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Cop gives parking ticket to man installing no parking sign

Dan Greding was installing a roadside parking sign warning motorists of a 75-minute parking limit when a Santa Barbara cop gave him a ticket for parking for more than 75 minutes. “I said, ‘But I’m putting these signs up, ‘” Greding told KEYT. “And [the officer] says, ‘Then you should know you can’t park here more than 75 minutes.’ I said, ‘Well, I haven’t put the sign up yet, so you can’t write me a ticket.'” He fought the ticket and lost. He’s appealing. Read the rest

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Cop gives parking ticket to man installing no parking sign

Can Thunderbolt Survive USB SuperSpeed+?

Lucas123 writes: “The USB SuperSpeed+ spec (a.k.a. v3.1) offers up to 10Gbps throughput. Combine that with USB’s new C-Type Connector, the specification for which is expected out in July, and users will have a symmetrical cable and plug just like Thunderbolt but that will enable up to 100 watts of power depending on the cable version. So where does that leave Thunderbolt, Intel’s other hardware interconnect? According to some analysts, Thunderbolt withers or remains a niche technology supported almost exclusively by Apple. Even as Thunderbolt 2 offers twice the throughput (on paper) as USB 3.1, or up to 20Gbps, USB SuperSpeed+ is expected to scale past 40Gbps in coming years. ‘USB’s installed base is in the billions. Thunderbolt’s biggest problem is a relatively small installed base, in the tens of millions. Adding a higher data throughput, and a more expensive option, is unlikely to change that, ‘ said Brian O’Rourke, a principal analyst covering wired interfaces at IHS.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Can Thunderbolt Survive USB SuperSpeed+?

Bringing Windows 8-style multitasking to iPads isn’t as simple as it seems

“I just need to write about this Murloc rush deck. For work.” Aurich Lawson Apple is planning to add a split-screen multitasking mode to its iPads in iOS 8, according to “sources with knowledge of the enhancement in development” speaking to 9to5Mac . The feature will supposedly allow two applications to run side-by-side while the tablet is in landscape mode, not unlike the similar Snap feature in Windows 8.1 or the multi-window mode supported on many of Samsung’s phones and tablets . iPad applications have always used the tablet’s entire screen, which keeps things simple but can feel restrictive for heavy multitaskers. Though 9to5Mac’s sources have been accurate in the past, as with all rumors, this report should be taken with a continuous stream of salt until you actually see Apple get up on stage and announce it. If it’s true, this new display mode implies big changes to the way that iPad apps are designed and the way that they interact with each other, and we wanted to take a look at the hurdles in iOS and the iPad hardware that would have to be dealt with to make this feature a reality. We’ll also be making some informed guesses about how Apple might jump over them. Resolution independence Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Bringing Windows 8-style multitasking to iPads isn’t as simple as it seems

Encrypted or not, Skype communications prove “vital” to NSA surveillance

Last year, Ars documented how Skype encryption posed little challenge to Microsoft abuse filters that scanned instant messages for potentially abusive Web links. Within hours of newly created, never-before-visited URLs being transmitted over the service, the scanners were able to pluck them out of a cryptographically protected stream and test if they were malicious. Now comes word that the National Security Agency is also able to work around Skype crypto—so much so that analysts have deemed the Microsoft-owned service “vital” to a key surveillance regimen known as PRISM . “PRISM has a new collection capability: Skype stored communications,” a previously confidential NSA memo from 2013 declared. “Skype stored communications will contain unique data which is not collected via normal real-time surveillance collection.” The data includes buddy lists, credit card information, call records, user account data, and “other material” that is of value to the NSA’s special source operations. The memo, which was leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and released Tuesday by Glenn Greenwald to coincide with the publication of his book No Place to Hide , said the FBI’s Electronic Communications Surveillance Unit had approved “over 30 selectors to be sent to Skype for collection.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Encrypted or not, Skype communications prove “vital” to NSA surveillance

The Most Common Languages Spoken in the U.S. After English and Spanish

What’s the language that the most Americans speak after English? As you’d probably guess, the second-most common language spoken in the U.S. is Spanish. But if you look at the most common languages after English and Spanish, the results get a little more surprising, especially when you parse them by state. Read more…

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The Most Common Languages Spoken in the U.S. After English and Spanish

10 of the Best Moments From the Early Days of CGI

CGI is everywhere now. In many cases, it’s almost completely indistinguishable from things that were actually filmed. You can only tell by the impossible camera angles. It wasn’t always that way though—you remember The Last Starfighter , don’t you? Still, 20th century CGI had its high points, and these are 10 of them. Read more…

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10 of the Best Moments From the Early Days of CGI

7.1 Billion People, 7.1 Billion Mobile Phone Accounts Activated

Freshly Exhumed (105597) writes “Tomi Ahonen’s newly released 2014 Almanac reveals such current mobile phone industry data gems as: ‘The mobile subscription rate is at or very very nearly at 100%. For 7.1 Billion people alive that means 7.1 Billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide.’ Compared with other tech industries, he says: ‘Take every type of PC, including desktops, laptops, netbooks and tablet PCs and add them together. What do we have? 1.5 Billion in use worldwide. Mobile is nearly 5 times larger. Televisions? Sure. We are now at 2 Billion TV sets in use globally. But mobile has 3.5 times users.’ Which mobile phone OS is the leader? ”Android has now utterly won the smartphone platform war with over 80% of new sales. Apple’s iPhone has peaked and is in gradual decline at about 15% with the remnant few percent split among Windows, Blackberry and miscellaneous others.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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7.1 Billion People, 7.1 Billion Mobile Phone Accounts Activated

Outlook.com now lets you create extra-specific email rules

If you’re an email power user, you frequently know what to do with messages as soon as they hit your inbox — even if it’s just to avoid dealing with them until later. Microsoft is more than happy to accommodate your exacting requirements, as it just began rolling out a big Outlook.com update that allows for particularly complex email rules. You can now perform automatic actions based on time limits, the read state, email tallies and the familiarity of a contact. If you haven’t read a friend’s message for a day, for example, you can mark it as important so that it doesn’t get buried. Whether or not you’re that demanding, there are a few other upgrades you’re likely to notice in day-to-day use. You can now respond in-line to an email thread, and it’s possible to undo mistakes in more places. It’s also much easier to sort people depending on whether they’re using Facebook or Skype messaging. You can even switch services in mid-stream; if you’d rather go straight to Skype chat, you can. The Outlook.com refinements will take a few weeks to reach everyone, but it might be worth the wait if you believe that small time-savers make a big difference. Filed under: Internet , Microsoft Comments Source: Outlook Blog

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Outlook.com now lets you create extra-specific email rules