Random

Oral history: the sexual misadventures of the dental dam

As reported on The Verge. By Arielle Duhaime-Ross How the surgical tool tried (and failed) to become the face of oral intimacy Were it not for the three queer women who accosted him at a sexual health conference in Canberra, Australia, Clive Woodworth likely wouldn’t remember the 1993 conference at all. As the founder and CEO of Glyde Health, Woodworth attended these events to promote the company’s safe-sex products; because this conference was geared toward empowering women,…

Continue reading

Legal Microsoft

Microsoft Will Now Deploy Two Legal Teams, Outside Former Federal Judge To Approve User-Data Searches

As reported on TechCrunch. by Alex Wilhelm Following a court document revealing that Microsoft read the email of a third-party bloggerto uncover an internal leak, the company this evening announced a policy change, effective immediately, regarding how it searches user data that is part of its own network of services. Noting that it couldn’t, in its view, get a court order to search itself as none is needed, it will instead add layers of protection between it…

Continue reading

Apple Application Culture

GarageBand on Mac now lets you export songs as MP3s… again

As reported on Engadget. BY EDGAR ALVAREZ As meaningful as GarageBand’s mobile life is to Apple, the tune-making app is still considered a valuable piece of real estate on the desktop. However, last yearGarageBand for Mac lost MP3 exporting as a feature, something which unsettled some of its users. The good news: today’s release brings that back, once again allowing you to export those music creations as MP3 files. Additionally, Apple’s thrown in a few Drummers and drum packs from various genres, including songwriter,…

Continue reading

Business Mobile

Sprint is shuttering stores and laying off repair techs to help cut its losses

As reported on Engadget. BY TIMOTHY J. SEPPALA Sprint isn’t content to keep writing its financial statements in red ink. To that end, the company is shuttering 150 service and repair centers, 55 of its lowest performing retail stores and laying off some 330 repair techs. A handful of call centers have been closed, too. While these might seem troubling, the outfit’s Mark Bonavia tells CNETthat the pre-planned cuts were made with the idea of “minimal disturbance” to the customer in mind. What does that even mean?…

Continue reading

Culture Security

Leaked documents detail how and why NSA targets network admins

As reported on Engadget. BY TIMOTHY J. SEPPALA With the amount of NSA-related information that’s been leaked to the press, one may wonder if the feds will have anything new to share whenever the agency’s firsttransparency report releases. The latest info is that the NSA was targeting foreign network administrators to gain access to the networks they control, as late as 2012.Edward Snowden gave The Intercept a handful of screengrabs from an internal agency message board that, among other things, detail how…

Continue reading