Slashdot Mirror

New submitter digitalFlack writes "Apparently Martin Manley has been a popular blogger and newspaper journalist for many years. For his own reasons, no indication of illness, he decided sixty years on this planet was enough. He designed a 40-page website with sections such as: 'Why Suicide?' and 'Why Age 60?.' Martin planned his suicide meticulously, but to manage his legacy, he picked Yahoo. He even pre-paid for five years. After he left this mortal coil on his 60th birthday, Yahoo decided they don't want his traffic, so they took the site down. Sorry, Martin."

adeelarshad82 writes "While it's more limited than the Roku 3 and by no means Google's answer to Airplay, Chromecast sets itself apart from other similar products simply based on its price and potential of bringing Internet HDTV streaming to many more people than before. Priced at only $35, it's a direct stick that plugs into your HDTV's HDMI port and lets you stream media from Netflix, YouTube, and Google Play through your smartphone, tablet, or notebook. Unlike the Roku Stick, it uses a separate micro-USB port instead of MHL to power it. This on one hand means you need to run a cable from the stick to a USB port, making it much less neat than it would seem. On the other hand, it means the stick works with any HDTV, whether it has an MHL-capable HDMI port or not. Once connected, the setup itself is fairly simple and entirely app-controlled. Past the setup, your streaming content choices are currently limited, though Google released an API for the Chromecast, so more apps could support it in the future. For now Android users can stream media from Google Play Movies and Music, as well as Netflix and YouTube whereas iOS users can watch Netflix and YouTube via the Chromecast. From a computer, users can stream media from Netflix, YouTube, Google Play, and Chrome. Unlike Apple TV and AirPlay, Chromecast doesn't let you stream your locally stored media. In fact Google Play Music gives an error message when you try to play music you loaded on your device yourself and not through the Google Play store. All in all, at $35 it's the most affordable way to access online media services on your HDTV." El Reg also got their hands on one. Alas, one perk of grabbing the Chromecast is gone: Google ended the free three month Netflix bundle that was worth almost as much as the cost of the Chromecast itself after sales were much higher than expected (so high it looks like they ran out of them after only a day). Update: 07/26 21:20 GMT by U L : iFixIt posted a teardown of the Chromecast.

Nerval's Lobster writes "As we discussed yesterday, Adobe plans on focusing the bulk of its software-development efforts on its Creative Cloud offering, with no plans to further update its 'boxed' Creative Suite products. The move isn't surprising, considering the tech industry's general movement toward the cloud over the past few years. Creative Cloud will cost $19.99 per month for a 'single app' version that features the full version of 'selected apps,' 20GB of cloud storage, and limited access to services. Those who opt for the 'complete' version will pay $49.99 per month for every Creative Cloud app, 20GB of cloud storage, and full access to services; it also requires an annual commitment. At that price, it would take a little over two years for a customer spending $49.99 per month to exceed the full retail cost of box-based Adobe Creative Suite 6, which currently retails for $1299.99 at Staples and $1100-1200 on Amazon. In a recent interview with Mashable, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen insisted that the Creative Cloud's cost to customers is lower, especially since they won't have to pay for cloud storage and other services — never mind that 20GB doesn't carry anyone far when it comes to visual design. However much customers stand to benefit from the cloud, it's easy to see that, over a long enough timeline, and with the right financial model in place, the companies providing those services stand to benefit even more than they did with boxed software. That's liable to make just as many people angry as happy, no?" Update: 05/08 03:29 GMT by S :Changed prices involved to reflect standard versions of Creative Suite, rather than the discounted Student & Teacher editions.

colinneagle writes "A 3D-printed gun capable of firing multiple rounds may be unveiled soon. Cody Wilson, the 25-year-old founder and director of nonprofit organization Defense Distributed, recently told Mashable that the end product of Wiki Weapon, the initiative to create an operational 3D-printed gun, may soon be ready to unveil to the public. In a March interview with CNN, Wilson said he hoped to have a printable gun ready by the end of April, so his most recent comments suggest that he may fulfill that promise. While Wilson was sparse with details, he did tell Mashable that the prototype would be a handgun consisting of 12 parts made out of ABS+ thermoplastic, which is known for its durability and is commonly used in industrial settings. The firing pin would be the only steel component of the 3D-printed gun, which will be able to withstand a few shots before melting or breaking. Wilson reportedly anticipates making an official announcement soon."

