Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Orlando Sentinel reports that a google search was made for the term "foolproof suffocation" on the Anthony family's computer the day Casey Anthony's 2-year-old daughter Caylee was last seen alive by her family — a search that did not surface at Casey Anthony's trial for first degree murder. In the notorious 31 days which followed, Casey Anthony repeatedly lied about her and her daughter's whereabouts and at Anthony's trial, her defense attorney argued that her daughter drowned accidentally in the family's pool. Anthony was acquitted on all major charges in her daughter's death, including murder. Though computer searches were a key issue at Anthony's murder trial, the term "foolproof suffocation" never came up. "Our investigation reveals the person most likely at the computer was Casey Anthony," says investigative reporter Tony Pipitone. Lead sheriff's Investigator Yuri Melich sent prosecutors a spreadsheet that contained less than 2 percent of the computer’s Internet activity that day and included only Internet data from the computer’s Internet Explorer browser – one Casey Anthony apparently stopped using months earlier — and failed to list 1,247 entries recorded on the Mozilla Firefox browser that day — including the search for “foolproof suffocation.” Prosecutor Jeff Ashton said in a statement to WKMG that it's "a shame we didn't have it. (It would have) put the accidental death claim in serious question.""
theodp writes: The press has been filled with wide-eyed articles about how Obama’s tech team pulled out the stops in their race against the Republicans. But as exciting as some of the new techniques dreamed up may be, Tom Steinberg points out it's important to reflect on the difference between choosing to use tech skills to win a particular fight, versus trying to improve the workings of the democratic system, or helping people to self-organize and take some control of their own lives. 'I am still filled with an excitement about the prospects for non-partisan technologies that I can’t muster for even the coolest uses of randomized control trial-driven political messaging,' writes Steinberg. 'The reason why all comes down to the fact that major partisan digital campaigns change the world, but they don’t do it in the way that services like eBay, TripAdvisor and Match.com do. What all these sites have in common – helping people sell stuff they own, find a hotel, or a life partner – is that they represent a positive change in the lives of millions of people that is not directly opposed by a counter-shift.'
An anonymous reader writes: The amusing “but does it run Crysis?” question has a cousin: “but does it run Minecraft?” The makers of Raspberry Pi can now officially say that yes, yes it does. Called Minecraft: Pi Edition, the latest flavor of the popular game carries “a revised feature set” and “support for several programming languages,” so you can code directly into Minecraft before or after you start playing. That means you can build structures in the traditional Minecraft way, but you can also break open the code and use a programming language to manipulate things in the game world.
stern writes: The internet may be contributing to divorces (thanks, Facebook!) but it's also reducing the pain, especially the bitter fighting associated with joint custody. Calendars are now much easier to coordinate, and if one parent denies a court-ordered phone call to another, there's no way to hide the fact that the call didn't happen. Because of these and other technologies, divorce has changed radically in the last ten years.
Frosty Piss writes: Scientists have discovered a new smell, but you may have to go to a laboratory to experience it yourself. The smell is dubbed "olfactory white," because it is the nasal equivalent of white noise, researchers report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Just as white noise is a mixture of many different sound frequencies and white light is a mixture of many different wavelengths, olfactory white is a mixture of many different smells. In a series of experiments, they exposed participants to hundreds of equally mixed smells, and what they discovered is that our brains treat smells as a single unit, not as a mixture of compounds to break down, analyze and put back together again.. The web site LiveScience talks about it here.
An anonymous reader writes: The Register has a BlackBerry 10 preview up. "BlackBerry users have a love-hate relationship with their phones. The devices were often forced upon users rather than chosen. At the same time, the handhelds were the most usable and useful communications gadgets you could put in your pocket.", however for a publication with an open pro-Microsoft bias, the review is surprisingly positive and it goes on to look at BB10's hub feature, "utilitarian" and efficient compared to Windows Phones which shows "style and novelty" whilst being "a bit limiting", BlackBerry's feature may actually improve the system rather than detracting. With BlackBerry providing a QT environment (compatible with Sailfish we discussed earlier) and having managed to maintain BB's 3rd place in the Mobile OS market, it looks like there may be a chance of a real three way competition between QT, Android and iOS in the mobile market.