Police forces around the UK are increasingly turning to social networks as a means to better engaging with the public. And one Chief Constable has suggested that social media could become a key communications channel for reporting crimes in the future. Asreportedin the Daily Mail today,Essex Policehas announced a consultation on plans to close almost half of its 46 ‘front counters’ in police stations, and reduce the opening hours at the remaining ones....

While singer Rihanna cuts a fine figure, there’s something you really should notice on the cover of the September issue ofGlamour. No, not there! In the bottom right hand corner is a new kind of image-based web navigation tool, the Social SnapTag, which bridges the physical and digital worlds. When a reader takes a photo of the Social SnapTag with her code reader-enabled phone, she’s taken directly to theGlamour Magazine Facebook page, where there’s an incentive for “liking....

While digging around in the workings of Apple’s latest iOS beta, some developers have noticed a pretty interesting thing. Aswe notedin our post covering the release of the beta, there are new 4 and 5-finger gestures that are applicable to the iPad. While they’re interesting, there’s a deeper story to be told by the functions involved with them. If you’ll pay special attention to the text underneath the Mulitasking Gestures section, you’ll note that there are three actions that can be had:...

Everyone is breathlessly talking about the Nokia-Microsoft deal, from its potential market impacts, to the viability of the Windows Phone 7 platform, to the future of Android and iOS in certain hard to reach markets, but what has been lost in the noise are the sentiments of two most important current WP7 partners: HTC and Samsung. Based on current market commentary, it seems quite possible that one, or both, could scale back their interest and investments in the Windows Phone 7 platform now that they will be operating at a potential disadvantage to Nokia....

Several start-ups out there deal are trying to get in on the virtual currency market and one of the brightest companies I’ve seen do it thus far isVen. Ven founder Stan Stalker gave an exciting interview toRobert Scobleat Davos last week which I have embedded here for you to listen to. Stalker founded Ven because he thinks there is a huge need for a virtual currency online that trades on open markets around the world and that we can pay for goods and knowledge with....