Gizmodo

Yahoo has responded to claims that recycled email accounts could pose a security problem, claiming i

Jamie Condliffe — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 11:26:29 GMT

Yahoo has responded to claims that recycled email accounts could pose a security problem, claiming it's "going to extraordinary lengths" to protect users. Obviously.

How Digg Raced to Make the Google Reader Replacement You'll Want

Jamie Condliffe — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 10:46:00 GMT

With Google Reader about to meet its maker, Digg decided to make the ultimate replacement. That was two months ago—and Wired has the inside track of exactly how the project has come together since then.

At the outset, it's fair to say things didn't look pretty. Hopping back in time two months, Matt Honan describes where Digg were when they started:

Right now [Digg Reader is] just a mess of code, Keynote sides, and shit on a whiteboard. They need to turn it into a real product, one to take the place of Google Reader, which shuts down on July 1. They have less than 60 days. Simultaneously, the same team of five engineers is working to integrate another product–Instapaper–that they’ve just purchased. None of this is top secret, the opposite in fact. Digg publicly promised the world to have a replacement ready in time. They had to move fast. And when you move fast, things get fucked up.

When Google announced that Reader was going to die, Digg announced they'd fill the gap that exact same evening. So what made them think they could do it? Honan explains:

The idea of Digg building a Reader replacement just resonated. The revamped Digg.com was already popular, especially in news and developer circles. It had a reputation for scrumptious headlines and kickers, courtesy of editorial director David Weiner, a HuffPo alum. It’s tech team, led by CTO Michael Young had already shown serious backend chops, which meant people didn’t doubt its ability to pull off building a reader. The same minimalist sensibility that design director Justin Van Slembrouck had given the front page of Digg would translate well to the new project, and, hell: Its GM Jake Levine might even be able to figure out a way to monetize it in ways Google never had.

Now, just days ahead of the official roll out, Digg Reader is (kinda) ready. Having seen it in action, Honan explains what he thinks:

Digg Reader meets pretty much all the goals the team set for itself. It’s got a slick minimalist design that, yes, looks very much like Google Reader (and very much like Feedly, for that matter). It has built-in sharing and saving features. The Digg button will help find stories for the site’s front page. The iOS app is fantastic (it even has a car mode for podcasts). It has read counts, and they work, which sounds easy to pull off but requires lots of complex things happening in real time on the back end. (Which is why Google Reader’s unread count maxxed out at 1000+). All that remains to be seen is if it is fast, and if it can scale.

Watch this space, then. And, in the meantime, go check out the Wired feature, because it makes for fascinating reading. [Wired]

Image by Tyler Howarth under Creative Commons license

Why Congress Must Investigate NSA's Unconstitutional Spying

Jamie Condliffe — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 09:31:00 GMT

In the past couple of weeks, the NSA has, unsurprisingly, responded with a series of secret briefings to Congress that have left the public in the dark and vulnerable to misstatements and word games. Congress has many options at its disposal, but for true accountability any response must start with a special investigative committee. A coalition of over 100 civil liberties groups agrees. Such a committee is the right way the American people can make informed decisions about the level of transparency and the reform needed.

A Special Investigatory Committee is the Right Way to Shine the Light and Create True Accountability

A special investigatory committee should be bipartisan, consist of selected Intelligence and Judiciary committee members on both sides of the issue, and have full subpoena powers. After Watergate, Congress created the Church Committee to investigate domestic spying and other illegal actions committed by the intelligence community. What it found was staggering: in one example of abuse, the NSA was reading and copying all telegrams entering and exiting the country. In another, NSA had intercepted, opened and photographed more than 215,000 pieces of mail—mass surveillance circa 1970. The Church Committee brought these revelations to light, informed the American people, and took steps to limit the broad nature of the surveillance.

The contemporary Congress must create a similar, independent, and empowered committee. The President and some members of Congress prefer an investigation by the President’s appointed Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), but the Board is not even empowered to issue subpoenas. And the two key committees that rubber-stamped the expansion of the NSA spying from foreigners-only to ordinary Americans have proven themselves unable to rein in the spying.

President Obama says he welcomes a public debate on the programs. If he’s serious, he and Congress need to take the path of a modern day Church Committee.

