Candy Crush games developer King aims to raise $533m

Found on BBC News on Wednesday, 12 March 2014
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King's portfolio includes more than 180 games, but Candy Crush is its most popular offering and was the most downloaded free mobile app of 2013.

According to the firm, its top three games - Candy Crush Saga, Pet Rescue Saga and Farm Heroes Saga - accounted for 95% of its total revenue in the fourth quarter of 2013.

Obviously the bubble isn't over; even today you can find enough retards who invest in a totally pointless IPO.

Bulletproof men's suit blends Bruce Wayne style, Batman-worthy tech

Found on CNet News on Monday, 10 March 2014
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A Zurich-based company known as Suitart has developed a men's suit that combines a whole lot of Wayne style with an ample dose of "kapow!" It's called "Diamond Armor," and for good reason: the suit fabric is embedded with 880 black diamonds; the lapels and stitching feature an additional 600 black diamonds with a total weight of 140 carats.

For starters, the suit is bulletproof. It uses technology invented by Croshield, a company that makes body armor and other bulletproof gear, to achieve what the manufacturers say is a level II protection classification.

So? Just aim for the head.

Snowden leaks have permanently damaged the NSA

Found on Baltimore Sun on Wednesday, 05 March 2014
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The country is engaged in painful soul-searching about whether NSA has gone too far and whether we should invite leaker Edward Snowden back for a ticker-tape parade. On the latter, Mr. Snowden has set the agency back perhaps a decade or more through the unrelenting disclosure of sources and methods.

The real question is whether the agency could pull off another major SIGINT success like it did after 9/11. Probably not. Mr. Snowden has done enough damage. A few changes in the law based on challenges from numerous groups and senators will do the rest.

Nice propaganda attempt. There's nobody to blame for all this but the NSA. Snowden has done no damage; instead, he helped everybody but the NSA. In fact, he might also have helped them too.

Bill Gates reclaims 'world's richest person' title with $76B

Found on CNet News on Tuesday, 04 March 2014
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Forbes released its annual rankings for the world's richest people on Monday showing that Gates overtook telecom mogul Carlos Slim for the first time in four years. Gates' current net worth is $76 billion, up from $67 billion last year, while Slim's fortune fell from $73 billion to $72 billion. The Microsoft chairman has held the No. 1 spot for 15 of the last 20 years.

While Gates has a $76 billion fortune, he has donated more than $28 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which works on the eradication of polio, malaria, and other dangerous diseases.

I guess at some point it's getting impossible to become poor again. At least he's doing something useful with all his money by supporting research to weed out diseases.

Confiscating Aluminum Foil and Watching Out for Solar Powered Bombs

Found on Time Ideas on Friday, 21 February 2014
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Earlier this month, the Transportation Security Administration announced a ban on all carry-on liquids for flights between the U.S. and Russia.

In 2010, improvised explosive devices were discovered inside printer cartridges on two cargo planes headed from Yemen to the U.S. Good old-fashioned police work had led investigators to the bombs, and the plot was foiled. But the TSA immediately banned toner and ink cartridges from passing through security.

The memo advised the entire TSA workforce that terrorists were plotting to use solar powered improvised explosive devices in order to harm aviation interests. But not to worry: TSA headquarters was on the case. The memo continued to explain that new technology was being explored in order to detect solar powered IEDs.

Solar powered bombs? Inside a plane? How can anybody seriously defend something as ridiculous and useless as the TSA?

WhatsApp cops shared crime pics with outsider

Found on The Local on Saturday, 15 February 2014
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The Stockholm police officers accidentally included the phone number of a regular Swede in their group chat on WhatsApp, a thread in which they shared private information about ongoing investigations. They later said they used WhatsApp, rather than calling each other, because it helped them communicate quickly as they were working.

“Goodness me, what can I say" the police officer said. "This is deeply unfortunate, of course, that such information came to light like this. I truly apologize. It was me who wrote down the wrong number and I’ll be taking responsibility for it."

In fact, it is very fortunate that this came to light like this. You don't just send this kind of information over a service like WhatsApp. Hopefully the officer will have to face some serious consequences.

Snowden Used Low-Cost Tool to Best N.S.A.

Found on The New York Times on Sunday, 09 February 2014
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Using “web crawler” software designed to search, index and back up a website, Mr. Snowden “scraped data out of our systems” while he went about his day job, according to a senior intelligence official. “We do not believe this was an individual sitting at a machine and downloading this much material in sequence,” the official said. The process, he added, was “quite automated.”

Really now? The NSA hires external administrators and expect that they won't automate a workflow to save thousands of documents? If they seriously thought that he was sitting there and clicking "Save as..." thousands of times, they are in the wrong business.

Police will have 'backdoor' access to health records despite opt-out, says MP

Found on The Guardian on Saturday, 08 February 2014
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David Davis MP, a former shadow home secretary, told the Guardian he has established that police will be able to access the health records of patients when investigating serious crimes even if they had opted out of the new database, which will hold the entire population's medical data in a single repository for the first time from May.

"The lack of independent oversight and transparency is what's most worrying. People trust their GP, but who's heard of the Health and Social Care Information Centre or the four people who sign off on access to all our medical records?"

I would like to hear how that will be explained as a requirement to hunt down terrorists. There is no reason to do something as stupid as collecting your citizen's most personal and private data and give others access to it. The past has proven more than once that pseudonymisation does not protect privacy at all.

Sochi visitors entering hacking 'minefield' by firing up electronics

Found on CNet News on Wednesday, 05 February 2014
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NBC reporter Richard Engel worked with a security expert to set up two test computers in order to see just how quickly he'd be attacked when logging onto Russian networks.

Once the two test computers went online, the hacking happened just as fast, Engel said. It took "less than 1 minute [for hackers] to pounce, and in less than 24 hours, they had broken into both of my computers."

These kind of attacks won't be the problems Putin will fear much during the games.

San Jose police could tap into volunteer residents' private security cameras under new proposal

Found on San Jose Mercury News on Sunday, 26 January 2014
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Councilman Sam Liccardo's proposal, unveiled Thursday and set to be discussed by a City Council committee next week, would allow property owners voluntarily to register their security cameras for a new San Jose Police Department database. Officers then would be able to access the footage quickly after a nearby crime has occurred.

Yeah, because there isn't enough spying and surveillance already.