Category: News

Apple’s recent scuff up in the media over banning a Putlitzer prize-winning cartoonist from the application store only served to once again highlight Apple’s inconsistent and seemingly arbitrary application store approval process. It also directed people’s attention to the fact that Mark Fiore certainly wasn’t the first person to have an application banned for strange things like “ridiculing public figures,” which violates Apple’s iPhone Developer Program License Agreement. In fact, there have been 16 applications banned for this most grievous of offenses, and as is usually the case with Apple, the company spent most of their time ignoring questions about why content continues to be inconsistently blocked.

This latest scuff up about Apple gate-keeping also gave some people a platform to once again complain that Apple shouldn’t be blocking access to pornography. While Apple’s PR department can’t apparently answer a straight question about their app approval process, Steve Jobs did personally take time to respond to one user’s e-mailed porn concerns by telling him to go buy an Android phone:

"Fiore’s app will be in the store shortly. That was a mistake. However, we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy and (sic) Android phone."

Not that Google and the porn industry didn’t appreciate the shout out, but porn isn’t really as big of an issue as Apple’s inconsistent approval process (which Jobs once again really doesn’t explain). Apple already makes a very nice porn application called Safari for those interested. While Apple does ban porn, they’ve perhaps more annoyingly banned applications for being porn that weren’t (like a swimsuit sales application). Meanwhile, even though Jobs says he has a "moral responsibility" to keep porn off the iPhone, the Parents Television Council this week proclaimed he’s not doing a good enough job. The group personally, painstakingly cataloged everything they felt was filthy in the app store:

"Typical content has included items with names like
“Shawna Lee Private Dance,” which shows a porn starlet with her hand down the front of her bikini bottom fondling herself; “Love Positions Free,” with a drawing titled “doggystyle,” showing a couple having sex; “1001 Boobs Lite;” and “Tasty Pasties 18+ Amateurs” (at one point, the 11^th most popular “app” out of thousands on iTunes). All of these applications are free — and available to children."

Of course if the Parents Television Council’s findings show anything (aside from the fact the Council spent a lot of time looking at half-naked women) it highlights — once again — that nobody understands how Apple determines worthy content. Amusingly, the Council didn’t bother to complain about the Android Marketplace, where users can freely get porn of all kinds — not just the odd smattering of soft-core apps that passed Apple’s incoherent muster. Not that trying to censor porn apps really matters, given the existence of something some people call “a browser,” which provides people of all ages access to a universe of content of all kinds. Apparently, nobody can win in this strange equation, be it porn fans, porn opponents, developers, or Shawna Lee.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong had almost a year to understand AOL’s business and outlook prior to taking the company public. 

But he still made the worst mistake a newly-public CEO can make.

In the first quarter out of the box, Tim delivered a nasty surprise: He announced that AOL’s future performance would be worse than expected, screwing his first investors and hobbling hope that a new era had finally come to AOL.

AOL’s revenues are collapsing, and a turnaround will take years.  Tim did a good job of preparing Wall Street for that reality prior to the IPO.  What Tim did not do well was convey just how long and sustained the collapse of AOL’s core business was going to be.

This may have been because Tim and the rest of AOL’s managers were not prepared well by their underwriters and communications teams (who should have told them to set expectations so low that the company could fall over them).  Or it may be that Tim & Co. had no idea how bad this year was going to be.  Neither instills confidence. 

Wall Street likes to get the bad news now and the good news later.  What Wall Street hates, meanwhile, is to get bad news as a surprise.