The PCLOB

Last week, Senators called for an investigation by the PCLOB. The PCLOB was one of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and was set up to try to ensure that privacy and civil liberties played a role in the enormous expansion of surveillance laws like the PATRIOT Actand Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act. Yet it has not. Instead, the PCLOB has lingered without a chairman—making it inoperable—for almost five years. It was only until this spring that the Senate finally confirmed David Medine as the chair, however the PCLOB has done little, if anything, since then. That’s because it has no real power. If the PCLOB asked the NSA for certain documents related to the spying, for instance, the NSA would not have to hand the documents over or present testimony under oath. In a hearing this week, General Alexander, the Director of the National Security Agency, committed to cooperating with any investigation by the PCLOB. But given the NSA’s history of gross misdirection, word games and limited answers to direct questions—including General Alexander’s own falsehoods in Congressional testimony—this investigation should not rely on the good will of the NSA. Yet, that’s exactly what the PCLOB would have to rely upon.

Hearings in Front of the Judiciary or Intelligence Committees

Nor do the Judiciary or Intelligence committees hold great promise. These committees should serve as the American people’s robust window into—and constitutional check on—intelligence operations. For instance, in 2005, when the New York Times first reported on the warrantless wiretapping, many hearings took place in front of both the Senate and House Judiciary and Intelligence committees. The Committees certainly did not reveal the full extent of the spying, even though they had the opportunity. Instead, politicians were stonewalled, swallowed grossly misleading answers, and revealed few details.

Currently, the Senate Intelligence committee has met publicly only 2 times this year; from 2011 to 2012 it only met 8 times. The House of Representatives is no different. The House Intelligence committee's Subcommittee on Oversight has not met once this year. Yes, not once. And the full House Intelligence committee has only met four times. History tells us a similar story about the Judiciary Committees.

The public demands for a robust debate require more transparency and tenacity than these committees seem able to provide.

The Secret Veil Must Be Lifted

In short, the lessons of 2005 is that the standing Congressional committees are unable to get at the bottom of the NSA spying and the PCLOB does not have sufficient power to do so either. A special investigative committee with full subpoena powers, the ability to force testimony under oath, and the ability to issue sanctions for failure to cooperate is the best hope that the American people have to ensure the NSA's domestic spying isn't swept under the NSA’s giant secrecy cloak once again. Tell Congress now to act.

Reproduced from Electric Frontier Foundation under Creative Commons license

A leaked Samsung user manual seems to suggest that there's a Galaxy S4 variant on the horizon which

Jamie Condliffe — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 09:25:47 GMT

A leaked Samsung user manual seems to suggest that there's a Galaxy S4 variant on the horizon which will pack the new Snapdragon 800 chip. Speedy.

Adobe's Creative Cloud Has Already Been Pirated

Jamie Condliffe — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 08:36:00 GMT

Adobe's shift to cloud-based software provision for its new Creative Cloud design suite was partly motivated by anti-piracy concerns. Which, of course, means... it's already been pirated.

Just one day after the official roll out of Creative Cloud, a certain Ching Liu has already uploaded a torrent link to The Pirate Bay which provides a cracked version of the software. Named “Adobe Photoshop CC 14.0 Final Multilanguage”, comments left by Pirate Bay users suggest it works just great.

It remains to be seen if it will work long-term—the new desktop apps have to to connect to Adobe’s servers every month to re-validate their subscription status—but clearly Liu has got around the connectivity issues required for install. And clearly Adobe needs to up its anti-piracy game. [FStoppers via Peta Pixel]

Is it Math or Maths?

Jamie Condliffe — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 07:45:00 GMT

This is an American blog, but I am a British blogger. That naturally causes occasional tensions, especially when it comes to spelling. And the biggest issue? Math or maths.

More an insight into linguistics than maths itself, this video tries to settle the debate. I won't ruin the surprise by telling you who's right. [YouTube]

9 Completely Disturbing Scientific Facts

Casey Chan — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 05:00:00 GMT

You know how science can be brain-oozingly amazing? Like curing Autism, inventing Star Trek warp drive, lifespan doubling amazing. Yeah this is the opposite of that. This short video shows you nine horrifically disturbing scientific facts that will make you realize how many hairs you have on the back of your neck. Fun! Science is fun! [BuzzFeed Video]

Let's Not Use James Gandolfini's Death to Sell Sopranos DVDs Amazon

Casey Chan — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 04:19:44 GMT

James Gandolfini, a terrific actor and by all accounts, a great guy, passed away today after suffering a heart attack. That's unimaginably sad news for his family, for his friends, for his fans, for acting and for anyone who hates to see good people taken away too soon. For Amazon though, it was a despicable chance to sell some Sopranos DVDs.

