gone that far off the social media deep end to where our Facebook walls are displayed "Matrix"-style on our arms. As we said before, it wouldn't have been the first time someone tried to capture fame by using a social network site to name their kid or to get a tattoo. In this case it was all about publicity.
Moelker just came clean to the Dutch newspaper the Telegraaf, saying it was in fact a publicity stunt. The woman in the video didn't have the tattoo inked during a 30-hour period as the video claimed.
"It is a try out tattoo, a transfer, that washes off in a couple of days," he told them.
Phew. It may take some scrubbing to get it off, but I guess on the bright side that's all it will take. When it comes to viral videos, you never know what you're going to get (I'm looking at you, Rebecca Black. I still don't get if that song is real). But ironically, in this case, the ink shop got just what it wanted – a lot of free press. Hats off for an international viral campaign. It's not great when media outlets worldwide are duped by viral videos or stories – but if you're looking at it from a marketing perspective – you've got to "like" how well they pulled it off.
[Original blog posted at 11:24 a.m.] There are some people who "like" Facebook. And then there are people who are so devoted to their social media circle that they'll find some pretty extravagant ways to show it.
Mark down one woman in the Netherlands in the latter category. She's literally armed herself with the power of Facebook – in the form of a tattoo sleeve of her friends on Facebook.
Let's get the obligatory jokes out of the way: "What if someone unfriends her?" "Can I dislike this entire idea?" "I hope she saved the rest of her money for laser removal when she starts not to like these people." "Forget the new facial recognition technology Facebook just announced– she can look at her arm."
But this woman – who is gaining quite a bit of fame by posting a video last week on her "susyj87" YouTube account showing the process and her final tattoo of her 152 closest friends – said the tat wasn't about making a splash.
"My tattoo is not about up-to-date profile pics or fame (as you can see I want to stay anonymous)," she said to critics on her YouTube page. "These are the people closest to me (not all my facebook friends). It's a personal expression of who I am right now in this part of my life and the mediaworld we live in. And of course I love the way it looks. I understand if you wouldn't do this, I respect that. But to me it does have a lot of meaning."
Personally, we hope she really, really, really likes these friends. Or she's going to have a heck of a time getting those off – with a trip to have one laser-removed any time she has a really bad spat with a friend.
She says the ink was a way to embody, literally, the social media world we are immersed in.
"Of course I gave it a lot of thought. These are not all my friends. Just the people I care most about," she wrote. "I got their permission and they were very proud to be on it. To me it represents who I am right now and the time we live in. And of course I love the looks of it."
She's not the first one to use social media platforms in an over-the-top way. In fact, many folks on the Web who have seen this tattoo are remembering artist T-Pain, whose "You don't have to 'like' me" tattoo was pictured on CNET. Or perhaps you remember the man in Egypt who reportedly named his newborn daughter "Facebook" in honor of the role the social media network played in bringing about a revolution. Or the Israeli parents who named their child "like."Then there was the guy that Mashable wrote about a few years ago, who was trying to sell Ray-Bans by tattooing a pair of the shades on his face.
And hey, art is art, right? But you know what else art is – subjective. And it's apparent the same social media circles she drew inspiration from for her mosaic-style Facebook ink feel strongly about whether it's a cool, personal idea, or the most ridiculous thing on the planet.
The latest metrics for the mobile phone industry have hit the wires, and there are some surprises from the comScore’s findings. That being said, there are also reveals that come without any surprise, whatsoever — especially when you consider the popularity of text messaging. The latest study was conducted from January 2011 until April 2011, and one thing’s for sure, the mobile device industry does not solely belong to Apple and its iPhone.
In fact, neither Apple’s service or their ubiquitous phone are number one for any of the categories comScore studied. As far as the devices themselves go, the leading manufacturer (OEM)m is Samsung. According to comScore’s study, Samsung is responsible 24.5 percent of phones used by mobile subscribers, followed by LG (20.9), Motorola (15.6), Apple and RIM with 8.3 and 8.2 percent, respectively. On the other hand, comScore also points out that Apple had the largest growth between January and April, seeing 1.3 percentage points worth or it. Nevertheless, that’s still 16 percentage points behind Samsung, the category’s leader. The chart in question:
Granted, if Apple continues to win the “most acquired device” award, the companies ahead of Apple will be feeling the heat to maintain their leads. When it comes to the most popular smartphone in terms of usage, it’s clearly becoming an Android versus iPhone scenario (or Google versus Apple, if you will) as Microsoft, RIM and Palm all saw their marketshare dwindle in comparison to Google and Apple. In regards to Google/Android, comScore’s study reveals the company previously best known for searching the Internet now finds themselves with a sizable chunk of the mobile phone industry. Between January 2011 until April 2011, phones using the Android operating system gained 5.3 percentage points, while Apple only gained another 1.3 percent. Conversely, RIM, makers of the BlackBerry devices, saw an almost 5 percent loss of its market share.
As for Microsoft and Palm, well, there’s always other devices to concentrate on.
Finally, the most popular activity when it comes to mobile devices should come with little to no surprise, although, the overall numbers just might. As one might expect, the most popular activity in regards to mobile phones is, of course, sending text messages. Big surprise, huh? No, actually the surprise comes from just how many mobile owners text each other. The comScore report indicates more than 68 percent of mobile phone owners send texts to others, which almost doubles the second most popular way to use your mobile phone: Internet browsing. From January until April, between 37 and 39.1 percent used their phone’s browser. Perhaps the other surprise comes from the amount of gaming that goes on with these phones. Surprisingly, game-playing ranked fifth on comScore’s list, with social media site access and downloading apps being more popular than playing Angry Birds. The chart in question:
So what does all this mean? That we are a nation of Samsung phone-carrying, Android/iPhone operating system using, text messaging bunch of mobile device fiends? Yes, as a matter of fact, it does.
2:59 PM
pocketstyle
Posted in: Quick News