One hopes that Tim and his team have now learned their lesson the hard way and that the lousy outlook the company provided is, finally, a worst-case scenario that sets the bar just above the floor.  If not–if the next quarter brings yet another nasty surprise–the remaining believers Tim won over on the IPO roadshow will dump the stock in the trash and head for the hills.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• AOL Says Ad Revenues Won’t Grow Till 2011
• Here’s The Most Distressing Part Of AOL’s Horrible Results: Cash Flow Collapsed
• AOL Misses On Earnings, Ad Revenues Tank Another 19%

There used to be a time when you could easily impress a date by pointing to the night sky and dreamily rattling off names of major stars, constellations, and the like. Now, instead of cramming your head full of names or making up stuff as you go along, you can use your trusty iPhone to guide you through your stargazing. There are a bunch of apps that you can download, depending on your interest level and degree of expertise. Most of the apps are based on augmented reality–so all you have to do is point your phone towards the sky and the app does the rest. If you’re a beginner, Pocket Universe ($3) and Star Walk ($3) are recommended by The New York Times for iPhone users; while Google Sky Map is great for Android users. With Pocket Universe, you can use the camera view to look at the evening or morning sky, and the app will overlay the labeled view over the real sky. (The iPhone’s camera isn’t good enough yet to pull off this feat with a dark night’s sky.) The app also plots the position of the sun, moon, and planets, displays 10,000 stars, and traces the shapes of the …

Google’s TV ambitions scrambled into view last month, when the NYT outlined the company’s plans. Today, we learn a little more: Google—with Sony—is making an announcement next month, around a version of Android called Dragonpoint. UPDATED More »

No doubt, mine-safety officials will be scratching their heads as to how the Dotiki Mine in Western Kentucky could have collapsed in the same month that regulators have vowed to crack down on safety violations following the deadly explosion at Upper Big Branch. But meanwhile, it’s worth noting the safety record at the non-union mine owned by Alliance Resource Partners, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And at a glance, it doesn’t look good.

Since the start of the year, the mine has tallied 214 citations for federal safety violations, according to data compiled by the Mine Safety and Health Administration.Sixty-five of those were deemed “significant and substantial,” indicating that they are “reasonably likely to result in a reasonably serious injury or illness.” Eleven of them are related to roof-support systems, the failure of which is the likely cause of last night’s collapse.

That’s not all. The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. notes today that the company’s history of fatal accidents is nothing to write home about either.

We don’ t have any idea yet what caused the massive roof fall that has left two miners missing at Craft’s Dotiki Mine in Western Kentucky … But we do know that in recent years miners have died in Alliance’s non-union operations because the company violated mine safety laws.

Ward counts seven such incidents, leading to nine deaths, in the past five years.

A call to the office of Rep. Whitfield (R), who represents Kentucky’s first congressional district, where the collapse took place, hasn’t been returned.

In an on-going series of Verizon recommended Android Apps, we’ll showcase those deemed for the new DROID Incredible by HTC that just hit the shelves for consumers. Verizon Incredible apps for an Incredible phone:

• NFL Mobile – Exclusive to Verizon Wireless customers, NFL Mobile provides the latest news and information, including in-depth profiles of current players and draft prospects, team updates, mock drafts, expert analysis and more. NFL Mobile is free for a limited time.
• My Verizon – Customers can use this free app to access their Verizon Wireless accounts to get balances, usage numbers and payment information and to update features, services and Family SharePlan® lines.
• Breadcrumbz – This free app allows customers to create personalized picture routes, which can be shared with friends and the world to use at a later time. Using images, maps and voice markers, customers can build routes that go off road or inside buildings.
• Visual Voice Mail – Instead of dialing in to voice mail, customers can use Visual Voice Mail ($2.99 monthly subscription) to access and manage voice mail messages by scrolling through their inboxes to pick the messages they need to listen to, delete or reply to. Customers can choose to respond to their voice mails immediately via text message or callback.
• Skype mobile™ – Another app exclusive to Verizon Wireless, Skype mobile allows customers to make unlimited Skype-to-Skype calls for free anywhere in the world. Skype mobile is always on, so customers remain connected anytime, anywhere in the United States.

Download and try the apps via the links and tell us what you think!

[Via Verizon Press Release]

Tesla Motors plans to announce in the next several weeks that it has chosen a new plant to produce its new Tesla Model S sedan, CEO Elon Musk said in an interview with Automotive News.

