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We’ve all seen the courtroom dramas where the lawyer representing the side of good presents the critical evidence, out of the blue, and cinches the case for the client.  In those shows, convincing the jury always hinges on one crucial bit of evidence that is suddenly presented, at the very last moment, to swing the judgment.

In real life, of course, that rarely happens.  But trial attorneys do spend a lot of time setting up and presenting evidence to juries in order to convince them that their side of the story is correct.  This often takes hours of preparation – beyond just the finding of the evidence itself.

Well.. now there’s an app for that.

TrialPad is an iPad application that allows attorneys to present evidence of all kinds (video, audio, documentary, etc.) on one native app.  It can be sent through the court’s projector, televisions, etc. and without the need for a dedicated audio/visual tech that can be distracting for the jury.

In fact, in one trial, Attorney James Moncus, III won a $37 million case by using this app to present his evidence.  In that trial, Moncus had 911 phone recordings, receipts, documents from medical experts, video and more.  All of it was shown via this app and his iPad.

The app itself is relatively simple to use, though with anything this complex, there will be a learning curve.  It’s not steep, however.  Once you master the idea that you can be doing things on the screen that aren’t being shown on the monitors it’s attached to (such as bringing up the next doc and making highlights), setting up your evidence in sequence becomes easy.

It’s a very cool app with a very niche market of users who will no doubt find its price tag cheap compared to the time, money, and effort it can save.

If you thought that Amazon was being left behind when it came to the social media arena, think again.  The internet giant is about to multiply its efforts in this sense, and this means that we could see new additions to its website in future months.

Thanks to a recruitment process that took place earlier this year, the company now has a director of social media.  This in itself should lead to some significant steps forward in this area.  Amazon is said to be building a Social Games Group, although there is very little detail in this area to describe exactly what we can expect from this.  However, it is thought to be a rival to Zynga once it gets up and running.

Thus far, we have seen little movement in the direction of social media from the new director of this part of Amazon.  However, it is reasonable to expect that the appointment of someone to this role will result in some major steps forward in the future.  The social aspect of Amazon currently rests on the reviews that are given for each item sold on the site.  However, you cannot easily interact with other users in this sense, so perhaps this could be an area ripe for development.

We shall await further news of social commerce developments at Amazon.  Nevertheless, one thing is certain – any developments must surely be positive ones, and could transform the Amazon experience for everyone who uses the site.

According to research performed by BuySellAds recently, an interesting picture came to the fore regarding the way that people interact with the top two social networking sites.  Twitter was more than twice as likely to drive buying decisions among its users, presenting an interesting picture of the site with regard to its position within the social commerce marketplace.

The research indicated that 37% of people thought that Twitter was more likely to influence purchasing decisions.  This was compared to just 17% who thought Facebook would do the same thing.  Purchasing decisions made after reading and interacting with sellers via email sat in the middle, with 27% of people agreeing that they would make buying decisions in this way.

The report indicated that it was often easier to find and follow people on Twitter than it was to connect with people on Facebook.  Both sites clearly have their advantages and they are both worth joining when it comes to promoting your business.  Nevertheless, it may be that many followers see Twitter as the easier way to connect with businesses.  It is also easier to take advantage of tweets that have special offers or other benefits attached to them.

Indeed 43.5% of people said they liked to take advantage of exclusive offers promoted to them via Twitter.  The figure for Facebook was 36.9%.  Not as big a gap here, but it is still a noticeable difference.  We shall be watching to see how this progresses in the future.

Robbing the bank was the easy part.  The hard part?  The getaway.

Reckless Getaway is a really cool iPhone/iPad game that puts you in the driver’s seat of a getaway car.  The robbery is done, the money is in hand, but you still have to get away.

The game has a lot of variables going on and is a ton of fun.  You can drive various getaway vehicles including a muscle car, a big rig, and more.  The game has 16 tracks, all with traffic, police pursuit, wrecks, and general vehicular carnage.

Speed through the streets, up alleyways, and smash through roadblocks as you make your escape.  Things unlock as you go, so complete a level and unlock more goodies to keep playing.

Playing on the iPhone is fun with a lot of use of the in-built gyro and vibration.  On the iPad it’s even better with the bigger screen and better graphics.  Sound is optional and controls are very easy.

Reckless Getaway has won several awards, including being named to the Quality Index’s Top 10 Games list and being the July game of the month in the Appstore Arcade.

It’s made by Polarbit AB and just had a new update August 30.  It’s rated for ages 9+ because of cartoon violence (vehicles smashing).

There have been some major changes going on at Facebook this week.  They have come under fire in the past for having complex methods for determining privacy settings.  Some users have found the settings too difficult to get to grips with, meaning their information was often on show to people when they did not want it to be.

It will now be possible to edit your own privacy settings while you are on your profile page.  This is easier than trying to find the old privacy settings page, which many users did not like.  Now, when you look at your content or try to add something to your page, you will be able to edit your privacy settings right there and then.

However, this is not the only change that will occur when the new changes go live on 25th August.  Tagging will also be changed so that you will no longer be tagged by other people unless you want to be.  Instead of new tags appearing without your prior consent, you will now be able to say yes or no to whether you want them to show up or not.  Not only does this aim to be one of the most popular changes to Facebook’s settings, it also gives every user greater control over their account.

It remains to be seen how these changes are received by Facebook users.  Nevertheless, at first glance it looks as though they will be very popular indeed.

According to the latest news reports, we can look forward to music on Facebook later on this month.  In its continued drive to dominate the social networking market, Facebook will be integrating a wide range of music services into its site.  Names that have been mentioned include Spotify and Slacker, with Rdio and MOG also coming to the fore if reports are to be believed.

This is a major new step forward for the site and it remains to be seen how successful it is.  The 22nd of September is the date of the official announcement, which will take place at the developer conference for Facebook.

It is understood that the social networking site will not host the music itself though.  Instead, it will be provided by the companies mentioned above.  This essentially means that Facebook will act as a go between, allowing its users to listen to their favourite music on the site instead of having to go elsewhere to do it.

There has been talk about such a move for some months now.  Even today there is no firm news that Facebook will launch such a service, since they are keeping everything very hush hush.  However, those in the know have said the announcement will be made at the conference, so it appears to be a very open secret.

It does however remain to be seen whether the service will be the big success that Facebook obviously hopes it will be.  We shall be watching.