How to hack your Facebook profile picture: a step-by-step guide to 'refacing' your profile

A French artist has kicked off a new trend by ‘refacing’ his Facebookprofile. Alexandre Oudin tweaked the photos on his Facebook page to make them look like pieces of one large photo. Since then, other Facebook users have been repeating the trick to create their own versions: see our gallery here.If you want to ‘reface’ your Facebook page, here’s how you do it.• You’ll need to have activated the new Facebook profile page - if you have, you’ll see your basic biographical information at the top of the page and, below that, a photo strip of five recent photos that have been tagged with your name.• You’ll also need a photo that’s at least 692 pixels...

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Apple's iPhone and iPad to push app sales beyond $15bn in 2011

Sales of applications for iPhones, iPads and other mobile devices are forecast to exceed $15bn (£9.4bn) this year.Downloads of popular games, such as Angry Birds and Doodle Jump, are expected to lead to a near-tripling of global app sales, according to research firm Gartner.Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner, said the big rise in expected sales from $5.2bn in 2010 was due to the popularity of the iPad and other tablet computers."Something massive has happened," she said. "It's called the iPad, and all of its little brothers and sisters and cousins that are copying Apple."Ms Baghdassarian said apps are "by far" the fastest-growing...

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Money goes mobile with Orange

As near-field communications payments hit the headlines thanks to Apple, Orange and Barclaycard announce that they will be first to the UK market 2011 is the year that the mobile phone is set to finally start replacing the credit and debit card: Apple’s forthcoming iPhone is widely expected to contain ‘near-field communications’ (NFC) technology to make payments possible by simply swiping the handset over a reader on a shop counter. Google’s new Nexus S already has NFC built-in. And today Orange is announcing that by the summer they will have, in association with Barclaycard, a payment-equipped mobile phone already on sale to consumers.The trend...

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Amazon Kindle ebooks outsell paperbacks

Analysis: Why Amazon may be selling lots of ebooks but not so many Kindles.Amazon may not disclose how many Kindles the company has sold (using just the vague term "millions" in its latest earnings report), but the company has no problem playing up sales of ebooks to users of the Kindle platform. The company noted that it has sold three ebooks for every hardcover title and that ebooks are even outselling paperbacks (Amazon notes that it sells 115 ebooks to every 100 paperbacks).The news isn't a complete surprise. Barnes and Noble noted last monththat sales of ebooks on its Nook platform had similarly outpaced sales of physical books from its...

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Microsoft Claims 2 Million Windows Phone 7 Shipments

A Microsoft executive said this week the company shipped more than 2 million copies of its revamped operating system, Windows Phone 7, in the most recent quarter. The careful admission at once triggered another spasm of misconstrued, misinterpreted, mistaken, and misanthropic speculation on the success or failure of Microsoft's smartphone platform.The same executive, Greg Sullivan, a senior product manager at Microsoft, in a story reported by Bloomberg, cited results of Microsoft's internal surveys of customer satisfaction and brand awareness. "Customer satisfaction for the product is at 93% and brand awareness has jumped 22 points to 66% since...

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Facebook has ‘no plans to introduce additional app security measures’, despite internet experts’ warnings.

Dan Rose, Facebook’s head of platform marketing said the company was happy with the security tools it had place to prevent ‘rogue apps’ from spamming users across Facebook.Responding to a question at UK press conference at Facebook’s European headquarters, about whether the social network would consider introducing vetting measures similar to Apple’s App Store, which forces third party developers to jump through several security loops before admitting their app to the shop, Rose replied: “The tools we have in place which stop apps from spamming users have become more sophisticated…the actions we have taken have reduced the level of spam across...

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7 Tidbits About Sony's NGP

In typical Sony fashion, the newly-announced "next-generation portable,"or NGP, brings the kitchen sink to the console wars. It's got every type of gaming input possible, hardware that beats any smartphone or portable game console and a 5-inch OLED screen.I'm not in Tokyo, where Sony held a press conference for the new portable game console, but I've been digesting the press releases and news reports. Here's what I think are the big takeaways from Sony's NGP reveal:Beastly HardwareThe NGP's quad-core processor is a reminder of how little video game hardware has processed since Sony launched the original PSP in 2004. This handheld is supposedly...

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Star Wars Darth Vader headphones

You know the Force is strong with this one – the£34.99 Star Wars Darth Vader headphones, where the Dark Lord of the Sith will most probably tell his subordinates, “I find your lack of bass disturbing.” This item is still in pre-order status though, so it will ship to you the moment it arrives in stock when February 2011 rolls around.These officially licensed headphones will come with an adjustable strap that is touted to fit most (human) head sizes, and also accompanied by a 1.2 meter coiled cord that ought to get you out of any potential Imperial entanglements. Among the technical specifications include :-Driver Unit: 40mm Power DriversFrequency...

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CyberPower releases new gaming rigs for the masses

CyberPower knows that gamers tend to take their gaming rigs (super) seriously, and this is why the new bunch of releases intend to appeal to a wide range of gamers since it comes in a variety of prices. The manufacturer of custom gaming machines has come together with Newegg to construct a trio of pre-built desktop gaming rigs, and as mentioned earlier, will be able to cater for all price-conscious gamers or overclocking enthusiasts.The systems that we will be looking at are the Gamer Ultra 2073 and Gamer Xtreme 1302/1304, where it will range from a value-based AMD Dual-Core system to a couple of high-performance gaming PCs which run on Intel’s...

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Tardis Mug is the perfect drinking accessory for you.

Love time traveling? Then the Tardis Mug is the perfect drinking accessory for you, although you won’t be using this to guzzle down beers, but rather, sip your favorite hot beverage. This Tardis-style mug will definitely have the Dr. Who mood, since whenever you pour some hot tea or coffee in it and then take it somewhere cold, you will be able to enjoy watching steam pouring out of it. Heck, it looks so real, it even comes complete with the St. John Ambulance badge as well as white notice on the door.Basically, this is the mug to purchase if you’re an aspiring Time Lord, used whenever you are not satisfying your hunger for fish fingers and custard....

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