Tag: ad-choices

Rogue Albanian drone flies over Serbian soccer stadium, cancelling match

Deadspin An already tense soccer match in Belgrade between the national teams of Albania and Serbia has been suspended after a drone flew over the field waving an Albanian flag. Based on online footage, the drone appears to be a DJI Phantom or a Phantom 2, which retails for roughly $500 to $800 depending on the model. The Tuesday game, which was to be a Euro 2016 qualifier match between the two sides, was the first time they had met in the Serbian capital since 1967. According to The Guardian , away fans were not allowed in the stadiums in either Belgrade or in the upcoming rematch in Tirana, the capital of the Republic of Albania. The two sides’ enthusiasm for soccer has been overshadowed by a larger political issue: Kosovo, a republic that broke away from Serbia in 2008. Kosovo, which has a majority ethnic Albanian population, is not formally recognized by Serbia but is recognized by the United States, Canada, Australia, France, the United Kingdom, and many other states. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See the article here:
Rogue Albanian drone flies over Serbian soccer stadium, cancelling match

Slow credit card verification lands Florida man in jail

Last week a man was arrested in Fort Lauderdale, FL when his two credit cards were declined after he spent $600 on bottle service at a nightclub. The story wouldn’t be all that interesting were it not for the fact that the man, Don Marcani, had not reached his credit limit that night. In fact, he was able to pay his $1,000 bail the next morning using one of the credit cards that was declined earlier. As Marcani told NBC 6 South Florida , he and his friend used a Wells Fargo credit card to buy $80-worth of drinks at the bar of Cyn Nightclub. Then they decided to move into the VIP section, costing them $600. The waitress took Marcani’s credit card, but when she tried to run the credit card later that night, it was declined. Marcani then provided a Capital One credit card, which was also declined. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Original post:
Slow credit card verification lands Florida man in jail

US edges closer to energy independence

EIA The net energy consumption of the US has held fairly steady for nearly 20 years. Over the past decade, however, there’s been a large increase in production of energy within the US. As a result, the US government’s energy figures for the first half of this year show that the differences between production and consumption have dropped to the lowest level in 29 years. This represents a net drop in energy imports by 17 percent compared to the same period a year earlier. According to the Energy Information Agency, the boost in energy production came from a variety of sources. Natural gas was the largest, accounting for just over half of the annual increase. Coal accounted for another quarter, renewable energy for 12 percent, and petroleum for eight. The EIA also notes that energy use this year was unusually high due to the intense cold that hit most of the nation in the first few months of 2014. The vast majority of the country’s imports come in the form of petroleum products and crude oil. These imports have been decreasing as new sources of oil are tapped and automotive efficiency standards are tightening. Refined petroleum products remain the largest US energy export; smaller quantities of coal and natural gas are also shipped overseas. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Visit site:
US edges closer to energy independence

Google has removed 170,000-plus URLs under “right to be forgotten” edict

Google Google says it has removed 170,706 URLs in the wake of a European high court ruling in May requiring search engines to take down “inadequate, irrelevant, or no longer relevant” materials from search results upon request by EU citizens. In all, the search giant said it has already been asked to remove about half a million URLs from its search results, and it has removed about 42 percent of them, according to its latest Transparency Report  published Thursday. “In evaluating a request, we will look at whether the results include outdated or inaccurate information about the person,” the report said. “We’ll also weigh whether or not there’s a public interest in the information remaining in our search results—for example, if it relates to financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions or your public conduct as a government official (elected or unelected). Our removals team has to look at each page individually and base decisions on the limited context provided by the requestor and the information on the webpage. Is it a news story? Does it relate to a criminal charge that resulted in a later conviction or was dismissed?” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See the original article here:
Google has removed 170,000-plus URLs under “right to be forgotten” edict

There’s more than one reason why iOS 8’s growth has stalled

Apple If you follow Apple news closely, at some point in the last week you’ve probably seen the graph above. It’s from Apple’s Developer Support page, and the company calculates the figure by looking at the iOS versions of devices accessing the App Store. Like Google’s analogous developer dashboard for Android , it’s meant to give developers a broad look at OS usage so they can use that data to determine which OSes to support with their apps. The problem with the graph above isn’t that it shows iOS 8 and iOS 7 with the same amount of share, but that the number for iOS 8 has climbed just a single percentage point since the last measurement was taken on September 21 . Apple’s data mirrors what a number of other independent firms have been claiming virtually since launch day— Chitika’s data shows that iOS 8 had rolled out to 7.3 percent of the iOS userbase after 24 hours of availability, while iOS 7 had already hit 18.2 percent in the first 24 hours after its launch. More recent data from Fiksu shows an adoption curve closer to iOS 5 (the last version you needed iTunes to upgrade to) than to iOS 6 or iOS 7. Fiksu’s data shows iOS 8 with 40 percent of the iOS pie after 22 days, compared to nearly 60 percent for iOS 7 and iOS 6. Fiksu Though the Ars audience is generally more tech-savvy than the general populace, our own data shows that you guys are embracing iOS 8 less enthusiastically than you picked up iOS 7. Here’s data from iOS 7’s first two full weeks (running from September 22 of 2013 to October 5) compared to data from iOS 8’s first two full weeks (September 21 of 2014 to October 4). Around 70 percent of our site visits came from iOS 7 in that time period, compared to about 60 percent from iOS 8. Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Continue Reading:
There’s more than one reason why iOS 8’s growth has stalled