Nerval's Lobster writes "These days, when something in the world goes very wrong, it seems as if everybody learns about it first on Twitter and Facebook. In the minutes after homemade bombs turned the finish line of the Boston Marathon into a crime scene, terms such as #BostonMarathon shot to the top of Twitter's Trends list; across the country, office workers first learned of the attack when someone posted a message on a Facebook page. Social networks have become this generation's radio, the default conduit for the freshest information. As first responders treated the wounded and the minutes ticked past, news organizations began vacuuming up Twitter and Facebook posts from around Boston and posting it on their Websites, along with 'regular' text updates. A Vine video-snippet of a bomb going off near the finish line, knocking a runner off his feet, ended up embedded into dozens of blog postings. When a disaster strikes, and many of those same news Websites post 'live updates' that incorporate tons of social-networking posts, they face accusations of exploiting the tragedy in the name of pageviews and revenue. That's not surprising—long before 'yellow journalism' became a term, people have charged news organizations with playing up humanity's worst for their own gain. In the immediate aftermath of the Boston bombings, online pundits lashed out against Mashable, The Verge, Wired, and other publications that had posted live updates, accusing them of stepping outside their usual coverage areas for cynical gain. In the following piece, a number of tech editors-in-chief, including The Verge's Joshua Topolsky and Mashable's Lance Ulanoff, talk about their approaches to covering the tragedy."

New submitter PuZZleDucK writes "If you hadn't had enough 'mobile UI' thrust upon you by OS makers, you'll be relieved to know Facebook will be chipping in. The company is redesigning its desktop user interface in a way which 'standardizes the feed across mobile devices and desktop computers, is designed to keep users active and interacting as well as appeal to advertisers.' According to the article, 'Greater emphasis is given to images — which are now much larger. Photos now make up nearly 50% of news feed stories and are now front and center. If you see shades of Instagram — or Google+ — in the new feed, you aren't alone. We see them too. Facebook says it is following trends on where design is headed and it is clear that trend includes big photos and a clean, navigable design.' Enjoy, I'll be over here."

astroengine writes "President Barack Obama called for 'meaningful progress' on tackling climate change in his State of the Union speech in Washington, DC on Tuesday night. While acknowledging that 'no single event makes a trend,' the President noted that the United States had been buffeted by extreme weather events that in many cases encapsulated the predictions of climate scientists. 'But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods — all are now more frequent and intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science — and act before it's too late,' Obama added." Other significant statements from Obama's speech: 34,000 troops coming back from Afghanistan over the next year; new gun regulations "deserve a vote"; rewards for schools that focus on STEM education; increases in tech research; a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $9.00/hr and tie it to inflation; and a proposal to use oil and gas revenues to fund a move away from oil and gas,

Jeremy Lee writes "Temperatures in Australia this week hit the point where the Bureau of Meteorology had to invent a new color. And with heat and winds come Bushfires. So it's probably good that I made a real-time bushfire map with every known source of public data directly relating to fires in Australia, mostly because fire doesn't respect state borders." From space.

An anonymous reader writes "Congratulatory tweets and missives pour in to honor @theRealStanLee (nee Stanley Lieber), the Romanian immigrant who created or co-created most of Marvel Comics' memorable heroes. Lee celebrated his 90th birthday on Friday. Earlier this year, someone posted a collection of Lee's cameo appearances in Marvel Comics movies, often playing an older gentleman in the crowd ('Superheroes in New York? Give me a break!'), but watch for the time he plays himself, trying to get past a club bouncer ('I'm Stan Lee. I should be on that list!')."

An anonymous reader writes in with a story about the possibility of having another you in the future. "Human cloning could happen within the next half century, claims a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. Sir John Gurdon, the British developmental biologist whose research cloning frogs in the 1950s and 60s led to the later creation of Dolly the sheep in 1996, believes that human cloning could happen within the next 50 years. He said that parents who lose their children to tragic accidents might be able to clone replacements in the next few decades. Gurdon, who won this year's Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, said that while any attempts to clone a human would likely raise complex ethical issues, he believes that in the near future people would overcome their concerns if cloning became medically useful."

Professor Lampe is using gamification in his 200-student lecture classes to make them more interesting. He says big-class lectures can often be as boring for the professor as they are for the students. A little bit of game-type action can spice things up and make classes more interesting. Near the end of the video he points out that gamification is becoming popular for employee training in private enterprise, so why not use the concept in universities and other educational institutions?