Musk said that Tesla is hitting 50 to 60 individuals a month with a focus on vehicle engineering and production specialists. It said that it has two finalists to supply 80 percent of the parts that will be used on the Model S, due out in 2012.

The new plant will be on the West Coast and will build the Model S sedan and the replacement for the Tesla Roadster.

Musk said that Tesla will convert an existing factory but declined to say whether the plant had been previously used by other automakers (we’re guessing he’s talking about NUMMI here).

“It hasn’t yet been finalized,” he said. “We’ve almost fully negotiated the deal, but it has not been signed yet.

Tesla Model S:

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

– By: Omar Rana

If there are any American political junkies out there in this pre-mid term election lull, needing a super-strength “fix,” look no farther than the UK election brawl.

The race for a new British Prime Minister and Parliament is getting down and dirty…just the way we like it.

Front runner Conservative candidate David Cameron had an extended and emotional face-off on the street this week with the father of a disabled child complaining about government service.

Now that third party Liberal Democrat challenger Nick Clegg is a contender his genealogy (Dutch and Russian background, Spanish wife) has been raked over the UK nationalistic coals.

But nothing beats the gaffe-gate incumbent Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has gotten himself stuck in.

After a discussion with a disgruntled retiree he met on the stump, which included immigration policy (the woman was concerned about the number of eastern European newcomers here), the PM sped off in his car and muttered to his aide something about the woman being a “bigot.”

What he didn’t know is the wireless microphone which our sister network Sky News had attached to him for their pool coverage of the day was still on, his remarks dutifully recorded, and then broadcast to England.

The rest of the day, needless to say, was spent with Brown trying to extricate his foot from his mouth, apologizing to anyone who would listen (even a new face-to-face meeting with the lady in question).

That didn’t stop every newspaper spreading the event all across their front pages. The Daily Telegraph declared it a “Day of Disaster.”  Our sister newspaper The Sun was more succinct : “Brown ‘Toast’” 

Any pol watcher in the states will say this just goes with the territory. Gaffes are part of the domain, especially ones said into microphones thought to be…dormant (W’s less-than-friendly remark about a NY Times reporter, Reagan’s declaration of war on Russia, the list goes on).

But for some folks here in Britain this is just one more sign of the Americanization of the one-time controlled and careful British electoral process.

Thursday night will see the last of three American-style TV debates between the candidates. It s the first time this has happened in Blighty.

The analysis of the debates has been dominated more by how the candidates looked and spoke…rather than what they actually said.

What the Brits haven’t done is extend their campaign to the epic length our “Run’s for the White House” clock in at. It’s only a month long, election day is May 6. A lot of people here are grateful for that.

But what it does mean that all this US branded sleaze, stump, hustings, and gaffes comes at voters in a much more concentrated way. Which is leaving the British public gasping for air.

As for the issues involved? It’s one more way the UK is following us down into the political gutter. Those have become decidedly secondary to the personality race.

And that race, by the way, remains, “neck and neck.”

Again…the way we like it.

Article Tags: Hide The Decline Video, John O'Sullivan, [email protected]

The infamous Madoff Ponzi scheme cost $50 billion. Now put this into context with what the U.S. government has blown on policies related to climate change – over $79 billion since 1989. Madoff is in jail, Michael Mann isn’t-yet. So let’s look at the latest legal hullabaloo.

The Climategate scandal is a Ponzi scheme with far greater global ramifications for us all. But how are we dealing with the willfully corrupt acts of a few key individuals in the most senior posts?

The two lead scientists in this most grotesque scam, Michael Mann of Penn. State University and British Professor Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research (CRU), discussed manipulation of data to ‘hide the decline’ in global temperatures. Both men and their employers benefited to the tune of tens of millions of dollars for their complicity in this scam.

