TECH BUZZ – For ten bucks (shipping included), this site will send you something, although you won’t know what. Past gifts have included duct tape wallets, flying alarm clocks, and belly dance costumes. In a world where birthdays can often result in getting homemade soap and gift certificates to chain restaurants, why not reach into this virtual grab bag of awesomeness? (Thanks to Hurty Elbow for the tip!)

The Best Links:

1. Surprise Yourself [You Know You Deserve It]
2. “This Site Seems More Like a Lottery Than a Store. Not Necessarily a Bad Thing, As the Lottery is Very Successful.”
3. What You Won’t Get: Body Parts, Endangered Species, Drugs
4. Get Yourself a Little Something…Something.

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TECH BUZZ – Twitter updates provided breaking news on the major quake near Chengdu, China. Twitter users, coordinated largely through the efforts of Robert Scoble, were providing news of the earthquake — including first-hand accounts — before mainstream news sites began reporting about the 7.8 quake. (Related: Twittering wildfires.)

The Best Links:

1. Twitter Brings News of the Earthquake ‘Round the World
2. Scobleizer on the Earthquake
3. Before CNN, MSNBC, BBC Or the USGS, Twitter Had the News
4. Earthquake Posts on Twitter via Summize
5. Crowdsourcing Without Managers
6. A Timeline of Tweets on China’s Earthquake
7. First Twitter Report of Quake?
8. A First-Responder Medium?

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TECH BUZZ – BlackBerry announces a shiny new device. Known more prosaically as the BlackBerry 9000, the new smartphone sports a new, bigger screen and faster connection and processing speeds. No firm sales date yet, but it should be available sometime this summer.

The Best Links:

1. Hands-On With the Faster BlackBerry Bold
2. Very early, Very Brief BlackBerry Bold Review
3. BlackBerry Bold — Official Site
4. Should Be Available “This Summer”
5. BlackBerry Finally Gets Bold
6. Like Magic, It Appeared at Midnight
7. Bluetooth Headset-Wearing Douchebags Rejoice at the News
8. Bold Announcement Comes Along With a $150 Million Developer Fund for New Apps

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TECH BUZZ – A popular search engine for video that uses speech-recognition software to enhance results. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and Google are both rumored to be looking into buying the company before it goes public.

The Best Links:

1. Blinkx
2. Why It Will Be a Good Buy
3. It’s More Popular Than Google in the UK
4. AdSense For Video
5. The Technology
6. The Company History

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TECH BUZZ – A new Flash game from Pixel Jam, the same people who brought you the 8-bit classic Gamma Brothers. Dino Run has a great blippy soundtrack and is way more fun than a game where you make a dinosaur run from destruction should be.

The Best Links:

1. - D I N O * R U N -
2. “I can say without hesitation that the Big Black Wall of Doom is among the most harrowing presences I’ve ever encountered in video games.”
3. This is a Grin-Making Game
4. Bye-Bye, Afternoon

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TECH BUZZ – Intentionally turning up in the background of other people’s photographs with the goal of ruining them now has a name: Photobombing. I do this daily, unintentionally, walking along Canal Street to work, but the art of the photobomber is appearing in the background at just the right moment and with just the right face.

The Best Links:

1. Photobombers on Facebook
2. Photobombing: “The fine art of ruining other people’s photographs”
3. We Are All Photobombers Sometimes
4. Mocking Metal
5. X-Rated Photobombing (NSFW)
6. Bath Time (NSFW)
7. Julia Allison/Owen Thomas Get Photobombed!!

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TECH BUZZ – After a series of recent career stumbles, Amanda Congdon, the former Rocketboom hostess is back with an interactive variety show. See what happens when you get too big for your britches? You come crawling back to the stinkin’ Internet. It’s not so bad around here after all, is it, Congdon?

The Best Links:

1. Sometimesdaily [Beta]
2. Introducing Sometimesdaily, “An Off-beat, Interactive Variety Show Exploring Life’s Themes Through The Inquisitive Eyes Of Amanda Congdon” [We Don’t Really Get It, Either]
3. Amanda Congdon Makes Movies for Her Friends, But Do You Care?
4. Amanda’s Original Stomping Grounds
5. Sometimesdaily: “Bad Humor and Uncomfortable Banter?”
6. Amanda’s Dead Video Blog

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TECH BUZZ – A site devoted to the bad party photos of strangers. Plucking images from Flickr, reading through Sorry I Missed Your Party is like going through your camera the morning after and discovering a bunch of photos you A) don’t remember taking, or B) wish you hadn’t taken.

The Best Links:

1. Sorry I Missed Your Party — Pictures of Other People’s Parties from Flickr
2. “Realization: Some parties are really weird!”
3. Surprisingly, an Academic Party Did Not Look Fun
4. These Guys Look Pretty Gaysted Already

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TECH BUZZ – From jewelry to graffiti to tattoos, people prefer pixels. Part nostalgia, part deep appreciation for the limits imposed by 8-bit graphics, there’s a growing wave of artwork composed of chunky, pixelated imagery.

The Best Links:

1. Stolen Pixelated Jewelry
2. A Pixelated Posey
3. The Flowing Pixels
4. Water Your Pixel, Let It Grow
5. Pixel Tat
6. Flickr’s 8-bit Pool
7. Nerdtastic Pixel Art
8. Flickr’s 8-bit Tie Group
9. Blip Festival is the Musical Equivalent

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TECH BUZZ – Photos of the first RIM clamshell flip phone have been unveiled. It will be out by the end of 2008. A novel flip phone seems kind of oxymoronic, but that’s what this phone is being touted as.

The Best Links:

1. The Clamshell Flip Phone Unveiled for the First Time
2. The Photo Gallery
3. New Shots with T-mobile Branding
4. Get the Specs Here
5. Comes with Accessories like “Anodized Urban Nomad Tool”

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