As news spread that Gandolfini had passed, Amazon's Facebook account posted this:

On the surface, it's a sweet and appreciative note to a person who changed the fabric of pop culture and whose face deserves to be on television's Mount Rushmore. But where the Facebook post went wrong was that it insensitively linked to Amazon's DVD product page for Season One of the Sopranos. Like Amazon was capitalizing on death. Like it was a classless promotion. A shameful way to spur sales. A post in absolute poor taste.

Amazon has since deleted the Facebook post but to be honest, it's not like they were completely, absolutely, rot in hell wrong. It was a simple mistake probably made by a too eager social media "maven". It wasn't a blatant everything must go Taco Bell on MLK day-type post. We don't have to suddenly stop shopping at Amazon, it's not like it rudely maneuvers every celebrity's death in order to get a spike in sales. We just all have to be smarter. The rules of social media and things like it are still being written. With how quick things pass through the wire, being sensitive or insensitive over the Internet is like balancing on an invisible line—you're never really sure which side you're even on.

But there's a more right way to do things and there's a less right way to do things. In death, showing your respects and giving family and friends a chance to mourn is more right. Capitalizing off a death with a few DVD bundles sold is, well, less right. Let's not do it again. [Consumerist]

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Pussy People

Andrew Tarantola — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Turns out, Best In Show wasn't that much of a stretch.

The Feds Say That Two Guys Made an X-Ray Weapon to Sicken People

Casey Chan — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 03:21:52 GMT

In an attempt to "secretly sicken opponents of Israel" and presumably star as the bad guys in a barely believable action movie, two guys from New York have been accused by the FBI of assembling a portable X-Ray weapon that would shoot lethal doses of radiation. Seriously. They were going to sell it to Jewish organizations or the KKK.

The two guys—49 year old Glendon Scott Crawford, a GE industrial mechanic, and 54 year old Eric J. Feight, a GE contractor—had actually managed to assemble the damn thing. Crawford's goal was to build "a truck-borne, industrial-grade x-ray system, thus weaponizing that system and allowing it to be turned on and off from a distance and without detection." Basically, beam radiation at people who wouldn't realize it actually hit until days later. Crawford called the weapon, "Hiroshima on a light switch".

The AP reports how the two bozos with big bad dreams got caught:

Last June, the undercover investigator brought Crawford X-ray tubes to examine for possible use in the weapon, followed by their technical specifications a month later. At a November meeting in an Albany coffee shop with undercover investigators, Crawford brought Feight, both said they were committed to building the device and named the group "the guild," the indictment said.

Undercover informants who pretended to be the KKK met with Crawford and Feight (who used codenames Dimitri and Yoda, respectively) to learn about the weapon system and act as potential buyers of the X-Ray gun. Luckily, the FBI was able to break up any real transaction of the weapon.

But the most ridiculous thing is—especially for those fearing X-Ray wielding terrorists in the future—that though the weapon was assembled, the feds found it inoperable. In fact, doctors aren't even sure if such a radiation gun would actually work as detailed even if the weapon itself worked. The two dimwits probably thought they were going to be fleecing the KKK with complicated words and industrial design. [Times Union via NPR, AP, Image Credit: Saulius L/Shutterstock]

Awful JPEG Compression Turns Romeo & Juliet to LB"8DJ IHR:?S

Casey Chan — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 02:00:00 GMT

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo. Even if you failed English class, you'd recognize that phrase anywhere. It's from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. But would you recognize this phrase: O Romep+ Rpldo wiepffnre arr!riov Romep@. That's Shakespeare too. If Shakespeare was compressed over and over again by JPEG.

Tom Scott created a little experiment to poke fun of the lossy nature of JPEG. Every time you edit and save a picture in JPEG, you're going to lose something from the original. Even if you don't see it (and most of us don't see it), it's gone forever. Scott thought it would be fun to see what we would lose in JPEG if we saw converted it in text and boy it garbled up Shakespeare real good.

Scott basically loaded Shakespeare text as RAW in Photoshop and outputted the text to JPEG at different quality levels. As you can imagine, Photoshop's minimum level destroys Shakespeare while the maximum level still changed things up. Scott says:

Even on ‘maximum’ quality, almost all the characters are replaced by their neighbors in the alphabet. On an image, that would be a minuscule change in color, undetectable to the eye: but rearranged into a different form, even ‘maximum’ quality is enough to render the text a significant challenge to decipher.

