Author: Zach Walton

Time Warner Cable is one of the five ISPs participating in the “six strikes” Copyright Alert System that went live last week. One group of hackers does not particularly like that fact, and made sure Time Warner knew it last night.

The Daily Dot reports that the Time Warner Cable support Web site was hacked and defaced last night by a group of hackers calling themselves “NullCrew.” The defaced page landing featured the gorilla (pictured above) from the popular “rustled my jimmies” meme. The hack reportedly lasted anywhere between five to eight hours.

Funny enough, it seems that the IT guys at Time Warner Cable never thought to change their admin password from the default “changeme.” Beyond that, a few names and chat logs from the support site were posted, but no confidential information was shared with the public.

To that end, this particular hack was obviously just meant to draw people’s attention to the Copyright Alert System. It’s nothing like the previous defacements and hacks coming from Anonymous as part of #OpLastResort. That particular operation targeted the Federal Reserve and other government agencies.

I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if NullCrew’s exploits inspired more hacks and defacements of the five ISPs participating in the CAS. Anonymous, and related hacking groups, obviously see it as an attack on Internet freedom. It will be interesting to see what happens when the first round of copyright alerts start going out to subscribers.

Did you know that the federal government can request your smartphone location data without a warrant? It happens quite often, but there’s not been much progress made in the way of legislation curtailing this particular practice. One state has had enough, however, and it intends to put a stop to it.

Slate reports that both the Texas state Senate and House have introduced bills that would amend the Texas code of criminal procedure to stop what it feels is the warrantless surveillance of its citizens. Both bills would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before requesting location data from any cellular carrier.

In even better news, the bills would require any and all carriers that operate in the state to produce annual transparency reports. These reports will detail the number of surveillance requests made, and tell citizens which agencies requested the information. For now, we only know the total number of data requests made so a list of the agencies making the requests would be valuable.

Under the proposed bills, the government wouldn’t be able to keep court orders for surveillance hidden either. The court would only have 180 days of secrecy before being forced to unseal the order and make it available to the public.

Some may be concerned over the proposed bills impact on law enforcement, but there are some exemptions in place to keep serious investigations under wraps. For starters, law enforcement can still get a court authorized surveillance order without a warrant if the situation is deemed exceptional. The court order will also remain under wraps if it being made public would hurt the investigation.

There are similar bills being proposed in Washington, such as Al Franken’s Location Privacy Protection Act of 2012, that would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant when seeking smartphone location data. Unfortunately, the bill died with the old Congress at the end of last year, but Franken will no doubt bring it up again. Even then, it has little chance to pass as too many in Washington feel that the needs of law enforcement to trample on your Fourth Amendment rights take priority over your personal privacy.

That being said, the states are the next battleground for this important issue. You can expect some opposition to show up, but the Texas legislature has a track record of defying the folks in Washington. We might even see some serious fireworks if the bills progress far enough.

We’ve already seen what Objet’s multi-material 3D printers can do, but it’s always nice to see Objet pushing the boundaries of what its Connex printers can accomplish.

In today’s demonstration, the Objet Connex 3D printer has created a keyboard replica. The amazing part about this particular print job is that the keys didn’t have to be printed separately and inserted into the keyboard. Everything was created in a single print, further demonstrating the power of Objet’s Connex line of 3D printers.

Of course, these keyboards can’t actually connect to a PC as they are only plastic prototypes. Real keyboards will have to be produced via traditional means until 3D printers can start creating circuitry. Until then, we’re left with a promising, but currently useless, tech demo of what’s to come in the world of 3D printing.

Love can sometimes make us do incredibly stupid things. For one Chinese man, his expression of love made Van Gogh’s little stunt look sane.

The Metro reports that Gou Wen, 22, sent the love of his life a bottle of his own sperm as a token of his adoration. Despite it being the most insane, and kind of disgusting, way to show one’s love, the woman accepted the gift. Unfortunately, she thought it was moisturizer and didn’t even realize what it was until after she had smeared it over half of her face.

Upon discovering what had happened, Zeng Lin, 19, had Wen arrested. He will be forced to pay her $300 for her trouble, and the inevitable therapy that will come from this chance encounter.

Strangely enough, it doesn’t seem that Wen is a psychopath, but rather just a confused man that really doesn’t know how to express his feelings. He’s quoted as saying: “I love her so much but she didn’t know it and I didn’t know how to tell her, so I did that thinking it was the ultimate way to show love.” He even admitted he was wrong, and said that he would “find another way” to win her love.

