History repeating - Hello and welcome to 2010. HTC might make a Facebook phone. Normal 2012 service will now resume. Olympics! Drought! Double-dip recession! Possible tornado like in that film Twister! [Digitimes]
Windy – You know when this wind-powered car invented by a Chinese farmer would come into its own? In that film Twister. [Dvice]
READI or not – Nasa has started testing a GPS system that will find the exact epicentre of major earthquakes in the US. It's a bit like in that film Twister with those little flying sensors that go up into the tornado, except with more actual tech and less excitement. Once Nasa has found the epicentre, it can work out the magnitude and whether there's any likelihood of after effects like tsunamis and the like. [The Verge]
Olfactory hallucination – We just made tits of ourselves in the office by smelling an iPhone headphone jack while charging it just to see if the Chinese are on to something when they say it smells like pineapple. It doesn't. You owe us our dignity, China. [Kotaku]
6D – Sky's so into 3D that it's thinking of launching a second dedicated channel, this one especially for sports. We imagine it'll be called Sky Sports 3D. Imagine that film Twister in 3D. That'd be brilliant. [Pocket-Lint]
Oppo-tunity knocks – Soz Motorola, soz Huawei, there's a new 'world's thinnest' phone in town. Or there will be when Oppo gives it a name and some specs – all we know at the moment is that its 6.65mm thick. We'll take two. It's how we'll stay in touch on the tornado trail. [Engadget]
Image credit: Engadget
Over the seas of Skype - The one thing the PS Vita was missing was a feature that could allow friends and family to interrupt you at the very trickiest part of a game. It has it now, in the form of a Skype app that will run in the background and auto-pause a game if a call comes in while you're playing. [Skype]
Hard knock life - The jury's out on whether or not Jay-Z still has 99 problems, but Farmville ain't one – not now that he's got a Facebook game of his very own. To win at Empire you just have to make all the excellent decisions Mr Z has made himself, and hopefully see your character progress from rap-battling hustler to entrepreneur to business mogul. LIVE THE DREAM, as the game suggests. [Mashable]
Hollywood hack – This guy Chris Chaney had no formal hacking experience and he still managed to weasel his way into a whole load of celebrity Gmail accounts using only his smarts, Google and some branded energy drinks. Want to know more? Have a read of this excellent feature from GQ – and maybe change your security questions afterwards. Hollywood, incidentally, is where the studios that backed that film Twister are based. [GQ]
Think of the children – Remember in that film Twister, when… no, this one's got nothing to do with that particular 1996 classic. Apparently parents are helping kids set up Facebook profiles despite that rule about having to be 13 to do so being there for a reason. Mobile phone companies have also been told to do more to stop kids sexting. Exactly what they should do hasn't been made clear. [AP]
Bonus tech video of the day – It's that film Twister! No, wait, sorry, it's not. It's a camera showdown between the HTC One X and the Samsung Galaxy S2.