Meshach writes "Google has been found guilty for refusing to take down a libelous search result in an Australian court (ruling). Music promoter Milorad Trkulja sued Google for refusing to take down links to website articles promoting libelous claims that Trkulja was connected to organized crime in Melbourne. Google told Trkulja to contact the sites on which the offensive materials were posted, as those webmasters controlled the content. But the Supreme Court of Victoria decided Google was responsible for removing the damaging links the moment Trkulja asked them to remove the content. As a result of the jury's decision in the case, Google will have to pay $200,000 in damages to Trkulja."

schwit1 writes "Venus, the incredible luxury yacht Steve Jobs had been designing up until his death a little over a year ago, seems to have made its first appearance as a finished product in the city of Aalsmeer in the Netherlands. Unsurprisingly, its design is breathtaking. Reportedly designed in a joint effort between Jobs himself and Philippe Starck, the stunning ship first showed up on the blog One More Thing, which posted some stills as well as a few other details. The ship is about 230 to 260 feet long, for instance, and made entirely of aluminum, which makes it particularly light. And if you had any doubt this is Steve Jobs' yacht, there are seven 27-inch iMacs in the wheelhouse. According to One More Thing's sources, the Jobs family will be present for the yacht's christening ceremony proper, thought it's unknown whether or not they intend to use it, or what its ultimate fate may be. Regardless of what may happen to her, she sure is a beauty. It's certainly a shame Steve Jobs never got the chance to see her finished."

New submitter kiriath writes "Walmart has followed Target in ceasing to sell the Amazon Kindle product line. This is not terribly surprising, since Amazon and Walmart are major competitors. From the article: 'The world's largest retailer, which has been trying to catch up to Amazon in online sales, said the decision was consistent with its overall merchandising strategy. ... Now, with two large chains no longer selling Kindle, speculation has grown that the dominant online retailer could open its stores where shoppers could try out and buy Kindles. Amazon "is a little bit of a Trojan horse" when the Kindle is sold in other stores, said Sucharita Mulpuru, retail analyst at Forrester Research. "They should have made this decision to not carry the Kindle a long time ago."'"

SkinnyGuy writes "Roomba, the world’s first multi-million unit-selling home-helper robot, turns 10 today. iRobot has cooked up a self-congratulatory infographic filled with a collection of interesting and occasionally bizarre facts to mark the occasion. Did you know that dogs, cats and babies have ridden iRobot's iconic home cleaning robot since it was introduced exactly a decade ago?"

An anonymous reader writes "Speaking yesterday at TechCrunch Disrupt, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that the company's stock performance was disappointing. He also made an interesting remark about Facebook's development efforts over the past couple of years: 'The biggest mistake we made as a company was betting too much on HTML5 as opposed to native. It just wasn't ready.' According to Mashable, 'the benefits of cross-platform development weren't enough to outweigh the downsides of HTML5, which pulls in data much more slowly than native code, and is much less stable. ... Now, Zuckerberg says, Facebook is focused on continuing to improve the native mobile experience on iOS, as well as bringing a native app to Android.'"

A federal investigation has been launched after hackers claimed to have stolen Mitt Romney’s tax returns. The hackers have given Romney until September 28th to pay $1 million in bitcoins or they say they will release the returns. From the article: "The claim was made in a post on the Pastebin site on Sunday that alleged that Romney's federal tax returns were taken from the offices of PriceWaterhouse Coopers in Frankin, Tenn., on August 25 by someone who snuck into the building and made copies of the document. The message author threatened to release the files publicly on September 28 and said copies of the files had been given to Democratic and Republican leaders in that county. Democrats have made Romney's refusal to release his tax returns a key point in their criticism that he is not in touch with working class voters."

derekmead writes "Apple, as of this morning, is valued at $621 billion, thanks to a stock price that spiked at $663.10 per share (and that has risen this afternoon). That finally beats Microsoft, who previously held the record for most valuable company in 1999 at $619 billion. Incredibly, Apple has almost doubled its valuation in the last year, when it topped Exxon-Mobil for most valuable American company with a valuation of $346 billion. It's not the cleanest comparison, but to give you an idea of how much $621 billion actually is, only 23 countries had a GDP higher than that in 2011. So, basically, Apple alone is worth more than what 200+ countries in the world could produce in an entire year."

jfruh writes "Cynthia Navarro starts her sessions training police to mine social media in dramatic fashion: by quickly finding data about the officers themselves. She also provides information about who's where online — for instance, younger suspects will probably be focused on Twitter, while older folks are on Facebook or even MySpace. 'How much information can be gathered? Look no further than the 2011 Stanley Cup Riots in Vancouver, BC. By examining hours of video and social media posts made during the event, a taskforce was able to post pictures of over 100 suspected rioters online — over 30 of which were identified by police.' It's all part of a drive to teach even nontechnical police officers at small and midsized departments how to use social media to track suspects."

