Can This Tool Predict Your Next Facebook Status?

Shaw said he has no idea when Bryant will take the court for the first time since undergoing surgery in April, but added, "I know he'll do everything in his power to strengthen up that area that's injured and give himself every chance to come back and play at the level that he's accustomed to playing at."He also knows that whether Bryant is playing or not, he'll still be a valuable reference point when trying to connect with his Nuggets team."Kobe, there's a uniqueness about him in terms of his will to compete and to want to be the best -- his thirst for being the best -- that no one else has, and so I understand that," Shaw said. "But anytime I can use a story or an analogy to try to motivate guys to understand what it really takes to be good and to perform on that level night in and night out, especially when every team is game planning to stop you, I use it."

On "what would I say?" — which appears to have been created over the weekend for the hackers conference HackPrinceton 2013 and is being circulated on Twitter — users log in with their Facebook accounts and click the "Generate Status" button. Using a Markov bot, the app takes text from your past Facebook statuses and blurts out one based on what it thinks you would write. And the tool itself does not store your Facebook information; "only your browser ever sees your post history," according to the site description. A user of custom timelines could create a list of anything on Twitter, from news about major events, like the destruction caused by Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, to less weighty matters like the best cat jokes ever posted on Twitter.

"Whether you want to collect the best tweets about a TV show or help people find the latest information about fast-moving real-time situations, custom timelines lets you give everyone a place to follow along," wrote Brian Ellin, a product manager at Twitter, in a blog post announcing the tool.Custom timelines also help Twitter address one of its biggest problems: It is often hard to find meaning amid the chaos of half a billion Twitter posts a day.Essentially, Twitter is hoping to enlist its most dedicated fans as tour guides. The company said the political news site Politico, the British newspaper The Guardian and Carson Daly, host of "The Voice," were early users of the timeline tool.