I don’t think Lin will be accepting any more gifts anytime soon, but maybe they’ll get together down the road. They can then look back and have a big laugh over the time he sent her a bottle of his semen. It’d be a hell of a story to tell the kids.

During the iPad Mini event last year, Apple announced native Asian language support would be coming to iBooks. Now iOS fans in Japan can take more advantage of this native support as the iBookstore has made its way over to the island nation.

Apple announced this morning that the iBookstore has officially launched in Japan. Much like the launch of the Kindle Store in Japan, Apple is touting a number of exclusive titles in hopes that customers will choose their store over the competition.

We’re excited to launch the iBookstore in Japan with a wide selection of Japanese publishers and authors,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “We think customers are going to love how engaging and interactive the books are to read, and how beautiful they look on iPad.”

The biggest grab for the iBookstore is a collection of digital novels from Ryu Murakami. The novels contain experimental ways to tell stories in a digital format, including the addition of interactive emails in each chapter.

Children’s books, like the charming Piyo-Chan: A Letter for Piyo, have been updated on the iBookstore as well to include new interactive and visual elements.

Apple’s real win against Apple, however, comes in the form of its exclusive selection of digital manga. The company announced that a full color version of Hirohiko Araki’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4 is exclusively available on the iBookstore.

With this news, expect Amazon to kick its Japanese Kindle business up a notch. There are a lot of readers in Japan, and securing exclusive titles is the way to win in that particular market. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that the winner will be whomever is able to secure Murakami Haruki’s next novel, which is set to be published next month.

By all accounts, the Windows 8 Pro Surface is selling like hotcakes. The Windows RT Surface, and other Windows RT tablets, not so much. That’s why Samsung decided against selling its Windows RT tablet in the U.S., and now the company may be pulling out of Europe.

According to reports out of MobileGeeks, Samsung will stop selling the Windows RT ATIV Tab in Germany. The device is reportedly not selling well at all, and retailers have told Samsung that there’s no demand for it. Even worse, Samsung may be pulling out of other European countries as well.

You could say that the weak demand for Samsung’s ATIV Tab could be blamed on Samsung’s hardware, but the reality is that consumers don’t care about Windows RT. Back at CES, Samsung said that Microsoft needs to do a better job of communicating the merits of Windows RT to consumers. Microsoft hasn’t exactly made a case for why Windows RT is more preferable to Windows 8 Pro and the hardware is suffering as a result.

Obviously, Microsoft will not be pulling its Surface RT out of Europe anytime soon. The company is invested in making its new hardware a success, but it really does need to work harder on conveying the merits of not only Windows RT, but Windows 8 in general. Dance parties aren’t going to do that.

If Microsoft can get its act together, you can expect to see Samsung and other OEMs flooding back to the market with new Windows RT devices. Until that happens, however, expect to see more instances of Windows RT failing to meet expectations.

[h/t: Engadget]

In July of last year, Microsoft was found to be in violation of an agreement it had made with EU regulators over a Web browser choice screen that was to be installed on every Windows PC sold in the region. There were talks of a fine for the past few months, but nothing had been done until now.

Reuters reports that the EU has hit Microsoft with a massive $731 million fine for violating the browser choice agreement of 2009. The regulators estimated that Microsoft’s violation left up to 15 million users without a choice in which browser they choose.

The fine, while pretty drastic, could have been even worse. A report from last year found that the EU could have fined Microsoft up to 10 percent of its turnover, or $7 billion. The actual fine is still pretty formidable, however, and the EU’s competition commission hopes that it deters other companies from violating their commitments.

“If companies agree to offer commitments which then become legally binding, they must do what they have committed to do or face the consequences,” said Joaquin Almunia, the EU’s competition commissioner. “I hope this decision will make companies think twice before they even think of intentionally breaching their obligations or even of neglecting their duty to ensure strict compliance.”

Microsoft can appeal the decision, but it looks like the company will not do so. The company did say, however, that it has “taken steps to strengthen [their] software development and other processes to help avoid this mistake – or anything similar – in the future.”

Now that Microsoft is out of the way, the EU can focus its efforts on Google. The search giant got away without a fine from the FTC over allegations of antitrust practices in its search results. Now the company is under the same scrutiny in the EU, but we won’t know the commission’s decision until after summer.

