Month: April 2013

Culture Entertainment Legal

Animal Farm: a look at the ‘Ag Gag’ laws that are making it tough to film cruelty

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As reported on The Verge. By Lessley Anderson Legislators send mixed messages on why the laws exist A still from Burger King Cruelty, produced by Mercy for Animals. Americans love their hamburger, but they hate to see where it comes from. That dichotomy is leading to a rash of so-called “Ag Gag” laws being enacted across the US, as reported on by The New York Times this week. The laws aim to block or severely limit activists’ ability to film…

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Business Culture Entertainment

How a Hollywood effects studio builds the movie monsters from your nightmares

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As reported on The Verge. By Matt Brian In an age where movie studios can create almost anything using CGI, Hollywood’s special effects studios and their real-world creations are still in very high demand. In a behind-the-scenes interview, Venue takes a look at Spectral Motion — a special effects creature studio which has provided the prosthetics, animatronics, and costumes for hit movies including Hellboy & Hellboy II, Looper, Blade 2, X-Men: First Class and this summer’s upcoming blockbuster Pacific Rim. Spectral…

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Google Mobile

Missing in action: why doesn’t Google help consumers find their lost Android phones?

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As reported on The Verge. By Dieter Bohn Users are left to fend for themselves on the world’s biggest smartphone platform Google is respected for its prowess in the cloud. Android phones that connect up to Google’s services enjoy a wide array of features — from email to apps to notes — that offer seamless sync between the web and your device. Yet there’s one enormously important feature that Google does not extend to consumers: the ability to…

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Google

Google Wants To Operate .Search As A “Dotless” Domain, Plans To Open .Cloud, .Blog And .App To Others

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As reported on TechCrunch. by FREDERIC LARDINOIS If it gets it, Google wants to turn .search into a “dotless domain,” the company told ICANN a few days ago. Last year, Google applied to manage the .app, .blog, .cloud and .search generic top-level domain (gTLD) names as part of a major expansion of the domain-name system. ICANN, which is managing this expansion, hasn’t awarded any of the gTLDs yet, and the whole program remains controversial. But in…

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Microsoft Tablet

Microsoft Reportedly Working On 7″ Surface Tablet As PC Market Slumps To Four-Year Low

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As reported on TechCrunch. byNATASHA LOMAS According to a report in the WSJ, Microsoft is working on a new line-up of its Windows 8-powered Surface tablets that includes a seven inch version of the slate. This small form factor size would enable Microsoft to compete with the likes of the Android-powered Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2, as well as Apple’s iOS-based iPad Mini. The paper quotes a person familiar with the…

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Hacking

Hacker claims he can remotely hijack airplanes using an Android app Alt

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As reported on Engadget. By Sharif Sakr Hugo Teso, a security consultant who also happens to be a trained commercial pilot, says he’s developed an Android app that can make an airliner “dance to his tune” by attacking its flight management systems. The hack was demoed at this year’s Hack In The Box conference in Amsterdam, where Teso showed how the app — called PlaneSploit — can seek out targets from the ground by infiltrating radio broadcasts between…

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Mobile

Samsung Galaxy Mega is official and comes in 6.3- and 5.8-inch sizes Mobile

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As reported on Engadget. By Mat Smith We knew Samsung was planning more devices, but we didn’t expect the arrival of two Galaxy Mega smartphones at the same time. Both are apparently headed to Europe some time next month, continuing to prove that Samsung are willing to test out any screen-size. The 6.3-inch model has an ‘HD display’ (we’re chasing the precise resolution, though it’s likely 720p) alongside a dual-core 1.7GHz processor, Android 4.2 and an 8-megapixel camera.…

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Legal

Police raid Samsung office over alleged LG OLED technology theft

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As reported on The Verge. By Sam Byford Samsung Display’s offices in Asan, South Korea have been searched by police investigating the possible theft of OLED TV technology. A Samsung spokesperson told Bloomberg that the police were looking for evidence that people connected with LG had leaked secret OLED data to its great rival. “We have no reason to steal other companies’ technology, as we have the world’s best OLED technology,” said another spokesperson for Samsung. LG, meanwhile,…

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Military News

Leaked documents show the extent of America’s drone war

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As reported on The Verge. By Aaron Souppouris Top-secret documents acquired by McClatchy have revealed the extent of US drone usage. Despite previous claims that drones were used for “targeted strikes against specific al-Qaeda terrorists,” it’s now clear that the unmanned aircraft are being used far more widely. According to McClatchy‘s Jonathan Landay, at least 265 of the 482 people the CIA killed over a 12-month period ending in September 2011 were assessed to be “unknown extremists;” a far cry…

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News Random

Vudu Headquarters Robbed, Hard Drives With Private Customer Data Stolen

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As reported on TechCrunch. by GREG KUMPARAK There’s been a break-in! And this time, it’s a physical, real-world break-in — not the digital variety we’ve grown so accustomed to hearing about lately. Vudu, the video streaming service acquired by Walmart in 2010, has just sent an email to customers letting them know of a break-in that occurred in their Santa Clara, CA office on March 24th. While it appears that credit card info is mostly safe…

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