Author: Josh Wolford

The SensAbues DrugTrap is out to foil your drugged-up driving experiences.

The breathalyzer. Anyone pulled over on suspicion of driving under the influence knows it all too well. Since the 1980s, police have used the tool, first developed in 1967, to detect alcohol content in the blood. Until now, breath samples have only really been accurate in terms of alcohol, but Swedish researchers have just published a study which touts the abilities of the new product, a breathalyzer for drugs.

The product and research comes from Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, who used their drug-detecting breathalyzer to detect the presence of a wide variety of illegal drugs – with accuracy. They were even able to detect a host of other drugs with a little less accuracy.

Researchers tapped 47 participants from the Stockholm Drug Emergency Clinic, collected blood and urine samples (for comparison), and had them blow into their device. Researchers say that they were able to accurately detect these substances: amphetamine, methamphetamine, morphine, heroin, THC, Diazepam, Oxazepam, cocaine, and benzoylecgonine.

And with less accuracy, these: Codiene, MDMA, Methadone, Nicotine, Continine, Zolpiden, and MDPV (bath salts)

Here’s how SensAbues describes the technology:

During normal breathing microparticles are formed from the airway liquid fluid by the closure and opening of bronchioles. These particles form a bioaserol that is carried out in the exhaled breath. These bioaerosol particles can be selectively collected by a unique filter technique developed at the Karolinska Institute. Collected particles can be used for drugs of abuse detection by analysis with high sensitivity technique, e.g. liquid chromatography – mass spectrometry.

“Until now, sampling for drug testing has been a complicated, lengthy or intrusive process: urine samples have to be collected under surveillance; blood tests that have to be taken by trained medical staff. SensAbues offers a sampling device for easy and rapid sampling on site, a sampling procedure difficult to adulterate, and analysis by mass spectrometry for legally defensible results,” says SensAbues.

It could be only a matter of time until police everywhere are able to quickly and easily breathalyze you for anything. Yeah, science?

[IOP Science via Digital Trends]

The latest installment of the always superb Bad Lip Reading takes on AMC’s hit zombie series The Walking Dead. Er…walkers, not zombies.

Anyway, it proves something I’ve been saying all along. This show would be so much better if the zombies walkers could talk. Seriously, just think about it. How hilarious/creepy would it be if mid-intestinal-foraging, one of the zombies walkers just looked up and said something. Anything. And then went back to munching on flesh. Good thing we have BLR to finally give the dead some dialogue. And before you ask, yes, Andrea is just as annoying as always in this clip.

[BadLipReading]

Apple is about to hit another huge milestone, and once again they’re giving away a pretty sweet prize in celebration.

This time, it’s 50 billion App Store downloads that’s fast approaching, and the person who puts them over the top is going to win a $10,000 App Store gift card.

“As of today, nearly 50 billion apps have been downloaded worldwide. And we couldn’t have done it without you. So we want to say thanks. Download the 50 billionth app, and you could win a US$10,000 App Store Gift Card. Or download one of the first 50 apps after that, and you could win a US$500 App Store Gift Card,” says Apple.

In order to be eligible for the prize, you have to be at least 13 years old. And you can only be “entered” 25 times per day, which means that you only have 25 chances that the app you’re downloading is going to be the 50,000,000,000th. It’s like winning the lottery, but hey – you’re going to download apps anyway, might as well give yourself a chance to win a ton of iTunes money.

This isn’t the first time that Apple has offered such a prize for an App Store milestone. A little over a year ago, in March of 2012, Apple hit 25 billion App Store downloads. And they gave away a $10,000 App Store gift card then as well – to a Chinese man who downloaded the popular puzzle game Where’s My Water.

There’s a lot of crap television out there, but I’m sure you know that. Hell, you probably watch some of it. I know I’m guilty.

But there’s always room for the good stuff. The stuff that opens our eyes to the wonders of the world, and in the process makes us more human. To combat the decline into brain-melting mush, the PBS dream team of Bill Nye, Mr. Rogers, Carl Sagan, and Bob Ross assemble, Avengers style:

[GrittyReboots]

When you’re one of the most successful investors of all time with a net worth of well over $50 billion (one of the richest men in the world) – what’s there left to do?

Join Twitter, of course, That’s what Warren Buffett has done, and he arrived in the most epic fashion of any business magnate I’ve ever seen:

Warren is in the house.