Are unmanned drones now flying over brooklyn? That’s the story of at least one commercial airliner crew.

CNN reports that the crew of Alitalia Flight 608 reported seeing a drone over Brooklyn on Monday. The unmanned drone came within 200 feet of the commercial jet, and a collision could have caused a major disaster.

The FAA and FBI are now both investigating the incident. The latter is asking for information on who the owner of the unmanned aircraft is, and where it came from. The agency said its main concern now “is the safety of aircraft passengers and crew.”

Drones are increasingly being used in overseas combat operations, but there’s not been many in use in the in the U.S. The most common use comes in the form of hobbyist unmanned flying machines. These machines are heavily regulated by the FAA, however, and are only allowed to fly up to 400 feet. The one that almost hit the commercial jet was flying at 1,750 feet.

This most recent incident will most likely cause more people to question the use of drones in domestic air space. Some have already expressed concerns over privacy violations related to the use of drones, but the potential for mid-air collisions may ignite more discussion on the topic.

All we ever hear anymore is how video games are corrupting our youth, and must be burned. That’s why it’s nice then to see some real science looking into the benefits that playing video games provides to not only young people, but our elderly citizens as well.

A new study from North Carolina State University looked into how gaming affects the well-being and positive outlook of the elderly. The results, which were published in this week’s Computers in Human Behavior, found that gaming may actually help the elderly stay positive.

The study, which consisted of 140 participants aged 63 or older, focused on three groups of people – regular gamers, occasional gamers and non-gamers. The interesting part is that 61 percent of the participants said that they played games occasionally, while 35 percent said that they played at least once a week. Grandma is definitely getting in her weekly Wii Bowling, or whatever the ol’ gals at the nursing home are into these days.

After it was all said and done, those who regularly or occasionally played games “reported higher levels of well-being.” Those who did not play games “reported more negative emotions and a tendency towards higher levels of depression.”

Dr. Jason Allaire, lead author of the study, had this to say on it:

“The research published here suggests that there a link between gaming and better well-being and emotional functioning. We are currently planning studies to determine whether playing digital games actually improves mental health in older adults. ”

The study isn’t saying that people, including the elderly, need video games in their lives to remain happy. There are plenty of other ways to lead a fulfilling life. Games are just one of many options we have in today’s modern world to make us happy.

[h/t: CNET]

Last month’s Android distribution numbers showed that Gingerbread was on the way out. Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean still had a bit to go, however, before they were finally able to eclipse the outdated mobile OS. Turns out the Android 4.0 and up club only needed one more month to do so.

In the latest Android distribution numbers, Gingerbread is shown to be at an all time low of 44.2 percent. It’s still higher than the separate distribution percentages of both Ice Cream Sandwhich (28.6 percent) and Jelly Bean (16.5 percent), but they barely best Gingerbread when combined (45.1 percent).

Aside from Gingerbread’s dominance being semi-officially over, it should be noted that this is the second month in a row where Jelly Bean saw the only growth. Ice Cream Sandwich is beginning to decline as more Android 4.0 devices are upgraded to Android 4.1. Android 4.2 also saw a slight bump.

Google is expected to show off the next version of Android at this year’s Google I/O in May. It will be interesting to see what Android distribution looks like before then. Getting more people on Jelly Bean, or at the very least Ice Cream Sandwich, should be a priority for Google before then. Supporting Gingerbread is good for consumers, but it’s not good for the developers straining themselves to support multiple versions of Android.

In a statement released yesterday, The White House said that it sides with the 100,000 plus people who signed a petition asking that they able to unlock their smartphones. Having the support of The White House is great, but not we need some legislation to back it up.

Sen. Klobuchar announced today that she is currently drafting a bill in the senate that would carve out an exemption in the DMCA to allow smartphone unlocking. In her statement, she echoes the White House’s sentiment that the ability to unlock smartphones is integral to consumer choice:

“Consumers should be free to choose the phone and service that best fits their needs and their budgets. I will continue to work to advance commonsense measures to protect consumers and promote competition.”

It sounds like Klobuchar’s bill will only exempt smartphones, but we won’t know for sure until the bill’s text is released. It would be unfortunate if the bill only covered smartphones, however, as there are other electronic devices that would greatly benefit from unlocking exemptions.

