Day: April 22, 2014

Culture

High as balls: live from the Cannabis Cup

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As reported on The Verge. By Trent Wolbe Here’s a fact: humans love to get wasted. Long before there were laws, long before there was beer, there was marijuana — a drug that had fallen out of legal favor in America completely by the 1930s. Alcohol had a similar falling-out with the Federal Government in 1920, but by 1933 legislators realized that the benefits of legalization and taxation would far outweigh the consequences of continued prohibition. It’s taking…

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Google Security

Google is working on end-to-end encryption for Gmail

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As reported on The Verge. By Russell Brandom Google wants to make it easier for Gmail users to encrypt their emails, according to a report in VentureBeat. PGP has been an open-source encryption standard for nearly 20 years, but the protocol has been dogged with usability issues that many claim have kept it from broader use. As a result, engineers at Google are working on ways to make PGP easier for users, as part of a larger push…

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Application Automotive

Google Maps Rival Mapbox Adds Smart Directions, A Navigation Service For Any App

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Ingrid Lunden Mapbox, the OpenStreetMap-based mapping platform that lets app developers incorporate maps into any app, is adding another feature to better compete against the likes of Google Maps, ESRI and Nokia Maps: Smart Directions, a navigation service that developers can customise with extra details such type of terrain, specific places of interest, and current traffic conditions. Its first partner, getting announced today alongside Smart Directions, is Scoot, the electric vehicle-sharing startup live in San…

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Apple Environmental

Apple extends free recycling to all used products – and you might get a gift card

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As reported on Engadget. BY MAT SMITH Reiterating what the Apple CEO said at last month’s shareholder meeting, Tim Cook still wants to “leave the world better than we found it”, and nows he’s trying harder to deliver on that. Starting today, all of the company’s stores will accept any Apple product for recycling at no charge. Better still, if it looks resalable, the company will offer some store credit (read Apple gift card) to sweeten…

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Internet

Your internet is probably slower than advertised

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As reported on Engadget. BY TIMOTHY J. SEPPALA When it comes to internet speeds, “you get what you pay for” is pretty far from the truth a majority of the time. The Wall Street Journal used Ookla’s speed-testing data to survey some 800 US cities and 27 ISPs in terms of advertised transfer rates and what customers are actually getting, and the results are pretty surprising. A vast majority of providers give their customers the short shrift on speed (Verizon Internet Services and…

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