— Warren Buffett (@WarrenBuffett) May 2, 2013

With well over 20,000 retweets, we can can that Buffett has already made a splash. In just 3 hours on the social network, he’s already amassed over 133,000 followers. He’s not yet following anyone, however. It’s verified, so we know it’s really him.

He’s already received a big welcome from another guy you may know, who is also new to Twitter:

.@warrenbuffett Welcome to @twitter. What took you so long?

— Bill Clinton (@billclinton) May 2, 2013

Welcome, Mr. Buffett!

A Methuen, Massachusetts high school student has been arrested and charged with making terroristic threats after police were notified of posts made on his Facebook page.

18-year-old Cameron B. Dambrosio is being held on $1 million bond after making the unspecific threats referencing the Boston Marathon bombings on Facebook. According to Chief of Police Joseph Solomon, Dambrosio’s house has already been searched, and multiple devices have been recovered for analysis (computer, Xbox).

Here’s what went down, according to a Meuthuen Police Department release:

Tuesday, May 1, 2013, at approximately 12:20, Methuen High School students reported to administration that they had received a Facebook phone message sent by a Methuen High School student with disturbing verbiage. The student made terrorist threats. These threats were in general and not directed towards another person or the school. The administration acted quickly, contacted school service officer Jim Mellor, who then contacted the police department. The student was not in school but has since been located and placed under arrest.

So, what did the kid say? According to Solomon,

“F*ck the Boston bombing, wait til you see what I do. I’m going to be famous.” Apparently, he also went on to say that he would “beat every murder charge brought against him.

“He’s telling people to shut up and in order to get some props he’ll have to go kill somebody. He says he’ll go insane and make the news,” Solomon said. “And he said people shouldn’t cry when they see what he does because they have it coming.”

Dambrosio has been charged with Terroristic Threats, which can be punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

The Daily Dot found Dambrosio’s YouTube channel, which shows him to be an aspiring rapper – or whatever you call this:

[Methuen PD via Eagle Tribune]

Instagram is borrowing another feature from Facebook today, as they are rolling out true people tagging for both iOS and Android.

With the updated apps, you’ll be able to add people to photos for the first time. All you have to do is snap your picture, apply your favorite filter, and in the publishing phase of the process you’ll see a new “Add People” button. From there, you can tag friends, businesses, or anyone and anything with a username.

Of course, you’ve always been able to tag people on Instagram. But before, the tagging system worked a lot like Twitter – you could @ mention users but that’s about it. There was really no way of telling whether the photo’s @ mention was simply there to direct the user to it, or if it meant that user was actually in the photo.

“Photos are memories of the people, places and moments that mean the most to us. We have always sought to give you simple and expressive ways to bring the stories behind your photos to life. Your captions and hashtags capture the ‘what?’ and your Photo Map answers the ‘where?’ but until today we’ve never quite been able to answer the ‘who?’” says Instagram.

All of the photos you’re tagged in will now appear in a new profile section called “Photos of You.” The new feature will have all the same privacy settings of Facebook photos – mainly you’ll be able to control whether or not any tagged photo appears in your Photos of You section. You can adjust your settings to make sure you have to approve every tagged photo before it pops up for everyone to see.

Instagram is giving users until May 16th to familiarize themselves with the tagging feature before everyone’s Photos of You sections go public.

This new feature comes in version 3.5 on both iOS and Android. This update also adds a “report a problem” button to the app and also puts your privacy settings accesible on your profile screen.

Facebook wants you to tap your buddies to help you regain access to your account, should you find yourself locked out.

Today, they’re unveiling the all new “Trusted Contacts,” which is a revamp of their “Trusted Friends” feature that they first tested way back in 2011. This time around, the feature has increased security and is easier to manage and use.

It’s pretty simple, really. Once you access your security settings and enable trusted contacts, you just select 3 to 5 friends that you trust to help you access your account. If you’re locked out, simply call your friends and let them know. They’ll be able to obtain a code, different codes for each trusted contact. All you have to do is enter three separate security codes to regain access to your account.

Before, users could only manage their trusted friends when they were having trouble accessing their accounts. Now, users can manage their trusted contacts at any time via their security settings.

“With trusted contacts, there’s no need to worry about remembering the answer to your security question or filling out long web forms to prove who you are. You can recover your account with help from your friends,” says Facebook.