This doesn't exactly mean never ever use JPEG ever again (since images are much different than text) but it goes to show how things can degrade over time, even digitally. You can see more of Scott's fantastically fun work here. [Tom Scott via Laughing Squid]

We Got a Narrator Over Here: Neil Tyson to Voice Planetarium Show

AMNH on AMNH, shared by Casey Chan to Gizmodo — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 23:35:00 GMT

We are thrilled to announce Neil deGrasse Tyson will narrate the Museum's newest Space Show, premiering this fall at the Hayden Planetarium.

Astrophysicist, prolific science communicator, and director of the Hayden Planetarium, Dr. Tyson is the recipient of 18 honorary doctorate degrees and the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest award given by NASA to a non-government citizen. Dr. Tyson has also written 10 popular science books as well as many essays for the public, and is currently working on a 21st-century reboot of Carl Sagan's landmark television series Cosmos: A Personal Journey.

Learn more about Dr. Tyson here and stayed tuned for more exciting updates on our fifth Space Show.

The Hilarious Difference Between Google and Bing in One Picture

Casey Chan — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 01:00:00 GMT

You use Google. Or maybe, just maybe you use Bing. Sometimes one is better. Sometimes the other is prettier. Sometimes it's the other way around. Whatever. The most hilarious, ridiculous difference between the two though? How they auto-complete the Xbox One. Google Instant finds words like terrible, ugly, a joke and so forth. Bing? Just one. Amazing.

Now I wonder what Bing and Google think of Google Glass. [@evlbzltyr via The Atlantic]

How a Used Bottle Becomes a New Bottle Again

Casey Chan — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:00:00 GMT

Recycling! It's good for the planet, or something. It's also a very sensible thing to do. But how does the bottle you just drank out of become a new bottle you'll drink out of in the future? No, it's not just refilling the glass. It's a process that involves magnets, soda ash, a 2,700 degree furnace, something called gobs and more.

The awesome NPR blog Planet Money has summarized the glass recycling process into 6 magnificent GIFs. It starts with sorting mountain-sized piles of broken glass with a bunch of crap inside with magnets (to pull out metal) and optical sorting machines (to blow out the valuable clear glass). Then soda ash, sand and limestone are mixed with the clear glass and melted at 2,700 degrees, that burning orange mixture eventually becomes the bottle. See the whole process here. And here's a GIF to whet your appetite:

[NPR]

Mexico's National Pyrotechnics Festival Looks Absolutely Insane(ly Fun)

Andrew Tarantola — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:44:07 GMT

Who doesn't love a good fireworks show? People the world over—from Beijing to New York—set off pyrotechnics to celebrate everything from home runs to national independence. Mexico has a similar celebratory tradition, they just don't even bother launching the pyros—intentionally, that is.

Photographer Thomas Prior recently traveled to Tultepec, Mexico for the celebration of the country's long-standing fireworks industry. The nine-day National Pyrotechnics Festival has been held annually since the mid-19th century, and often draws over 100,000 participants. Seriously though, how is everybody not on fire? [Thomas Prior via Peta Pixel - Images: Thomas Prior with permission]

Gizmodo Microsoft Just Gave Up On Its Xbox One DRM | Deadspin The Greatest Letter Ever Printed On NF

Lauren Bertolini on lauren ☄, shared by Brian Barrett to Gizmodo — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:48:25 GMT

Gizmodo Microsoft Just Gave Up On Its Xbox One DRM | Deadspin The Greatest Letter Ever Printed On NFL Team Letterhead | io9 This breathtaking short film is becoming a TV series | Jalopnik Investigators Hint Real Cause Of The TWA 800 Air Disaster Covered Up

This Soaring Openair Cafe Is Made From Giant Bamboo Fishing Baskets

Leslie Horn — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:20:00 GMT

In Vietnam, it's common to use bamboo baskets to catch fish and eels. Less common? To find the same type of bamboo structures supporting an entire building. This open-air beauty is the Kontum Indochine Cafe, in central Vietnam, and it looks like it's supported by 15 giant bamboo fishing baskets.

Fishing, however, is probably not as pleasant as eating breakfast on the edge of the pools that surround the breezy wallless restaurant. The roof is dressed in bamboo, but it's interwoven with layers of thatch and fibre-reinforced plastic. Other elements of the canopy were built using traditional techniques of the area. Like the columns? All made from bamboo, pasted together by smoke-drying, rather than a more modern method. And even though Vietnam can get hot as balls, there's no need for air conditioning, thanks to the breeze blowing in off the lake.

