It wasn’t even close. It was in the political realm a safe, bipartisan, landslide victory. On Monday night the United States Senate approved S.743, also known as the Marketplace Fairness Act, with 69 Senators voting for, and a paltry 27 voting against. The bill, which would allow states to collect sales taxes from online businesses outside of their borders, now moves to the House of Representatives for a vote.
Google Glass has been out for less than a month, but newfound owners are already wondering how they can break it, hack it, and make it work in ways that, perhaps, don’t fulfill Google’s vision for Glass. Enter Jay Freeman, who hacked and rooted his Glass while he ate dinner with friends.
Either it’s right on time or two hacks too late. Twitter is reportedly testing its two-factor authentication system before releasing it — incrementally according to Wired — to users.
It appears the sales-tax free status of online purchases may be entering into the cold December of its days, and it’s only April. The U.S. Senate is expected to pass legislation which could allow states to tax online purchases some time this week, and that’s bad news for retailers like eBay.
Twitter fiends, Air advocates, TweetDeck evangelicals — prepare your libations, TweetDeck will go offline on May 7th. The TweetDeck made the sad announcement in a blog post on Friday, clarifying what the team meant by its initial “early May” estimate.
Lookout Mobile Security, a security research firm, has discovered a new Android-based malware family dubbed — in what must be considered one of the more apt names for more malware — “BadNews.” And it is, truly, bad news: the affected applications, according to Lookout, have been downloaded 2,000,000 to 9,000,000 times from the Google Play store.
NPR’s web publishing system, along with its social media accounts, were compromised late Monday night by a group supporting embattled Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. The group, calling itself the “Syrian Electronic Army,” claimed credit for incident which resulted in several headlines being rewritten as “Syrian Electronic Army Was Here.” The headlines popped up across the public news provider’s main and affiliate websites.
Google released hardware and API details of its Project Glass product. The details show a robust product with surprisingly restrictive terms (at least for now).
Here are the details.
The last thing Google’s Eric Schmidt wants to see is a drone hovering over his yard. Not the kind of drone which drops missiles and kills people in Pakistan, mind you, but the kind you can take out of a box and just let loose. The kind of drone that civilians can, and likely will, use in the near future. That’s why, Schmidt argues, they need to be regulated before they even become an issue.
For a multi-billions dollar company one would assume being able to articulate how you’re both immediately profitable and making shareholders a great deal of money would be high on the priority list. Not the case for Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos who explains to shareholders that caring for customers over shareholder profits can be, well, profitable.
Google announced who has won the privilege to purchase the $1,500 Google Glass in advance in its “#ifihadglass” contest, and the list is quite exclusive. For example, former Republican presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, won the right to a pair. Mayhaps he’ll use his Glass on his soon-to-be moon colony?
The Bitcoin, the digital currency that many either love or hate, has recently surpassed $1 billion in value. That mark, which was past by some combined 10.9 million Bitcoins according to TechCrunch, doesn’t mean the currency’s critics are wrong, but it does suggest that a digital “crypto-currency” can work.
Mark Zuckerberg is taking a bi-partisan approach when it comes to influencing national politics. Facebook’s founder, as Politico reports, has hired lobbyists from two lobbying firms: one Republican, the other Democratic in order to push Washington D.C. policymakers on education and immigration reform.
Facebook is continuing its stream of attention-grabbing projects four months into 2013. On Thursday, the social networking company announced a press event for its latest project: a new phone based on the Android platform. To some this may sound banal, to others, it may sound a lot like the oft-rumored Facebook phone.
Microsoft’s next iteration of its Window 8 platform will further attempt to fold the old interface, traditionally relient on mouse clicks and movements, with the new touchy-feely interaction so common with touchscreen devices. The company will go about doing this through its latest build, “Windows Blue.”
Litterati isn’t an app, nor is it a service. It won’t give you the time of day or emails regarding your next meeting. Litterati is, as its website states, a cause. More accurately, it’s a litter awareness project using Instagram’s geolocation data.
Google made a mistake earlier on Monday, allowing a new service, dubbed “Google Keep” to briefly appear on Google Drive and a few other services. As The Next Web reports, it appears Google is taking aim at Evernote, Simplenote, and nearly all note-taking productivity applications on the market today.
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