Regardless, a targeted bill that exempts smartphones under the DMCA is a great first step for consumer choice. Hopefully the results of unlocking smartphones will speak for itself if the bill passes. Lawmakers may then be more comfortable presenting other exemptions that create a pro-consumer environment while protecting the rights of content holders and manufacturers.

[h/t: PC Magazine]

Following yesterday’s rumor of an August 2013 release for the iPhone 5S, iMore reports that another source has confirmed the information. That’s now two reports saying that we should expect the iPhone in August. All of this could turn out false, but two reports confirming the same month seems pretty legitimate.

Aside from launch date rumors, the iPhone 5S’ general design is also touched upon. It’s reported that the 5S will have the same basic design of the current iPhone 5, but feature a spec bump comparable to the bump seen between the iPhone 4 and 4S. It’s specifically mentioned that the iPhone 5S will be getting a better camera, and hopefully one that doesn’t suffer from purple tint.

Interestingly enough, iMore is reporting that Apple may be revealing its next iPad in April. We’ve already heard that the next iPad would be a marked improvement over last year’s surprising, but underwhelming, fourth generation iPad.

It’s also rumored that the company will announce a new iPad Mini next month as well, but it’s unknown if it will feature a retina display.

I don’t know if we should expect a new iPad this early in the year, but Apple has generally announced at least one major product during the first few months of the past few years. Last year’s announcement was for the expansion of iBooks into educational materials, and a similar announcement, alongside new iPads to compliment the feature, would make sense for this year.

Since being purchased by Twitter in 2011, TweetDeck has gone through a number of changes. The last of which came in December of last year. Now the service is moving ahead with a new Web app, but the mobile apps won’t be along for the ride.

The TweetDeck team announced that it would be discontinuing its support for the TweetDeck mobile apps in the coming months. The apps affected are TweetDeck for Android, TweetDeck for iOS and TweetDeck AIR. The apps will be taken off their respective app stores in May, and will stop working shortly after.

The move away from native mobile apps to a Web app was spurred in part by the majority of TweetDeck users moving to the Web as well:

In many ways, doubling down on the TweetDeck web experience and discontinuing our app support is a reflection of where our TweetDeck power-users are going. Over the past few years, we’ve seen a steady trend towards people using TweetDeck on their computers and Twitter on their mobile devices. This trend coincides with an increased investment in Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android –– adding photo filters and other editing capabilities, revamping user profiles and enhancing search. That said, we know this applies to most of our users –– not all of them. And for those of you who are inconvenienced by this shift, our sincere apologies.

Those wanting to stick it out until the apps are killed off in May might have a few problems with the apps as they run off of version 1.0 of the Twitter API. Twitter will be retiring this API this month so TweetDeck says the apps may suffer some outages until they are officially killed for good.

Fans of the desktop app will be pleased to know that those will not be getting the axe as part of TweetDeck’s new Web-centric focus. In fact, the team says that the updates hitting the Web app will come to the Mac and Windows clients soon after.

Sci-fi bars usually have a robot bartender, and for good reason. The algorithmic mixtures of the robot ensure that each drink is always perfect. Now two engineers is making the robot bartender a reality, sans the ability to empathize with your drunken whining.

Meet Bartendro, a “cocktail dispensing robot” from the folks at Party Robotics. The machine is being billed as the ultimate drink maker as it can easily and quickly make any drink you can think of. It’s extremely portable and easily programmable so you can serve any kind of drink at any party.

Bartendro will become a reality if it’s able to raise $135,000 on Kickstarter in the next 26 days. The project already has 124 backers pledging $37,008, but it’s gonna need a lot more support before our robotic alcohol overlords become a reality.

So, how much is this thing going to cost? The base Bartendro, called the Shotbot, comes with a single dispenser and costs $249. Things get a bit more expensive as you move to more custom built dispensers. The Bartendro 3 will cost $499, the Bartendro 7 costs $1,199 and the Bartendro 15 goes for $2,499.

The most exciting part about this project, however, is Party Robotics plans to build a drink database. The team is collecting recipes from all over the world so that Bartendro can perfectly create any drink. It would be a huge help for those of us who are terrible at following drink recipes. I always unwittingly add too much alcohol, thus overpowering any semblance of sweetness found in the drink. The $499 asking price might be worth it if it means I never have to waste any more alcohol on botched recipe experiments.

