Comedian, Gavin McInnes created a hilarious video after the Los Angeles Times featured an article about the troubles that Scottish people face while using Siri on the iPhone 4S. The parody “commercial” is guaranteed to have you rolling on the floor with unapologetic laughter.

The “commercial” begins with the usual soul-searching music combined with a close-up of the Siri Interface;  a typical start for an Apple Advertisement. It does not take very long to understand that this is just not just another civilized Apple parody. McInnes asks some very simple questions to the application, but the developers of the voice recognition pattern were obviously not prepared for references to words like “jammy dodger”, “chip butty” as well as “Caledonian 80″.  Siri’s responses to the same are hilarious!

The one-minute video, however, contains some repeated profanities which are not advised for children. For those of you who are above 18 and don’t mind listening to an angry Scot, get ready to loosen your face muscles.

As reports go, over 50 WWE related topics were trending on Twitter following the World Wrestling Entertainment’s special event, ‘Royal Rumble’. While some were understandable, others made little less sense.

Several whacky spellings of Vickie Guerrero began to trend when she was sent backstage during one of the matches. A commercial feautring Big Show, Eve Torres and Rey Mysterio led to ‘Slim Jims’ trending on the micro-blogging site.

Hunico may have stolen Sin Cara’s entrance when he paraded in as a ‘fake’ Sin Cara, but that only led to the masked wrestler getting his share of publicity on Twitter.

John Morrison shot to fame with his amazing save in last year’s Royal Rumble, and he started trending again when Kofi Kingston pulled off a similiar move this year.

Road Dogg unintentionally (and unwillingly) led to his former partner from New Age Outlaws, Billy Gunn to trend after his entry in the ring.

While Kia Stevens may have donned a new avatar as Kharma, it seems his past wouldn’t let go. When Kharma made his entrance, his alter-ego Awesome Kong was more talked about in Twitter than his current role.

The trends put up quite a list and go by the lines of -

1. #RoyalRumble
2. Steel Cage
3. World Heavyweight Championship
4. The Road to Wrestlemania
5. Daniel Bryan
6. Elimination Chamber
7. Beth Phoenix
8. This Cena
9. Alicia Fox
10. Kelly Kelly
11. Glam Slam
12. Zack Ryder’s
13. Cena vs. Kane
14. #LetsGoCena
15. Cena and Kane
16. Tombstone Piledriver
17. Eve Torres
18. Zack Ryder
19. Brodus Clay
20. #WHATTHEFUNK
21. Slim Jims
22. WWE Championship
23. Vickie Guerrero
24. #ITSCLOBBERINTIME
25. Vicky Guerrero
26. The Miz
27. Royal Rumble Match
28. Cobra vs. Socko
29. Ricardo Rodriguez
30. Santino Marella
31. Sin Cara
32. Jerry Lawler
33. Booker T
34. Hunico
35. Great Khali
36. Awesome Kong
37. Michael Cole
38. John Morrison
39. Dolph Ziggler
40. Kofi Kingston
41. Kharma
42. #ohyoudidntKNOW
43. Billy Gunn
44. Road Dogg
45. David Otunga
46. Walls of Jericho
47. Sheamus
48. Jericho
49. #GreatWhite
50. Sin Cara

Earlier this week, a Federal Judge summoned Apple, Google and five other prime companies to court over allegations of violating the antitrust laws; these big boys conspired poaching employees from other companies.

The issue revolves around whether or not, these companies attempted to hire employees from one another’s firms.

A probe was conducted by the Justice Department of the U.S, which revealed at least six such companies that kept aside a “Do Not Call” list with their recruiters. Although the companies have managed to settle these complaints; the employees that were involved in the incident are now seeking compensation for damages.

The lead attorney for the employees, Joe Saveri, pit forth an argument that the alleged conspiracy has resulted in the stifling of competition which had lowered the salaries of employees. He stated,

“They are definitely putting the interests of the company ahead of their employees. That’s fundamentally wrong.”

Some of court filings that were released recently also included an e-mail from Steve Jobs, Apple’s former CEO, to Eric Schmidt, Google Executive, about the recruitment of Apple’s engineer. Jobs wrote:

“I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this.”

Google then went ahead to sack the recruiter and replied with an email that read:

“Please extend my apologies as appropriate to Steve Jobs “

Joe Saveri now states that these were agreements that were formulated, implemented and spread as well as concealed at the highest possible levels of the hierarchy. He also presented documents which proved that there were a few executives who were not very comfortable with the agreed arrangement. Steve Jobs received an email from the past CEO of Palm which was worded as follows:

“Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other’s employees, regardless of the individual’s desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal.”

