Taking on Twitter spammers; and giving football players high-tech heat protection

(NECN: Ted McEnroe) – One of the biggest problems as Twitter grows in popularity is that is becoming a magnet for spammers. And on Twitter and other social networks, spam can mean more than just annoyance. If a spammer follows you on Twitter, or friends you on Facebook, you could be letting those spammers harvest other information you post, such as web addresses and emails. With that in mind, there is a surge in the development of new applications that help you weed out the spammers from your Twitter account. One of the latest ones is called Twitblock, built by Twitter user Tim Whitlock, you can find it at Twitblock.org. – Its premise is simple – it goes through your Twitter followers and checks a number of factors, such as: a) if they have the same profile picture as other users. b) if they follow tons and tons of people every day, but no one follows them back, and more. From there, you can simply click and block them. And of course, this tip for new Twitter users – don’t follow everyone who follows you without checking them out first. And don’t friend people on Facebook you don’t know without checking them out. (Personally, I don’t friend people on Facebook I don’t know at all – but if you want to, just be smart about it.) The heat in New England has been bad – but it’s nothing compared to what’s been cooking in Texas. And a number of colleges and pro teams are using technology to keep their teams safe during two-a-days. At the University of Texas, a number of players are swallowing pill-sized thermometers with transmitters, so trainers can instantly track their internal body temperatures. The goal is simple – head off heat exhaustion before it becomes a problem. And at the University of North Carolina, they’re taking it a step further. Not only are they using the pill-sized thermometers to collect temperature data, they are considering coupling the data with that being collected by a university study on concussions. Staff can then determine almost instantly if a disoriented player is suffering from heat problems or a possible head injury – and researchers hope to use the data to see if there is any correlation between heat, hydration and concussion risk. And for players, that makes taking the not exactly tiny pills a little easier to swallow.