The cafe was designed by Vo Trong Nghia Architects, which works with bamboo quite a bit. They've built a domed bamboo bar in the middle of a lake, modular bamboo homes, a hotel lobby made of bamboo, and more. It's cool because the material is in harmony with the environment, which makes sense, since bamboo is one of the more sustainable materials—and a peaceful and naturally beautiful one at that. [Dezeen]

Three for iOS: Never Dress Inappropriately for the Weather Ever Again

Ashley Feinberg — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:00:00 GMT

Ugh, you'll say, another beautiful, gradient-hued, minimalist iOS weather app. Thanks—I've already got five. But Three is different, we promise. Sure you get just the basic weather info without tons of bells and whistles, but the one bell and/or whistle you do have is a phenomenal one. Three has made it so you'll never be caught chilly at night without the proper layers, because it tells you exactly what to wear.

What does it do?

Displays the weather both in degree and in lovely gradient background that changes according to the current conditions and time of day. But its main feature is the list of three weather-appropriate clothing items, letting you know exactly how to best prepare. If you don't like what's being offered, you can hold an item and the app will replace it with a different suggestion. It even learns what you like over time, so it's almost like having a real, live human friend giving you advice—sort of.

Why do we like it?

The decision-making process is a horrible, horrible burden of mankind that should be avoided at all costs. Now with the bigger things, we usually have to buckle down and choose something, but why should we suffer in the privacy and comfort of our own homes?

Plus, even when you do check the weather in the morning as your prepare for the day, you'll often miss that afternoon shower or sudden heatwave coming up. Three takes that into account, making sure you know how to prepare for what's to come. Ideally there'd be a few more features—the chance of rain prediction, for instance, is key weather app staple thats conspicuously absent. So this would do best as a companion app to your perhaps fancier weather-telling friend. But in that context, a fantastic companion it is.

Three, Download this app for: iOS, $2

The Best: Decisions are a thing of the past

The Worst: Limited features

The Xbox One Just Got Way Worse, And It's Our Fault

Kyle Wagner — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:53:00 GMT

Microsoft just announced that its much-maligned DRM policies won't look at all like they originally had originally been described. They're going to more relaxed, sort of like the PS3's. Good news, you say? No. Bad news. The Xbox One just got worse.

But what? Isn't all DRM bad and anti-consumer? No. Often it is, sure. If applied in the ways that gaming culture has been anxious about for the past few weeks, it would be disastrous. But that's not what was really at stake. This was:

These changes will impact some of the scenarios we previously announced for Xbox One. The sharing of games will work as it does today, you will simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold. Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray.

That SUCKS.

The Vision

Here was the simple vision of the Xbox One, selling and reselling games:

Every game you bought, physical or digital, would be tied to your account. This would eliminate current-gen problems like buying a disc, and then being unable to store it or download it from the cloud.
Because every single game, physical or digital, would be tied to an account, publishers could create a hub to sell and resell the games digitally. Let's refer to these as "licenses" from here, even though it's a loaded term.
Because reselling games would now work through a hub, publishers could make money on resold games.
Here is how this makes sense for YOU: New games could then be cheaper. Why? Publishers KNOW that they will not make money on resold games, so they charge more to you, the first buyer. You are paying for others' rights to use your game in the future. If the old system had gone into place, you would likely have seen game prices drop. Or, at the very least, it could have staved off price increases.
You also would have started getting a better return on your "used" games—because a license does not have to be resold at a diminished rate.
How do you know that this would have been the case? Because that's exactly what happens on Steam. But wait!, you shout. Steam is CHEAP cheap, and it has crazy sales. We love Steam! Micro$oft is nothing like that. Well, no, it isn't now, but Steam was once $team, too. It was not always popular, and its licensing model was once heavily maligned. Given time, though, it's now the only way almost every PC gamer wants to play games.
Sharing games would have worked either by activating your Live account on someone else's Xbox One, or by including them in your 10-person share plan, which would not have been limited to "family.". Details on that had been scarse, but even the strictest limitations (one other person playing any of the shared games from your account) would have been a HUGE improvement over the none that we have now. We don't get that now.
The 24-hour check-in would have been necessary for the X1's store, which it is not for Steam, because the physical product (game discs) would still be available. This check-in, literally bytes of data exchanged, would confirm that the games installed were not gaming the system in a convoluted install-here-and-then-go-offline-and-I'll-go-home-and-check-in-and-go-offline-too-and-we'll-both-use-the-game methods.