Jones, rather than be convicted of fraud, stymied Freedom of Information requests then destroyed his data. He avoided criminal prosecution on a mere technicality- the British government conceded the statute of limitations had expired.

Read in full with comments »   

So you think the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) sale was a last-ditch effort to keep the company and its products alive? That’s not how CEO Jon Rubinstein phrases it—rather, it’s a successful end to an entrepreneur’s story. The Wall Street Journal obtained the letter Rubinstein sent to employees on Wednesday, following the $1.2 billion sale of Palm to HP (NYSE: HPQ). Here’s the gist of it:

“In a very short period of time, we’ve amassed a world-class team, brought webOS to market with widespread acclaim, launched four new devices and launched in eight countries. In short, we have delivered on our original plan.”

Steve Jobs has penned an open letter explaining why Apple doesn’t allow Flash on iPhones and all that. The reason? Flash is the past, HTML5 is the future. The letter comes after an Adobe evangelist told Apple to “go screw” itself.

Stevie-poo says:

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Daaaaang.

What do you think? Is Flash the past?

Thoughts On Flash [Apple]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has published an essay titled “thoughts on Flash” on the company’s website today, lashing out against Adobe and its “100% proprietary” products. Much of the missive is repeating well-known arguments in the feud between the two companies, but it’s worth noting that video is playing a central role in the piece, which is supposed to justify why Apple doesn’t allow Flash on its iPad and iPhone devices. Here’s a quick excerpt:

“Adobe has repeatedly said that Apple mobile devices cannot access “the full web” because 75% of video on the web is in Flash. What they don’t say is that almost all this video is also available in a more modern format, H.264, and viewable on iPhones, iPods and iPads.”

Jobs goes on to mention a number of video publishers ranging from YouTube to Netflix to Fox News who already support Flash-free video delivery for Apple’s devices, only to conclude that “iPhone, iPod and iPad users aren’t missing much video.” He also bashes Adobe for not having been able to roll out Flash for mobile devices sooner.

One of the most curious arguments in Jobs’ article is that not using Flash helps to achieve longer battery life. Jobs argues that batteries last much longer if video decoding is supported by a device’s hardware. Again, from the article:

“The difference is striking: on an iPhone, for example, H.264 videos play for up to 10 hours, while videos decoded in software play for less than 5 hours before the battery is fully drained.”

He goes on to argue that many devices have been optimized to decode H.264 video, and that Flash only recently started to support H.264, resulting in many still serving video with an older codec. Jobs doesn’t specify which sites he is talking about — big sites like YouTube and Facebook have been using Flash with H.264 for a while now — and he also doesn’t mention the fact that Apple only this month allowed Adobe to support hardware decoding for Flash under OS X 10.6.

However, it seems like this part of his rant is really written with someone else in mind: Google is going to open source its VP8 video codec at its Google I/O event next month, and Jobs just let them know that he won’t accept a new format without a fight.

Image courtesy of Flickr user jurvetson.

Related content on GigaOm Pro: What Does the Future Hold For Browsers? (subscription required)

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

There are a handful of issues of contention that broadcasters (who transmit content over the public airwaves) have with the Federal Communications Commission’s Broadband Plan. One such outstanding dispute concerns the FCC’s proposed reallocation of unused digital spectrum from broadcast to broadband purposes — a way to get at least some of the estimated 180 MHz of spectrum wireless operators say they need, without another complete re-auction.

On Tuesday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the formation of a so-called Spectrum Task Force, which many see as his way of connecting the necessary dots between the public airwaves (the FCC’s natural purview), wireless, and the Internet (the FCC’s disputed territory). In his announcement yesterday, the Chairman said, “To lead the world in mobile, the FCC must ensure that our nation’s spectrum is being put to its highest and best use.”

It would seem, on first glance, that this stance would threaten the integrity of broadcasters’ hold over the public airwaves, which they had previously thought was solidified after they traded their old analog TV frequencies — which were then sold at auction to wireless providers — for new and broader digital channels. But in testimony before Congress on Tuesday, the President of the National Association of Broadcasters, former senator Gordon Smith, surprisingly told lawmakers he wasn’t as worried as he might have been.

