Facebook and marketing agency Definition 6 have released Timeline Movie Maker , an app that compiles users’ photos, videos and other Facebook activity to create a short personal video. The app is another example of the unique tactics the social network is using to promote its redesigned profile and part of a new trend of collaboration.

Two weeks ago, the excellent Building Windows 8 blog posted an in-depth look at the upcoming operating system’s new file system, ReFS . It reminded me of the promise of so many years ago that OS X would be changing its file system from HFS+ to ZFS

Investors seem pretty disappointed with Amazon’s fourth quarter results  (as of 3pm Pacific, the company’s stock is down 8.6 percent in after-hours training), yet for most of this afternoon’s analyst conference call, that disappointment was largely hidden in the normal stream of numbers and financial terminology. Finally, a few minutes before the call ended, one analyst asked CFO Tom Szkutak to directly address the concern that earlier questions had hinted at — namely, that the company seems to be seeing “diminishing return” on its spending. Szutak’s initial response?

Amazon CFO Tom Szkutak offered more details this afternoon during an analyst earnings call about  the company’s disappointing fourth quarter When it comes to physical media, Szkutak said the biggest hit to revenue came in the area of video game sales, which includes both console and game sales (but not games sold digitally, say from Amazon’s app store). Even though he didn’t offer specific numbers on that front, he noted that video games sales are seasonal and normally take a big leap in the last quarter of the year — and that happened this year, but it wasn’t enough to match 2010 revenue.

You might remember the scene in The Hurt Locker where some soldiers are ambushed by a sniper and must do a little return sniping. That process of spotting, adjusting the sights, and altering the bullet’s ballistic trajectory bit by bit and degree by degree may soon no longer be necessary: Sandia Labs has developed a bullet with a built-in processor that guides its own flight via tiny adjustable fins. The idea is that the bullet would go exactly where it was meant to go, and not deviate from the target because of wind, gravity, or other factors

Some Facebook users are seeing a new option to hide Ticker , the real-time activity feed in the right sidebar of the homepage. Although the feature can be distracting, it is a key component of the new Open Graph ecosystem that lets apps continuously publish lightweight stories to Ticker and larger aggregate stories to News Feed and Timeline

Welcome, kids, to TIL – Today I Learned. Today’s TIL is “Don’t post your correspondence with AppleCare representatives or Apple will totally tell the government on you.” David Boles had a nice Apple monitor that died on him

The drip-drop of financial news about Facebook ‘s impending initial public offering is starting to turn into a downpour.

I know I say this a lot, but man that was fast. Valve’s new pair of Steam mobile apps have been in their respective marketplaces for less than a week, and already they have graduated from beta status.

Guitar-maker Peavey has teamed up with audio electronics experts Anteres to create an auto-tuning guitar.