SkinnyGuy tips news that patients may soon be getting diagnosed with the help of a 5'4", 140lb assistant going by the name of RP-VITA. The 'Remote Presence Virtual + Independent Telemedicine Assistant' was unveiled this week by iRobot (the company behind the Roomba vacuum bot) and InTouch Health, and it allows doctors a way to remotely gather data. "It may be controlled via joystick, but RP-Vita does have some awareness of its environment. It employs a dazzling array of sensors that include PrimeSense Sensors (the same ones you find in the Kinect for Xbox 360), two cameras that together approximate normal human vision, sonar and a laser range finder. It also creates a map of the hospital and knows the location, for example, of its roll-into charging base." RP-VITA is currently waiting on FDA approval for use inside a hospital, which its creators expect by the end of the year.

NormalVisual writes "When the Jack Daniels distillery recently became aware of a book whose cover they felt substantially infringed their trademark, they didn't go into instant 'Terminator mode' — instead, they wrote a very thoughtful, civil letter to the infringing party, and even offered to help defray the costs of coming into compliance. I believe plenty of other companies (and many in the tech world) could use this as an example of how *not* to alienate people and come off looking like a bunch of greedy jerks."

An anonymous reader writes "As you probably remember, the Space Shuttle Enterprise was flown on the back of a 747 to New York City where it was then delivered to the USS Intrepid. As sad as it was to see a space shuttle retired (and NASA take a major step down in the space flight abilities) this was one of the most amazingly geektastic events in recent memory. Now the shuttle is on top of the aircraft carrier's flight deck, living in its very own pavilion. As of tomorrow it will go on display as part of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, but today we got a sneak peek at the shuttle."

theodp writes "Back in 2006, a post on Jeff Han's multi-touch screen technology — a real TED crowd-pleaser — gave Slashdot readers a taste of the iPhone and iPad future. Han spun off his NYU Research into a company called Perceptive Pixel which, among other things, gave the world CNN's Amazing Magic Wall. On Monday, Steve Ballmer announced that Microsoft is acquiring Perceptive Pixel, which not only means you'll be able to run Windows 8 on an 82-inch touchscreen, but that the Apple v,. Motorola Mobility lawsuit is about to get more interesting!"

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft had high hopes for aQuantive when it paid $6.3 billion to acquire the combo online marketing services vendor/advertising agency in 2007, evidently in response to Google's acquisition of DoubleClick. 'Microsoft is intensely committed to creating a thriving advertising business and to partnering closely with all key constituencies in this industry to help maximize the digital advertising opportunity for all,' declared CEO Steve Ballmer. Yesterday Microsoft wrote off $6.2 billion of its investment in aQuantive, as its online division continues to struggle. MS-watcher Mary Jo Foley points out this is one in a list of bad purchases from Microsoft. On the bright side, Microsoft managed to recover an estimated $500 million three years ago from the deal when it sold off the Razorfish ad agency (not sure why this amount wasn't subtracted from today's writedown)."

First time accepted submitter ixarux writes "India is at a crucial crossroad at the moment. Internet censorship laws are getting stricter as it begins to ban file-sharing and video-sharing websites. It started with Indian courts allowing censorship of Google, Facebook, etc. It has now gone one step ahead and decided to ask ISPs to block file-sharing sites. It is the movie industry which is again at the forefront of this. Anonymous retaliated, and targeted the websites of various Indian government websites in protest. What India lacks at this crucial juncture are debates in the public domain about this and citizens actually organizing protests as seen in the West."

