Blog Posts by Tori Floyd

If you’ve received an email telling you that Facebook may be sending you $10, it’s (potentially) not a scam: as the result of a class-action lawsuit over Sponsored Stories, Facebook is paying out a small portion of the settlement to many of its users.

I say “potentially” because the chances of someone capitalizing on this turn of events to make some money off of unsuspecting folks are high, but for many users, the news is true.

Unfortunately, for many users, that $10 will never make its way to your pockets, and will instead line the pockets of the lawyers and privacy groups that helped get that money in the first place.

[ Related: Three reasons Facebook’s Graph Search might not be the Next Great Thing ]

GigaOM reports that a class action lawsuit was filed against the social network in response to “Sponsored Stories” that ran on its website. If you were to “Like” a Page, your friends may see a targeted post in their feed advertising a product or service related to that Page.

As most of Canada is in the grips of winter weather, it seems like days of bright flowers and warm summer breezes are years away. But before you know it, spring will be here, and it will bring with it a chore that many of us dread: cutting the grass.

Those mavericks of mowing at John Deere have come up with a solution that will hopefully help you get even more time to soak in the sun during the summer without having to spend your time pushing a lawn mower back and forth. They’ve come up with the Tango E5, a “fully autonomous” garden tool.

[ Last week’s Must-Have: The perfect alarm clock for everyone ]

Like the indoor Roomba, which most of us recognize as the automatic vacuum for our homes, the Tango E5 navigates your lawn automatically and cuts the grass to the length you set, anywhere between 19 and 102 mm. You (or a John Deere dealer/installer) set up a boundary wire around the area you want mowed (probably not in the flowerbeds), then set the mower off on its merry way. When its

CBC photo “UNLOCK YOUR IPHONE - $20” proclaim signs in front of shady electronics stores across North America. Soon, those signs will be a thing of the past south of the border, because as of Saturday, unlocking your phone in the United States is a crime.

Those who opt to modify their phone and make it usable on any network probably don’t give it much thought beyond making their life easier and preventing them from being tied to one provider. But as of January 26, 2013, that practice will officially become illegal in the United States because of government regulations that come into effect that day.

[ Related: B.C. woman gets charges for cell phone roaming in her own home ]

A decision back in October gave customers the option to unlock their cell phones without carrier permission for a 90 day period, after which the practice would become illegal, PC World explains. Every three years, the rules on unlocking and jailbreaking phones must be reviewed in accordance with the Digital Millennium

Two Shetland ponies have garnered quite a following after showing up online in some dapper jumpers.

Fivla and Vitamin, the newly appointed ‘pony ambassadors’ for the Year in Scotland tourism program, have begun popping up around the ‘net in their custom-knit sweaters. Created by Shetland knitter Doreen Brown out of Shetland wool, you can’t get a much more adorable showcase of local craft and wildlife.

“Posing in their winter woollies, the ponies were marking the Year of Natural Scotland by sporting some rather plush knitwear that wouldn’t seem out of place in any trendy city hangout,” the Visit Scotland site reads. “It’s safe to say both Fivla and Vitamin didn’t seem to mind all the attention their custom-made attire brought them.”

Visit Scotland spokesperson Michael McCuish says that Shetland immediately came to mind when trying to come up with what makes the region iconic. Shetland is home to the iconic ponies as well as birds and over one hundred sandy beaches, The Weather Network

On Thursday, Twitter unveiled its next step towards abbreviated world domination with its new app for uploading and sharing videos embedded in tweets, Vine. The app (currently available only for the iPhone) lets you record and post videos up to six seconds long directly to your Twitter account, and your followers can watch it right in the tweet.

In the blog post announcing the service, the Twitter team included some samples:

Click the image to see the animation.

If a picture is worth 1000 words, it remains to be seen if a six-second video will be worth 140 characters, but chances are good that our Twitter feeds will soon be filled with brief vignettes of cats and goofy stunts.

[ Related: Twitter blocks neo-Nazi posts in Germany, setting precedent for targeted censorship ]

And if you’d like to get in on the action, you can start by downloading the Vine app from the App Store, then following these easy steps outlined by Mashable:

1. Sign in using either your Twitter or Email account.

2. If signing in using your Twitter

Kindle Paperwhite (Handout)In December, Kindle quietly unveiled its Kindle bookstore on Amazon.ca. Now, it looks like they’re going to be making two ereaders available to read those books on available here, too.

Amazon announced today that it will be launching the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (both Wi-Fi and 3G models) in Canada, and will be selling them through Amazon.ca along with the $89 Kindle.

Prior to today, Canadians could only purchase the $89 Kindle from the U.S. Kindle store, which meant paying in U.S. dollars and having a longer shipping time as it crossed the border. Amazon.com also did not ship the Paperwhite to Canada, which makes this the first time it’s been officially available in the country.

[ Related: Amazon Prime comes to Canada, but without the bells and whistles ]

Peter Larsen, vice president for Amazon Kindle, says he’s excited to be making both devices readily available to Canadians.

“We hope this is going to be the best reading experience that Canadian customers have available to them,”

Maybe you’re one of those early-risers who gets up at dawn with a smile on your face, and a spring in your step. Or, more likely, you’re like the rest of us who groggily hit the snooze button for a third time before finally hauling yourself out of bed.

No matter if you’re a morning person or the resident grouch before coffee, there are such myriad choices of alarm clocks now that you’re going to find one that’s perfect for your particular needs.

There are rolling alarm clocks like Clocky, clocks that make you deposit money like BanClock, or even alarm clocks that make you feel like you’re being woken up by an earthquake, like Sonic Boom. We’ve collected the list below to best reflect the full range of sleeping styles:

Rise and Shine Serenity Sleep System

If you’d like to wake up with the gentle light of a sunrise but your sleep schedule doesn’t allow you to wake up with the real sun, the Rise and Shine Serenity Sleep System will provide you with the idyllic awakening you desire. It

(Universe Architecture)3D printing is slowly rising in popularity as people find ways to gain access to one or build their own, and as a result, we’re seeing lots of cool things ranging from memes brought to life to ‘magic arms’ for a little girl.

Add to that list possibly the most ambitious creation yet, an entire house.

Dutch architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars from Universe Architecture in Amsterdam has designed a house that is not only created using a 3D printer, but also ‘endless’ in its design. A visitor to the home could walk in a constant path continuously through the house, as it’s designed as a möbius strip. As Geek.com points out, you could also build a round house and call it endless, too, but it wouldn’t be nearly as cool.

[ Related: 3D printers and how they could change space missions ]

The ‘Landscape House’ as Ruijssenaars calls it is designed to be one unified piece, but it will actually be separate pieces printed out that lock together. The pieces will each measure 6 x 9 metres and be printed on