The way Karma works, is: you send a gift, with a card, and Karma will notify your friend via text messager, email or Facebook. They can accept the gift as is or swap it for something else, or donate the value of it to charity. They enter their address, and Karma sends the gift.

The company was founded in 2011.

It’s going to be interesting to see how Facebook uses this. It could be a pretty interesting layer to Facebook as an ecommerce platform.

Facebook released the following statement:

“We’ve been really impressed with the Karma team and all they accomplished in such a short time. This acquisition combines Karma’s passion and innovative mobile app with Facebook’s platform to help people connect and share in new and meaningful ways.”

A post from the Karma team on the Karma blog says, “Over the last year, we’ve built a new e-commerce platform from the ground up. We’ve been honored to partner with amazing brands to create a curated catalog of products. We made those products instantly giftable in a brand new way. And we harnessed the power of Facebook’s social network to ensure you never miss a chance to show someone you care. The phenomenal response and feedback we’ve heard from customers has more than exceeded our expectations. And we’re just getting started — today we take social gifting to the next level.”

“We’re thrilled to announce that Karma has been acquired by Facebook,” the post continues. “The service that Karma provides will continue to operate in full force. By combining the incredible passion of our community with Facebook’s platform we can delight users in new and meaningful ways. As we say … only good things will follow.”

No word so far on the terms of the deal.

We have covered a lot of different takes on classic movie posters here at webpronews, all of them unique and creative in their own way. But what about the originals? Some works just cannot be improved upon. Such is the case with Drew Struzan.

For a complete list of his works, and they are extensive, refer to drewstruzan.com

Adventures in Babysitting

Arabian Nights

Back to the Future 1

Big Trouble in Little China

Blade Runner

Dune

Hell Boy

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Pan’s Labyrinth

Star Wars – A New Hope

The Goonies

The Shawshank Redemption

The Thing

The Walking Dead

The Mist

The Name of the Rose

Born in Oregan City, Oregan, Struzan attended the Art Center College of Design in West Los Angelos, California.

Struzan showed promise as fine artist but as he put it, “I was poor and hungry, and illustration was the shortest path to a slice of bread, as compared to a gallery showing.”

He got his start in L.A., illustrating album covers for some very famous bands including The Beach Boys, Bee Gees, Roy Orbison, Black Sabbath, Glenn Miller, Iron Butterfly, Bach, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Liberace.

His first big break, and probably what he is now most famous for, is his 1978 depiction of Star Wars for the re-release. Keeping close ties with George Lucas, he is also the designer of the original Industrial Light and Magic logo.

He currently lives in California with his wife Dylan, and son Christian.

If you’re familiar with Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, you will no doubt remember the scene near the beginning where the black monolith appears amongst all the apes. Upon touching it, they begin to make significant evolutionary leaps, including walking upright and using tools (and killing each other with said tools). In fact, chances are you’re familiar with it anyway. It’s so deeply ingrained in popular culture that most people are at least vaguely aware of it. It’s also been parodied and referenced in countless other movies and TV shows, including Pixar’s Wall-E.

Well, thanks to the magic of the internet, we’ve found another awesome tribute to this particular classic. Last night on reddit a user posted a photo with the title “A friend’s husband just built this iPhone charging station.” The link led to this Imgur page, where you can see the following picture (click for full size):

This is just all kinds of awesome. Unfortunately, the image is not posted to any particular Imgur user’s account, so there’s no way to give proper credit to the creator. Whoever he is, though, he’s definitely had a stroke of genius here.

And speaking of iPhones and 2001: A Space Odyssey, you’re probably better off not asking Siri to open the pod bay doors…

Facebook’s already becoming a pain in the backside for mobile carriers as more people are using the site, presumably both on the web and mobile, to send messages instead of straight-out texting. Add to that the strain that your typical Facebook activity, like uploading photos and videos, is putting on mobile networks and it starts to sound like Facebook is taking their share as well as the carriers’ share.

That’s only the current problem wireless carriers are having with Facebook. Who knows what innovations Facebook might come up with in the future that could increase the tax that it takes on mobile providers. A telecom analyst told the New York Times today about some potentially terrifying possibilities – terrifying if you’re AT&T or Verizon, at least – of how Facebook could seriously bite into mobile industry, such as with the creation of a built-in voice messaging feature.

