All posts from Switched

By now, everybody knows that news is often broken on social networking sites like Twitter. But Mike Wise, a Washington Post columnist, tried to reinforce this point and teach careless journalists a lesson in an ethically irresponsible way: fabricating a story and posting it on his Twitter account. According to Fanhouse, Wise tweeted that Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger would be suspended by the NFL for five games this season. While it's true that Roethlisberger faces a suspension for an off-season incident, nobody knows yet just how long it will last. Since Wise is (supposedly) a respected journalist, other newspapers and websites reported this "breaking news" and attributed it to the source -- Wise. A few hours later, Wise confessed to the hoax, and called himself "an idiot" in a tweet. Judging by a post on The Washington Post's sports blog, Wise's peers in the media didn't think his prank was funny, and it appears that Wise has been suspended by The Washington Post for a month. (This also comes from Wise's radio show, so who knows if it's true.) Though Wise was right about his theory that journalists can be lazy in source-checking, his ill-conceived prank made not so much of a statement as it made a fool out of a once-respected journalist.Washington Post Suspends Mike Wise for Roethlisberger Twitter 'Hoax' originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

Pull out those wallets, gamers. In a post on his blog, Xbox Live programming director Larry Hryb (a.k.a. Major Nelson) announced that the price for a one-year Xbox Live Gold subscription will increase $10 starting November 1st. Gamers who already have a Gold subscription can renew it for a discounted rate of $39.99, rather than pay the new rate of $59.99. The one-month and three-month Gold subscription prices will also increase, to $9.99 and $24.99 respectively (increases of $2 and $5). So, really, you'll get the best value by renewing your subscription, or, if you don't have one, registering before November rolls around. Understandably, this move has been eliciting groans from the gaming community. But, with its simplicity and array of features, Xbox Live is the king of online gaming services. So, unfortunately, you get what you pay for, folks.Microsoft Raising Xbox Live Gold Subscription Prices, Gamers Groan originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

Whether you're rooting for Rafa, Federer or Roddick, broadcasters are pretty much guaranteeing you won't have an excuse to miss this year's 2010 U.S. Open tennis tournament, which begins today and ends September 12th. According to Paid Content, fans can view about 200 matches of this year's tournament, totaling about 600 hours, for free on the Web. The best place to start is the official U.S. Open site, where you'll find live-streaming matches from five different courts as well as an impressive interface that lets you pull up live match stats and quickly jump between video of the main courts. The HTML 5-optimized site will let iPad users stream matches, and we had no problem booting up a match in Arthur Ashe stadium while Louis Armstrong Stadium played via picture-in-picture.

There's also a new, 'U.S. Open' iPhone app that features on-demand video highlights and radio broadcasts of matches. ESPN3.com will also be streaming matches for the first five days of the tournament, and CBSSports.com will take over and stream the later rounds beginning Saturday.Where to Watch the 2010 U.S. Open Tennis Tournament on the Web originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

Over the weekend, Facebook investigated spam that was plaguing users via Facebook chat. According to CNET News, a victim received a message from a friend on Facebook chat reading, "LOL is this you?" and accompanied by a malicious link. Upon clicking the link, the user was sent to a 404-error page, which compromised his or her account and used it to spam other Facebook friends. This outbreak is similar to the direct-message "Lol. this you?" direct message Twitter spam, that appeared back in February. A Facebook spokesman told CNET on Friday that it was looking into the reported spam. But since then, not much new info has surfaced -- from Facebook or its users. If you've been spammed, report the incident to Facebook and immediately change your login information. Everybody else should keep a cautious eye open and never click an unfamiliar link, especially if it's accompanied by 'LOL.'Dangerous 'LOL is this you?' Spam Hits Facebook Chat originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

With flying becoming a luxury, folks want to snag the cheapest fares they can grab. But, as is the American way, they don't always want to do the work required to get the deal. According to USA Today, the new FareCompare 'When-to-Fly' free app sends a push notification whenever the price of a preselected flight route drops below the current lowest fare. For U.S. flights, the price needs to drop $15 lower than the lowest ticket, and, for international flights, it need to drop 5-percent lower than the deepest deal. All you do is choose a departure city, the month you want to fly and your destination. Then, the app monitors airline prices (minus Southwest), and pushes the deals straight to your phone. It saves you the hassle of browsing discount travel sites or checking for e-mails. When you find a deal, the app sends you straight to Orbitz to book the flight.