Borked Belkin routers leave many unable to get online

Owners of Belkin routers around the world are finding themselves unable to get online today. Outages appear to be affecting many different models of Belkin router, and they’re hitting customers on any ISP, with Time Warner Cable and Comcast among those affected. ISPs, inundated with support calls by unhappy users, are directing complaints to Belkin’s support line, which appears to have gone into meltdown in response. The reason for the massive outages is currently unknown. Initial speculation was that Belkin pushed a buggy firmware update overnight, but on a reddit thread about the problem, even users who claim to have disabled automatic updates have found their Internet connectivity disrupted. Others suggest that there is some kind of DNS problem at work. Although the routers are correctly picking up their DNS settings from DHCP, they’re apparently unable to resolve domain names correctly. Connecting to the Internet using IP addresses alone does, in fact, appear to work, but with most of us dependent on DNS, this is of little value. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View the original here:
Borked Belkin routers leave many unable to get online

Blue LEDs given Nobel Prize in physics

Nobel Prize Committee Each year, roughly a quarter of the electricity we generate goes to lighting. For decades, that lighting came in the form of an incandescent light bulb, which produced 16 lumens for every Watt it was fed. Fluorescent bulbs are roughly five times as efficient, but recent LEDs do nearly 19 times better than incandescents, producing 300 lumens for each Watt. The first LEDs date back to 1907, but it’s only recently that their incredible efficiency has been brought to bear on the lighting market. One of the key holdups was our inability to generate a broad spectrum of colors. Specifically, we couldn’t make white light because we lacked the ability to produce blue LEDs. Now, the Nobel Prize in Physics is being given to three materials scientists who overcame this roadblock. The people receiving the honor are Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano, both faculty at Nagoya University in Japan, and Shuji Nakamura, now of UC Santa Barbara, who did much of his key work while at Nichia Chemicals, a small company in Japan. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read More:
Blue LEDs given Nobel Prize in physics

How to win friends, influence people, and have businesses magically text you

Cyrus Farivar This week, I downloaded a new iPhone app, Path Talk , and I texted actual questions to local businesses near where I live in Oakland, California. In some cases I got answers back within minutes, but most took longer, even over an hour. Nevertheless, it was almost like magic. Without interrupting my work day, I learned some crucial information about my favorite East Oakland taco truck ( Tacos Sinaloa ): “Can I place an order by phone?” “Hi! Unfortunately, you would have to come to our restaurant in person since we do not take orders over the phone. Sorry about that. Have a nice day!” Read 25 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read the article:
How to win friends, influence people, and have businesses magically text you

FBI director says Chinese hackers are like a “drunk burglar”

Ivan David Gomez Arce James Comey, the Federal Bureau of Investigation director, says Chinese hackers are daily targeting US companies’ intellectual property. “I liken them a bit to a drunk burglar. They’re kickin’ in the front door, knocking over the vase, while they’re walking out with your television set,” Comey said Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes . “They’re just prolific. Their strategy seems to be: `We’ll just be everywhere all the time. And there’s no way they can stop us.”‘ 60 Minutes Comey’s remarks on the news magazine comes two weeks after a Senate Armed Services Committee report concluded that China’s military broke into Pentagon contractors’ computer networks at least 50 times—hacks that threaten ” to erode US military technical superiority .” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Follow this link:
FBI director says Chinese hackers are like a “drunk burglar”

Comcast seeks to fix awful customer service, admits “it may take a few years”

Comcast executive Charlie Herrin is aiming to improve Comcast’s legendarily poor customer service. Comcast After months of getting bashed for treating customers poorly, Comcast today said it’s going to make improving customer service its “number one priority.” But the company admitted that “it may take a few years before we can honestly say that a great customer experience is something we’re known for.” Neil Smit, CEO of Comcast’s cable division,  wrote today  that Comcast’s customer service hasn’t kept up with Comcast’s focus on “product innovation,” technology, and content. “But this is only one half of the customer experience equation. The other half is operational excellence in how we deliver service,” he wrote. “The way we interact with our customers—on the phone, online, in their homes—is as important to our success as the technology we provide. Put simply, customer service should be our best product.” A longtime Comcast executive is being called upon to fulfill that goal. Smit announced the promotion of 15-year Comcast veteran Charlie Herrin to a new role as senior VP of customer experience. Herrin previously was senior VP of product development and led design of X1, Comcast’s new TV user interface. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read this article:
Comcast seeks to fix awful customer service, admits “it may take a few years”