In today’s world of real-time status updates, search is evolving to account for the social nature of the web. Facebook is pushing forward in this direction with on-site search functionality that now displays search results — for Facebook and web content — based on “Likes” and shares. Facebook appears to have quietly rolled out the beefed-up search offering some time over the past few days; it was first spotted by... 

We’ve partnered with SANYO to give away 20 newly released SANYO Dual HD PD2 cameras. From today until next Friday, we’ll be giving two readers a camera each day, with six winners on the final day. So how do you win? Simple. All you have to do is answer the question: How would you use the camera if you won it? We’ll pick two answers from readers each day that we think are creative, unique or demonstrate a need for the…  Read More →

If you’ve seen Danny Boyle’s movie Sunshine , you may be a little disappointed: NASA’s mission to visit the Earth’s Sun won’t include sending people up there. But it will be sending a spacecraft into the Sun’s atmosphere, approximately four million miles from its surface. The project, called Solar Probe Plus , is slated to launch sometime before 2018. Four million miles doesn’t sound very close, but... 

Plenty of criticism has already been directed towards the new social network that’s baked into iTunes 10 — Ping — with an emphasis on the user (and a here one minute gone the next Facebook integration ). But there’s one contingent of users no one has really mentioned yet: the bands , many of which are still unable to get in on the action as of this afternoon. Immediately after hearing about Ping yesterday, I sent out... 

Apple made a lot of announcements today, from the new Apple TV to the Ping social network for music built into iTunes 10. Because Apple is entering some new market segments (or, in the case of Ping, some new markets, period) Apple is now a direct competitor to a number of other companies already in the social music and streaming content space. Boxee , Rdio and Roku have all issued statements in response to Apple’s latest moves and what,... 

We’ve all done it — surfed on over to the book of faces, our hearts racing and pupils dilating with excitement, let our cursors linger over those oh-so-powerful words, “Remove From Friends,” and clicked away with the maniacal glee of a serial killer. Still, there aren’t too many among us who have the skill, nay, the expertise to cut ties without cutting deep. At this point, some of you may be reminiscing about the... 

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum , where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business. In addition to writing for their human readers, web writers and bloggers have to consider the digital web crawlers employed by search engines like Google . Your business can’t skip the task. Since most would-be readers use search engines to find blog posts, you... 

Electronic Arts’ wildly successful Madden NFL franchise has made the leap from the Xbox to Facebook. The gaming giant has launched Madden NFL Superstars , the company’s second social game since it acquired social game maker Playfish . The company’s first social game, FIFA Superstars , is one of Facebook’s most popular apps with nearly 4 million monthly active users. Madden NFL Superstars isn’t a port of the popular... 

Here at Mashable, we’ve been putting the iPhone 4 through its paces, and have come up with some handy tips and tricks that can help you get more out of your Apple-flavored mobile. We’ve covered all kinds of basics, like making search results more relevant, creating shortcuts for your favorite websites, better organizing your apps, and making the most of Maps. And, as ever, if you’ve got suggestions for more iPhone magic not... 

Social-media savvy airline Virgin America , which used Twitter to announce its expansion to Toronto , is making use of location-based rewards network Loopt Star to draw attention to its next international expansion: Mexico. Virgin America will be running non-stop flights from San Francisco (SFO) to Cabo (SJD) and from Los Angeles (LAX) to Cancun (CUN) beginning this winter. In addition to special three-day fare sale, Loopt Star members can check... 

Are you frustrated by the fact that song samples on iTunes are only 30 seconds in length, which is often hardly enough time to get a true taste of the song? If so, you’re in luck: according to CNET , which cites multiple sources with knowledge of the matter, Apple plans to extend the length of song samples to a far more enjoyable one minute. Apple declined to comment, but it’s quite possible that it will announce the change at a... 

Skype has formally announced its newest product for business users, Skype Connect. Skype Connect , formally Skype SIP, is Skype’s play at the IP-enabled PBX and Unified Communications (UC) market. With Skype Connect, businesses can now integrate the service into their existing PBX systems. In addition to making outgoing calls at Skype rates from desktop phones, Skype Connect also lets businesses receive phone calls from other Skype users,... 

Playing popular strategy game Starcraft 2 using an iPhone or even an iPad sounds like a usability nightmare, but developer Daniel Hellerman is planning to make it happen regardless of the potential issues. Hellerman is working on an iOS application called the Starcraft 2 Gameboard that will let you fully control Starcraft 2 from your iPhone or iPad , complete with “mini-map control, detailed unit statistics, and easy touch access to the... 

“Unlimited choice” can “produce genuine suffering,” argues Barry Schwartz in The Paradox of Choice. His research basically sums up what your mother has been telling you for years: You don’t even know what you want. Thankfully, the Internet does know what you want — or at least its algorithmic recommendation services are trying to figure it out. Pandora is great for music, but these seven sites will help narrow... 

It has probably happened to you. You download a free BlackBerry game, full of so much hope and promise, only to discover that it was a waste of time and disk space. “At least it was free,” you tell yourself. This is an especially common experience for BlackBerry owners. There are, however, many free top-notch BlackBerry games out there. It’s just a matter of conducting the downloading experiments to sort them out –- which, luckily...