Deadspin dropped a bombshell this afternoon that one of the most popular, heartwarming stories of the college football season — Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o's doomed love with a dying girl — was a hoax.
The girl, named Lennay Kekua, had a Twitter account, a stockpile of photos, and a...
Twitter played a big part in selling the lie
Tobacco. Habanero chili powder. Nutmeg. Cinnamon. Oregano. Coal. Napalm. Ethynol. Salt. Pepper.
Edible comments are going to be awesome!
Last week Netflix announced it would be delivering streaming 3D video and even higher-quality HD content via ISPs that were participating in its Open Connect initiative — but Time Warner Cable is crying foul. In a statement to Multichannel News, the cable operator contends that "While they call it ‘Open Connect,’ Netflix is actually closing off access to some of its content while seeking...
Another year has passed, and once again research firm BCN is releasing its annual awards, celebrating the three manufacturers with the biggest shares in the Japanese domestic electronics market across a huge range of categories, from headphones to hard drive enclosures. The data comes from a list of 22 online and physical retailers, but notable exceptions like Apple's retail operations mean that readers should be skeptical of BCN's findings in markets like PCs and tablets. But even by BCN's methodology, Apple still maintained the top spot in smartphones, ahead of rivals Sharp and Sony.
All three of the top mirrorless manufacturers lost share
So with that out of the way, what’s changed in the past year? Canon managed to gain more share in the DSLR segment at Nikon’s expense, growing from 46 to 53 percent of the market. And Olympus...
There'll be dancing in the streets at Buffalo HQ
AT&T announced today that it would be gracious enough to let some more of its users — including those without LTE — to enjoy FaceTime over cellular, as the spirit of net neutrality rules require. But it's just the latest half-measure the company has taken to rectify an issue that groups like Public Knowledge and Free Press have argued all along: that AT&T simply has no right to arbitrarily...
In a speech outlining the agenda of the Senate judiciary committee in the 113th Congress, Senator and committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) specifically called out concerns over the government's use of drones. In the speech, given today at the Georgetown University Law Center, chairman Leahy said that "this Congress we will examine the constitutional and legal issues implicated by the administration's use of drones abroad, but my concerns go beyond just the use of lethal force against suspected terrorists." In addition to examining the secretive overseas drone program, Leahy promises to...
Following All Nippon Airways decision to ground its fleet of Boeing 787s Dreamliners, the Federal Aviation Administration has announced that all 787s in the US are to be grounded pursuing an investigation into the recent lithium-ion battery failures that have caused fires in Boston and Japan. Just yesterday, a 787 had to make an emergency landing in Japan after a fire started on the aircraft and sent smoke into the cabin.
The 787 is to be grounded until operators are able to prove to the FAA that the batteries on the plane are safe and will not cause any future fires. On January 7th, a fire in a 787 at Boston's Logan Airport kept the...
Friends, acquaintances, co-conspirators, everyone in between: thank you. It was a crazy week of newsgathering, photographing, video producing, showrunning, podcasting, binge eating, power-napping, and above all, storytelling.
What did we do? We lost ourselves in the Oculus Rift. We experienced a new form of existentialism with Qualcomm. We went behind-the-scenes at casinos to talk about the war on cheating. We gave Trent Wolbe a camera and...
"I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums." Ke$ha
US Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) has said he is investigating whether prosecutors were overzealous in going after Aaron Swartz, the online activist and Reddit co-founder who committed suicide last week and was set to stand trial for copying articles from the JSTOR database. Issa told The...
Hard drive crashes and corrupted files repeatedly instruct us on the importance of keeping media backups. But when data loss looms as the result of massive physical damage from a major natural disaster, finding better ways to digitally archive our history suddenly becomes a moral imperative.
As...
Facebook launched Graph Search as a beta product for many reasons: its gradual rollout to only US English users; its limitation to people, photos, places, and interests (posts and Open Graph actions still aren't included); an attempt to manage...
The European Commission is currently drafting a plan that will standardize reporting requirements for companies that store data online in the event of lost or stolen personal data. As The New York Times reports, EC VP Nellie Kroes is writing the bill and hopes it will replace...
T-Mobile must be happy with Nexus 4 sales thus far, as the carrier has just announced it will be expanding distribution of Google's handset to its entire retail chain. Despite ongoing supply constraints, the rollout began yesterday and T-Mobile says all stores should have stock "in the coming weeks." Furthermore, you'll be able to buy the device from its website beginning January 23rd. Prices remain the same at...
Microsoft is making another foray into turning virtual connections into an ad-hoc disaster aid network. HelpBridge, launched today for Windows Phone, iOS, and Android, lets users create lists of emergency contacts and then set up a protocol for...
Introducing what he called "the third pillar" of Facebook ecosystem today, Mark Zuckerberg was adamant: "Graph Search is not web search," said Facebook's CEO. The implication is that it offers users something different from other search products and Facebook's current features, and that it's...
If you're someone with files spread across multiple cloud storage services like Dropbox, SkyDrive, and Google Drive, Readdle's new Documents app...
“I think most people feel that if you can find a way to beat the casino, more power to you,” says Arnold Synder, his eyes, those telltale features, hidden behind a pair of black sunglasses....
AT&T has once again loosened the reins on using Apple's FaceTime service: it's now allowing customers on any compatible device — not just LTE-capable ones — to video chat while on a mobile network. Over the next couple of weeks, the company will start rolling out the option to people with compatible iOS devices like the 4S, so long as...
Samsung promised in December that it would address a serious security hole in some of its smartphones and tablets running Exynos processors "as quickly as possible," and it looks like the company has begun that process. T-Mobile has released an over-the-air update today to its Galaxy Note II...
NASA has announced that the Mars Curiosity Rover is planning to drill into Martian rock for the first time in an attempt to prove there was once water on the planet. Veins on the rock appear to be made up of hydrated calcium sulfate, or gypsum — a mineral that requires the presence of water to form. Once the rover reaches the rock in question, it will drill, ingest, and analyze samples of the rock to determine the makeup of the minerals in question as well as the more general chemical composition. "The orbital signal drew us here, but what we found when we arrived has been a great surprise," said Mars Science Laboratory project scientist...
Outsourcing has been a reality in the American workplace for years now, but we haven't heard of an employee outsourcing his entire job — until now. According to the BBC, a software engineer was apparently outsourcing his entire job to China by paying a fifth of his six-figure salary to a local firm in Shenyang who handled his job for him. The employee reportedly did this through a "fairly standard" VPN connection that was set up to allow employees to work from home. The man actually mailed...
President Barack Obama is asking the Centers for Disease Control to investigate the possibility of a link between violent media and shootings as part of a blanket proposal to prevent future gun violence. In a memorandum, the White House urged the...
You're looking at the first image of what's believed to be HTC's upcoming M7 flagship smartphone. The photo of the Android device's front half (which bears some resemblance to the iPhone 5's rear) comes courtesy of @evleaks at Unwired View, where...
We try not to be surprised by what Google's Street View cars record as they make their way around the world's roads, but Google found itself in a bit of trouble this week when users pointed to a series of photos in Botswana that suggested that one of its drivers had mowed down a donkey. The search company has seen it fit to provide definitive proof that it hadn't perpetrated a hit-and-run by releasing the original source images used in the...
Pokki launched its Windows 8 Start menu replacement back in early October and the company has revealed today that it has been downloaded 1.5 million times for the new OS. The download figures for Pokki, which also adds an app store for hundreds of desktop apps built on its platform, show that there's a demand for a traditional Start menu on Windows 8 — something that Microsoft removed in its latest OS that has sold 60 million licenses so far....