As more people bypass their mobile carriers’s paid services and use free alternatives to texting and, possibly, actually calling people (if people even still continue to want to do that in the future), expect that the carriers will find ways to recoup that loss of revenue, perhaps most likely by hiking up the price of data plans or even capping data usage.

Then again, there’s no real reason why Facebook and the dons of the wireless industry can’t find an accord. Facebook’s new App Center presents one opportunity the two parties might be able to play nicely together, not to mention the fact that most people probably consider things like their mobile Facebook experience whenever they’re considering a smartphone purchase from a carrier.

Or, if people are speculating that Apple could possibly become a wireless service provider, who’s to say that Facebook couldn’t do the same thing if it was to be so bold?

Luckily, the New York Post has been live-blogging the momentous occasion for those of us who haven’t become billionaires today. To familiarize yourself with the topic and arm yourself with some talking points for the inevitable Facebook-centered conversations this weekend, here are some of the highlights of Facebook’s big day:

• Facebook priced its shares at $38 each, the high end of predicted price ranges. By offering over 421 million shares, Facebook raised around $16 billion dollars.
• This price values Facebook at $104 billion, or about half the value of Wal-Mart.
• Facebook celebrated the IPO with an all-night employee “hackathon” complete with beer, street hockey, and LEGOS.
• Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, sold 30 million shares today, making around $1.15 billion in cash. He also controls 32% of Facebook’s shares, making his net worth more than $19 billion. Zuckerberg is now the 29th richest person in the world.
• Before the NASDAQ opened for the day, Zuckerberg said the following to his employees:
  

  “Right now this all seems like a big deal. Going public is an important milestone in our history. But here’s the thing: Our mission isn’t to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. In the past eight years, all of you out there have built the largest community in the history of the world. You’ve done amazing things that we never would have dreamed of, and I can’t wait to see what you guys all do going forward.”

• Watch as the 28-year-old Zuckerberg presses a button and makes himself a multi-billionaire:

  Watch live streaming video from nasdaq at livestream.com

• Zuckerberg was given a commemorative hoodie from NASDAQ to mark the occasion.
• Facebook stock was set to begin trading at 11 am, but was delayed 30 minutes. NASDAQ stated the delay was due to technical glitches caused by the incredible demand for the stock.
• Facebook stock began trading at 11:30 am for $42.25 per share, but quickly dipped back down to around $38. The stock then climbed back to hover around $40 for most of the day, before ending the day right back at its original value: $38.18.

  
  (graph courtesy Yahoo! Finance)

• This moderate performance disappointed many, and fell far short of some analysts’ wild expectations. Also, this weak performance may have caused game company Zynga’s stock to fall off a cliff.
• Over 500 million Facebook shares were traded on its first day, a record for an IPO.
• The excitement around the Facebook brand has generated the most small investor demand for an IPO in history. This is something that billionaire Mark Cuban warned against on Thursday.
• Facebook still hasn’t shed it’s privacy issues. On today, of all days, a San Jose judge allowed a class-action lawsuit against Facebook to proceed. The lawsuit concerns Facebook’s tracking of users who are not logged into its website, but a Facebook spokesperson stated that “We believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously.”

There you have it. In the end, the unbelievable hype over Facebook’s stock might have prevented it from soaring too high, and investors were responsible and restrained with their trading. What comes next for Facebook’s stock is unclear, but what is clear is that the company now has investors to please on a quarterly basis. That means Facebook will be pushing hard to increase its revenue using every possible method. What that will mean for Facebook users could end up being the most interesting story of 2012.

(via New York Post)

Bidding will start on Sunday May 20th, 2012 with a starting minimum bud of $850,000 but they are currently accepting online bids. So if you were planning on putting it in your foyer you might want to think again! If you can make it to the auction in person, it is at Center 548, 548 W. 22nd St., New York, NY 10011.

