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Worst Tech Fails Of 2011

Steve Jobs never said it exactly this way, but we think he would have agreed that not all “Think Different” is created equal.

English: Rest In Piece Steven, Mahalo. faceboo...

This seems to be true in the case of the year’s most epic technology flops.

While some products were fated for failure — more than one eyebrow was raised at the launch of a certain handheld 3D gaming console with a steep price tag and a slim catalogue of games — others seemed like more of a sure thing, at least in theory. (A wristband that keeps track of your health is a brilliant idea, as long as you can get the device to work.)

Both newbies and well-established companies are responsible for 2011′s most cringe-worthy fails. From giants like Netflix and HP to startups like Color Labs, these companies are responsible for poor decisions and surprise misses from the past 12 months.

Here are our picks for the year’s biggest tech failures (below). 

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Syria Ban iPhone

The iPhone has been banned in Steve Jobs’ ancestral home of Syria.

iPhone 2g, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4

Image by reticulating via Flickr

As the country enters its ninth month of violent protests, the Syrian government has reportedly outlawed iPhones in a move to crack down on activists who were allegedly using the device to expose government abuse.

On Friday, Times Live reported that, according to the the Lebanese website Al Nashara, the iPhone ban had been issued by the Customs Department of the Syrian Finance Ministry. The Department’s statement read in part, “The authorities warn anyone against using the iPhone in Syria.”

Said an activist quoted in Times Live, ”It is enough for any tourist or guest visiting Syria to own an iPhone to be a spy suspect.”

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Facebook’s Most-Shared Stories Of 2011

Facebook has released a list of the 40 news stories that users shared most during 2011.

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

Some of the most popular stories shared by Facebook’s 800 million-strong-and-growing population covered such diverse topics as zodiac symbols, touching videos, Steve Jobs, animals, natural disasters and more. According to the Telegraph, the top story (see slideshow) was shared more than 600,000 times.

Lost Remote notes that all 40 stories have several things in common. “Nearly all feature a short, grabby headline that explains the story well,” wrote Lost remote. “All stories are [also] from major news organizations with good-sized FB pages (reach matters).”

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50 Must Subscribe Facebook Profiles of Journalists & Bloggers

Facebook logo

Image via Wikipedia

After the launching of “SUBSCRIBE” in Facebook, Some Journalist & Blogger finds a way to communicate with a larger audience of readers by enabling Subscribe option in their Facebook profile.

Facebook also very mush excited with this tremendous features  as Naomi Gleit, Facebook’s director of product, told the Huffington Post. “Our mission is to connect people and help them share. The goal of this new feature really is to give people more control over how they do that,”

So here are Some Must Subscribe Facebook Profiles of Journalists & Bloggers.

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Rip Ilya Zhitomirskiy – Co-Founder of Diaspora

Late last night, one of Diaspora‘s four co-founders, Ilya Zhitomirskiy, had passed away. With much sadness, Techcrunch now confirmed this terrible news with the Diaspora team.

Ilya was just 22. To see any member of our community pass is sad, but for one so young to go is absolutely crushing. The cause of death is currently unconfirmed.

Our sincerest condolences to Ilya’s family, friends, and the entire Diaspora team.

As Per Chunch base Diaspora is a project begun by four students at NYU’s Courant Institute. They propose to build an open-source, distributed social network as an alternative to companies such as Facebook.

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Some Must Follow Google+ Pages

MSNBC

Image via Wikipedia

Now, companies large and small — from Coca-Cola and The New York Times to your local bike shop or animal shelter — can set up their own Google+ profiles and connect with other users. Already, some pages have attracted thousands of followers. (Mashable’s Google+ page, for example, currently boasts just under 30,000.)

Google’s social network has experienced remarkable growth since its launch over the summer. The company announced in October that Google+ membership had reached 40 million, and the web giant continues to pursue new customers by gradually integrating its various web products with Google+. Earlier this month, Google rolled out a new Google+ sharing button for YouTube and new Google+ extensions for the Google Chrome browser. In addition, a ” target=”_hplink”>controversial update to Google Reader recently tied the product more closely to Google+, although users didn’t take to the change as willingly as they seem to have welcomed Google+ Pages.

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