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Privacy

Pot Grower's Privacy Challenged 477

Posted by samzenpus from the show-me-the-stash dept.
damaged_sectors writes "A map marking what are supposed to be secret locations of 60 warehouses and other buildings where medical marijuana is grown in Boulder has accidentally been made public by the city. Officials say an 'oversight' led them to publish the map on the city's Web site. Kathy Haddock, Boulder's senior assistant city attorney who advises the council on medical marijuana issues, said Thursday that the map would be removed from the city's Web site. No conspiracy here folks. In other news the council will decide at its Jan. 18 meeting whether Boulder should circumvent the open records act exemption for cultivation centers by requiring applicants for medical marijuana business licenses to waive their right to privacy. The council could force all growing centers to sign such a waiver as a condition of receiving a city-issued business license. While the risk this would make it easier for Federal authorities to raid grow-ops might not concern council members and others opposed to medical marijuana — I have to wonder what sort of mentality thinks exposing growers to the very real risk of armed robbery by criminals is justifiable."
Crime

New Laser Makes Pirates Wish They Wore Eye-Patches 645

Posted by samzenpus from the scuttle-the-lens dept.
vieux schnock writes "The New Scientist has an article about a new laser developed by a company in Farnborough, UK, that aims to deter modern high-seas pirates. Devised as a 'warning shot' to 'distract suspected pirates rather than harm them,' the meter-wide beam can scan the pirates' 6-metre skiffs and make it difficult for them to aim their AK-47 or rocket-propelled grenades at the ship."
Cellphones

Android Passes iPhone In US Market Share 550

Posted by Soulskill from the droids-eating-blackberries dept.
Adrian writes "61.5 million people in the US owned smartphones during the three months ending in November 2010, up 10 percent from the preceding three-month period. For the first time, more Americans are using phones running Google's Android operating system than Apple's iPhone, but RIM's BlackBerry is still in first place, according to comScore. RIM fell from 37.6 percent to 33.5 percent market share of smartphones, Google captured second place among smartphone platforms by moving from 19.6 percent to 26.0 percent of US smartphone subscribers, and Apple slipped to third despite its growth from 24.2 percent to 25.0 percent of the market. Microsoft, in fourth place, fell into single digits from 10.8 percent to 9.0 percent while Palm was still last and further slipped from 4.6 percent to 3.9 percent." This is not unexpected, since Android sales have been outpacing iPhone sales for some time, but it happened significantly earlier than Gartner's prediction: Q4 2012.

Comment So what is the big deal? (Score 1) 47

by Agent__Smith (#34601654) Attached to: PlayStation App Coming To iOS, Android

I was thinking how cool this is until I saw that it does not allow any gameplay. Shoot, even if it allowed you to play PS1 games on the phone it would be cool. There were some great games. It would be a good revenue stream for them as well. lots of us would like to play some of the cool old games.

This lets you show your friends what you did while they were out with actual girls while you sat home all weekend, and message them, which you already do with 22 other programs. Seems like it is a redundant purpose. Too bad. Could have been cool.

Submission + - What happens when you steal a hackers computer... (defcon.org) 1

Submitted by Agent__Smith
Agent__Smith writes: This is a presentation from DEFCON 18 in Las Vegas. Apparently some looser kicked in the door to Zoz Brooks appartment and stole his computer. Unfortunately for said looser, it was a MAC and as the thief had no MAC OS disks to wipe the system, he used it without modification. Zoz is a professor at MIT and as he travels and lectures all over the world, he had software installed so that he could log into the machine remotely. 4 months or so after the theft, the system showed up on the interweb, and Zoz began several months of detective work to get his system back. In so doing, he realized that the looser was using his system to fill out documents for government programs (now had his name address soc sec number etc...) and that he apparently has an affinity for Brazilian women with large rear ends. And as such was using the system to put pictures of himself (sans clothing) trying to hook up. (now we know what he looks like) It gets even better when this idiot uses the intact keychain to store all of his passwords (banking, facebook, ebay etc...) It is a hilarious story and well worth a listen. From the defcon.org website, you can hear the entire presentation, complete with slides of the things that Zoz found on this guy. I have to say that this was easily the funniest presentation of Defcon 18.
Science

Submission + - 93rd Birth Anniversary of Sir Arthur Clarke (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
Phoghat
Phoghat writes: "Let's cherish the 93rd birth anniversary of Sir Arthur Clarke, who rendered an immense service to the world, by means of his innovative concepts on telecommunication + thrilling scientific books, We should do something to remind the world about his being in a day like this, as what his imagination has rendered, continues to grow day by day...."

Submission + - EyePet PSP: A Perfect Gift For Kids (goozernation.com)

Submitted by averyzoe
averyzoe writes: EyePet was released for the PSP just recently, in November of 2010. EyePet takes the popular trend of digital pets for kids to a whole new level, as it is a fully customizable pet that interacts with you and even knows your special call. GoozerNation tells you why your kids should get this under their tree, *and* how to get it on the cheap.
Image

Thief Posts His Photo To Facebook Victim's Account 222

Posted by samzenpus from the criminal-status-update dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Washington Post reporter Marc Fisher discovered his house had been burgled; money, a winter coat, an iPod and his son's laptop were stolen. Imagine his surprise when Facebook friends of his 15-year-old son reported that a photo of the apparent thief, wearing Fisher's coat and holding a wad of notes, had been uploaded to his son's Facebook account. How addicted do you have to be to a social network to post a status update and upload your photo *while* you're burgling someone's house?"
The Internet

Submission + - 6.7 Million Opera 11 Downloads On The First Day (digitizor.com) 2

Submitted by dkd903
dkd903 writes: The release is obviously a success — 6.7 millions is not a small number. For comparison, Opera 10 was downloaded 1.7 millions times a day in the first week. The launch of Opera 11 was helped by the auto-update features. However, not everyone of Opera's 150 million users got the auto-update prompt — that will hit their server hard.

Opera also took to advertising to announce the release of Opera 11. They had a bacon ad in Reddit announcing the release.
Technology

Submission + - Grab your typewriter and go to Philly for Type-In (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: Nothing like typing on a manual typewriter and having a few beers. But that's part of the idea behind a Type-In being organized by a Philadelphia typewriter aficionado.
Michael McGettigan, the Type-In organizer said the type-fest will take place Saturday at Bridgewater's Pub in Philadelphia's 30th Street Station.
Iphone

Submission + - Word Lens: amazing augmented reality translation (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: PC Pro has a review of an extraordinary augmented reality iPhone app, that translates from Spanish to English on the fly. "Point the camera at a decent-sized chunk of Spanish text and within a couple of seconds you’ll get a rough and ready translation," said the reviewer. "And most magnificently of all, the translation is overlaid, at the correct size, on the original object." The team behind the project has produced a video of Word Lens in action.

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