An official, shadowy Chinese hacker group is reportedly responsible for more than 100 high-level attacks against major corporations and governments. The group, known as Advanced Persistent Threat” (APT1) was outed today in a 60-page report by security firm Mandiant, which has been tracking the army unit for six years. The company also released a technical, step-by-step video (below) of how one… → Read More
I find statistics absolutely delicious. Pew research released fresh stats on what slice of Americans are addicted to all of the various social networks as of December 2012. There are a few big business and cultural implications. → Read More
With the looming threat of faceless drones buzzing around American cities, congress has proposed banning armed drones and regulating their use for law enforcement surveillance. The Preserving American Privacy Act introduced by U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CrunchGov Grade: A) would require warrants for unmanned aircraft systems to collect personally identifiable information and a public notice to collect… → Read More
Fragments of a meteor reportedly crash landed in Russia, causing an explosion that injured over 100 people. Amateur video of the meteor streaking across the sky (below) have gone viral and the Interior minister has confirmed that 102 people had called for medical assistance, “mostly for treatment of injuries from glass broken by the explosions,” according to the AP. → Read More
President Obama just concluded a group interview with a handful of bloggers on Google+. The 40-minute follow-up to the State of the Union covered a broad range of new issues: drones, Mark Zuckerberg, patent trolls, immigrant gay rights, gun control, the distribution of wealth, and even why the president is so “chill.” More than any interview I’ve seen in recent memory, the Google+ hangout gave a… → Read More
President Obama will be holding a townhall follow-up to his State of the Union speech on Google+ at 4:50pm ET today. We’ll be covering the speech in separate posts. Readers are invited to watch the “Hangout” live in the YouTube video below: → Read More
I was really hoping this article would have ended differently. But after spending countless hours scanning tiny pixelated squares of people who were supposed to represent my mathematically determined soul mate, I found that online dating websites are modern-day versions of snake oil. I ended up back at bachelorhood after a long and expensive trek through computer-aided love services; I decided to… → Read More
Up-and-coming Republican Senator Marco Rubio was facing the onslaught of a full-fledged Twitter meme after he awkwardly took a sip of water during his State of the Union response. During the time-honored opposition rebuttal to the President’s speech, Rubio stepped outside of the camera frame to take a sip from a tiny water bottle. Naturally, Twitter hastags for #waterbreak exploded, eclipsing any… → Read More
During the State of the Union, President Obama has announced a plan to make the American education system more focused on tech skills. While there weren’t many details in the short declaration, Obama cited New York’s P-Tech high-school as a model. P-Tech is a public high school that partnered with IBM to offer a 5-year associates degree, focused on vocational skills. Students stay one year longer… → Read More
President Obama gave a huge shout-out to Apple during his State of the Union address tonight, using the company as an example of how manufacturers are once again seeing value in making things in America: “This year, Apple will start making Macs in America again.” Obama was referring to an interview last year in which Apple CEO Tim Cook declared, “We’ve been working for… → Read More
The federal government spent $200,000 studying why congressmen sometimes make vague statements. It’s no surprise why leaders in Congress proposed cutting Political Science from the National Science Foundation dole and giving it to more worthwhile projects in the physical sciences, like cancer research. After wasting five years as a PhD graduate student desperately trying to find value in my… → Read More
North Korea reportedly tested a nuclear weapon tonight. For perspective, its recently demonstrated long-range missile could potentially deliver a bomb capable of taking out downtown San Francisco. → Read More
President Obama will conduct a Google+ Hangout after the State of the Union tomorrow night, continuing his recent tradition of answering online questions after the speech. Additionally, there will be a PowerPoint-augmented YouTube version of the speech, complete with charts and graphs. Finally, after the speech, thousands of citizens will join a “Citizen’s Response” of rapid fire responses from… → Read More
Educators knew the online revolution would eventually envelop the physical classroom, but a torrent of near-revolutionary developments in the past month are proving that change is coming quicker than anyone imagined. In just 30 days, the largest school system in the U.S. began offering credit for online courses, a major university began awarding degrees without any class time required, and scores… → Read More
Countries around the world have never quite been able to recreate the innovative prowess of Northern California’s Silicon Valley. According to Berkeley Professor Anna Sexanian, a tradition of cultural support groups, mainly Chinese and Indian, is one of the Valley’s most unique and lucrative traits. The “brain circulation,” as she calls it, reins in top talent from the around the world and helps… → Read More