The reason, according to Smith (as covered by Multichannel News), is that in a speech to Smith’s NAB, Genachowski said the Broadband Plan’s goals were not mandates, and that “this broadband plan would never devolve from voluntary to compulsory.” Smith continued, “What he said is what he said, and we are prepared to work with him.”

Indeed, certain elements of the Plan are voluntary for broadcasters, as Genachowski did point out, according to a transcript of his speech to the NAB convention on April 15 (PDF available here). After emphasizing, as he has in the past, the explosive data consumption rate among devices whose propagation among consumers is also exploding, Genachowski did lay out what he emphasized were options and choices that some heroic broadcasters could choose to make, though not necessarily all of them.

The plan, as Genachowski described to the NAB, “proposes voluntary incentive auctions — a process for sharing with broadcasters a meaningful part of the billions of dollars of value that would be unlocked if some broadcast spectrum was converted to mobile broadband. The plan would give broadcasters the choice to contribute their licensed spectrum to the auction and participate in the upside. The plan would give broadcasters the option of channel sharing. For example, a broadcaster could contribute half of its capacity and share spectrum with another broadcaster in the market, continuing to broadcast their primary programming streams and more, while lowering their operating expenses and gaining infusions of capital.”

The Chairman went on to characterize the potential of channel sharing as a cost-cutting move. “One, these auctions are voluntary. Period. Participation is up to the licensee and no one else. Two, for the Plan to work, we don’t need all, most, or even very many licensees to participate. If a relatively small number of broadcasters in a relatively small number of markets share spectrum, our staff believes we can free up a very significant amount of bandwidth. And rural markets would be largely unaffected by the recommendation in the broadband plan because the spectrum crunch will be most acute in our largest population centers.”

The day after Genachowski revealed the “voluntary” language, the National Journal reported that the Chairman made the pledge to the NAB’s Smith as a “backroom handshake,” the existence of which was revealed accidentally by Smith “during an exclusive, impromptu interview” with its technology blog. Or, the FCC chairman made the pledge during a public speech, which may be just another staging ground for a “backroom handshake.”

In any event, the voluntary nature of this aspect of the plan was conveyed to Congress by Smith, so there’s certainly nothing “backroom” about it now. The opposition to Smith’s interpretation came from the representative of the wireless industry, former congressman Steve Largent, who heads CTIA. According to Multichannel News, Largent warned that if broadcasters voluntarily opt out of their participation in this plan, the wireless industry can’t wait another 15 years for the next spectrum auction.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Often, overzealous renders get our hopes up for architectural projects that never quite stun the same way in person. But Basil Childers’ first photos of Shanghai’s Dream Pavilion are even more impressive than the initial renders promised. More »

by Grist

Photo: Transocean

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig, owned by the Houston company Transocean, drilled the deepest oil well in history (35,050 feet) in September 2009 in the Gulf of Mexico. In January, the rig moved to a British Petroleum project 120 miles southeast of New Orleans.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

An explosion on the rig April 20 killed 11 workers and injured 17 others. Coast Guard and BP investigators are still searching for the cause.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

After a prolonged and unsuccessful effort to douse the fire, the remains of the rig sank to the ocean floor 5,000 feet below.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

A Coast Guard response team worked to clean up the surface spill on Earth Day, April 22, only to discover that the oil was leaking from the ocean floor.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Within days the oil reaching the Gulf’s surface covered an area 600 miles in circumference, larger than Jamaica. On April 28 scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revised estimates for the amount of oil escaping the well head from 1,000 to 5,000 barrels a day.

Photo:  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Emergency workers tried to use a remotely operated robot to activate the rig’s blowout preventor—a safety valve that caps the well—but that effort has so far failed.

