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Virgin becomes first UK service provider to block The Pirate Bay
www.theverge.com
Mere days after the UK's High Court ruled that internet service providers must block access to file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, Virgin Media has erected the first walls. Visitors to the site are now redirected to the page above; clicking through to the top link gives users a notice...
Asus PadFone review
www.theverge.com
Until I held in my hands, I almost didn't believe it was real product. The Asus Padfone has been shown a number of different times over the last 12 months, and though it's finally available in Taiwan after a big reveal at Mobile World Congress, the bizarre transforming device...
Google Drive Is Live With 5GB Of Free Storage And Google Docs Hookup
techcrunch.com
You can now try Google Drive, Google’s Dropbox competitor, at drive.google.com. UPDATE – The app is now available for download and I installed it, creating a folder on my computer that acts as a GDrive sync area. All of my Google Docs appeared as “icons” in the folder. And I...
iPhone cover acts as digital wallet, packs a programmable credit card
reviews.cnet.com
Startup iCache's answer to mobile payments is an iPhone cover has a fingerprint scanner, e-ink display, and smart card able to turn into your credit or debit card. [Read more]...
Craigslist cuts off its search engine to spite its face
gigaom.com
Craigslist, the once-loved classified site, is continuing its ill-tempered rampage against would-be competitors that offer cleaner designs and better user experiences. Last month, it sued popular site PadMapper for using information from Craigslist to plot apartments on a map. Weeks later, Craigslist changed its terms of service to say that...
McCann Invests $4M in Israeli Incubator ‘thetime’
techcrunch.com
With a $4M investment, McCann Worldgroup has bought a 15% stake in Israeli incubator ‘thetime‘. This move isn’t a particularly surprising considering ‘thetime’ was founded by Ilan Shiloah, who for the past 10 years has been chairman of McCann Erickson Israel. ‘thetime’ was also co-founded by angel investor, Nir Tarlovsky....
Researcher proposes Thumb on Hand gestures, no touchscreen necessary (video)
www.engadget.com
Would you be willing to wear an additional device in order to avoid interacting with another? That's the conundrum posed to us by Christian Loclair, a master's student at the Hasso Plattner Institute. His thesis, titled Thumb on Hand Interaction, proposes that users control their mobile equipment with simple...
Skype's First Employee Raises $1.3 Million For TransferWise, A Startup That Moves Money Internationally Without Crazy Bank Fees
www.businessinsider.com
When Taveet Hinrikus moved from Estonia to London, he was still paid in kroons and had to transfer the money to his new bank account in the UK. The bank fees weren't pretty -- a 2% transaction fee was charged on top of a 3% bank commission fee. Hinrikus felt...
Skype's First Employee Raises $1.3 Million For TransferWise, A Startup That Moves Money Internationally Without Crazy Bank Fees
Google Public DNS: 70 billion requests a day and counting
googleblog.blogspot.com
We launched Google Public DNS in December 2009 to help make the web faster for everyone. Today, we’re no longer an experimental service. We’re the largest public DNS service in the world, handling an average of more than 70 billion requests a day. DNS acts like the phone book of...
Skillshare Says Anyone Can Be A Teacher And Wants To Connect You To Students [TCTV]
techcrunch.com
Raise your hand if the classes you took in college got you so excited that you couldn’t wait to share the knowledge you gained with others and keep coming back for more. Ok, hands down. Now raise your hands if you wish you could learn something useful for your...
Google Public DNS sees 70 billion requests a day, mostly from outside of the US
thenextweb.com
In December of 2009 Google launched a service that the company said would help make the web faster for everyone, called Google Public DNS. Since Google crawls the web daily already and caches DNS information for websites in the process, it decided to provide an alternative DNS service for anyone...
iTunes gang's 'Madonna-level' pay
www.bbc.co.uk
The leaders of an 11-strong gang are jailed for scamming iTunes and Amazon out of royalties of a level usually associated with acts like Madonna....
After artemisinin: searching for the next front-line malaria drug
arstechnica.com
Evolving resistance in Southeast Asia is battering current frontline malaria drugs. Artemisinin combination therapies (ACTs) have been giving way, leading to rising treatment failures. Simultaneously, new resistance hot spots are being discovered in the region. If resistance strengthens and spreads to Africa—the nightmare scenario—what then? Alternatives are being sought,...
How Facebook keeps 100 petabytes of Hadoop data online
gigaom.com
It’s no secret that Facebook stores a lot of data — 100 petabytes, in fact — in Hadoop, but how it keeps that data available whenever it needs it isn’t necessarily common knowledge. Today at the Hadoop Summit, however, Facebook Engineer Andrew Ryan highlighted that solution, which Facebook calls AvatarNode....
Google wants to kill your bedroom cover-versions, applies to patent melody matching for YouTube
www.engadget.com
YouTube has become a treasure trove for rare live editions, outtakes and covers of popular songs -- the latter making stars out of acts like Pomplamoose. However, Google and the recording industry don't feel the same way, but the site's famous content filtering system can only handle exact matches...