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Talk about visualizations. Ever wondered what the wind would look like if you could see it in action from above? A new project posted online by a pair of Google computer scientists, called simply Wind Map, has to be seen to be believed. "It can be quite hypnotizing to watch the gusty trails blast across the American continent, skitter over the Sierras, get roughed up by the Rockies, and whoosh over the great plains on its way to Canada," writes Chris Taylor. Wind Map is the brainchild of Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, the co-leaders of Google's 'Big Picture' visualization research group in Cambridge, Mass. Wind patterns are constantly changing, of course, which is why the Wind Map designers have also given us a moving-image gallery of previous blustery days."

bonch writes "Google will begin redirecting blogs to country-specific URLs. Blog visitors will be redirected to a URL specific to their location, with content subject to their country's censorship laws. A support post on Blogger explains the change: 'Over the coming weeks you might notice that the URL of a blog you're reading has been redirected to a country-code top level domain, or "ccTLD." For example, if you're in Australia and viewing [blogname].blogspot.com, you might be redirected to [blogname].blogspot.com.au. A ccTLD, when it appears, corresponds with the country of the reader's current location.'"

ForgedArtificer writes "A recent eruption on the sun will be exposing Earth to the strongest radiation storm seen since 2005. [The storm] will potentially disrupt communications and put high-flyers at risk of radiation exposure." Says Spaceweather.com: "On the NOAA scale of radiation storms, this one ranks S3, which means it could, e.g., cause isolated reboots of computers onboard Earth-orbiting satellites and interfere with polar radio communications." According to the Christian Science Monitor, "NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a geomagnetic storm watch, and the agency's deputy, Kathy Sullivan, said that polar flights are expected to be re-routed."

Several readers pointed out the story of the Apple phone that never was, from 1983. Pictures of the concept phone are impressive, as you'd expect from Hartmut Esslinger, later founder of Frog Design. Even more interesting is that this phone is part of a much larger collection of Apple artifacts curated by Stanford.

Several readers pointed out the story of the Apple phone that never was, from 1983. Pictures of the concept phone are impressive, as you'd expect from Hartmut Esslinger, later founder of Frog Design. Even more interesting is that this phone is part of a much larger collection of Apple artifacts curated by Stanford.

Hugh Pickens writes "Brandon Rittiman reports that White House officials launched a Twitter campaign Tuesday to put pressure on Congress to reach a deal extending the payroll-tax cut. Using the Twitter hashtag #40dollars, the White House successfully got thousands of people to respond and explain what a $40 cut to each paycheck would mean to them personally. By Wednesday morning, the #40dollars hashtag started 'trending,' which is what happens when Twitter's algorithms see a topic suddenly surge. It's not easy to create that kind of surge, but the White House has 2.5 million Twitter followers to call upon. Macon Phillips, the President's Director of Digital Strategy, says his team has managed to get a few Twitter topics to rise to the level of 'trending' before — most notably when they began tweeting about the death of Osama bin Laden. 'What's very important about a social-media campaign like this is that regular people are making the point about how this would affect them. It's not us here in Washington trying to argue on their behalf.' says Phillips. 'The #40dollars campaign puts a face on that amount to demonstrate the payroll tax cut's real-world impact on middle-class families.'"

SkinnyGuy writes "NASA's Space Shuttle could have flown again as early as 2014 if a secret effort to repurpose them for commercial flight had succeeded. From the article: 'Though secret, the plan quickly gained support and Dittmar described how funding and interest grew dramatically. "Initially skeptical," she wrote, "people became caught up in the vision of a Commercial Space Shuttle funded entirely by private and institutional investors and put back into service to shape new markets." ...In the end, two crucial factors made it all but impossible to revive the shuttle program as a commercial enterprise or in any fashion. One was that so much of the Shuttle infrastructure has already been shifted to other efforts that the revival team could never pull together sufficient funds to return those resources to the Space Shuttles. Two: The SLS program.'"

Hugh Pickens writes "Gary Morgenthaler, a recognized expert in artificial intelligence and a Siri board member, says that Apple now has at least a two-year advantage over Google in the war for best smartphone platform. 'What Siri has done is changed people's expectations about what's possible,' says Morgenthaler. 'Apple has crossed a threshold; people now expect that you should be able to expect to speak ordinary English — and be understood. Siri has cracked the code.' The threshold, from mere speech recognition to natural language input and understanding, is one that Google cannot cross by replicating the technology or making an acquisition adds Morgenthaler. 'There's no company out there they can go buy.' Morgenthaler's comments echo the recent article in Forbes Magazine, 'Why Siri Is a Google Killer' that says that Apple's biggest advantage over any other voice application out there today is the massive data Siri will collect in the next 2 years — all being stored in Apple's massive North Carolina data center — that will allow Siri to get better and better. 'Siri is a new interface for customers wanting to get information,' writes Eric Jackson. 'At the moment, most of us still rely on Google for getting at the info we want. But Siri has a foot in the door and it's trusting that it will win your confidence over time to do basic info gathering.'"