You should be able to manage your “trusted contacts” in your security settings starting today.

A former T-Mobile employee is speaking out about her terrible last few months working at a call center in Nashville, Tennessee. According to Kristi Rifkin, her ordeal started when she became pregnant with her second child and her pregnancy forced her to take a few extra breaks.

As Rifkin tells it in a blog post on MomsRising.org called Why I Believe in Paid Sick Leave, everything was going fine at her job until she got pregnant.

“It was a very, very rough pregnancy. I was taking medication to keep me from going into labor. I was going to the doctor twice a week, seeing both a regular obstetrician and a high-risk obstetrician. I had to drink a lot of water and go to the bathroom pretty frequently, which is what normal pregnant women do,” she says.

But her supervisor quickly warned her that frequent trips to the bathroom may cause her productivity to drop, which could result in her termination.

“Being on the phone was my job, so if I wasn’t, I risked being written up and possibly fired. Essentially the message was, ‘You can go, but understand that if you don’t meet that metric at the end of the day, week and month, we have the opportunity to fill your seat.’ They didn’t tell me that I couldn’t use the toilet. But the reality was that this is a metric on how your job is measured and if you don’t meet it, then you do not have your job.”

Eventually, her supervisor told her that if she really had a medical necessity to use the bathroom so often, she should get a doctor’s note. Of course, she and her doctor thought it was ludicrous, but she complied.

After at sit-down with H.R., it was decided that Rifkin could use the bathroom as much as she wants, but T-Mobile wasn’t going to pay for it. That meant that she had to clock out and back in for every bathroom break.

“At the same time, I was under so much pressure to keep my sales up. I would sprint – as much as a heavily pregnant woman can — between my desk and the bathroom to make sure I squeezed every second I could out of my work day. Everything I did was scrutinized. I felt picked on. Someone was always watching over my shoulder, monitoring my performance,” says Rifkin.

In the end, she says she wound up using vacation time just to go pee.

Eventually, her doctor ordered full medical leave. The Family Medical Leave Act requires that employers provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave and job security for eligible employees – so Rifkin’s job was there when she got back after 7 weeks.

But not for long. According to ABC News, she was soon fired over what amounted to a small clerical error; apparently she “failed to remove an extra-charge feature from a customer’s account, the commission for which was 12 cents.”

“Moms shouldn’t have to choose between their jobs and the health of their families. But too often, companies that are fixated on their bottom lines force women to make this choice. I know. It happened to me,” says Rifkin.

T-Mobile has made a statement. Although they won’t discuss specific employees, a spokesman said this:

“T-Mobile employees enjoy generous benefits including paid-time-off and short and long-term disability coverage. The company has leave of absence policies in line with regulatory requirements.”

In my job and many jobs like it, stock photography is one of those necessary evils. Sure, the images are corny and contrived, but sometimes you just gotta use them.

Often, we will spend time browsing stock photo services, simply looking for the most ridiculous images available. Seriously, if you have access to any stock photo service, it’s worth your time. See how many dude-in-a-suit-with-his-legs-propped-up-on-his-desk-talking-on-the-phone photos you can find. Then, work your way to photos of women happily eating salad. Be careful, though – it’s a timesuck.

That’s why this song is so hilarious to me. Hopefully, you’ll find it just as funny.

[Bob Sleigh via BuzzFeed]

Man, I love The Matrix. Remember when Leo and his girlfriend go to the computer whatever to rescue Moshimo? Ah man, that part was classic.

“My mom hadn’t seen (or heard of) the Wachowski’s classic sci-fi film The Matrix. We watched the entire movie together and right after she told me what it was all about,” says creator pixelspersecond.

[via reddit]

Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos (the guy who has led content acquisition since 2000) thinks that the best way to curb piracy is to give the people some good alternatives.

“I think people do want a great experience and they want access – people are mostly honest. The best way to combat piracy isn’t legislatively or criminally but by giving good options,” he said in a recent interview with Stuff.

Why does he think this? Well, he has some stats to back it up. Apparently, access to Netflix in any particular region is kind of a torrent killer.

“One of the things is we get ISPs to publicise their connection speeds – and when we launch in a territory the Bittorrent traffic drops as the Netflix traffic grows,” said Sarandos.

So, going by that and that alone, it would seem that at least a good proportion of people who illegally download TV shows and movies simply do so because they lack an alternative. Maybe, if they had an alternative, they would take it.

