Can you detect the charge of a battery by bouncing it? Outbrain got hacked, SF Chronicle drops paywall, TARDIS map, Google outage and more GeekNews in this packed episode of GeekSpeak.
An easy test to see if your alkaline battery is dead or if it is fresh. We don’t know why this works, but our blind (but not fully scientific) tests show it works.
A hacking group on Thursday attacked The Washington Post, CNN and Time by breaching a news recommendation engine that appears on those websites.
As of this episode of GeekSpeak
Could be they’re dropping the whole idea, or rejiggering their system. If you reaaaally want to, you can still pay for content on SFChronicle.com that is duplicated for free on their widerscope site, SFGate.com. You gotta walk poast Reason, hangin’ out on the corner, smokin’ a cigarette…
Bitcoin startup Lamassu Bitcoin Ventures, the makers of a Bitcoin ATM which promises to eat your paper (fiat) money and spit Bitcoins into your digital wallet in return, have funded their initial production run of 15 units a few hours after kicking off pre-orders (via their website) — taking the bulk of payments in Bitcoin, fittingly.
Controlling computers with your mind. Help improve your attention, play games and someday, monitor your emotions for your own feedback.
Tucked away in a single streetview image of what appears to be a mere police box, a newly discovered Google Maps easter egg lets you go inside the TARDIS.
Hackers are now using an Instagram virus to produce false ‘likes’ and ‘followers’. These hacked ‘likes’ sell for $30 per 1000, where stolen credit cards numbers are only going for $6 per 1000. Dubious marketers use these like to produce false buzz.
Just before 4pm Friday, Google services were down for about 2 minutes. That included: search, mail, YouTube, drive, calendar, etc. Everyone turned to twitter and a flurry ensued.
Analytic companies estimated that this caused a 40% drop in global internet traffic during that time.
This printer sits on top of a stack of paper and as it prints it moves down the stack. Love it!
Lyle asked for printer suggestions – and Lindsey said she was happy with this one. Anyone else have suggestions?
Another example of wireless home security & surveillance products having lousy security.
More than 100,000 people are eager to make themselves at home on another planet. They’ve applied for a one-way trip to Mars, hoping to be chosen to spend the rest of their lives on uncharted territory, according Mars One who is planning the manned missions.
I love this series, I wonder if it will come true.
Alexa Internet ranks websites based on a combined measure of page views and unique site users. Alexa creates a list of “top websites” based on this data time-averaged over three month periods.
Oh, we’re totally on it — collaborating on Life in the Fast Lane’s Kelly O’Brien to do a comprehensive look at it. Stay tuned! She’s getting the party started at that link.