You would also, as it happens, have been able to share your digitally purchased games. That's a REALLY BIG DEAL. We won't be able to do that now, though. We still have to use the disc for games we buy physically. This is the loss of some of the most future-facing features of the system, things that changed and challenged the traditional limitations of console gaming. We are literally standing in stasis, refusing to move forward, at the behest of those who are loudest and not ready for the future.

The DRM Boogey Man Is So Last Decade

More than anything, the outcry over the Xbox One was a reaction to buzzwords that are easy to distance ourselves from. "Censorship," "retcon," "person who disagrees with Joss Whedon." DRM is right there with any of those for Microsoft's core gaming audience.

The real fear behind DRM on games is the idea that at some point in the future, you'll be told that you are no longer allowed to use the content you'e paid for. It's that you're "allowed" to use anything at all, instead of outright "owning" it. And in the past, shitty DRM has absolutely worked like that. Walmart MP3s and the like have taken their servers offline, stranding file formats and leaving them to die, forgotten.

That is not how DRM, by and large, works today. There is very little risk of any particular format dying off. The dangers, as such, lie in a dropoff of support, or at worst, confiscation. That for whatever reason, Microsoft would tell us to screw ourselves and stop supporting Xbox One games, or kick you, specifically, out.

Fair enough. But compare that to the benefits of DRM. It helps build an ecosystem that is easy and convenient and, most of all, affordable enough to draw customers. That's what Apple did with iTunes and music, and it's what Amazon did with books. The content was just too easy to get and too cheap to bother with pirating it. We could have had that with the Xbox One and games.

Here's a video game example of effective DRM in practice: World of Warcraft, more or less the most popular game of the past decade. WoW, a Massively Multiplayer RPG by Blizzard, is played entirely online—always online, even. Your account is not your property, Blizzard can ban it, or remove items from it at its pleasure. Everything is within its right.

And yet, all Blizzard does is run customer support to users who have been hacked (oh, so many are hacked) or who accidentally deleted something or any number of other problems for their accounts. They were even years ahead of the two-factor authentication push, basically giving away authenticators at a loss, with in-game bonuses, just to keep customers from being hacked. Because Blizzard knows that its whole job is keeping its customers coming back for more. And it works. And no one complains.

Our Capacity

Today's news proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the internet has a voice. You're heard, and you can affect change in the things that you care about deeply. It's oddly fitting that the news comes as fan-saved Futurama gets ready to go off the air again. But today also proves how widely that nerd-influence can swing an entire generation of hardware, based solely on the whims of internet jokes based on information that isn't even accurate, and tinfoil fears about worst-case scenarios.

Cheaper games. Easier sharing. The end of discs. The Xbox One would have been just fine despite the chorus of haters, would have been a better system for ignoring them. Microsoft losing its nerve on this isn't just disappointing for the features we lose. It's unfortunate because it shows just how heavy an anchor we can be.

World's Fastest Electric Superbike: All the VROOM, None of the Gas

Andrew Tarantola — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:40:00 GMT

Electric vehicles are quickly making strides towards widespread adoption; just look at the Nissan Leaf or Tesla S. The same holds true for motorcycles, though these battery-powered two-wheelers are built more for urban commuting than hardcore performance. That's where the Mission RS comes in.

Electric motorcycles have been on the market for a few years now. Like all electric-power transports, they offer fantastic acceleration (there's no sliding scale for electric torque—it's either off or it's 100-percent engaged), zero emissions, and are far less expensive to refuel than gas engines. They do, though, suffer a limited range on account of the physical limitations of their Li-ion power supplies. That's about to change with the $60,000 Mission RS from San Francisco-based Mission Motors; it's a superbike in every sense of the word and it's about to bring the rukus.

The RS's astronomical price comes with matching performance and pedigree. Mission Motors entered the prototype Mission R into the venerable TTXGP race at Laguna Seca back in 2011 where it proceeded to embarrass the rest of the field by finishing nearly 40 seconds ahead of everyone else. The RS is built on that prototype platform. Its 160 horsepower (120 kW) electric motor produces 133 pound-feet of torque. You thought the Wrightspeed X1 (based on the Ariel Atom Jeremy Clarkson drove on Top Gear) was badass with its 0-60 in 3.07? The RS does it in 3 flat, with a 150 MPH top speed. It has an impressive range of 140-200 miles and recharges in about two hours thanks to a 17 kWh li-ion cell. “Even a short rest stop is enough time to add a significant amount of range,” Mission Motorcycles president Mark Seeger told Wired.