We can turn to HBO for more proof of this concept. Remember that “Please Take My Money, HBO” campaign that spread on Twitter last year? Sure you do. Thousands upon thousands of people took to Twitter to beg HBO to simply offer an HBO GO-style streaming service free of the ties of a cable subscription. They said that they would gladly pay for it – an average of $12+ a month if I recall.

After dismissing it originally, it appears that the company has softened to the idea – if just a bit.

Remember, HBO’s Game of Thrones was the most pirated show of 2012 and its season 3 premiere episode broke torrent records a few weeks ago.

Would all of these pirates stop pirating if they simply had more legitimate streaming options?

“One of the side effects of growth of content is an expectation to have access to it. You can’t use the internet as a marketing vehicle and then not as a delivery vehicle,” Sarandos added.

You listening, content providers?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg briefly discussed Instagram at yesterday’s Q1 earnings call, and the takeaway is that big brands want more commercialization, but the Facebook-owned company is content with a growth strategy at the time being. That means no ads on Instagram…for now.

“They’re really doing well and growing quickly and that is the right focus for them,” Zuckerberg said. “They have the opportunity to…build community. I am really optimistic about the business and the opportunities.”

He went on to say that the addition of ads could possibly hamper Instagram’s growth. Instagram just surpassed 100 million monthly active users, and the photo-sharing app is growing at a faster rate than Facebook did at this time in its life.

According to Zuckerberg, it’s not that Instagram isn’t drawing any interest from businesses looking to advertise. “Big brands are approaching us,” he said.

You may remember that Facebook has to tread carefully when approaching the topic of ads on Instagram. Last year, Instagram users were up in arms over some proposed changes to the Instagram privacy policy. Originally, the company wanted to add this clause to the terms:

Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

This led to a mostly misguided outrage that Instagram was going to sell users’ photos. What did deserve outrage was Instagram’s tricky, vague, lawyerly language that attempted to describe a future ad product that didn’t yet exist.

Co-founder Kevin Systrom ended up apologizing, saying they were wrong to put the cart before the horse.

“Going forward, rather than obtain permission from you to introduce possible advertising products we have not yet developed, we are going to take the time to complete our plans, and then come back to our users and explain how we would like for our advertising business to work.”

Instagram will be properly monetized, it’s inevitable. Facebook has already put way too much into the acquisition and Instagram is already such a powerful social channel. But for now, at least, it looks like Zuck is fine to let it grow.

Today, Facebook reported their Q1 2013 earnings. The company slightly beat revenue expectations with a total of $1.458 billion. In all, revenue was up 38% year-over-year, with ad revenue up 43%.

Alongside the earnings, Facebook also filed with the SEC, and in this filing they announced that their Chief Accounting Officer, David Spillane, would be leaving the company in a couple of weeks. There’s no stated reason for the move.

Spillane first told Facebook of his intent to depart on April 25th, and Facebook says that he will officially leave the company on May 10th. Jas Athwal, Facebook’s revenue controller since 2008, will take his place.

Spillane sold 256,000 shares of Facebook stock last November, and another 60,000 back in January of this year. That still leaves him with around 160,000 shares.

With today’s earnings, Facebook also updated their user stats. Monthly active users have increased to 1.11 billion as of the end of March, which is an increase of 23% year-over-year. Daily active users have also increased, to 665 million, up 26% year-over year.

More importantly, Facebook is growing rapidly when it comes to mobile. At the end of the quarter, mobile MAUs were 751 million, up a whopping 54% year-over-year.

To think about it another way, more than 68% of Facebook users access the site via mobile.

A rope walks into a bar, and he sits down and orders a drink. Bartender walks over, annoyed, and says “hey, we don’t serve your kind in here.” The rope, confused, leaves the bar. The next day he comes back, sits down, and orders a drunk. Once again the bartender tells him to get out, and that his kind isn’t welcome in his establishment.

The rope, dismayed, walks out the door. Thinking that he could fool the bartender into serving him a drink, the rope messes up his hair and walks back into the bar.

The bartender, fooled by the rope’s new look, serves him a beer. But later on in the evening, the bartender seems to recognize the rope. “Hey, aren’t you that rope from earlier”

“Frayed not,” said the rope.

That’s my favorite dumb joke.