For the frequent flyer, a barrage of deal alerts could become a nuisance. But for the casual traveler, this app could unearth a deal or two that otherwise might have gone unnoticed. Of course, that's assuming any ticket price offered these days could be considered a "deal."FareCompare.com App 'Pushes' Best Airfare Deals to Your iPhone originally appeared on Switched on Sun, 29 Aug 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

As recently as the early 1990s, a stint in the Peace Corps meant going off the grid. Now, according to an NPR report, Peace Corps volunteers are staying connected to friends and family back home via Skype, e-mail, texting, Facebook or even phone calls. "When they go back to their homes, instead of turning out the kerosene light and going to bed, they can get on Skype and they give a quick call to Mom and Dad back at home," Gordy Mengel, a volunteer in the 1980s, told NPR of today's volunteers. When Mengel worked in Zaire (now the Republic of Congo), it took months for letters to be delivered and received through the postal service. Now, communicating is as easy as clicking a button. "I can't imagine having been a Peace Corps volunteer in the '70s or the '80s or even the early '90s," Sonia Morhange, a volunteer in Rwanda, told NPR. But not everybody thinks increased connectivity is a good thing for the Corps. John Reddy, who directs the group in Rwanda, told NPR that volunteers have less independence, and that the organization micromanages more because of the Internet.

That's easy for somebody who has worked in Africa for three decades to say. But, if we ever got the courage to apply for the Peace Corps, you'd better believe our cell phones and laptops would be the first items packed in our luggage.Peace Corps Volunteers Use Skype, Cell Phones to Stay Connected originally appeared on Switched on Sat, 28 Aug 2010 15:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

A federal judge in California recently ruled that police can place a GPS on a person's car without his or her knowledge without seeking a warrant. CNN reports that Juan Pineda-Moreno's appeal was rejected for the third time in early August by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers nine West Coast states. Pineda-Moreno claimed that Oregon DEA agents had violated his privacy by sneaking onto his property and placing a GPS tracker on his Jeep, due to their suspicions that he was growing marijuana. To support their case against Pineda-Moreno, prosecutors used data culled by the device, such as the latitude and longitude of where the Jeep had been driven and how long it had stayed at those coordinates.

While Pineda-Moreno will continue serving his 51-month sentence, not everybody agrees with the court's ruling. "The vast majority of the 60 million people living in the Ninth Circuit will see their privacy materially diminished by the panel's ruling," Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in his dissent of the case. Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told CNN that the ruling was "Orwellian."Continue reading Cops Don't Need Warrants to Plant GPS on Cars, Federal Court SaysCops Don't Need Warrants to Plant GPS on Cars, Federal Court Says originally appeared on Switched on Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

While FIFA will probably never embrace technology in the World Cup, some sporting events are warming up to its potential benefits. According to the BBC News, athletes competing in the pentathlon at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London will shoot laser guns rather than the traditional air pistols used in past games. The switch reduces cost, since laser guns won't use ammunition or air cartridges when fired. It will also make the sport safer and, in turn, opening ton new venues, both indoors and out. The laser gun technology debuted in June at the World Cup pentathlon final in Moscow. After another successful trial at the inaugural Youth Olympics, Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM) president Klaus Schormann gave the technology the green light for the 2012 games in England.

