A real-life Star Wars' force glove and Twitter's new rules were among the top headlines this past weekend. Mashable brought you those stories, as well as other tech and social media news during your downtime.

Our staff kept tabs on all the latest events, so don't fret if you missed a few articles. Check out all the coverage here, in our handy Weekend Recap. Take a peek at the links below, for the latest.

Editor's Picks

Curiosity Rover's Laser Zaps First Martian Rock

'Star Wars' Force Glove Lets You Move Objects Without Touching

Your Deleted Facebook Photos Will Now Be Gone Forever

Google Maps Updates Street View for New Orleans

This is Where NASA'…
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British director Tony Scott, 68, died in an apparent suicide Sunday, after jumping from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, Calif. at around 12:30 p.m.

Twitter users and filmmakers, including Ron Howard, Robert Rodriguez and Adam Goldberg, shared their memories of the late director.

No more Tony Scott movies. Tragic day— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) August 20, 2012

Tony Scott, rest in peace. How horribly sad.— Kat Dennings (@OfficialKat) August 20, 2012

I think it also says something that a superstar who could choose anyone (aka Denzel Washington) worked with Tony Scott five times.— Scott Weinberg (@scottEweinberg) August 20, 2012

R.i.p. Tony Sco…
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Samsung has posted a new teaser video for its Mobile Unpacked event, which will be held in Berlin on Aug. 29, and though it never explicitly says so, it seems to focus on the upcoming Galaxy Note II.

Samsung has already said the tablet/smartphone hybrid would be revealed at the event, without giving any precise specifications.

The device's predecessor, the Galaxy Note, had a 5.3-inch screen and Android Ice Cream Sandwich on board. Recent rumors said that the Galaxy Note II might come with a flexible screen, but the latest trailer doesn't give any indications that this is true.

In the video, film director Wim Wenders refers to a device that's "a small and light thing." Woul…
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NASA's Curiosity rover fired its laser for the first time on Mars, zapping a rock on the red planet.

Set phasers to stun.

The rover's Chemistry and Camera instrument, known as ChemCam, blasted a fist-sized rock called "Coronation" with 30 pulses of its laser for 10 seconds on Sunday. Each pulse delivers more than a million watts of power for about five one-billionths of a second, according to a release. This energy turns atoms from the rock into an ionized, glowing plasma, which NASA can then analyze to determine the target's elements.

"It's surprising that the data are even better than we ever had during tests on Earth, in signal-to-noise ratio," said Sylvestre Maurice, ChemCam…
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Facebook gaffes, computer-generated meat and vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan certainly got Mashable readers talking this week.

A story about 20 of the things your most annoying friends do on Facebook provoked readers to come up with their own social-media pet peeves, while others defended their right to practice "vaguebooking." Regardless of their stance, Facebook gaffes became a hot topic for debate.

The idea of 3D-printed meat, on the other hand, was met with ambivalence and jokes of "tasting like cardboard." While the technology is expected to reduce the meat industry's carbon footprint, commenters greeted the news with skepticism.

Speaking of skeptics, a few British c…
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More About: Facebook, Google, community, elections, top comments, trending

McDonald's is testing a new payments system in which customers use the fast food chain's mobile app to order and pay for meals. PayPal, eBay's mobile payments platform, would power the transactions.

Customers using the PayPal method at the 30 participating McDonald's locations in France would be put into a separate pick-up line while waiting for their food, Reuters reports.

SEE ALSO: 5 Ways to Pay for Dinner With Your Phone

August has become a pivotal month in the growth and visibility of mobile payments.

The McDonald's news comes on the heels of payments startup Square teaming up with Starbucks to complete all of the coffee chain's cre…
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More About: Food, McDonalds, Mobile, mobile payments, paypal, trending

Sony has quietly introduced the successor to its Xperia S smartphone, the Xperia SL.

The Xperia SL boasts a faster processor -- it has a 1.7 GHz dual-core processor, versus the S's 1.5 GHz -- but few other improvements. Reviewers of the S complained both about its "pokey" processing speed and its uninspiring 4.3-inch display, but unfortunately, the XL offers no improvement for the latter. Other parts of the XL's hardware, including its 12.1-megapixel camera, are the same as that of Xperia S.

The smartphone is now listed on Sony's website with a "coming soon" sticker. The site also shows a full list of specs for the device, as well as images.