SkinnyGuy writes with news of an invention out of Stanford that improves upon previous work: a transparent, stretchable, skin-like sensor that could have applications for prosthetic limbs and robotics. Quoting: "The sensor uses a transparent film of single-walled carbon nanotubes that act as tiny springs, enabling the sensor to accurately measure the force on it, whether it's being pulled like taffy or squeezed like a sponge. ... The sensors consist of two layers of the nanotube-coated silicone, oriented so that the coatings are face-to-face, with a layer of a more easily deformed type of silicone between them. The middle layer of silicone stores electrical charge, much like a battery. When pressure is exerted on the sensor, the middle layer of silicone compresses, which alters the amount of electrical charge it can store. That change is detected by the two films of carbon nanotubes, which act like the positive and negative terminals on a typical automobile or flashlight battery. The change sensed by the nanotube films is what enables the sensor to transmit what it is 'feeling.'"

New submitter therealobsideus tips news that DISH Network has seized upon the uncertainty surrounding Netflix by taking the opportunity to roll out a Blockbuster-branded service for streaming movies and TV shows as well as renting media through the mail. Quoting Mashable: "The service, Dish Network with BlockBuster Movie Pass, is not a direct Netflix competitor per se. Instead, it’s a $10 monthly add-on for existing Dish Network subscribers that will offer them access to DVD and Blu-ray — as well as video game — rentals by mail, along with access to streaming movies and TV shows. It will debut on Oct. 1 and be accompanied by a big advertising campaign. In other words, this is a mashup of BlockBuster’s existing mail and online services with Dish Network’s current video-on-demand service. For Dish Network subscribers, this is a great deal. But we’re scratching our heads to find the value for everyone else. Dish does say it has plans to offer services for non-Dish Network subscribers."

c0lo writes "In apparent retaliation to its U.S. rival's continual patent challenges in global markets, Samsung Electronics is seeking a complete ban on the sales of the upcoming Apple iPhone 5 in Korea. This is one of Samsung's several recently-opened fronts in the patent world wars: Apple was sued in France on 3 technical patents and counter-sued in Australia over 7 technical patents (after an Apple 'offensive' temporarily blocked Galaxy Tab for the Australian market)."

blanners writes "James Bond fans jonesing for some suave British espionage will be getting a (sort of) brand new GoldenEye this fall. Mashable got some hands-on time with an alpha build of GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, Activision's new first-person shooter video game based on the historic franchise. Quoting: 'Perhaps the most fun to be had with Reloaded is its obvious nods to nostalgia. Although the distinctive file folder menu screens are gone, the game has a series of modifiers, both silly and useful, which can be applied to some multiplayer or Mi6 games. You can edit your weapons load-out as easily as you can give characters big heads, paint ball guns or make every enemy the same joke character.'"

d2ncal wrote in to tell us about a new service that takes all the guess work out of a relationship by providing you with timely feedback, and charts to see how your affection is trending. TheIcebreak was created by Christina Brodbeck and Dwipal Desai, who gave up their jobs at YouTube to create the relationship quantifying service. The pair have gone to great lengths to become relationship experts by doing things such as: reading books on relationships, and enlisting the help of a couples therapist, to ensure that the data collected is useful to your long term love life. The service is free now, and Android and iPhone apps are coming soon."

BogenDorpher writes "As new technology emerges, one can safely assume that the days of carrying a wallet will soon end. In fact, PayPal believes that by the year 2015, no one will be carrying a wallet anymore. Instead, mobile payment methods will be taking over."

dkd903 writes "Google plans to rebrand its photo-sharing platform Picasa and the blogging platform Blogger and will re-introduce them as Google Photos and Google Blogs. All this forms part of a massive feature addition to Google's new social network, Google+."

mikejuk writes "Wikipedia has a cunning plan to make wikipedians nicer to each other — its all about WikiLove. They can click on the Love button to make each other feel good about contributing anything from an article to an edit. The idea is that this will encourage newbie editors to stay and contribute rather than slink away into the rest of the web because their contributions get deleted and derided. Perhaps all we need for world peace is a big enough love button."