Photo: NASA

A NASA satellite captured the slick, which is now hovering some 16 miles from the Louisiana coastline. The drifting oil could also reach Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama.

Photo: NASA

The spill is now expected to reach the Louisian coast by Friday, April 30. But due to strong winds, patches of oil may foul Louisiana’s Pass-A-Loutre Wildlife Management Area even sooner.

Image: NOAA

NOAA is closely tracking the progress of the slick. This map shows how the oil has moved over five days.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Meanwhile, welders in Port Fourchon, La. worked to build a “recovery system chamber”—an underwater dome that would cap the leak and allow BP to vacuum out the oil. The technique is unproven at the 5,000-foot depth of the leak.

Photo: U.S. Coast Guard

Workers are preparing the base of the dome’s chamber. No dome of this size has ever been attempted.

Photo: ©Tom Carlisle

The encroaching oil threatens the wintering grounds of many bird species, such as the black-necked stilt and American avocets.

Photo: Tom Puchner via Flickr

The Gulf of Mexico is also one the two most important spawning waters for Atlantic bluefin tuna. Spawning season runs from mid-April through June. To find out about other wildlife in danger from the spill check out this graphic from The New York Times.

Related Links:

Gulf oil spill worse than expected, and getting worser

Louisiana shrimpers file lawsuit over U.S. oil spill

The politics of the Gulf oil spill

Unos datos esperanzadores fueron revelados por el Ministerio del Interior, en donde se ha contabilizado una baja de muertos por accidentes de tráfico por séptimo año consecutivo. Mientras que el 2001 se saldaba con 5.517 muertos en carreteras y zonas urbanas, 2009 finalizaba con 2.600 fatalidades.

De esta manera se cumple antes de tiempo con un importante objetivo trazado por la Unión Europea hace 9 años: el de reducir la mortalidad en las carreteras de Europa en un 50%. España ya lo ha logrado, antes de tiempo, con un porcentaje del 53% de reducción de la mortalidad en sus carreteras.

En lo que va del año, los muertos se han ido reduciendo respecto al mismo período del año pasado, por lo que Interior confía en que éste sea el octavo año en que tengamos menos muertes en nuestras carreteras. Para los próximos 10 años se ejecutará un nuevo plan con nuevos objetivos, de reducir aún más la tasa de accidentes mortales, aunque no se han revelado las cifras a las que se intentará llegar.

No hay duda de que los datos son excelentes en vista de la cantidad de muertes que teníamos hace 10 años. Solamente me gustaría que la educación vial se integrara en los programas educativos, ser una asignatura más de la educación obligatoria. De esta manera, estas cifras no se iban a generar compulsivamente, por miedo a las multas y sanciones de la DGT, sino por hábito natural de los conductores españoles.

Vía | Pr Seguridad Vial

ORANGE BEACH, ALA — Fishing charter operator Randy Boggs watches from his boat as BP contractors position floating oil containment booms to protect beaches and environmentally sensitive barrier islands from the massive oil spill, still offshore.

“With the wind and the currents, we’re thinking this oil spill is gonna go toward Louisiana and the marshes over there,” he said. “But just to be on the safe side, we’ve got our protection out here and are getting ready in case it did come this way.”

Boggs’s Reel Surprise Charters is part of the booming tourism industry of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. The region’s fishing and beaches draw more than 1.3 million visitors a year. And the busy summer tourist season kicks off this weekend.

“Anything that could impact our island or impact our visitors is certainly a concern,” said Mike Foster, vice president of marketing for Gulf Shores and Orange Beach Tourism. “At this point, we don’t think it’s a real pressing concern. But quite honestly, we’ve taken a lot of measures already.”

To provide residents and visitors with updates on the oil spill, the official gulfshores.com website has posted a link to its “crisis page” — which is normally used during hurricane season.

“This isn’t something like a hurricane that lands and goes away,” said Marie Curren of Brett Robinson, a vacation rentals company. “This is gonna be on our shores for a good couple of weeks at the least. And so we’ll be watching it. We don’t want it to interfere with our industry.”