The phone comes in four colors --…
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More About: sony, sony xperia sl, trending

A new play on Lorem Ipsum -- that is, placeholder text for publishing and design -- is getting the interwebz all hot and bothered.

More About: 50 Shades of Grey, dummy tex, lorem ipsum, trending

Wondering what the verdict will be in the Apple v. Samsung lawsuit? There's no need to dive into all those complicated legalities when you have the Verdict-O-Matic.

More About: Sunday Comics, The Joy of Tech, apple, apple v. samsung, samsung, trending

New York City's Staten Island may soon be home to the world's tallest ferris wheel.

The New York City Economic Development Corporation is in talks with a company to build a "giant observation wheel" that would be bigger than the London Eye and current "world's tallest" titleholder, the Singapore Flyer, reports local website SILive.com. At more than 600 feet, the wheel would be on a parcel of land near the island's ferry terminal.

It would be part of plans for 14 acres of city-owned waterfront property, including high-end outlet stores, the site said.

The London Eye, a popular attraction in England's most populous city, sits at 443 feet, while…
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We love Pinterest because it captivates us with sensational imagery. This week's top 10 is no exception.

A good Pinterest pin elicits reactions from viewers that range from, "I can't wait to try this," to "I want to go to there." The pin of the Nestrest, an extremely inviting nap spot, does a good job of representing these thoughts, as do the rest of our favorite pins from this past week.

FOLLOW: Mashable on Pinterest

We've also highlighted a few of our favorite DIY projects from Pinterest this week, such as a mini marshmallow roaster and a solution for the tangled cords in your home. The ideas shared on Pinterest are often simple, yet they can provide inspiration for your lif…
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Technology made even more great strides this week, with companies figuring out ways to change the way you watch TV, use power tools, and wake up in the morning. Heck, someone's even figured out how to make a car run on thin air.

Meanwhile, rumors roiled about Apple revolutionizing the world of cable television, an industry that's certainly ripe for big changes in the coming years.

SEE ALSO: Previous editions of Top 10 Tech This Week

That's just a small taste of what we have for you in our comprehensive report of the Top 10 Tech This Week.

Series presented by Chivas

Top 10 Tech is presented by Chivas. Access a world of exclusive insider benefits – pr…
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More About: Apple TV, Gaming, Power Tools, Top 10 Tech, dogs, netflix, trending, watch

Missouri Republican Rep. and Senate nominee Todd Akin said in an interview Sunday that in the case of what he called "legitimate rape," the "female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."

"From what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare," Akin told local station KTVI-TV in response to a question about abortion and women's rights issues.

Akin's remarks immediately ignited a social firestorm on Twitter, with many users condemning his remarks and pointing out the clear factual flaws in his understanding of biology. The term "legitimate rape" was trending within hours of the interview being picked up by a major media outlet.

A snapshot of the…
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More About: Politics, Social Media, Twitter, US, congress, trending

Years ago, few people conflated technical prowess with physical fitness. The archetypical techie of the early 90s, for instance, was Dennis Nedry, the portly computer programmer in Jurassic Park played by Wayne Knight, a.k.a. Seinfeld's Newman. In real life, tech titans like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs would never be mistaken for underwear models.

Twenty years later, though the image of the Red Bull-fueled, pizza-consuming, pencil-necked techie lives on, it's balanced by another strain: The tech Master of the Universe who is not only proficient in Objective-C, but can run a sub-3:30 marathon as well and regularly bikes hundreds of miles over the weekend.

Though endurance sports hav…
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San Francisco Giants star outfielder Melky Cabrera created a fake website as part of a faux digital trail to dodge a drug suspension, according to a new report.

Cabrera admitted to testing positive for performance-enhancing testosterone earlier this week, accepting a 50-game ban that meant the end of his regular season appearances.

However, a report from the New York Daily News published Sunday alleges that one of Cabrera's "associates" paid $10,000 for a website advertising a fake product that Cabrera used as an excuse for the positive drug test results.

Baseball players can escape a positive drug test if they can prove the results were caused by a non-banned substance. Accord…
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Stride Gum is the latest company to mimic Apple in its recent ad campaign for its just-launched Mintacular flavor. The brand released the above online video, featuring gold medal-winning snowboarder Shaun White, in the latest "celebrity-endorsed chewing experience."

Unlike Apple's ads, however, the Mintacular parody uses actors aside from White.

