Yesterday The New Yorker unveiled a new deal that allows print subscribers full access to their lovely iPad app. The oddity that caught everyone’s eye was their pricing model: for the app-only version, The New Yorker currently costs $59.99 for a one-year subscription, while the print version plus the app is a whole twenty bucks cheaper …
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Disposable Credit Card Numbers Can Protect You from Hacks
News of a second Sony video game network breach means that thousands more user credit card numbers may be at risk of fraud. It seems that once you hand over your financial information to an online vendor, you’re pretty much at the mercy of that company’s wherewithal to install the latest Apache patch. But there is something consumers …
Yup, Yahoo Mail Is Down for Some Users
A rare outage has hit Yahoo Mail, with service down for a subset of users.
Yahoo has acknowledged the outage. Here’s the statement, as posted at The Next Web:
“Yahoo mail is currently inaccessible to some users. We are working to correct the issue and restore all functionality immediately. We know that this may have caused some
…
Groupon for Cars? Not Quite.
Hyundai is the first auto maker to embrace Groupon, but don’t get too excited.
The Groupon deal, offered to Hyundai customers in Chicago over the last weekend, consisted of an oil change, inspection and tire rotation for $29. Roughly 1,300 people signed up for the deal, enough for the auto maker to call it a success.
“If the …
Good News: Wasting Time on the Internet Makes You a Better Worker
As a work-from-home writer, the lure of the Internet is all too familiar. All day long, Twitter beckons, my news feed filled with delightful distractions from the blog post at hand.
Fortunately, a new study from the University of Copenhagen suggests that wasting time on the Internet may actually be beneficial.
Epsilon System Hacked: Has Your E-Mail Been Stolen?
In what’s being touted as possibly one of the biggest data breaches in U.S. history, online marketing firm Epsilon warned some of its customers over the weekend that the personal information of many, many people could be at risk.
Follow-up: See a list of which companies’ e-mail lists have been exposed.
Last Friday, an outside …
Make Your Own Cartoons and Slideshows on YouTube
No camera? No problem. YouTube just added a few apps for creating your own videos with animated characters and still images.
The tools are available at YouTube.com/create, and include GoAnimate, Stupeflix and XtraNormal. These tools are also available on their own websites, but the YouTube integration makes life a little easier if you …
Say Happy 40th Birthday to the Computer Virus
In 1971, a message popped up on a screen: “I’m the creeper, catch me if you can!” A nod to Scooby Doo, the first virus was called the Creeper.
Also, thanks to time flying like the wind, it’s been four decades, meaning the computer virus is now well into its middle age. Also, it’s now older than me.
How has it fared since then? …
U.S. Military Blocks Websites to Focus on Japan Efforts
The U.S. military personnel will be getting a dose on what it feels like to be in China, but not for entirely the same reasons. They’ve blocked 13 websites, including YouTube, to free up bandwidth for the Japan recovery effort.
The sites most proven to suck up bandwidth have been excluded from staff, and not because of their …
Listen to the Raw Data of Japan’s Earthquake
It’s not quite the sound of Japan’s earthquake, but audio programmer Micah Frank has used the raw data from the seismic activity to create a frightening aural interpretation. The streaming audio can be heard at Frank’s website.
Frank’s “Tectonic” program gathers raw data in real time from the U.S. Geological Survey, including …
Is Nothing Sacred? ‘Blade Runner’ Spinoff Rights Being Negotiated
Keeping with the complaint that nothing new is coming out of Hollywood, Alcon Entertainment is trying to bring back the Blade Runner property. The company, who produced The Blind Side, is trying to buy the film, television and ancillary franchise rights to the classic science fiction film. It’s not just prequels and sequels they’re …
Should Media Outlets Edit Their Unpaid Bloggers?
A recent blog post by the Lorain, Ohio Morning Journal’s editor Tom Skotch, in which he appealed to local writers to contribute to the newspaper’s blog for free, has brought up the controversial debate of “hiring” citizen journalists. While many comments from professionals claimed it devalued the work of journalists when a publication …