As of now, all of the mentioned companies have insisted that the case be dismissed and have argued that these allegations of involvement in a grand conspiracy are implausible. However, lawyers say that if this lawsuit gains the class action status, the compensation for the damages could run into millions of dollars. Phew!

The announcement comes when the company is all set to expand its network into new territories. With support for Urdu, Arabic, Hebrew and Farsi, Twitter hopes to increase its user base to 100 million users and generate better revenue. In an official blog post, Twitter said that with the company’s global expansion,

“we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.”

According to social networking site, the new feature is designed keeping transparency in mind. Twitter also said that they

“will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld.”

Although Twitter is yet to implement the feature, it has tied up with chillingeffects.org to share removal requests from Governments, individuals and companies.

We will have to wait and see if such a move can create a clean impression for Twitter in the minds of government bodies and other such organizations.

This is how U.S. Rep Darrel Issa. R. – Calif, has explained the new Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Act, also known as ACTA. He stated,

“As a member of Congress, it’s more dangerous than SOPA. It’s not coming to me for a vote. It purports that it does not change existing laws. But once implemented, it creates a whole new enforcement system and will virtually tie the hands of Congress to undo it.”

He also added that the ACTA is comparatively much more dangerous to SOPA & PIPA, owing to the fact that the Congress is unable to change it.

Issa goes on to add that unlike the SOPA & PIPA which are bills that were initiated in the Congress, ACTA is a global that has far-reaching effects in an attempt to strengthen protection for copyright  content as well as intellectual property across all nations that are ready to participate in the Act. This Act, also includes offline issues like counterfeiting in materials like pharmaceuticals. While it has still not been clarified whether the ACTA is as enforcing as the SOPA was, the fact still remains that there are many implied similarities between the ACTA & SOPA.

Countries that have already signed up with ACTA include Poland, Italy, France, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland as well as the U.S.A.

The Nike+ Fuel band is overloaded with a host of features. This device helps you measure activities using a metric value called ‘Nike Fuel’. This wrist band has an ergonomic design and can be worn throughout the day. It provides you a calculated result of your activities through movement of your wrists. It has an LED dot matrix display which displays Calories, Step, time and Nike fuel.

Nike’s CEO and President, Mr. Mark Parker explained the idea behind developing this tool and its benefits. In a press conference held at an event in New York, he said,

“The Nike+ FuelBand is a way for Nike to further evolve the exciting possibilities of merging the physical and digital worlds”.

This new wristband was also promoted by reputed athletes like Lance Armstrong, Carmelita Jeter and  Kevin Durant.

This hi-tech wrist band can be synced with your iPhone over Bluetooth or can be connected to a computer via USB. This wrist band can be pre-ordered from Nike’s official website and would cost $149 (Rs.7,496).

This new wristband is an attempt to enhance personal performance by keeping a track of daily activities. Although this idea is not new to the table, it certainly is a positive move as far as the sports industry is concerned. Sports persons and fashion enthusiasts are definitely going to have their sights on something like this. Give it awhile and you’ll see many celebrities and stars sporting the Nike+ Fuel soon.

Government of India has been planning to ban “Objectionable Content” from social networking giants like Facebook, Twitter and even Google. As reported earlier, these media giants are facing a tough time for their survival in one of the most populated and Internet-friendly countries in the world.

According to an online survey, 84% of Internet users in India accepted that Government‘s attempt of removing content from these websites is a violation of their fundamental rights. A minor 13% were in support of this act.

Advocate NK Kaul, who represents Google India against Indian government in the court of law stated,

“The issue relates to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression and suppressing it was not possible as the right to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China”.

Government’s decision of banning so-called ‘Anti Social’ elements and filtering information from social media platforms has been appreciated and accepted by satellite channel Al Jazeera. A post on the company’s web portal supported the idea of scanning online content.

DigiMouth Speak -

The ongoing fiasco has turned into an ugly war between people and system. Isn’t the system for the people? Can this very system burden people with their rules and regulations? Is it really necessary to ban websites offering content which has been posted by the very individuals of the society?In a world plagued with wars, hunger, diseases, financial instability and environmental issues, is it really important to lay so much emphasis on online moral policing? We’ll let you take the call on that.

Jimmy Wales wants the support for this ‘Public Uprising’ in an attempt to protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Most critics have agreed that the effects of this bill will definitely be chilling and will also force the websites to pay close attention to the content being uploaded by users onto their respective pages.

In retaliation, Jimmy Wales announced last night that all of the English-language categories of Wikipedia will be  kept offline for a period of 24 hours which will start tomorrow.

While the bill is being passed in the American legislation, the impact of the act will be felt around the globe as most search engines as well as social network sites are located in the U.S.