With the Olympics embracing the 'pew pew'-nature of lasers, more outdated sporting events (ahem, World Cup) won't be able to ignore how technology is making the pentathlon both safer and cheaper.Pentathletes Will Fire Laser Guns During 2012 Olympics in London originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 07:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

For a long time now, the Internet has been the best place for gamers to get their 2-D platforming fix. The latest suck on our time is a game called 'Liferaft: Zero,' a game that gives you control of an infinite army of small, blond female clones, which you must guide through a lab filled with deadly spikes. To advance, you ring the bell that's strategically placed in each level. While the controls are simple -- moving with the arrow keys, and jumping with the 'S,' 'Z' or 'X' keys -- they're unfortunately not very intuitive. Be prepared to fall to a bloody death over and over again as you try to wall jump, and use grappling hooks. Despite the inexact controls, we found ourselves addicted to 'Liferaft: Zero' for some reason. It's a love/hate relationship; we love to hate the lack of control in a game that's based on precision jumping and swinging.Continue reading 'Liferaft: Zero' Game Is Gruesome, But Skips the Boats and Ocean'Liferaft: Zero' Game Is Gruesome, But Skips the Boats and Ocean originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

According to The Telegraph, the Italian mafia has been using a soccer TV show's interactive text messaging feature to communicate messages to imprisoned bosses. As part of the show 'Quelli che il Calcio,' fans send in text messages which are displayed on a ticker, while host Simona Ventura chats onscreen about soccer. Apparently, mafia goons would send seemingly mundane phrases, like "All is well, Paolo," in order to communicate with their bosses behind bars. Prison officials uncovered the scam when they heard a family member of one inmate talking about the texting system to somebody.

Simona told La Republica newspaper, "We opened up a line of communication with our viewers in order to give them direct contact with the show. It proved to be all that I had expected apart from the fact that it was apparently used to send messages to mafia bosses." The host and producers claim to know nothing about it, expressed shock, and claimed, of course, the interactive text messaging feature won't be part of the show when it returns this September.Italian Mafia Sends Text Messages to Jailed Dons via TV Show originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

With the final launch dates set for space shuttles Discovery and Endeavour, NASA's next job will be finding homes for these hulking, retired spacecrafts, and for the Atlantis and Enterprise, as well. According to The Wall Street Journal, about 21 institutions have asked NASA for the right to store and showcase one of the four remaining U.S. space shuttles. However, few of them can likely afford the $28.8 million required to ship a shuttle via a jumbo jet, and even fewer have an indoor facility big enough to house a shuttle. The only museum currently able to do both, naturally, is the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. NASA has said that it will give Discovery, the oldest shuttle, to the Smithsonian. Trailing the Smithsonian as likely candidates, the Journal reports, are Dayton, Ohio's National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Seattle's Museum of Flight, and Manhattan's Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. Florida's Kennedy Space Center could also have a shot at "landing" a shuttle. In this day and age, nothing warms our hearts like multi-ton steel crafts finding kind, loving, "forever" homes.Museums Lobby to Be Homes for Poor Retired NASA Shuttles originally appeared on Switched on Sun, 22 Aug 2010 17:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

Who says all surfers are gnarly? A University of California at San Diego engineering graduate student (and amateur surfer) is using his two loves -- science and surfing -- to figure out what makes the perfect board. According to Wired, Benjamin Thompson equipped a surfboard with eight sensors and a microprocessor that gathers data, like water velocity, and relays it back to an onshore laptop. Thompson and his team want to figure out what makes for optimal flexibility -- the point at which a board bends perfectly for a surfer on a wave.

In the surfing community, there are two schools of thought; some prefer a rigid board and others like a more flexible one. But, the problem is, there's no system informed by hard data that can let surfers know whether or not a board will meet their standards before buying it. Thompson wants to change that by correlating the hard data his surfboard collects with a rider's reported experience. This, he hopes, will provide surfers with a foolproof way to rank boards. In his next trial, Thompson will attach 50 sensors, accelerometers, strain transducers and gyroscopic instruments to a surfboard, which will then store the data on an attached flash drive, in order to get a better idea of what makes the "perfect surfboard."Continue reading Surfin' Scientist Sets Up Surfboard With Sensors and Sails Sick SwellsSurfin' Scientist Sets Up Surfboard With Sensors and Sails Sick Swells originally appeared on Switched on Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments