Internet King and America’s news editor Matt Drudge is freaking out right now, complete with his trademark scare quotes. (I swear, you could probably write a thesis about how Drudge influences the American media.) There’s a bill that’s currently floating around the U.S. Senate that would, in times of emergency, put the Internet, in a sense, in control of the White House. And then the government will make you eat fruits and vegetables! Tyranny! → Read More
We are overwhelmed with the 168 responses to our “It’s A Meme! Get Photoshop Warmed Up And Win A Bing Tshirt” post where we asked you, the readers, to come up with a better photoshop hack job than Microsoft was able to do on their own marketing material.
One of the submissions will win a Bing tshirt and sticker. I originally said the winner would be selected by our summer interns, but we want to turn this into a poll. We’ve selected the six we like best, but you can write in your own as well. → Read More
Are you a privacy-minded person living in the Netherlands with at least $82,000 USD to spare? If so, quantum cryptography can be your’s today, thanks to a new partnership between Siemens and id Quantique! Siemes has a bunch of dark fiber it’s willing to sell to you for use with your shiny new id Quantique Cerberis quantum key distribution system.
As you all know, quantum cryptography key distribution uses light over fiber optic cables. In order to ensure that the key exchange occurs securely, you need dedicated fiber. And if, somehow, someone manages to peek in on your key exchange, the quantum properties of photons ensures that you’ll know about, since the very act of observing quantum events changes their outcomes. → Read More
Yeah, I don’t know why they made an another iPhone app either. It seems, after noticing B&R style clocks on the HTC Hero, that there is a real fetish for interface designers over these things. That’s the only way I can explain it. → Read More
Twitter is used for a lot of things these days, but this has to be one of my favorites. A 28-year-old guy named Justin has set up a Twitter account simply to tweet out random things his elderly father says. The title of the feed: “Shit My Dad Says.”
Apparently, I’m a bit slow stumbling upon this; even though it was only started at the beginning of August, Justin’s account for his 73-year-old father’s sayings already has over 150,000 followers. But I don’t care, it needs to be pointed out again how awesome this idea is. → Read More
When Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones set out to build the biggest, most elaborate, most expensive stadium in all the land, a ridiculously large video screen was, of course, on the list of things to purchase. The problem, however, is that the screen is so big and hangs so low to the ground — just 90 feet above the playing surface — that punts are going to be hitting the bottom of it all… season… long. → Read More
As a startup in the sports sphere, Citizen Sports has a simple, but annoying problem: They’re not ESPN. And it’s simply hard to compete with the name that has basically become synonymous with sports. Yahoo might be able to do it because, well, they’re Yahoo, but for a startup, it can be frustrating when, on many levels, you’re beating your competitors in innovation, but still trailing by so much.
That’s the basic gist I got after a meeting with Citizen Sports’ Jeffrey Ma and Brian Mead. The fact is that they are doing some innovative stuff in the space, but still getting overshadowed, and that means it can be hard to make meaningful money. For example, their fantasy sports options are hugely popular thanks to their Facebook app (Ma thinks they have a shot at being the overall number 3 fantasy option behind Yahoo and ESPN in the business), but this hasn’t translated into the types of ad deals that ESPN sees because they are able to leverage their television network, and Yahoo can leverage all its other properties. → Read More
We know with the economy the way it is, it’s tough to justify spending money on those luxury items that you want. And we want to help you out. That’s why we’ve teamed up with the Bing-loving people at The Watchery to bring you the chance to a very nice Movado dress watch, just for giving us a shout out on Twitter. Don’t worry, ladies: you can win a women’s model if we pick you. → Read More
If you think a waterproof remote control is a good idea, then you’re either clumsy, have kids, or you own a pool and around the pool there’s at least one TV and when people come over, they’re like “Holy smokes, you have an outdoor TV? By your pool, no less?!!” Oh, and you should probably live in Japan because that’s where these waterproof universal remotes from Sony will be available at first. → Read More
Oh, look, video of Modern Warfare 2 has leaked. (I’m still not sure if it’s called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 or simply Modern Warfare 2. Go figure.) It was taken at a retailer convention in Las Vegas. → Read More
Here, in this glorious land of the free and home of the brave, there is generally one thing that most all Americans can agree on: the major mobile wireless carriers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint) suck leave much to be desired. As more and more people come to depend solely on their cell phones and the related services (voice, data, multimedia), it becomes that much more important for the FCC to ensure that the wireless industry remains legitimately competitive for the sake of reliability, innovation, and most importantly, for all of us, the American consumers. Fortunately, by law, the FCC is required to report annually on the state of competition in the “commercial mobile services” market. → Read More
Great Ceasar’s ghost! A woman in Ohio is charging the double-As for breach of contract for… mum… not supplying MMS with the 3.0 firmware.