"From the moment you pick it up, you instinctively know how to use it," one actor says. "There are no rules at all when it comes to holding it. I don't need to change who I am to fit the product. It fits me."

SEE ALSO: Orabrush Parlays YouTube Success Into Walmart Deal

Mintacular also posted an Apple-esque billboard in New York's So…
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More About: Advertising, Marketing, ads, apple

Facebook has overtaken Yahoo as the Internet's most popular site for viewing video last month, according to report from comScore.

According to comScore, Facebook saw a bit more than 53 million unique viewers throughout July, compared to Yahoo's less than 49 million. Google, thanks largely to YouTube, still enjoys a comfortable lead in the race with nearly 157 million total unique viewers.

Yahoo users, however, watched more videos -- 625 million to Facebook's 327 million. Facebook users watched an average of 21.7 minutes of video throughout July, while Yahoo users consumed 70.4 hours of video content.

ComScore's statistics only included what it calls "content videos," not adverti…
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More About: Advertising, Facebook, Google, Social Media, Video, Yahoo, YouTube, trending

Sure, computer programming jobs are often associated with the ability to work from home, but a neurosurgeon? Surprisingly, there recently was an open position for a home-based doctor who would telecommute and travel to various locations to perform brain surgery.

In fact, medical jobs dominate flexible job listings, and a neurosurgeon is only one of the many surprising employment opportunities across the board in 50+ career fields that are hiring for virtual positions.

Companies such as AT&T, Sun Microsystems, Cisco and even the IRS are just a few of the larger establishments that offer the ability to work from home, with small companies offering similar opportunities as well. The…
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A federal judge has rejected Facebook's settlement offer in a class-action privacy lawsuit over the use of users' names and faces in "Sponsored Stories" advertisements.

With Sponsored Stories, which rolled out in January of 2011, your "likes" on a brand's page can result in your name and profile picture being shown as endorsements in that brand's advertisements on the site. Users were not given an option to opt-out of the feature.

The lawsuit, filed last year, alleged that the practice is a violation of Facebook users' privacy.

Under Facebook's proposed deal to settle the lawsuit, it would have given users more control over their "likes," including the opportunity for users under th…
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NASA's Curiosity Rover landed on Mars a couple of weeks ago, and has since spent its time upgrading its software and making sure its instruments are in tip-top shape. But with a name like Curiosity, it's not going to be satisfied hanging out in one spot for long.

Accordingly, NASA has announced the selection of Curiosity's first destination: Glenelg, an intersection of different kinds of Martian terrain only 1,300 feet from the rover's landing spot:

"With such a great landing spot in Gale Crater, we literally had every degree of the compass to choose from for our first drive," said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger in a press release. "We had a bunch of strong contenders.…
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If sharks could smell viral video hits like they can smell blood in the water, they'd come swimming for this YouTube hit.

More About: Shark Week, Video, Watercooler, YouTube, sharks

Julian Assange called on the United States to end its "witch hunt against WikiLeaks" in his first public appearance in months.

More About: US, World, julian assange, trending, wikileaks

What would it take to keep you off your phone for the duration of a meal? Would a discount help?

A Los Angeles restaurant is hoping a 5% from your meal will keep you off your phone while you eat. Patrons interested in the discount must check their tech at the door before being seated at Eva Restaurant on Beverly Boulevard, reports the KPCC.

This discount, of course, suggests that the restaurant feels there's something to be gained from keeping people disconnected. Chef and owner Mark Gold calls the offer a tactic to avoid distracted dining.

"It's really not about people disrupting other guests. Eva is home, and we want to create that environment of home, and we want people to co…
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More About: Food, Small Business, cellphones, etiquette, restuarants, trending

Mega-star Beyoncé debuted the music video for her latest single "I Was Here," filmed in New York's U.N. General Assembly, in honor of World Humanitarian Day, Aug. 19.

Beyoncé is launching a campaign rallying for the U.N.'s annual celebration of humanitarian work, which encourages people to do good for others. The campaign is hoping to send the largest social media message in history.

"We all see the headlines and we think what can I really do to help," Beyoncé said in a statement. "World Humanitarian Day is an opportunity for all of us to work together to make a difference. This is our time to leave our mark on the world and show that we were here and we care."

Beyoncé is…
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More About: Music, Social Good, UN, World, beyonce, trending