With the popularity of smartphones like the iPhone and myriad of Android-powered handsets, one of the things users love to do is take and share photos with friends and family. One of the best apps for doing this when using the iPhone is Instagram.

This app allows you to take a photo, manipulate it if you choose and then upload it to your photo stream for all to see. People can then subscribe to your photo stream and view your photos on their devices. Or, you can upload them to Twitter, Facebook or Flickr.

It’s extremely popular on the iPhone (many of us here use it, in fact) but so far, it’s only been available for iOS devices. Apparently, that’s not going to be the case much longer.

Speaking during the LeWeb conference in Paris this week, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom confirmed that an Android version of the company’s popular iOS application is coming soon. ”We have two people working on Android now,” Systrom said.

I know what you’re thinking. Two people doesn’t sound like very many. However, keep in mind that the whole company probably isn’t that much bigger and has been exclusively an iOS app since launch.

No launch date was forthcoming from Systrom but we expect to see the Android version of Instagram sometime early next year.

Let’s face it, there’s a lot of apps out there for the iPad and iPhone. Many of them are even useful and, on occasion, fun to use. You can add Flipboard to that list.

In case you haven’t tried it yet, Flipboard is a very popular magazine-style news application which, up until today, was available only for the iPad. Now, those of you who want the same experience on your iPhone or, for some reason, don’t have an iPad yet, can now enjoy Flipboard on your iPhone because it’s now available.

The app allows users to flip through a single feed of articles and photos that have been shared across various social networks. It can also display stories from a variety of news categories including technology, design, “Flipboard picks,” photography, business, sports, style, travel, food and more.

It’s a great app that really helps you digest a lot of information quickly and easily and does it inside a very user-friendly interface. It’s definitely worth checking out.

Flipboard for iPhone is free and available in the App Store now.

JC and WallE are back with the 7th epic edition of the Bitcast. In the News of the Week, the two discuss the announcement of the PlayStation 3 Smash Brothers inspired brawler Title Fight and the characters that may be coming to it. They also talk about a recent study that links violent video games to slower brain activity. Finally, they look at how Angry Birds developer Rovio passed on a $2.25 billion dollar offer from social media games developer Zynga who incidentally lost almost a million players in their game Mafia Wars 2 in just one month.

In the second edition of The Long Grind featuring The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, JC discusses the story (spoiler free) and the open world adventuring aspects of the game.

In this week’s Topic of the Week, social media in gaming such as Facebook integration and community sites like Raptr are brought up. Finally, in Now Playing, JC gives some more insight into his longer than expected play sessions on Saints Row: The Third and WallE discusses his review of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Make sure to subscribe to The Flickcast iTunes feed to get each weekly episode of the Bitcast downloaded right to your iOS device.

With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 , hitting this week the anticipation is almost palpabile. People across the internet are clamoring for just about any information available to the game. We know we at The Flickcast are anxiously looking forward to tonight at midnight to get our hands on it. But, until then, we are going to share this behind the scenes video from our friends at Activision that explains both the Facebook and Elite integration in to the game.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will tie directly in to player’s Facebook friends list. This is the first triple A title to allow for this level of social networking communication that will allow players to look directly at their friends list from the game browser and hop in to games using their Facebook friends. This is going to be a great resource as not a lot of people post their gamer tag to Facebook but almost certainly everyone on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer is going to link their game to their Facebook so they can partied up that much easier with all their friends.

We also get to take a look further into the three pillars of Elite with Connect, Compete and Improve. One of the most drastic improvements looks to be the 100 person clan structure which has been added to the game. Clans can take on Clan Operations and level up the entire clan as a whole. Competition looks to heat up as well with the inclusion of both real and digital prizes in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Keep your eyes peeled for any last minute news before Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3′s midnight release tonight and check out the full behind the scenes video below.

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• Robots are badass, and that’s just what we get from Paul Oakenfold’s newest music video for “Beautiful Machine“.

• Who doesn’t love profanity? That’s why this collection of 100 best uses of the word F*ck from films is right down our dirty alley.

• The internet may just be popular, as Cartoon Network’s MAD managed to cram tons of memes into this spoof titled ThunderLOLcats.

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It’s another great day for those of you currently using Googles new Google+ service and also Apple’s iPad or iPod Touch. Why? Because it’s the day Google has finally released an update for the app for iOS and made it work with not only the iPhone but the iPad and iPod Touch too.

The new version of the app not only works with all iOS devices it also adds Huddle settings and aggregated circle add notifications, a nice couple of improvements. If you recall, Google first launched Google+ on Android and then a few weeks later for the iPhone. At that point, iPad and iPod Touch users were left wanting. No more.

If you haven’t had a chance to try Google+ yet, see if you can convince one of your friends already using it to send you an invite. Or, if you really want one, drop us a note in the comments and we’ll see what we can do.

If you’re already rocking Google+ and want to get the new, updated app, head on over to the iTunes Store. Oh, as a special bonus, we can also confirm that this version of the Google+ app now works with a certain Beta version of iOS that’s coming soon. But please, don’t tell Apple we said so.

For those of you still using Facebook who have not switched over to Google+ just yet there might be some great news for you just around the corner — especially if you also happen to use an iPad. That’s right, images of the yet-to-be-released Facebook app for the iPad have been leaked by TechCrunch and if they are really the app, they look pretty great.

