Author: admin

Hacking Verizon

Hacker allegedly leaks Verizon FiOS customer data, Big Red points the finger at marketing firm

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As reported on Engadget. By Sean Buckley Verizon customers saw a flash of excitement this weekend when an alleged hacker claimed to have pilfered personal data for some three million of its wireless customers. Twitter user TibitXimer shared 300,000 names from the file, claiming to have collected them as early as July 12th. According to Verizon, the would-be hacker’s claims are bunk — the leaked data has been available for months, and it’s populated by Verizon FiOS customers.…

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Google serves up reindeer games with Santa Tracker, lets St. Nick message your besties

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As reported on Engadget. By Steve Dent Sure, Google’s not in the Santa Tracking NORAD cabal anymore, but that’s not stopping it from rolling out St. Nicholas-related goodies. It just launched a series of new games, including a chimney / gift dropping challenge, a rocket-powered elf race and a Santa chat that lets you send a droll holiday greeting to your “hoodlum besties.” You can even play Rudolph for a lark and drag Santa around in his…

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Paying For Downloads Is Lame, And We Had No Idea We Were Doing It

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As reported on TechCrunch. by ALEXIA TSOTSIS You know that annoying kid in junior high that used to give you his lunch money to hang out? That’s what incentivized mobile app downloads are like. Or rather, it’s that kid’s mom or older brother paying you to hang out with them. So when we were blindsided by saw this post by our founder Michael Arrington earlier today, about the TechCrunch iOS app being offered in exchange for a whopping 9 premium plays of Goobers Vs. Boogers*, we…

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Germany plans to clone the perfect Christmas tree, break Charlie Brown’s heart

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As reported on Engadget. By Sean Buckley We’ve seen Christmas trees built out of spare car parts, discarded SCSI drives,OLED panels, and quadrocopter stacked boxes, but Germany? Their taking the old tannenbaum back to its roots — and tweaking its genetic code. With the aide of a government grant, scientists in Germany are trying to develop a method of tree cloning suited to Nordmann Fir. The native pine is popular for yuletide trimmings, but can be difficult to grow…

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Apple

Steve Jobs’ Superyacht Impounded in Payment Dispute

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As reported on Wired. BY DAMON LAVRINC The megayacht that Steve Jobs commissioned in the final years of his life has been impounded in Amsterdam after a payment dispute by the designer, Philippe Starck. The Venus, a 100-million-euro, 260-foot-long yacht, made its unofficial debut in late October. It’s currently stuck in the Port of Amsterdam after Starck hired a debt-collection agency to attempt to remit the final payment for his design. According to lawyers at Ubik…

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What is Kindergarten Killer, the NRA’s showpiece for video game violence?

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As reported on Polygon. By ALEXA RAY CORRIEA In a press conference earlier today, the National Rifle Association’s executive vice president Wayne LaPierreblamed violent video games as a contributor to last week’s Sandy Hook school shootings, citing Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat, Splatterhouse and a free flash game called Kindergarten Killer as examples of games with destructive influence. Kindergarten Killer?La Pierre said the media has been hiding the existence of web-based Kindergarten Killer, making it his showpiece for the “dirty little truth”…

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Politics

National Rifle Association exec blames video games for ‘selling violence’ to children

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As reported on Polygon. By GRIFFIN MCELROY The National Rifle Association placed a portion of the blame for the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on violent video games during a press briefing this morning. “There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people,” NRA head Wayne LaPierre said during the press conference. “Through vicious violent video games, with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto,…

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Berkeley researchers map out how our brains categorize the things we see

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As reported on The Verge. By Bryan Bishop Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have created a map showing how and where the brain categorizes the actions and objects we see every day. The study began by taking five human subjects and placing them in an MRI machine while they each watched two hours of movie trailers. Each of the trailers had been analyzed to track the different objects and types of motion present — a leaf…

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Application

Rent.com Is Beta Testing A Mobile-Friendly Redesign

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As reported on TechCrunch. by ANTHONY HA Rent.com is taking a big step into the mobile world with the beta launch of its redesigned website, one that uses responsive web design to deliver an experience that’s usable on desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. Head of Product Amanda McConnell and Chief Technology Officer Alain Avakian gave me a preview of the redesign last week. It’s very clean, with big images and text, and if you’re looking at it on a…

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Single-Click Double-Tap Murder

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As reported on TechCrunch. by JON EVANS Gun control is on many minds this week, but let’s not talk about guns. Let’s talk about drones. (With a reported 300 million guns in private hands in America already, it’s probably too late for gun control anyhow.) Drones are to nation-states what assault rifles are to psychotic mass murderers. Worse yet, the way things are going, it’s only a matter of time until alpha insurgencies like Hezbollah and the Zetas…

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