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Submission + - Jimmy Fallon embeds 3-level QR easter egg in show (nofactzone.net)

fishy jew writes: At the end of the April 1st episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Steven Colbert performed a rendition of Rebecca Black's now-infamous "Friday" to fulfill a promise he didn't make. Colbert and Fallon have recently been making promises for each other on air, raising money for the charity Donors Choose along the way. Near the end of the song, a man in workout clothes appears on-stage holding a QR Code on a poster. The QR code points to a URL containing a "secret" video of Jimmy Fallon in his office, in which he displays yet another QR code, leading to more levels of secret videos. While he doesn't have much to say in the videos besides praising the nerds who might have found them, it's a novel TV easter egg and fun find.

Submission + - Congress passes self passing bill! (govtrack.us) 3

An anonymous reader writes: "If the House has not received a message from the Senate before April 6, 2011, stating that it has passed a measure providing for the appropriations for the departments and agencies of the Government for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, the provisions of H.R. 1, as passed by the House on February 19, 2011, are hereby enacted into law." — This speaks for itself, pitchforks and torches anyone?
Transportation

Submission + - Drug Runners Perfect Long Range Subs

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Jim Popkin writes that for decades, Colombian drug runners have pursued their trade with diabolical ingenuity, staying a step ahead of authorities by coming up with one innovation after another. Now authorities have captured a 74-foot camouflaged submarine—nearly twice as long as a city bus—with twin propellers and a 5-foot conning tower that with a crew of four to six, has a maximum operational range of 6,800 nautical miles on the surface, can go 10 days without refueling and was probably designed to ferry cocaine underwater to Mexico. “This is a quantum leap in technology,” says Jay Bergman, the DEA's top official in South America. “It poses some formidable challenges.” The vessel carries a payload of 9 tons of cocaine with a street value of about $250 million and uses a GPS chart plotter with side-scan capabilities, a high-frequency radio, an electro-optical periscope and an infrared camera mounted on the conning tower—visual aids that supplement two miniature windows in the makeshift cockpit. Smuggling huge rolls of Kevlar, four engines, 249 back-breaking batteries, and thousands of obscure marine parts to a remote equatorial shipyard takes patience, money, and cojones. But does building a homemade submarine also take real smarts? “This is the most sophisticated sub we’ve seen to date,” says Jon Wallace who has headed the Personal Submersibles Organization, or Psubs, for 15 years. “It’s a very good design in terms of shape and controls.” In the meantime jungle shipbuilders continue to perfect their craft. “These efforts have been in the making for at least 17 years, since the time of Escobar,” says Miguel Angel Montoya. “It would be realistic to assume that there is a sub en route to Mexico or Europe at this very moment.”"
Android

Submission + - Android Passes BlackBerry In US Market Share

An anonymous reader writes: 69.5 million people in the US owned smartphones during the three months ending in February 2011, up 13 percent from the preceding three-month period. For the first time, more Americans are using phones running Google's Android operating system than Research In Motion's BlackBerry, according to comScore. Having passed the iPhone in the preceding three-month period, this now means that Android has been crowned king in the US.

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