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

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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

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Slow credit card verification lands Florida man in jail

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

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

What we know (and suspect) is coming in iOS 8.1

Apple Pay is one of the biggest features expected to launch with iOS 8.1 later this month. Apple Last week, numerous publications ( including Ars ) reported seeing references to iOS 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3 in their site analytics pages. iOS versions 5, 6, and 7 only saw one major point update apiece during their respective lifespans, so evidence of three different updates being tested simultaneously just weeks after the release of iOS 8.0  came as a surprise. It looks like we’ll be seeing the first of those updates sooner rather than later. Today Apple pushed out the second beta build of iOS 8.1 in as many weeks to its registered developers, and the final version of the software is rumored to be released at or near Apple’s event later this month . Obviously such a quick turnaround time will make iOS 8.1 a smaller update than iOS 7.1 , which gestated for around six months and fixed a host of problems when finally released. But the update is still rumored to include a handful of significant features—here’s a list of the most important additions. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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What we know (and suspect) is coming in iOS 8.1

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

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Borked Belkin routers leave many unable to get online

Soylent gets a version bump to 1.1—new flavor, new gut flora help

A single week of Soylent contains seven meal pouches and seven oil containers. Total weight is just about 10 lbs (4.5 kg). Lee Hutchinson Soylent, the slushy slightly sweet meal supplement/replacement from California engineer Rob Rhinehart and his company Rosa Labs, has by most accounts been a smashing success story. We tried it and liked it a year ago. While we wrote more about why folks might (or might not) want to drink it once it hit its official release , the Rosa Labs development team has continued work even as shipments of the powder leave the factory by the truckload. In an update e-mail yesterday morning, Rosa Labs announced two major milestones: first, that shipments have (finally) been completed to everyone who backed the Soylent crowdfunding project prior to its closure, and secondly, that Soylent is getting its first major update to version 1.1. It seems a little weird that food (or “food”) has a version number, but Rhinehart always intended Soylent to be a product that changed over time based on feedback and market forces. In a quick post on the official Soylent blog, Rhinehart explains that the bump to 1.1 brings with it a decrease in the product’s sucralose level, dialing down the release version’s vague sweetness to a more truly neutral taste. The logic here, explains the post, is that it’s easier to add sweetness than to take it away, and many Soylent 1.0 users have expressed a desire to flavor the product with add-ons (peanut butter is a popular one, as is blended fruit). The second change deals with my biggest issue with Soylent—what can be politely termed as “a bit of gas.” Regular Soylent use eliminates the gas, but using Soylent as an occasional substitute for a missed meal—which is my preferred usage of the stuff—can introduce some thunderous gut activity (which I referred to in my original Soylent review as ” horse-killing farts “). Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Soylent gets a version bump to 1.1—new flavor, new gut flora help

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

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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

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

Fans raise cash to help phone phreaker John Draper, aka Cap‘n Crunch

Aaron Getting An online fundraiser for legendary phone phreaker John Draper , better known as Cap’n Crunch, has passed its target $5,000 in just three days .  Draper himself doesn’t even know who started the fundraiser, but the money is intended to help with his medical bills. According to a recent blog post , he suffers from both degenerative spine disease and C. Diff, an inflammation of the colon . I want to thank with the bottom of my heart for an anonymous person for setting me up with qikfunder…. http://t.co/mwzDLLRpHH — John Draper (@jdcrunchman) September 25, 2014 In conjunction with others in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Draper figured out that a toy whistle given out in boxes of Cap’n Crunch cereal emitted a tone at 2600 Hertz. By pure coincidence, that happened to be the tone AT&T used to reset its trunk lines. As a result, Draper became a legend in the nascent world of phone phreaking, a predecessor to early personal computer hacking. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Fans raise cash to help phone phreaker John Draper, aka Cap‘n Crunch

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

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