Forget sneaking contraband into prison in your butt. Some creative crooks have taken to the skies with new technology in an effort to get some precious tobacco to their compatriots in prison.This takes the drone delivery service trend to a new level. Read more…
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Drone-Wielding Criminals Busted Dropping Tobacco Into Prison Yard
Ever accidentally lose a dollar? Then you count what’s in your war chest, realize it’s a dollar short, and kick yourself for being careless? Well, a British IT worker knows what that feels like—except times 7.5 million . Read more…
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Some Fool Threw Away a Hard Drive with $7.5 Million of Bitcoin On It
assertation writes “According to The Guardian, 62% of readers between the age of 16 and 24 prefer physical copies of books over ebooks. Reasons given were the feel of ‘real books, ‘ a perceived unfairly high cost for eBooks, and the ease of sharing printed books. ‘On questions of ebook pricing, 28% think that ebooks should be half their current price, while just 8% say that ebook pricing is right.’ The preference for physical copies was in contrast to other forms of media, such as games, movies, and music, where a majority preferred the digital version.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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62% of 16 To 24-Year-Olds Prefer Printed Books Over eBooks
In advance of the holidays, PayPal is rolling out support for those pesky pre-paid gift cards from credit companies like Visa. No more wondering whether your favorite online retailer will take your card. If they take PayPal, they take the lazy gift from your aunt. Read more…
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In advance of the holidays, PayPal is rolling out support for those pesky pre-paid gift cards from c
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes, quoting USA Today “The NASDAQ has topped 4000 for the first time in 13 years, but much has changed since then. … Tech investors in 2000 were right about the possibilities of the Internet and mobile computing. But they were dead wrong about which companies would be in the vanguard … The recovery of the NASDAQ has been a complex tale of creative destruction, where old companies that once fueled the index have been pushed aside by new players. Back in 2000, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Intel, Oracle, and Sun accounted for 8.9%, 8.5%, 7.1%, 3.6% and 2.6%, respectively, of the value of the NASDAQ composite. Today, companies that were just starting out or didn’t even exist — think Google, Amazon, and Facebook — are in the top 10, accounting for 4.7%, 2.7% and 1.5% of NASDAQ’s value. Microsoft, Cisco and Intel’s weight has fallen sharply. Apple, which wasn’t in the top 10 in 2000, is a behemoth at 7.9%. So is the NASDAQ enjoying a long overdue catch-up with the rest of the market, or is the broad market overpriced, with the NASDAQ being pulled along for the ride? ‘The reality is that the only thing that’s the same from Nasdaq 4000 in 1999 and Nasdaq 4000 in 2013, ‘ says Doug Sandler, ‘is the number 4000.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Nasdaq 4000 — This Time It’s Different?
New submitter johnslater writes “The Chicago Transit Authority’s new ‘Ventra’ stored-value fare card system has another big problem. It had a difficult birth, with troubles earlier this fall when legitimate cards failed to allow passage, or sometimes double-billed the holders. Last week a server failure disabled a large portion of the system at rush hour. Now it is reported that some federal government employee ID cards allow free rides on the system. The system is being implemented by Cubic Transportation Systems for the bargain price of $454 million.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Google Smartphones have changed the computing landscape quite a bit, and it often seems like desktop computers and laptops get left behind. “Always-on” voice search is going to completely change the way we interact with computers, but, until now, it has been strictly-mobile only. Today, Google released a Chrome extension that enables always-on voice search from a desktop. With the extension installed, voice search works just like it does on the Nexus 5. When Google.com is open, just say “Ok Google” and then your search term. This happens when you say “Ok Google” from the search results. Google The hotword even works when you’re already on a search page. You can just say “Ok Google” again and search for something else. It all feels like a step closer to the Star Trek future Google keeps promising us . Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Always-on voice search from your desktop: “Ok Google” comes to Google.com
ericgoldman writes “People often feel passionately about fonts, but government decisions shouldn’t depend on what font people choose for their written submissions. In Massachusetts, a sex offender overturned the decision of a hearing officer after it was determined that (among other possible biases) the hearing officer posted to Facebook that he ‘can’t trust someone who drafts a letter in arial font!’ and ‘I might be biased. I think arial is inappropriate for most things.’ This is just the latest example of how social media rants by government workers are causing problems for the workers — and the people they deal with.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Sex Offender Gets New Hearing After Hearing Officer Rants Against Arial Font
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics reports on the discovery of a “reverse shock wave racing inward at Mach 1000” in the Tycho’s supernova remnant, making its particles glow as you can see in the photograph above. If you think the idea of a shockwave traveling inward is counterintuitive, you aren’t alone. This is what’s happening: Read more…
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This is a space shockwave traveling 1000 times faster than sound
Google turned in a man who copied child pornography to his cellphone using Picasa. Raul Gonzales, 40, was charged with possessing more than 3,000 pornographic pictures of children on the phone. The FBI says the investigation began in March when Google’s hashing technology found two child porn pictures in his Picasa library. Picasa is a cloud-sharing platform for images owned by Google. From there, the company notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which says it found more images on a Tumblr account owned by Gonzalez. That’s when the feds took over. Agents say they also found pictures of a 9-year-old who is close to the family, and that Gonzales admitted to sexually assaulting the child. “When an image is found,” Google assured CBS, “an employee will inspect it to make sure it’s actual abuse and not just a picture of a child at bathtime.” It’s good to know that an alleged sexual predator was identified and dealt with, and it’s good to know that Google assigns individual humans to inspect our naked children for the authorities’ consideration.
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Google turns in child porn owner who used its cloud services