Tech Today w/ Ken May

Fluffeh writes “General Motors spends around $40 million per year on maintaining a Facebook profile and around a quarter of that goes into paid advertising. However, in a statement, they just announced that ‘it’s simply not working.’ That’s a bit of bad news just prior to the Facebook IPO — and while Daniel Knapp tries to sweeten the news, he probably makes it even more bitter by commenting ‘Advertising on Facebook has long been funded by marketing budgets reserved for trying new things. But as online advertising investments in general are surging and starting to cannibalize spend on legacy media, advertisers are rightfully asking whether the money spend is justified because it has reached significant sums now.’” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CWmike writes “The internet is no stranger to crime, writes corporate investigator Brandon Gregg. From counterfeit and stolen products, to illegal drugs, stolen identities and weapons, nearly anything can be purchased online with a few clicks of the mouse. The online black market not only can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection, but the whole process of ordering illicit goods and services is alarmingly easy and anonymous, with multiple marketplaces to buy or sell anything you want. Gregg started with $1000 and a took journey into the darker side of the Internet using two tools: Bitcoin and the Tor Bundle.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Krystalo writes “The hacktivist group Anonymous today hacked multiple UK government websites over the country’s ‘draconian surveillance proposals’ and ‘derogation of civil rights.’ At the time of writing, the following websites were taken down: homeoffice.gov.uk, number10.gov.uk, and justice.gov.uk. The group is not pleased with the UK government’s plans to monitor Internet users.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

zacharye writes with this snippet from BGR: “Nearly a dozen suspects have been arrested and charged with crimes related to the theft and sale of AMOLED display technology under development at Samsung. Yonhap News Agency on Thursday reported that 11 suspects either currently or formerly employed by Samsung Mobile Display have been arrested. One 46-year-old researcher at Samsung is believed to have accepted a payment of nearly $170,000 from an unnamed ‘local rival firm’ in exchange for trade secrets pertaining to proprietary Samsung technology used in the company’s AMOLED panels…” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One of the bigger complaints levied against the original iPad was that, while it was a great device for watching movies or surfing the web, it didn’t do much to “ facilitate [content] creation .” Steve Jobs took  that criticism to heart , and made apps like Garage Band and iMovie an essential part of the iPad 2. Now, a new sketchbook app called  Paper  is targeting artsy tablet owners. Developed by a team of former Microsoft employees who worked on the company’s  once-promising, now-dead Courier dual-screen tablet , Paper allows users to draw in a minimalist, user-friendly interface. Want a thicker line with your fountain pen? Just swipe a little faster. To erase, move two fingers counter-clockwise in a circle. The company  touts it as  ”the easiest and most beautiful way to create on the new iPad.”  

New submitter CanHasDIY writes “Tired of waiting for the Pip-Boy or Omni-Tool to be invented? Never fear! Nokia is developing the basic technology needed to make your dreams a reality: haptic-feedback tattoos. According to the patent application, Nokia is proposing ‘a material attachable to skin, the material capable of detecting a magnetic field and transferring a perceivable stimulus to the skin, wherein the perceivable stimulus relates to the magnetic field.’ Basically, the process is the same as for normal tattooing; the difference is in the ferromagnetic ink. Kind of brings new meaning to the term ‘embedded device,’ doesn’t it?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

judgecorp writes “Google is cooling its data center in Douglas County, Georgia, using ‘recycled’ water that has been through the bathtubs and toilets of the surrounding community. So called ‘grey’ water is perfectly adequate for the data center’s cooling system which relies on evaporation (the wet T-shirt effect), says Google.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.