ACLU releases Android app that secretly videos police
arstechnica.com
The New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has released an Android app that surreptitiously records police stops and sends the videos to legal watchdogs for review. The advent of Police Tape is designed to counter a practice an increasing number of civilians have encountered over the past...
Anonymous take down Greece government and police websites
thenextweb.com
Online activist group Anonymous have reportedly taken down a number of government run websites in response to the the ‘uprising’ in Athens. As you read this, buildings are being set ablaze in central Athens against the approval of an enormously unpopular bill set in place to secure a second bailout...
Proview’s Ominous Open Letter to Chinese iPad Vendors
blogs.wsj.com
Associated Press Apple Inc.’s trademark dispute with a Chinese affiliate of Hong Kong-based Proview International Holdings over use of the iPad name took a confusing turn yesterday when a company claiming to represent Proview’s state-run creditors said it was the lenders who own the rights to the trademark in...
This little box acts like a Men In Black memory eraser for your hard drives
thenextweb.com
I’ll admit to taking a hammer to more than a few hard drives over the years. When I need an upgrade in one machine, I usually have a lagging second device that inherits the old drive. Once the drive finally dies, it’s hammer time. While that’s probably the safest way to make...
Facebook for Android update pulls new icons, acts like nothing ever happened
www.theverge.com
On Saturday, Facebook made an update to its Android app that removed the the icons it introduced in late April — icons that were so similar to their stock Android counterparts that the company felt it was necessary to put a Facebook badge on them. The company had introduced...
The Pirate Bay isn’t phased by UK claim that it’s illegal, shares plans to move forward
thenextweb.com
Yesterday we reported that the popular file-sharing site The Pirate Bay could be blocked in the UK starting any day now, since the courts have deemed the site “illegal”. The statement from the Mr Justice Arnold yesterday stated that both The Pirate Bay and its users are indeed participating in...
New iPhone to include MagSafe-style dock connector with just 8 pins
www.bgr.com
And here people thought that a 19-pin iPhone dock connector would be a drastic change. According to the latest rumors posted at iLounge, Apple (AAPL) is poised to shrink the dock connector for its new iPhone down even further to just eight pins, and it may feature a design...
Is Anonymous a threat to national security, or just trolling?
www.theverge.com
With mounting concerns over computer security after a rash of high-profile hacks last year, governments around the world have been increasingly quick to condemn and punish the actions of the nebulous "hacktivist" collective Anonymous and its associated groups. The United States has been particularly bullish in the affair; in...
Songkick and Spotify prove to be the right combination with 100,000 new users discovering concerts
thenextweb.com
Songkick announced today that over 100,000 new users have signed up to its service through the Songkick Concerts app on Spotify since its launch last year. Millions of personalized concert alerts have been sent to users who have registered through Spotify. Fans get an email when artists they are tracking...
iFixit tears down the new MacBook Pro's Retina display, finds a minor marvel of engineering
www.engadget.com
We've already seen them go to town on the body of the MacBook Pro with Retina display, but the staffers at iFixit have seen fit to disassemble the 2880 x 1800 panel at the heart of the new beast. As they've since found out, it takes no less than...
Green Overdrive [video]: Meet the Zipcar for electric scooters
gigaom.com
A startup called Scoot Networks, which is looking to be the Zipcar for electric scooters, recently launched its beta service in San Francisco after being incubated out of the Greenstart program. For GigaOM TV’s latest Green Overdrive show, Scoot Network’s CEO Michael Keating showed us how the company’s iPhone app...
Good Deal: WriteRoom productivity app for OS X on sale today for $1.99
www.theverge.com
Until 7PM ET today, May 29th, productivity app WriteRoom is on sale for only $1.99 on the Mac App Store; a discount down from its regular price of $9.99. WriteRoom acts as a full screen writing environment with a focus on writing to remove the typical clutter found in...
Japanese researchers develop robot that lets you sit on a friend's shoulder
www.theverge.com
Researchers at Japan's Yamagata University are developing a telepresence robot that sits on your shoulder and acts as an avatar for a friend's speech and actions. The MH-2, or "miniature humanoid" robot, will perch on your shoulder and allow you to share an experience with a friend, much like...
Banking on Windows tablets, Microsoft creates mobile add-ons
gigaom.com
With the first Windows 8 Surface tablets expected to go on sale October 26, Microsoft is wasting no time to introduce supporting Bluetooth accessories. On Monday, the company announced three new mice and two keyboards designed for Windows 8. All five products will soon be available at prices ranging from...
Military camera adapters and iOS apps add geotagging and night vision to iPhone or iPad
www.theverge.com
A new hardware system is looking to combine the best of consumer smartphones or tablets and military-grade optical systems. The Special Operations Apps / System for Optical Attachments or [SOA]2, designed by a private contractor, is a set of adapters and apps that allows soldiers to connect infrared, night...
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Just a test of the new info bar. What do you think?