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Like bad beer, cracker jacks, and drunken fans getting hammered in the parking lot, smack-talking and sports-betting are staples of American sports. And that’s why Bema Studios created Smackdaddy, a free iPhone app [ iTunes link ] that allows you to both bet on games (currently just NFL, NHL and NBA) and tell your friends they smell. I got a chance to play with Smackdaddy this Sunday and loved it – it is easy to use, intuitive, and addictive Read the rest at MobileCrunch > >

We published photos of the NorhTec Gecko Edubook back in May but this AA batteries Netbook has since been spotted in the wild and our friends from Liliupting have been able to play with it. So how is it? Well, it feels like any other Netbook (although a bit thicker), but with a couple of twists: for one, it looks like you can charge the AA by plugging directly from the wall to the computer - no power brick involved. Secondly, the construction is very modular. You can change the CPU if you want to. So what do you think? Is using AA batteries hot or not? How would you use it? Permalink: AA-powered Netbook

It’s definitely shaping up to be the year of e-book readers: the Amazon Kindle is flying off (virtual) shelves , and we’d expect the Barnes & Noble Nook to start moving at a decent clip once the kinks get worked out . But any device with an always-on 3G connection to a central server raises some privacy questions, especially when it can broadcast granular, specific data about what you’re reading — data that’s subject to a wide spectrum of privacy laws and regulations when it comes to real books and libraries, but much less so in the digital realm. We’d say it’s going to take a while for all the privacy implications of e-books to be dealt with by formal policy, but in the meantime the best solution …

We’ve written about the social city and nightlife mobile app, buzzd, which pulls its data from Twitter and other buzzd users, for a bigger picture of the places that are hot in a given location. The mobile app, which has been available for iPhone and BlackBerry users, is launching an Android app as well as rolling out new versions of its existing smartphone apps. The buzzd network compiles information from its base of over a half-million users, Twitter, and other real-time sources to provide users with activity updates for almost half a million venues across the United States and Canada. You download…

It’s no longer cool enough to propose on Twitter. That’s been done before . Several times . So Alex Marsh of Raleigh-Durham decided to take it up a notch. The clever guy used Foursquare , the mobile location-based game, to propose to his girlfriend, Susan Wilkison , during dinner at Raleigh Times Bar . In case you’re unfamiliar with Foursquare , once you check-in at a location, your friends receive an instant notification of your check-in and any accompanying text that you’ve added to the check-in. Using this to his advantage, Marsh decided to check-in at dinner with his then girlfriend, now fiancé, and wrote “popping the question!” in the text field. Wilkison got the notification immediately and said “Yes,” via …

Rummble , the location-based social ratings mobile startup, has just released a new version of its iPhone app containing what is effectively its answer to Foursquare . The feature is called “Local Heroes” and is billed as “the fun side of Rummbling” but it is quite obviously going to be Rumbble’s way of attacking the buzz surrounding the game of checking-in and becoming a “Mayor” of a location as propogated by the New York-based Foursquare. Local Heroes is a feature listed under “Empire” which suggests that there will be yet more gaming elements introduced. Rummble has until now relied on its users to create content about…

Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks there is a social paradox in the location space . A new service, Rally , believes the power of location lies in less rather than more. That is to say, fewer social connections rather than more of them. It’s an idea that you don’t hear a lot of social networks talking about these days as each tries to build a social graph that’s as sprawling as possible. But the team behind Rally is taking this different approach largely due to their past experience. Much of the team is the same one that built 12seconds , one of the video platforms that rose as Twitter began to become popular. And eventually, 12seconds started relying heavily on Twitter’s large …

Since the beginning, Facebook has incorporated birthdays into its social DNA. Part of the fun and utility of Facebook is wishing each of your friends a Happy Birthday note on their walls while rushing to the store to buy gifts for them at the last minute. Now Facebook is (finally) including another important annual celebration into the social network’s mix: the anniversary . Facebookers that are happily (or unhappily) in a relationship or joined in holy matrimony can now go to their relationship status and add the specific day, month, and year in which they became a couple. Facebook was originally a website for college students, so it makes sense that the company didn’t have this feature back then. Since …

Yep, it’s still happening. You can still become a millionaire on the iPhone without a marketing budget and a brand name. Occipital , the company behind RedLaser [ iTunes Link ], has struck gold with its barcode-scanning iPhone app. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s much harder to be an indie developer on the iPhone these days. The App Store is riddled with brands and much of the Top 50 selling apps are backed by marketing/PR budgets or legacy users (meaning they’ve been on the store since the beginning, and have an install base that can boost future app sales via cross-promotion). In fact…

Business-oriented social network LinkedIn has a new feature out called faceted search . As you search for something or someone, it automatically generates search filters, based on your query results, which let you quickly refine your search. The filters are based on 8 facets: current company, past company, location, relationship, location, industry, school, and profile languages. In practice, this means you can create amazingly precise queries. For example, I’ve searched for web designers in the UK, who speak English, who used to work at Yahoo, and who are my first and second connections (meaning, I’m either friends with them directly, or they’re friends of friends). The search results adapt instantly as you apply the filters, making the entire process quick and effortless. While this is great for…