The bill that is being processed is actually a result of many years of lobbying on the part of film studios and music labels who were against the amount of pirated that was available on the internet through the various search engines. These music labels and film studios lobbied the Congress and eventually the Senate into introducing the SOPA. In its present form, the SOPA can effectively transfer almost all the responsibility of policing the content on the internet onto the owners of the site and gives some rest to the law enforcement agencies.

The bill has been the cause of major worry among the owners of the various websites and search engines with the likes of Google, Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia. They have come together to post a petition Capitol Hill with the appeal of rethinking the legislation presently. Mr. Wales fears  the Senate may postpone the bill forward without making any amends to it which is why he has urged the some of the most popular websites of the world to initiate a ‘a day of darkness’ which would mean a simultaneous shut down of all these sites as a sign of their protest against the bill.

The idea of the protest was first initiated by Reddit which is a popular social media site where the users are asked to rate the links that are available to the other sites. Mr. Wales asked for the public’s opinion on this very blog. He asked the users whether Wikipedia should also be initiating a ‘Public Uprising‘ against the SOPA Act. Mr. Wales said,

“Right now what I’m thinking is that if there is a credible threat that this might happen, this could have a positive impact on the thinking of some legislators. Do not underestimate our power – in my opinion they are terrified of a public uprising about this, and we are uniquely positioned to start that.”

Most of the responses to Mr. Wales’ question on the site steered in favour of a one-day strike that could be specifically aimed at the English-language sections of Wikipedia. Hampering the English-language sections of the site would mean that the whole site will be temporarily unavailable in the UK.

While Twitter, Facebook and Google are yet to decide if they will follow Wikipedia in the strike, it has already come to light that there will be scores of users who are already planning to flood the internet with links and information on SOPA and how it will eventually hamper the freedom of speech that all the users have been exercising all this time.

Although the White House is of the opinion that online piracy needs to be curbed, inhibition of innovation is not the method to do it. This is why President Barrack Obama is said to be reluctant to be sign off the current state of the bill.

Now what remains to be seen is whether the lobbyists will be able to continue their efforts in getting the bill passed, or will the protest be successful in making an impact on the Senate. Mr. Wales has said that he intends to meet the senior politicians over the next few days in order to discuss a bill that will have a greater amount of flexibility. At the same time, media conglomerates are pressing the bill to ensure that their efforts are not wasted in the end.

This, however, is not a new fact that Mr. Wales has made use of his online encyclopedia in order to make a point on political affairs. Previously, there was a legislation that was put in front of the Italian Government. This legislation demands any comment, post or content that would have been flagged as defamatory be deleted automatically. As a protest, the Italian version of the site was kept offline for a period of three days during which users could only read a critique that had been put up about the new found legislation. The government was forced to shelve the legislation following the public outcry against it.

DigiMouth Speak:

As we do understand the intentions of Wikipedia in this current state of affairs, we wonder what the league of ramifications for such an action. Google may look to increase their already-large search base, even if its for a single day.

People in Beijing had lined up for their new iPhone 4S on its launch day in China. Reports indicate that people became incensed when the store refused to open on time. Later on they went bezerk and began pelting eggs at the store and its employees. Reports also suggest that the people became more angry when an Apple store employee informed them that the phone was not yet available.

There has been no official announcement from Apple about the incident.

Things were calm and smooth at Shanghai, where  Apple’s flagship store opened well before time. Apple had promised to launch Apple iPhone 4S in 25 countries including China earlier this month. iPhone 4S is expected to be Apple’s fastest selling mobile phone yet.

This incident is a second instance of people’s rage and violence at an apple store. A fight broke sometime back before the launch of Apple’s iPad 2 which resulted in several injuries.

ComScore’s statistics stated that while Yahoo managed to process 2.65 billion requests which represented 14.5% of the U.S market, Bing’s processing volume represented 15.1% share of the same market. However, Google still maintained its top position with 12 billion requests marking up to 65.9% of the U.S. market share.

Most search analysts had expected this change in position between Yahoo and Microsoft ever since the two had announced their partnership in July of 2009. The have a 10-year agreement that allows Yahoo to save a substantial amount of money by depending on Microsoft for its search technology. Microsoft, on the hand, benefited from the deal because they would get more requests to process and analyse over time. This also gave Microsoft the opportunity of understanding the people’s preferences and their tendencies.

Microsoft has spent large amounts of money in an attempt to pursue Google for its top position which is why it still banks on its Windows Operating Software to make profits for the organisation. In fact, the online division of Microsoft, which is being anchored by Bing, has suffered losses of up to $7 billion since June 2008.

Yahoo, on the other hand, has been losing its search share on the online market and that has also been the reason that their revenue has been decreasing. This also urged the company to hire Scott Thompson as the new CEO. Scott is the fourth CEO to be hired by Yahoo in the last five years.