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Is London 2012 the world’s first social Olympics?

Well, it’s possibly the world’s first social summer Olympics. Four years ago, Facebook had just 100 million users (and we thought that was big). Upstart Twitter was almost as small as the number of characters in a vintage non-media-enhanced tweet: six lonely millions.

Now the top Olympic athletes have more fans and followers than Twitter had users: NBA stars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant have 17 million and 14 million, respectively. Tennis stars Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are both around 11 million.

Before the London Games, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt had 7.6 million Twitter followers and Facebook fans; after his gold-medal Olympic record in the 100 meters, he’s up to well over 8.5 million.

That’s all in spite of London Olympic officials telling fans to stop tweeting and sharing to save wireless network bandwidth for TV crews. Of course, they can’t tell us what do on our sofas.

SEO.com put together the following infographic highlighting these and other “social games” stats:

Filed under: social

A heartwarming new video documents the story of a small child whose life has been radically changed for the better because of 3D printing technology.

Two-year-old Emma was born with a rare disease called arthrogryposis that makes it so she can’t raise her arms without assistance. Through the use of 3D printing, Delaware hospital created a mobile plastic exoskeleton that now allows Emma to use her arms for many things.

3D printing ensures that a new exoskeleton can be created if Emma breaks or outgrows it. Emma is now on her second 3D-printed jacket and calls the device her “magic arms.”

The video was created by 3D printing business Stratasys, which recently merged with Objet in a $1.4 billion deal. A Stratasys 3D printer was used to create Emma’s jacket.

Filed under: offBeat

Earlier this month, scientists at CERN observed what was most likely the elusive Higgs boson particle. But unless you’re a physics geek, it can be hard to understand just what made the discovery so significant.

Thankfully, the good folks of the Minute Physics YouTube channel have created a three-part video series that does a great job explaining the Higgs boson, mass, and particle discovery. While Minute Physics doesn’t dumb down the science, it does make the discovery a bit easier to understand with clever diagrams and metaphors. Heck, even if you’re science fan, you’ll probably get a laugh or two.

Check out the three-part series below:

Part 1: The Higgs Boson explained

Part 2: What is Mass?

Part 3: How to Discover a Particle

Filed under: offBeat, science

What a week, what a week. Between the earnings calls and the earnings calls, we were pretty swamped over here.

Here are the top stories you need to know about this week:

• Twitter went down. Get over it already!
• Even revenues exceeding $1 billion couldn’t stop Facebook shares from hitting a new low.
• This iPods for seniors viral video/Kickstarter project melted our cheesy little hearts.
• OS X Mountain Lion is now available as a $20 upgrade, and it’s listening when you talk.
• Arcade games are dying for real, and there ain’t a thing we can do about it.

The friendly writers and editors of VentureBeat sincerely hope you enjoy your weekend. Barring that, we hope you at least get some good doughnuts outta the deal.

Filed under: video

Online retail giant Amazon reported mixed results for its second quarter 2012 earnings today.

The company hit its own revenue goal for Q2, increasing 29 percent to $12.83 billion, compared with $9.91 billion in second quarter 2011. Wall Street, however, was expecting the company to bring in $12.88 billion in revenue. Amazon reported a decline in operating income to $107 million, compared to $201 million during the same period last year.

It’s net income decreased 96 percent to $7 million in the second quarter, or $0.01 per diluted share, compared with net income of $191 million ($0.41 per diluted share). The results include a $65 million loss from its purchase of Kiva for $65 million.

As for the future, Amazon expects net sales of $12.9 billion – $14.3 billion (or a 19 – 31 percent boost compared with Q3 2011). It expects an operating income loss of $350 million to $50 million, which is down from $79 million in the same period last year.

We’ve included the Q2 2012 highlight’s below.

Jeff Bezos photo via etech/Flickr

Filed under: media, VentureBeat

Apple sold 1.3 million Apple TV units in the third quarter, which is up 170 percent year over year, CEO Tim Cook said today on the company’s quarterly earnings call.

Cook has repeatedly referred to the Apple TV device as a “hobby,” and today was no different. He said Apple has sold 4 million Apple TVs in total for the fiscal year, but those numbers don’t stack up to the continued successes of the iPad and iPhone. Apple sold 26 million iPhones and 17 million iPads this quarter.

The tiny Apple TV box costs just $99 and makes it possible to access iTunes content and video-focused apps on your home TV. It also lets you play content from iOS devices on your TV using Airplay.

Filed under: media, VentureBeat

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer announced today that iTunes store revenue was $1.8 billion for the third quarter of 2012, which is down $100 million from last quarter, in which Apple took in $1.9 billion.

The ecosystem is still healthy, with 650,000 apps in the app store, 225,000 of which are optimized for iPad, but the $100 million decrease in revenue is somewhat astonishing.

Lower iPhone sales are understandable: Consumers are waiting for the iPhone5.

But any new iPhones and iPads — and in fact any new Mac sales — should be additive to app store sales. So, building on a base of $1.9 billion in sales from the previous quarter, 26 million more iPhones and 17 million new iPads should have increased sales of songs, apps, and in-app purchases.

Seasonality should not have impacted sales; we’re not talking about a comparison to a Christmas quarter in which consumers might be downloading more apps than usual.

Oppenheimer did say that payments to developers topped $5.5 billion and that app stores were added in several new territories, including Hong Kong and Singapore.

The 650,000 apps is up from 600,000 apps that Apple announced last quarter, and the $5.5 billion paid to developers is up from the $4 billion announced last quarter.

Image credit: John Koetsier/iTunes

Filed under: cloud, mobile, VentureBeat

HP has lost $80 billion dollars in value in the last two years. Yahoo has lost $42 billion, and RIM $78 billion. And before a quick rebound to $86 billion in market value, Bank of America shed a staggering $136 billion in the past six years.

But that’s just part of the story.

Poor hiring decisions, clueless management moves, scandals, and crazy acquisitions are all reasons why HP, RIM, Yahoo, and BofA are in the running for worst corporate governance of the year.

See all the details in this infographic from the Chamber of Commerce. After reviewing … answer our poll for which one you think is worst!

Filed under: deals, enterprise, offBeat, VentureBeat

Building-blocks game Minecraft has proved itself to be an excellent outlet for the ambitions of virtual architects. Some choose to recreate the fictional worlds of The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones while others choose to erect explosives that require half a day and over 50GB of memory to fully detonate. Here are 18 of the biggest, most ambitious projects you’ll see in Minecraft (some with more than one screenshot):

Filed under: games

How many times do you tap characters on your keyboard a day? Which letter do you press the most? A new video from popular YouTube channel Vsauce explains these and more.

The video reveals which letter is pressed is the most often, how many calories you burn an hour by typing, how many text messages are sent a day, and more. Not only do you get to find out all kinds of crazy typing facts, the video also links back to other cool things related to typing, including the real-time heat map of your keystrokes and great free software for tracking your keystrokes and clicks.

Check out the thoughtful video below:

Photo credit: Ryan Kulawiak/Shutterstock

Filed under: offBeat, VentureBeat, video