Ask a Dev: What Are the Advantages of Native and Hybrid Apps?

We've tackled the question of native apps vs. mobile websites, but comparing native and hybrid apps leads to a whole other discussion.

In our latest Ask a Dev video, iOS engineer Eric Miller explains the advantages of creating a completely native iOS application and creating a hybrid app.

See also: Should You Build a Responsive Site or a Native Mobile App?

He says native applications have the benefit of familiarity. Developers already know how to code for iOS and Android software development kits and can expect how they'll function. Users are also already acquainted with these apps.

"They know the feel, flow and navigation and everything about the applications they already use on their native devices, and trying to reproduce that using hybrid is a little bit tricky," he says Read more...

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Groupon Redesigns Website for First Time in Five-Year History

Groupon is getting a facelift just in time for its fifth birthday

The daily deals service announced Friday that it has overhauled the look and functionality of its website for the first time since it launched in November 2008. The site, which has received the occasional tweak over the years, has now been rebuilt from the ground up with entirely new code, new search and browse options and perhaps most noticeably at first, a new color. Groupon green is out, replaced by a plain white background.

"The original site was designed for a deal of the day and the new site is designed for a marketplace," Jeff Holden, Groupon's SVP of product management, told Mashable in a recent interview. The web redesign has been in the works for about a year. Read more...

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6 Job Interview Questions and Answers to Avoid

The old adage of "think before you speak" is never truer than when you're on a job interview. One unwitting slip-up could cost you your dream position, so it's crucial to know what kinds of questions and answers will set off a red flag for your interviewer.

While a hiring manager has a responsibility to avoid illegal interview questions, there are certain things that you shouldn't say as a candidate, either. Five career coaches weighed in on the most common questions and answers that interviewees should avoid at all costs.

Questions to avoid:

"What does your company do?"

Even if the job posting you read didn't include much information about the company itself, this should be a fairly obvious question to avoid. Nothing puts a big red "X" on your résumé like not having done your research. If you're coming in for a job interview, the hiring manager expects that you have a basic understanding of what the company does and who its clients are. Read more...

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New Algorithm Assesses the Quality of Wikipedia Articles

An algorithm that assesses the quality of Wikipedia articles could reassure visitors and help focus editors on entries that need improving, according to the computer scientists who developed it.

The result is many high-quality articles on a huge range of topics in more than 200 languages. But there are also articles of poor quality and dubious veracity.

This raises an important question for visitors to the site: how reliable is a given article on Wikipedia?

Today, we get an answer thanks to the work of Xiangju Qin and Pádraig Cunningham at University College Dublin in Ireland. These guys have developed an algorithm that assesses the quality of Wikipedia pages based on the authoritativeness of the editors involved and the longevity of the edits they have made. Read more...

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Gruesome Drawings Decompose Your Favorite Pop Culture Characters

Homer Simpson never looked this beat.

French artist and graphic designer Pierre-Yves Riveau, known as PEZ, has released a series of sketches that imagine sinewy and dilapidated versions of beloved pop culture characters. The series, titled Distroy, gives icons like Mickey Mouse, Mario and Bart and Homer Simpson a gruesome makeover.

See also: 'Grand Theft Auto V' Player Captures Hauntingly Real In-Game Pics

Riveau told Mashable that he set out to apply his "graphic style" to famous cartoons, mixing cartoon drawing and graffiti together to create "a strange and oniric image."

Check out Riveau's haunting series above, and visit his Facebook page to see more of his work. Read more...

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Is Anonymous Social Media the Answer to Cyberbullying?

On the Internet, it's easy to create a new pseudonym or personality. But what happens if you remove the concept of a user profile all together?

That's what Whisper, an anonymous mobile social network for Android and iOS does. By removing the user's identity, Whisper helps people share secrets they wouldn't be comfortable sharing with anyone else in the world under normal circumstances. Users anonymously share "whispers," which are stylized cards that share deep secrets formatted on images. While you can like and comment on whispers, there are no profiles. This means, in theory, no one but you can track your activity. Read more...

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A 21st-Century Haunted House

Long ago, haunted Halloween houses had to put time and effort into their tricks. It took ghouls, goblins and mask-wearing-men-with-chainsaws to spook their visitors

But in 2013, there's no need for all the fuss

See also: Ellen's Haunted House Torture Punches You in the Face With Funny

In this Unearthed Comics, artist Sara Zimmerman proves that there's not much that will scare people more than a weak Internet connection

BONUS: Haunted House Reactions Are Back — and Funnier Than Ever

Homepage image: Flickr, barb_ar. Comic illustration courtesy of Unearthed Comics. Published with permission; all rights reserved. Read more...

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Will the Government Monitor Social Media for Snowden-Like Risks?

The U.S. government is studying whether it can scour social-media websites for clues about potential risks from workers such as Edward Snowden and the Washington Navy Yard shooter.

Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who leaked government secrets, and Aaron Alexis, who shot and killed 12 people, had security clearances. The cases have exposed a flawed system of vetting such employees, some of whom are slipping through the cracks.

The pilot studies, which looked at the feasibility of using automated records checks as well as social-media websites, turned up “actionable information,” Brian Prioletti, an assistant director in the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, said in testimony prepared for a Senate hearing Thursday. Read more...