arisvega writes with word that the group of hackers known as Anonymous "has taken down a Turkish government website in a protest against recently introduced Internet filters that many consider to be censorship. They also appear to have published a manifesto. Turkey has a long history of Internet censorship, with the country's ISPs having blocked YouTube and numerous other sites in the the past couple of years." From the linked manifesto: "(The Turkish government) has blocked thousands of websites and blogs while abusive legal proceedings against online journalists persist. The government now wants to impose a new filtering system on the 22nd of August that will make it possible to keep records of all the people's internet activity. Though it remains opaque why and how the system will be put in place, it is clear that the government is taking censorship to the next level."

arisvega writes with word that the group of hackers known as Anonymous "has taken down a Turkish government website in a protest against recently introduced Internet filters that many consider to be censorship. They also appear to have published a manifesto. Turkey has a long history of Internet censorship, with the country's ISPs having blocked YouTube and numerous other sites in the the past couple of years." From the linked manifesto: "(The Turkish government) has blocked thousands of websites and blogs while abusive legal proceedings against online journalists persist. The government now wants to impose a new filtering system on the 22nd of August that will make it possible to keep records of all the people's internet activity. Though it remains opaque why and how the system will be put in place, it is clear that the government is taking censorship to the next level."

theodp writes "Having hawked Google Chrome over the weekend with an ad that aired on SNL, Lady Gaga turned her attention Monday to hyping Amazon's Cloud Player service. Fans were delighted to learn that they could download Gaga's entire 'Born This Way' album for a mere $0.99, until technical difficulties set in. 'Amazon is experiencing high volume and downloads are delayed,' Amazon said in a statement. 'If customers order today, they will get the full Lady Gaga, Born This Way album for $0.99. Thanks for your patience.' Some frustrated users meted out one-star ratings for the album as their way of protesting Amazon's slow service, lowering the album's rating to three stars. So, was that karma for upstaging Donald Knuth at the Googleplex?"

An anonymous reader writes "Apple has released a software update (iOS 4.3.3) to fix the much-talked-about iPhone Location Tracking bug. Apple faced a lot of criticism over the issue — iPhone and iPad secretly tracks users' locations and saves them in the device's cache as well as in a hidden file which is copied to the PC whenever the computer gets synced with device."

Sohaib Athar, a.k.a. @ReallyVirtual, had no idea the helicopters he was complaining about on twitter were part of the top secret mission that killed Osama bin Laden Sunday night. 10 hours before bin Laden's death was announced Athar posted: "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).” From the article: "During the raid, Athar speculates that he was two or three kilometers away from the shooting that took place. Once news broke that bin Laden had been killed in Abbottabad, Athar tweeted, 'Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.'”

kfogel writes "Karen Sandler (a lawyer at the Software Freedom Law Center) and Mike Tarantino (a professional musician) are getting married in May. They've sent out the coolest wedding invitation ever: a beautifully packaged flexidisc record where the invitation itself is the record player. The song was written by Mike, is performed by Karen and Mike together, and FTW is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. The person who designed the invitations — a friend of the couple's — has blogged about it."

RedEaredSlider writes "As the New York Times' new paywall went live this afternoon at 2 p.m., discussion of the move has made the natural transition to methods of bypassing it. As expected, a number of loopholes and hacks have appeared. One of the more notorious methods appeared almost instantly. Using a Twitter account named @FreeNYT, an anonymous user aggregated every article the newspaper posted to Twitter. The site caught The Times' notice and before long, The Times requested that Twitter suspend the account, arguing that it violated its trademark. Another loophole uses four lines of CSS and JavaScript. Canadian developer David Hayes managed to strip the Times' website of any mention of digital subscriptions in addition to getting past the paywall. The hack was released in the form of NYTClean, a bookmarklet easily added to web browsers." It's likely that the paywall is deliberately porous; as paywalls go, it's a relatively unrestrictive one. Readers referred from search or other sites are unlikely to notice a difference. Workarounds at least keep readers on their site.

Atriune writes "The creator of the renowned Creatures artificial life series is at it again. Fifteen years after the initial success of the Creatures Trilogy, Steve Grand continues his quest to go beyond simulation, and create real artificial life." It's hard to tell if the approach is realistic, but it is certainly novel. Perhaps this will succeed in the areas the Lisp hackers of the '80s failed.

HaloZero writes "We're seeing lots of re-tweets on Twitter.com right now, all containing a fragment of JavaScript, which re-tweets itself when moused-over on the Twitter web interface. This could easily be muted into a more sinister attack, so it is recommended that you use a third party client application, or refrain from social media altogether until the problem is resolved."