Here is the official description from the Auction site Heritage Auctions:

“The classification of the Tyrannosauridae family is somewhat convoluted, but even the least scientifically-inclined observer can see at once that the similarity between the fearsome Tarbosaurus (meaning “alarming lizard”) and the famous Tyrannosaurus rex. T.bataar currently belongs in fact to its own tribe, Tarbosaurinae, within the Tyrannosaurinae subfamily, but many scientists support a reversion to its initial classification (in 1955) as Tyrannosaurus bataar. On the other hand, a 2003 paper proposed that the nearest relative of the Tarbosaurus was in fact another late Cretaceous Tyrannosaurid, the Alioramus; if true, this would suggest that two distinct Tyrannosaurine families evolved separately in both North America and Central Asia, over 70 million years ago. The T. bataar was marginally smaller than the T. rex, at 30-40 feet in length, but equipped with the same powerful jaws, monstrous teeth, powerful hind legs, and voracious appetite for prey. Like the T. rex, it also had remarkably short forelimbs, the shortest in relation to body-size of all dinosaurs. It ruled the food chain of the ancient floodplains that are today’s Gobi Desert, thinking nothing of taking down the giant Titanosaurs with which it shared the ecosystem. There is evidence also that the T. bataar was not above scavenging, bite-marks on a hadrosaur Saurolophus discovered in 1995 suggesting that the carnivorous dinosaur carefully stripped muscle and flesh from a half-buried carcass. This is an incredible, complete skeleton, painstakingly excavated and prepared, and mounted in a dramatic, forward-leaning running pose. The quality of preservation is superb, with wonderful bone texture and delightfully mottled grayish bone color. In striking contrast are those deadly teeth, long and frightfully robust, in a warm woody brown color, the fearsome, bristling mouth and monstrous jaws leaving one in no doubt as to how the creature came to rule its food chain. Equally deadly and impressive are the large curving claws, with pronounced blood grooves. The body is 75% complete and the skull 80%, and it is mounted on a discreet gray-painted armature. Measuring 24 feet in length and standing 8 feet high, it is a stupendous, museum-quality specimen of one of the most emblematic dinosaurs ever to have stalked this Earth. Bone map and restoration details available upon request. Estimate: $950,000 – $1,500,000.”

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/webpronews/all/~3/gDMXv3BDTFY/next-media-animation-takes-on-facebook-ipo-2012-05 Fri, 18 May 2012 23:14:43 +0200 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/webpronews/all/~3/gDMXv3BDTFY/next-media-animation-takes-on-facebook-ipo-2012-05 Chris Richardson Come for a childlike Mark Zuckerberg riding a bull down Wall Street and stay Goldman Sachs shaking people down–literally–for whatever’s in their pocket. Then there’s this pertinent question: “if Facebook is worth owning, then why did company insiders dump $9.2 billion in shares?”

Of course, the answer to that can be found within the question itself–”Just got paid. It’s Friday night…” Take a look around, especially if you’re in NYC and you might see the newest members of the billionaire club rolling around Wall Street in hoodies, playing on their iPhones. However, NMA goes a little deeper, suggesting Facebook is not a viable business. To illustrate their point, NMA points out that GM cancelled their multi-million dollar advertising campaign that was supposed to rollout on the Facebook platform.

Unfortunately, they are overlooking the one thing Facebook can sell. In other words, the product that turns the social media platform into a viable business: its members. That has always been Facebook’s selling point. The platform itself is not being sold. Instead, the people that inhabit Facebook’s world are. Case in point, if Facebook had 900,000 members instead of 900 million, would their IPO been anywhere near as successful?

[H/t to GeekOSystem]

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/webpronews/all/~3/A77S87nAcc8/facebook-ipo-leaves-winklevoss-twins-speechless-on-twitter-2012-05 Fri, 18 May 2012 23:07:14 +0200 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/webpronews/all/~3/A77S87nAcc8/facebook-ipo-leaves-winklevoss-twins-speechless-on-twitter-2012-05 Chris Crum There’s been a whole lot of chatter about the Facebook IPO today. However, there’s not been much from the Winklevoss Twins, the Harvard duo that founded ConnectU, and made cinematic history in The Social Network with Armie Hammer’s portrayal of them.