A new video showcasing the future of weapons was released on YouTube today: a enterprising 24-year-old gun enthusiast manufactured his own high-capacity 30-round gun magazine using a 3D printer. Hoping to spread the amateur design of more “Wiki Weapons”, the rebellious 24-year-old designer nicknamed the blueprints of the weapon, the “Cuomo,” named after New York Governor… → Read More
My old university’s library was a den of pornographic filth, but no one ever considered shading the windows strip-club black because a few stragglers watched sex on public computers. Yet, that’s precisely the odd logic that led video sharing app, Vine, to up its age rating to 17+ after users were found sharing naughty content. While we may not want to celebrate our porn-filled culture, restricting… → Read More
America got bamboozled yesterday, courtesy of an unintentional media fabrication: the government is not building a super-fast national Wi-Fi network. A somewhat confusing feature in The Washington Post about a few loosely connected government initiatives about greater access to faster Wi-Fi got twisted into a story about a plan to create a so-called “Super Wi-Fi” network. What ensued looked like a… → Read More
If you’re lost in the recession or are looking for a job with more social impact, one of the coolest jobs in tech has opened up a second round of hiring: the White House Presidential Innovation Fellows. First launched at TechCrunch’s own Disrupt NYC conference, Fellows work to find creative technological solutions to ongoing federal problems, from theft in foreign aid money transfers to making… → Read More
According to Google, a woman named Latanya is probably a lot more likely to end up in jail than someone named Jill. A new study finds advertisements linked to commonly African-American names are far more likely to offer criminal services. Names “primarily to black babies, such as DeShawn, Darnell and Jermaine, generated ads suggestive of an arrest in 81 to 86 percent of name searches,”… → Read More
In a heartfelt tumblr, the girlfriend of fallen Internet activist, Aaron Swartz, explained why she thinks he committed suicide. After revealing intimate details of his seemingly chipper, curious lifestyle, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman argues that “I believe Aaron’s death was caused by exhaustion, by fear, and by uncertainty. I believe that Aaron’s death was caused by a persecution and a… → Read More
British soldiers are testing out tiny 4×1-inch mini surveillance drones throughout Afghanistan. “We used it to look for insurgent firing points and check out exposed areas of the ground before crossing, which is a real asset,” said Sgt. Christopher Petherbridge. The toy-looking Black Hornet Nano can fly for up to 30 minutes with a top speed of 22 mph, or a range of about one… → Read More
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s upcoming book, “The New Digital Age,” isn’t pulling any punches. From the “irrelevance” of anonymity to some juicy thoughts on Twitter, the Wall Street Journal published some thought-provoking quotes from the book slated to be released in April. → Read More
In an ironic twist of fate, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has threatened military force against thousands of student protesters through one of the very mediums used to liberate the country in 2011: Twitter. “Security forces will deal with the utmost decisiveness to law enforcement and the protection of state enterprises,” tweeted the official account, through a string of 1984-ish updates. → Read More
This just in from the land of crazy: Republican Senator Lamar Alexander says that “video games is [sic] a bigger problem than guns.” We’ve included the full quote and video below of his Interview with NBC’s News’ Chuck Todd, responding to a question about background checks for gun owners. → Read More
Facebook’s No. 2 top dog, COO Sheryl Sandberg, recently said that Netflix’s company culture document “may well be the most important document ever to come out of the Valley.” The document, a bullet-point-happy PowerPoint, has become a cultural manifesto for the Internet’s economic epicenter, amassing over 3.2 million views on Slideshare.net. More than simply a… → Read More
Outspoken billionaire, Mark Cuban, is fed up with America’s patent system. “Dumbass patents are crushing small businesses. I have had multiple small companies i am an investor in have to fight or pay trolls for patents that were patently ridiculous,” he says in an email to TechCrunch. → Read More
Congress is looking to keep popular Internet-only services, such as email and social networks, permanently free of taxes. Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Sen. Dean Heller are seeking a permanent extension of the original 1998 Internet Tax Free Act, which is set to expire in November 2014. “E-commerce is thriving largely because the Internet is free from burdensome tax restrictions. Unfortunately, tax… → Read More
It’s no secret that the Internet has a hard time taking things seriously. “Best. Gulag. Ever.’, raved Google user, C. Quinn, about Yodok North Korean prison. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt probably expected his recent high-profile visit to the isolated dictatorship to have a more sobering impact on online discourse. But, after Google asked users to help identify important roads and landmarks for the… → Read More
“In the 21st century we can no longer afford to have an immigration system where less than 10 percent of the people who come here do so based on the skills that they bring to this country,” said immigration reform leader, Senator Marco Rubio, as he introduced a new high-skilled immigration bill. Once a country where “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” was… → Read More
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