Curren added that she is “cautiously optimistic” it will not.

Click here to watch Jonathan’s exclusive Kyte video of the ongoing oil spill preparations.

Little Louis Bardo Bullock — son of actress Sandra Bullock — may be only a few months old, but he’s already snatching headlines from some of Hollywood most seasoned vets. The Bullocks weren’t the only big story featured on the pages of PEOPLE this week — it’s also the magazine’s 21st annual “Most Beautiful People….” Too bad no one told this year’s Most Beautiful Person, Oscar winner Julia Roberts, that she was being bumped from the cover to make run for Sandra’s baby/divorce bombshell.

A PEOPLE snoop spills: “The plan was for Julia Roberts to be on the cover as PEOPLE’s Most Beautiful Person, however, after Sandra’s representatives called the magazine offering this amazing story, they changed it in a second. Everything was so secretive that no one let Julia know about the switch.”

What makes the huge oil spill in the gulf such a big deal — beyond just the environmental devastation, which could be epic — is that it comes just weeks after Obama gave the greenlight to offshore drilling in America.

It was always going to be awhile before offshore drilling tests became a reality, but this just put the kibosh on those plans big time.

Think that’s far-fetched?

It’s not. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was asked about offshore drilling and her response was “Everything is on the table,” according to CBSNews reporter Mark Knoller.

We’re guessing this is why, as Josh Brown observes, the oil services stocks (OSX) are totally flaming out today — along with the likes of BP (BP) — violently bucking the big rally.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• MAP OF THE DAY: BP’s $12 Billion Nightmare
• MAP OF THE DAY: Check Out The Huge Oil Slick Floating Towards New Orleans
• Here’s The Questions You Should Be Asking About The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill

The next time you finish using that free AT&T hotspot that stands as one of the few highlights of being an iPhone users on that network of questionable dependability, you might want to make sure your phone forgets that particular Wi-Fi connection. If not, you could be at risk from security threats.

That’s according to independent security researcher Samy Kamkar, who conducted his own very basic test to determine that using the AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots available at places like Starbucks in the U.S. could potentially pose a risk to iPhone owners. The test involved trying to fake an AT&T network in order to prompt an iPhone to join a network that was potentially unsafe.

Surprisingly, the network name alone was enough to convince an iPhone that it was joining a trusted network. Kamkar merely renamed his own unsecured Wi-Fi network “attwifi.” The exploit is unique to the AT&T hotspots because generally, the iPhone looks for a MAC address and a name in order to verify that a user has been previously connected. In the case of free AT&T hotspots, however, the phone ignores the MAC address and depends solely on the name.

During the test, Kamkar’s own iPhone connected without prompting to the network, but more tellingly, at least two other iPhone or iPod touches also connected, apparently belonging to passers by or other nearby residents. By way of these unsolicited connections, Kamkar said he could do any number of things, from redirecting connected users, to stealing their login credentials.

To prove it’s possible to hijack someone’s phone using this method, Kamkar wrote a program that displays messages when a user attempts to use the Google Maps app. He’ll be releasing the program for all via his Twitter account today.

Considering that the iPhone is only officially available on AT&T in the U.S., and that most of those subscribers have probably at one time or another made use of free Wi-Fi hotspots from that provider, the security risk posed by the exploit could potentially be quite large. Especially now that the iPad, Cupertino’s rising star, is also a potential target. Apple doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to change anything about the arrangement, according to a spokewoman for the company:

iPhone performs properly as a Wi-Fi device to automatically join known networks. Customers can also choose to select to ‘Forget This Network’ after using a hot spot so the iPhone doesn’t join another network of the same name automatically.

Using the ‘Forget This Network’ function or just turning off your wireless altogether are currently the only ways to prevent your iPhone from automatically joining any network called “attwifi” if you’re concerned about the safety of your data.