She writes in the lawsuit:
“Millions of customers, as a result of the false and deceptive representations and concealments of Apple and AT&T purchased the 3G and 3GS, waiting for the wonderful day in June 2009 when the new application would be available which would allow MMS,” the court filing states. “Unfortunately, after downloading the new 3.0 Software Update application, MMS still did not work on both the 3G and 3GS.”
The terribly named “White-Fi” is a research effort to bring WiFi transmission to the unlicensed TV spectrum — the so-called “whitespace” (get it? White-Fi!) of TV channels in the UHF band . Big whoop, right? Well, with transmission ranges up to 1 kilometer, that actually is a pretty big deal. Mesh networking is also in the works. But most interesting of all are the requirements that the FCC has imposed on White-Fi devices to make sure they don’t interfere with any television broadcasts or wireless microphones. Basically, any White-Fi device needs to immediately switch frequencies the instant it detects a signal from a television or microphone. → Read More
It seems that Snow Leopard contains some sort of anti-malware system. But what does it really protect you from? Not much.
It seems to scan for only OSX.RSPlug and OSX.Iservice and then only scans files from Safari, Mail, and a few web browsers. Usenet and Bittorrent clients are unaffected. It doesn’t even actively scan the Downloads folder. → Read More
It has been a good two months or so since TomTom announced that they were making a GPS-boostin’, speaker-totin’ car cradle for the iPhone, and we’ve heard a whole lot of nothing since. Aside from a UK retailer preorders indicating that the cradle might cost £99.00 (roughly $161), TomTom has been pretty quiet on the matter. It looks like we might be hearing more soon, though. The product has just made its way through the FCC’s torture tombs, indicating that the product is on the last leg of the development cycle. Fun fact: The TomTom cradle should work with the iPod Touch, giving it the navigation abilities generally reserved for its better connected, contract-required bigger brother. You can see all the FCC documentation splayed out here. [Via Engadget] → Read More
Notice less phishing e-mail lately? There’s a reason, hot shot: the volume of phishing e-mail has dropped from 0.79 percent of all e-mail sent to 0.49 percent. If we’re looking at just “bad” e-mail, though, phishing scams still make up the bulk: 86.9 percent of “bad” e-mail was phishing-related this month. That’s down six percent from July. → Read More
We first reported that Former Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly is running for Attorney General of California in the 2010 election. He confirmed the bid earlier this year. Kelly’s official campaign site is here.
We’ve been looking for time to sit down with Kelly to do a long form interview on a wide range of issues before giving (or not giving) him our endorsement (see our 2008 presidential endorsements here). We know his track record at Facebook, and his general politics (libertarian-leaning Democrat), but there was lots more to learn. The last thing California needs is someone like Henry McMaster taking over the top law enforcement job in the state.
The most important issue first: we want Kelly to give us (meaning me, personally) immunity in California for any crimes allegedly committed while he’s in office. Give us that and the endorsement is his, no more questions asked. His answer? Sadly, no: → Read More
Apparently it’s not okay to send West Virginia’s governor five free laptops. What a world! Governor Joe Manchin’s office got a nice four-pack of Compaq laptops earlier this month, followed a week later by a fifth machine from HP. The only problem was that nobody in his office ordered them or paid for them. → Read More
TweetMeNews is a recently launched Twitter application that will tweet you personalized, relevant news based on your interests and preferences. The app will ask you questions about what genre of news you are interested in (business, technology, advertising, venture capital and health) and what types of publications you’d like news from (blogs, newspapers, video, magazines).
TweetMeNews then analyzes data, including your Twitter feed, and uses a proprietary algorithms to send you stories that match your interests and behavior. TweetMeNews’ co-founder Brett Hellman says that the startup even checks your feed to make sure not to send your news that you’ve already received. You can choose for the service to send you up to ten stories per day.
In theory, the idea sounds great. But as a blogger, I need news fast. I tested the service out and it sent me a Tech news story from yesterday, which isn’t terribly helpful when it comes to receiving breaking news. Other news firehoses, like Techmeme’s are far more valuable to me when it comes to reporting breaking news throughout the day, because it’s fast, comprehensive and varied. But for users who aren’t concerned with the speed of breaking news, TweetMeNews could be a useful Twitter-focused news service to add to the mix. → Read More
A bit of a corollary to yesterday’s story of an ACLU lawsuit designed to ascertain more information about laptop border searches. The Obama Administration has put a whole bunch of new restrictions on the practice, some of which should may the “don’t search me” brigade. → Read More