[h/t: CNET]

Full disclosure: I love Amazon Prime, and I’ve been a faithful subscriber for the past three years. That being said, there’s definitely some room for competition. eBay already provides some in the form of eBay Now, but Google may be throwing its hat into the ring soon.

TechCrunch reports that Google may be launching a new service called “Google Shopping Express” in the near future. The service would help Google capitalize on its Google Shopping service to provide fast shipping to customers shopping through said service.

It’s noted that Google’s recent acquisitions of BufferBox and Channel Intelligence point to the company starting up something like the rumored Shopping Express service. The former would be useful for its delivery locker service, and the latter said that it’s “focused on making it easy for consumers to find and buy products online.”

Google could pose a major threat to other online shopping services if it’s able to get the rumored service off the ground. It could expand BufferBox to more cities to make instant delivery more accessible, and cheaper, to more consumers than the competition. It could also rope in a bunch of retail partners so that it has the same wide selection consumers can find on Amazon or eBay.

A major obstacle, however, will be the price. Same-day delivery isn’t exactly cheap so Google needs to have a good pricing scheme in place to convince shoppers to go with them instead. TechCrunch’s sources say that the service would only cost $64 to $69 a year. If it could pull off same-day delivery all year at those prices, Amazon Prime may not look so hot in comparison anymore.

Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, married Ri Sol-ju in the middle of last year. Now the couple has reportedly had their first child.

The Washington Free Beacon reports that Sol-ju secretly gave birth to her first child late last year. The news comes from South Korea who have reportedly confirmed the birth though North Korea isn’t talking.

So why is North Korea not wanting the world to celebrate in their glorious leader’s new child? According to some foreign policy analysts, the country didn’t announce the birth because the child wasn’t a boy. That being said, nobody’s sure as to the sex of the child at this point though.

If the baby is a girl, it’s unlikely that she’ll be put into a position of power in North Korea. The Free Beacon notes, however, that North Korea is slowly turning into a family dynasty so nothing is off the table. They note that Sol-ju may even have more power than initially thought as she has been seen having considerable sway over decisions made by Kim Jong Un.

It’s not known when Kim Jong Un will announce the birth of his first child, but he can’t hide it forever. It’s likely that we’ll see some news of it this year. Until then, start preparing for all the Baby Kim memes.

[Image: Kim Jong Un Looking At Things]

Nintendo is in a pickle. It needs to sell more hardware before its fiscal year ends this month. January was not kind to the console, and we should soon be seeing if February was any better. For March, however, Nintendo has a few aces up its sleeve, including the delightful LEGO City: Undercover.

LEGO City: Undercover has received multiple online trailers to date, but none of them are going to have much mainstream impact. For that, Nintendo needs to make sure its first new TV ad in two months does a good job of selling the console’s unique qualities.

The ad doesn’t exactly scream system seller to me, but preexisting Wii U owners will probably buy the game as they’ve been starved for content the past few months. LEGO City: Undercover isn’t alone in March, however, as Capcom will be releasing the highly anticipated Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on the Wii U and 3DS later this month.

LEGO City: Undercover will be available exclusively on March 18 exclusively for Wii U.

Netflix is available on iOS, Android and Windows Phone, but not BlackBerry 10. That’s not going to change anytime soon.

All Things D reports that Netflix is not building an app for BlackBerry 10. The service wouldn’t say why it’s forgoing the platform for now, but a spokesperson did say that there are “no current plans” for an app. So, there’s some hope for Netflix on BlackBerry 10 in the future, but it’s a no go at the present.

It can’t look good for BlackBerry after it announced that its latest smartphones would have all the latest apps that its competitors have. Netflix is a name brand app that would have strengthened the BlackBerry 10 brand. It wouldn’t have a “major” loss, however, as most users still don’t watch Netflix on smartphones or tablets. The bigger concern for BlackBerry should be the news that Instagram is not developing a native app for the platform.

Like Netflix and Instagram, most developers are probably taking a wait-and-see approach for now. BlackBerry 10 will be launching in the U.S. this month and it should give developers more realistic expectations as to the success of the product. Of course, people might not go with BlackBerry 10 over its lack of software support from app developers. If that happens, BlackBerry will be stuck in a cruel cycle of decreased software support leading to decreased hardware sales.

Still, there are plenty of developers taking a chance on BlackBerry 10 with some big names in the mobile scene gambling on its success. If their bet pay outs, you can be rest assured that those sitting on the fence will come running.