Reportedly, the official application has been hidden inside the iPhone app all along. Waiting, dormant, to be officially released. TechCrunch‘s MG Siegler, who has already tested the application, says that it offers an “HTML5-rich experience” and that Facebook for iPad is a vast improvement over the mobile Web interface currently available.

That’s pretty good news, especialy considering using Facebook on the iPad now is rather lame. Using the iPhone app upsized for the iPad has been my go to for the most part as I really don’t like the experience using it via Safari. A dedicated app for Facebook on the iPad is the best way to go.

Facebook for iPad is expected to launch soon but an exact release date is still unknown. Click through for a few more images. Head over to TechCrunch for a lot more.

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With Google rolling out its Google + service recently in an attempt to take some of Facebook’s social media dominance away, what’s Facebook to do to stay on top? Well, fear not, they’ve got something up their virtual sleeves. What is it? Read on.

Today, the social media giant unveiled a major addition to its service : video chat. Through a partnership with Skype, Facebook users will now be able to video chat with each other through the company’s new service.

The best part, it’s all free. The service works just like Skype’s normal video calling with video calls initiated from right in your Facebook profile with a simple click.

“A few months ago, we started working with Skype to bring video calling to Facebook,” said the company on its blog. “We built it right into chat, so all your conversations start from the same place. To call your friend, just click the video call button at the top of your chat window.”

Facebook will bring video chat to its users over the next few weeks. Or, if you can’t wait, click here to get it now.

How the once mighty have fallen. Remember when MySpace was the place to go for everything “social”? Well, those days are long over and now the site has been sold for quite a bargain price.

According to AllThingsD, Specific Media has acquired Myspace from News Corp. for $35 million. Which, as I said, is a real bargain considering NewsCorp paid $580 Million for it in 2005. I would call that a pretty big loss for NewsCorp. Myspace’s CEO, Mike Jones, will remain for “an interim period,” and the social network will lay off about 50% of its staff, which is around 200 people. Sorry to hear that.

MySpace’s decline in recent years is not really all that surprising considering how horrible the site is to navigate and, of course, due to the popularity of Facebook and Twitter. By comparison, Facebook looks like the most clean and easy to use UI ever invented, which we know isn’t really the case as it still has its share of problems as well.

Who knows, maybe MySpace will rebound and climb back out of the pit it finds itself in? Anything is possible and people do love an underdog. However, first order of business: a complete re-design. Then, we can talk.

As the E3 Expo gets closer expect a slew of new announcements to start coming out of the gaming sector. One of the first is Activision’s announcement this week of Call of Duty Elite, a new social network-style experience that will allow Call of Duty players to interact with each another in an entirely different way.

The new social network will have three parts: connect, compete, and improve. “Connect” will allow users to compete against friends, join groups, find players with similar interests and enter tournaments. Activision will provide both web and mobile interfaces for managing your Call of Duty information from multiple devices.

“Compete” will allow players to enter events and competitions with other players that have similar abilities. Activision promises real world and in-game prizes for this as well. “Improve” will provide users with a strategy guide to help them improve their gaming skills by following their performance and managing ongoing statistics.

“The average Call of Duty player spends 58 minutes per day playing multiplayer,” Activision Publishing CEO, Eric Hirshberg, said. “That is more than the average Facebook user spends per day on Facebook. And yet, right now, there are very few tools to unite and super charge that social community. Whether it’s allowing you to connect with your friends, or people of a similar skill level, people who live in your city, people who share your favorite passions, join competitive clans or social groups, or upload, view and comment on the incredible mass of player-generated content, or watch and comment on exclusive created content, Call of Duty Elite will give people more ways to connect with fellow players than ever before.”

According to Activision, most features of this upcoming service will be free. A premium package (details pending on that) will also be available. The service will enter public beta with Call of Duty: Black Ops this summer and will launch on November 8th with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Click through for the full press release and a video demo of the new service.

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I was surprised at how much trouble I had narrowing down my top ten movies this year.  My top 20 were all very close, but here are the movies that I ultimately enjoyed the most. I readily admit that I did not see near as many foreign films as I would have liked, but by the time I cover most of the mainstream fare, there is simply no time left.

Honorable Mentions: Fair Game, Tiny Furniture, Greenberg, Cyrus, The Tillman Story, The American, Mother and Child, Scott Pilgrim.

10. Waiting for Superman
This Documentary was equal parts frustrating, inspirational, and heartbreaking. Director Davis Guggenheim (No End in Sight) sheds light on the dismal state of our public school system. He follows the plight of several children who live in various geographic regions who are placing all of their hope for an decent education into lottery systems for charter or private schools. Guggenheim relies on their compelling stories for a narrative, while interspersing lots of graphics and cartoons illuminating some pretty harrowing statistics.

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Late yesterday, everyone’s favorite social media website Facebook announced an update for their Android version of the Facebook app. This update brings the application to version 1.5, for those of you who keep track of that sort of thing.

Some of the main features of this update include support for Facebook chat (In both background and foreground) as well as the much requested Push notifications. Unfortunately, Push notifications will only work on devices running Android 2.2 or higher.

The update also includes the requisite other “bug fixes” which are, let’s face it, nice to have. Sadly, still no photo tagging in this update. But I guess you can’t have everything. . . yet.

As usual, the update is available in the Android Market. If you do update, let us know your experiences, good or bad, in the comments. Now to start updating our Android phones here at the office.