"Motorcycle 2.0" as Seeger refers to it, goes on sale later this summer and does qualify for a $3,500 tax credit, dropping the price to a totally reasonable $56,500. The gorgeous seven inch touchscreen display alone makes it worth the outlay, assuming you have as much cash as you do love for speed and the environment. [Wired via Cleantechnica - Images: Mission Motors]

Investigators Hint Real Cause Of The TWA 800 Air Disaster Covered Up

Patrick George on Jalopnik, shared by Brian Barrett to Gizmodo — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:59:00 GMT

Easily one of the most notorious disasters of the 1990s was the crash of TWA Flight 800 in July 1996, which killed 230 people on their way from New York's JFK Airport to Paris. The probable cause of the crash was determined to be an accidental fuel tank explosion, but a new documentary is challenging that theory.

But what makes this film more intriguing than your average conspiracy theory documentary are the people involved with it: former members of the official investigation into the crash who are stepping up to refute the National Transportation Safety Board's explanation of things.

They're saying that new evidence indicates the plane was taken down by an outside source, a theory that has been discounted several times over the years. Critics have theorized a missile either came from a U.S. Navy vessel or terrorists in a small boat.

Here's an ABC News report on the new film, called simply TWA 800:

"We didn't find any part of the airplane that indicated a mechanical failure," one of the whistleblowers says in a trailer for the film. The former officials allege the explosion came from outside the plane, though they don't speculate any further on the original source.

Another of the whistleblowers, former senior accident investigator with the NTSB Hank Hughes, said in a preview of the documentary that FBI agents were spotted on surveillance cameras going through the hangar where the crash evidence was kept "in the wee hours of the morning... for purposes unknown."

The AP reports that several of these investigators are now seeking a new probe into the crash, and have filed a petition with the NTSB asking for one. From their story:

The former investigators calling for a new probe say new evidence that a missile may have taken down the jet includes analysis of radar of the jetliner.

Speculation of a missile strike began almost immediately after the crash. Theories that an errant missile may have been fired from a U.S. military vessel were widely refuted, but conjecture about a shoulder-fired missile launched by terrorists in a small boat has never completely gone away.

The petitioners contend that the testimony of more than 200 witnesses who reported seeing streaks of light headed toward the plane should be reconsidered. The NTSB said after the first investigation that it found no evidence of a missile strike. It explained that what witnesses likely saw was the jetliner pitching upward in the first few moments after the explosion, but some witnesses still maintain that the streak of light they saw emanated from the waterline and zoomed upward toward the plane.

NTSB officials today stood by the facts of their investigation, saying it remains one of the most thorough ever conducted. The "missile theory" surfaced early on in the investigation, and law enforcement officials initially believed a criminal act took the plane down, but they later backed away from that possibility.

The documentary airs on the EPIX premium television channel in July.

Photo credit AP

One of the World's Largest 3D Printing Companies Just Bought MakerBot

Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:17:00 GMT

This afternoon, 3D printing giant Stratasys announced the $403 million acquisition of MakerBot. And while it won't change anything about MakerBot's brand, Stratasys could supply the know-how to scale up business in a big way. That could mean more stores, more factories, and even more offices.

Don’t feel bad if you don’t know much about Stratasys; The Minnesota-based company has spent the past 33 years specializing in the commercial side of rapid prototyping, selling systems for as much as $100,000 a pop. But they’ve made several pointed attempts to break into the consumer market since 2010, when they partnered with HP to make and distribute a line of desktop 3D printers.

That ill-fated deal was cut short last August, after only two years. And in April of last year, they merged with the Israeli 3D printing startup, Objet, which makes a printer that uses a variety of materials (including paper) to print. After that $1.4 billion deal, MakerBot represented one of two remaining companies that posed real competition in the desktop printer market—and Stratasys has just eliminated it.

The acquisition probably isn’t much of a surprise, given MakerBot’s race to expand. In April, the company opened a new 50,000-square-foot factory in Brooklyn to accommodate demand for the desktop Replicator 2 (check out our tour, below). And today, MakerBot founder Bre Pettis confirmed as much, saying, “we have an aggressive model for growth, and partnering with Stratasys will allow us to supercharge our mission to empower individuals to make things using a MakerBot, and allow us to bring 3D technology to more people.”