The twins are regularly engaged on Twitter, giving the world a glimpse into their TV viewing habits and animal preferences:

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Follow @winklevoss Cameron Winklevoss
@winklevoss #gameofthrones is hands down the best show on television. Absolutely mesmerizing! (Full disclosure: Just watched 3 episodes in a row)
10 days ago via web · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @tylerwinklevoss Tyler Winklevoss
@tylerwinklevoss @Animal_Aisha everyone knows dogs are better than cats…come on now!
19 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto
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However, they have not had much to say on this historic day for Facebook, the company founded by their arch-nemesis Mark Zuckerberg. Tyler did retweet a couple of related posts:

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Follow @nichcarlson Nicholas Carlson
@nichcarlson FIRST FACEBOOK TRADE $42.05 [t.co]
5 hours ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto
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Follow @WSJ Wall Street Journal
@WSJ Breaking: Clarification: Facebook shares open at $42.99, up about 13% from offer price of $38 a share. [t.co]
5 hours ago via WSJ.com · powered by @socialditto
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But no actual commentary from the twins. Granted, the day is not over yet. Nothing from ConnectU partner Divya Narendra either.

The Winklevoss Twins, however, recently started their own venture capital company, and are apparently on the lookout for programmers.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/webpronews/all/~3/3sruenT9YzU/activist-group-could-force-facebook-privacy-changes-2012-05 Fri, 18 May 2012 23:06:37 +0200 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/webpronews/all/~3/3sruenT9YzU/activist-group-could-force-facebook-privacy-changes-2012-05 Chris Gabbard According to TechCrunch, the European Activist Group Europe-v-Facebook.org, which is lead by students in Austria, has reached a comment threshold that could take Facebook’s privacy changes to a worldwide vote. The campaign began about a year ago, when the group filed complaints with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) for changes to be made to what they feel are loopholes in Facebook’s privacy standards. Ireland is the site of the international headquarters for Facebook.

These are there demands, quoted from TechCrunch:

• A clarification regarding Facebook’s existing policy that it may use your data to serve you ads outside of Facebook.com while you’re on other websites
• A detailed new chart of how Facebook uses cookies to improve Facebook but not track you across the web
• A more detailed explanation of how in some cases Facebook will “retain [your] data as long as necessary to provide you services” whether that’s less or more time

The DPC issued a report that suggested changes to the policy. Mostly changes that allowed users to access their data easily, and remove what they choose. According to the activist group, this worsened conditions and still did not comply with DPC standards. The DPC and the German Data Protection Agency (GDPA) have since made more changes.

By Facebook’s own standards, “If more than 7,000 users comment on the proposed change, we will also give you the opportunity to participate in a vote in which you will be provided alternatives. The vote shall be binding on us if more than 30% of all active registered users as of the date of the notice vote.”

With Facebook approaching a billion users, it is difficult to say if 300 million care enough about their Facebook privacy to vote in favor of these changes. Or if enough people will even know about it when the time comes. It seems like an extremely important issue, considering the number of changes Facebook continually makes to privacy, and the growing number of lawsuits they face over it.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/webpronews/all/~3/dSHk_60CID0/iran-might-sue-over-google-map-2012-05 Fri, 18 May 2012 23:06:26 +0200 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/webpronews/all/~3/dSHk_60CID0/iran-might-sue-over-google-map-2012-05 Mike Fossum Iran, the world’s worst oppressor of internet freedom, has ironically been complaining about Google’s omission of the Persian Gulf name in its map of the region, and is now reportedly considering a lawsuit.

For a bit of backstory, Iran accused Google of lacking credibility after noticing that the word ‘Persian Gulf’ was omitted from its map of the area. Below is a similar map from 1994, which would likely pass quality control in Iran:

Bahman Dorri, a deputy in Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, had said, “Google is fabricating lies – will not have any outcome but for its users to lose trust in the data the company provides.” Other Arab countries in the region typically refer to the body of water as the “Arabian Gulf” or simply “the Gulf.” But Iran likes to say “Persian Gulf.” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast states, “Toying with modern technologies in political issues is among the new measures by the enemies against Iran, (and) in this regard, Google has been treated (us) as a plaything,” adding, “omitting the name Persian Gulf is (like) playing with the feelings and realities of the Iranian nation.”

A spokesperson for Google explained to CNN, “It’s just simply the case that we don’t have a label for every body of water.” The Google map above shows that the Arabian Sea is also missing, as well as the Gulf of Oman.

I assume Mehmanparast meant to convey that Google had “treated Iran like a plaything,” though perhaps the country is being a bit pedantic in its Google map searching habits.

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