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Movement Powers Your Smartphone With Genneo Mobile Generator

As innovators look for ways to keep mobile devices charged when away from power outlets, Genneo offers a new alternative that generates power from an unexpected source — your movement

Through a standard USB port, the product turns your movement into power for electronic devices like smartphones, cameras and tablets

The initial idea to create the product sprang from an attempt to improve the usability of linear generators; a type of generator that creates power through linear movement, versus others that use spinning parts. Linear generators have been used in objects like shaker flashlights, which don't use battery — users shake the flashlight to power it Read more...

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21st Century Kids Just Don't Get Trick-or-Treating

Remember the good ol' Halloween days when the houses with bad candy just got egged? Not anymore — in the 21st century, if you're giving out toothpaste, prepare to be the butt of a trending hashtag

In this comic, Maria Scrivan shows that trick-or-treating just isn't the same now that every kid has a cellphone (and will probably spend more time Instagramming their candy than eating it)

See also: What the Halloween Candy You Give Out Says About You

But here's a simple ground rule: If you're old enough to tweet, you're too old to trick-or-treat

BONUS: 10 Deliciously Sweet Works of Candy Art

Comic written and illustrated by Maria Scrivan. Published with permission; all rights reserved. Read more...

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Bing's Horror-Themed Homepage Is Halloween's Best Dressed

There have been some memorable Halloween-themed Google Doodles in the past, but today, Bing wins for best dressed homepage.

Bing's interactive homepage, which changes daily and often features pictures of scenic landscapes, paid tribute on Thursday to some of the most iconic horror films of all time. By clicking around the page, you'll see cameos from The Shining twins and references from Poltergiest, Pyscho, The Amityvile Horror and Halloween. For added thrills, make sure the volume is on as you navigate throughout the page.

SEE ALSO: 12 Mysterious Google Maps Sightings

Google's Halloween Doodle is interactive too — it lets you mix ingredients into a witches' brew. Depending on the order you pick, you'll be treated to a different mini-game to play. And the Google fun doesn't stop there — if you type words such as "ghost," "witch" and "skeleton" into Google, you'll get quick facts about their history. Read more...

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NFL Alum Blasts League Over Head Injuries, Health Care

With violent deaths of former players, a PBS Frontline documentary, a detailed book by a pair of Pulitzer Prize winners and a recent $765 million settlement with former players, the NFL's concussion crisis has been a hot topic in sports and news circles these past few months

But rarely has it been thrown into such viscerally sharp focus as it was Thursday morning

See also: The Yellow First-Down Line: An Oral History of a Game Changer

Former NFL safety Hamza Abdullah went on an obscenity-laced Twitter tirade against the league and its management over the effect of repeated head trauma on players, NFL medical care and long-lasting health problems he blames on years playing a violent game. It's raw, it's angry, it's emotional and it provides yet another window into growing backlash against the NFL Read more...

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Google, Oracle Enlisted to Help Fix Obamacare Site

Google, Red Hat, Oracle Corp. and other companies are contributing dozens of computer engineers and programmers to help the Obama administration fix the U.S. health-insurance exchange website.

The help is arriving as the government’s main site to offer health insurance remains plagued by repeated outages a month after its Oct. 1 debut. Among those assisting are Michael Dickerson, a site reliability engineer on leave from Mountain View, Calif.-based Google, and Greg Gershman, the innovation director for smartphone application maker Mobomo, according to a government official who asked not to be identified because the moves haven’t been made public. Read more...

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Neurocam Scans Your Brain, Records Your Interests

It may look like the poor man’s Google Glass, but don’t let the iPhone-strapped-to-the-side-of-your-head thing fool you, Neurocam and its accompanying app may foretell the future of advertising.

Demoed recently at the Human Sensing 2013 conference in Yokohama, Japan, the system includes a headband equipped to hold an iPhone next to the wearer’s temple. The phone is fitted with a special prism so the camera can record footage from the wearer’s point of view.

SEE ALSO: Quirky Vending Machines Dispense Wit and Wonder

The headset also includes EEG sensors that scan the brain for correlative spikes in interest. The Neurocam iPhone app assigns the EEG data a value from one to 100. When the data hits 60, interest is detected, which cues the phone’s camera to start recording. Footage is recorded as five-second GIFs, which are then stored in an album so users can remember what exactly struck their interest. Read more...

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Clowns, Sharks and Chainsaws: What Scares Us Most?

Picture the scariest thing imaginable. Is it a grotesque beast with tentacles and fangs? A staggering, drooling zombie? Or a suspicious psychopath? This time of year, we spend a lot of time focused on shocks and scares. But what really scares us? And why?

See also: 20 Iconic Aliens That Transformed Hollywood

Mashable wanted to find out, so we teamed up with Survata to devise a spooky quiz about your favorite horror films. We approached terror from every angle — from chainsaw-wielding lunatics to sadistic alien clowns — and gathered the responses of 1,500 horror fans into one graphic

Check it out below to see if your favorites made the list Read more...

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Google Launches Nexus 5, Android KitKat

Google unveiled its next-generation smartphone, the Nexus 5, alongside the Android 4.4 operating system KitKat, at a press event in San Francisco Thursday.

The Nexus 5, a 5-inch smartphone, goes on sale Thursday for $349 without a contract in its 16GB incarnation, and $399 for the 32GB version. Both are available in black and white

It's a slim, lightweight device, a third of an inch thick, weighing 4.59 oz. The phone boasts a speedy Snapdragon 800 processor and "packs a pretty mean punch," said Dave Burke, Google's Android engineering director.

See also: KitKat Parody Video Hilariously Mocks Apple Read more...

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