According to the announcement, MakerBot will continue to function under its own brand and direction, but will share what reps call “intellectual property and technical know-how.” So no, this won’t affect their Brooklyn cred—though it may bring more midwesterners through town.

Ben Franklin Wanted to See What Our 21st Century Lives Are Like

Matt Novak on Paleofuture, shared by Brian Barrett to Gizmodo — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:01:20 GMT

Do you ever lie awake at night wondering what the world will look like in two or three hundred years? Ben Franklin did. And he thought that by the 21st century not only would humanity have some absurdly cool gadgets, men might live to be over 900 years old.

In a May 31, 1788 letter to Reverend John Lothrop of Boston, Franklin wrote:

I have sometimes wished it had been my destiny to be born two or three centuries hence. For invention and improvement are prolific, and beget more of their kind. The present progress is rapid. Many of great importance, now unthought of, will before that period be procur’d; and then I might not only enjoy their advantages, but have my curiosity satisfy’d in knowing what they are to be.

Franklin acknowledged that he might sound foolish, wishing that he'd get to see 300 years into the future. But he saw great hope for the people of tomorrow in being able to ward off disease. By avoiding sickness, Franklin explains, humans might be able to live as long as biblical figures. Men like Adam (the original dude), Noah (the big flood dude), and Methuselah (the oldest dude) were said to have reached over 900 years of age.

I see a little absurdity in what I have just written, but it is to a friend who will wink and let it pass, while I mention one reason more for such a wish, which is that if the art of physic shall be improv’d in proportion with other arts, we may then be able to avoid diseases, and live as long as the patriarchs in Genesis, to which I suppose we should make little objection.

While medical advances have certainly extended lifespans beyond those in Franklin's time, one wonders if he'd be thrilled or disappointed with our technological advancements. Sure, we have amazing technologies like the internet. But when we're using it for things like Outbox (literally the dumbest thing ever invented) he may think we've got a collective screw loose.

Text Source: Franklin Papers

Image Source: Getty Images "A Currier & Ives lithograph of Benjamin Franklin and his son William using a kite and key during a storm to prove that lightning was electricity, June 1752."

Panasonic Makes a Good Case For Splurging On This Slick Angular Kettle

Andrew Liszewski — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:00:00 GMT

In a time when everything from coffee makers to refrigerators can boil water for your coffee or tea, a dedicated electric kettle almost seems like a waste of counter space. So how does a company like Panasonic convince you a kettle is still worth keeping around? Especially a kettle that costs $180? With convenient induction technology and an ultra-modern, angular, space-saving design that also happens to serve as perfect eye candy for your kitchen.

Of course the abrupt corners and straight lines of the NC-ZK1 aren't for everybody. Nor is the price tag if the $10 kettle you've had since college is still going strong. But with a 1.4 liter capacity, a cool to the touch stainless steel housing, and a smooth induction base that doesn't care how the kettle is positioned, the NC-ZK1 is as functional as it is lovely. And if you're worried about losing the war on counter space, the kettle's square design allows it to slip tight into any corner so it's out of the way when not needed. But who'd want to hide this masterpiece away?

[Panasonic via Fancy]

Best Buy Is Recalling Thousands of MacBook Pro Batteries Over Fire Risk

Ashley Feinberg — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:47:00 GMT

Best Buy is recalling 5,100 third-party replacement MacBook Pro batteries after the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 13 separate cases in which the batteries caught fire, at least one of which caused serious injury.

Both black and white varieties of the ATG lithium-ion replacement batteries are being recalled, all of which were sold between September 2008 and June of 2012. So if you want to find out whether or not you're currently resting a potential blaze of hellfire on your lap (you should find out), you can check the model number. Faulty black batteries will have "MC-MBOOK13B" on the back while faulty white batteries will list "MC-BOOK13W" as the model number.

Best Buy will be contacting its customers to alert them to the recall and offer either a replacement or gift card as compensation. But keep in mind that Best Buy wasn't the only retailer selling the batteries, so unless these were somehow isolated incidents—and you bought a MacBook Pro replacement battery anywhere in that time period—probably best to exercise caution/keep a fire extinguisher handy.

Update:

Best Buy has reached out to us with the following statement.

After receiving reports from customers of these lithium ion batteries overheating when charging, we believe the right thing to do is to contact our customers and ask them to return the product for replacement or for a Best Buy gift card. While we are only one of many companies that may have sold these batteries, we feel they are a potential fire and burn hazard and want to keep our customers safe.

[AP]