Well, Adam Patch’s wife had her own corny joke to tell after she drank a bottle of wine. He then decided to animate it. The result is drunk history-style gold:

[Adam Patch, Vimeo, via UPROXX]

Reddit has just announced that they have completely rewritten their privacy policy “from the ground up,” to be clearer and more accessible to the average user.

“For some time now, the reddit privacy policy has been a bit of legal boilerplate. While it did its job, it does not give a clear picture on how we actually approach user privacy. I’m happy to announce that this is changing. The reddit privacy policy has been rewritten from the ground-up. This new policy is a clear and direct description of how we handle your data on reddit, and the steps we take to ensure your privacy.”

The new policy will go into effect on May 15th.

The main difference (other the clarity) in reddit’s new privacy policy, as opposed to the older policy, is that this one is more specific to reddit. The previous privacy policy was overbroad, having been written by Conde Nast (who owns reddit).

“The old policy was written very broad. It was a generic one written by Conde Nast. This was written specifically to apply to reddit. The goal was to be clear and specific. Especially about data retention. Some things were added like reddit Gold and specific information about the new advertising providers,” says legal strategist Lauren Gelman, who helped write the new policy.

For one, the new policy expresses exactly what information reddit collects from its users. One new additon involves posts and comments, and how long they stay accessible (hint: forever):

The posts and comments you make on reddit are not private, even if made to a subreddit not readily accessible to the public. This means that, by default, they are not deleted from our servers– ever– and will still be accessible after your account is deleted. However, we only save the most recent version of comments and posts, so your previous edits, once overwritten, are no longer available.

Reddit clarifies that if you truly want a comment gone for good, it’s best to simply edit it.

Another involves IP addresses:

reddit stores the IP addresses associated with specific posts, comments, and private messages for 90 days after they are made or sent.

On a site like reddit, privacy is paramount. Just spend any time on there, and you’ll see what I mean. If you want to read the (incredibly readable) new privacy policy, check here.

Canada just unveiled their new polymer $5 bank note, and they had a little help from someone that’s out of this world.

Literally. Well, not its orbit (apologies). Anyway, Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Chris Hadfield, Commander of the International Space Station, was part of the big reveal. For those of you who lost track, yes, Canada did just unveil a new style of currency in space.

“Canadians can be very proud of their new polymer bank notes,” said Finance Minister Flaherty. “With today’s unveiling of the final two notes in the series, one can see not only the unique story that each of the five denominations tells, but the unifying theme that underlies them all – the profound courage, determination, and ingenuity of our nation and its people.”

Here’s the Bank of Canada’s rationale for the switch to polymer:

Almost half a billion of these new notes are now in circulation. Safer, cheaper, greener, the polymer notes have already proven their worth. Safer, because all the notes have the same state-of-the-art security features, using holography, transparency and other elements that make them difficult to counterfeit but easy for everyone, especially those behind the counter, to verify.

Cheaper, because the durable polymer material lasts at least 2.5 times longer than paper-based notes. This means that fewer notes will need to be printed, making the series more economical. Greener because, over the life of the series, fewer notes produced also means fewer notes transported. And when they do need to be replaced, the notes will be recycled in Canada.

The new $5 bill features images of Canadarm2 and Dextre – robots used to build and keep the ISS. It also features a portrait of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada from 1896 to 1911.

You can watch the currency reveal from space below:

Canada already has $20, $50, and $100 polymer notes in circulation, and the Bank of Canada says that they are the most secure bank note that they’ve ever issued.

“I try to inspire young Canadians to aim high. This new $5 bill should do the same,” Commander Hadfield said. “By giving prominence to Canadian achievements in space, this bank note reminds us that not even the sky is the limit.”

This is a no brainer, people-who-have-any-say-on-whether-or-not-this-ever-gets-made. Honestly, short of Bioshock: Baltimore starring Bunk and McNulty, I can’t even imagine a game that I would buy any quicker. Half Life 3?

In all seriousness, this is way cool. Love those LEGO games, love Breaking Bad even more. I totally want to control little LEGO Mike Ehrmantraut. Damn, now I really want to play something that doesn’t exist…yet.

“I have no affiliation with Traveller’s Tales, LEGO, or AMC. I’m just a huge fan of the stuff they make. But seriously, if they all got together and made this game, for real, I’d buy it and play the crap out of it,” says creator Brian Anderson.

Hell yeah, Who wouldn’t?