Just like that, Sony’s PlayStation Network is down, and hard. Know how I know? Because I just tried to watch an episode of Friday Night Lights over dinner with my wife and couldn’t. My PS3 kept flashing a “you must first sign into the PlayStation Network to sign into Netflix” popup. I tried signing into the PlayStation Network …
breaking
How Poor You Are May Determine If You’ll Ditch the Landline
Well, that’s a new one. So it’s probably a no-brainer that those who are young are more likely to say “no way, Grandpa” to a landline, but a study shows that just how poor you are may determine whether you’ll decide to cut the cord.
The National Center for Health Statistics released a study which revealed that 40 percent of …
NASA Ponies Up Megabucks For Commercial Space Rides
You’re in love, bored with five star eats, and filthy stinking rich. Why not grab your date and hop a space bus to the International Space Station?
Hold that thought, but NASA just made it a smidge less improbable, tossing some $269 million in funding to commercial companies like Boeing and SpaceX, all of them hoping to someday …
FBI Seizes Three Major Poker Websites, Owners Charged With Fraud
Earlier today, three of the Web’s largest poker sites — PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker — were seized by the FBI after the U.S. Attorney for New York opened an indictment charging the site’s founders for bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling.
The websites for FullTiltPoker.net and AbsolutePoker.com have …
Latest ‘PCs Are Doomed’ Forecast Includes Worst Line Graph Ever
I thought I could write a serious blog post about Asymco’s first quarter PC forecast, but no.
The conclusion is similar to every other sky-falling-on-Windows story you might have read: PCs are in trouble, Macs are doing fine, and the iPad is causing laptop vendors the world over to wake up in a cold sweat. Asymco’s version is a bit …
Google: We Didn’t Lie About App Certification
Microsoft claims Google fibbed, and Google responds oh-no-we-didn’t–welcome to your daily soaps starring Redmond and Mountain View!
The row started this morning when Microsoft said it had documentation proving Google lied about government app certification–specifically “Google Apps for Government,” under something called the …
Harvard Twins Lose Appeal to Quash Facebook Settlement
It’s the saga no one knew or cared much about until David Fincher’s The Social Network turned up the volume: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg hoodwinks fellow Harvard students (and twins) Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss out of millions in Facebook profits. The twins sue and win some of those millions in a settlement. But it turns out …
DOJ Green Lights $700m Google ITA Purchase
Google can go right ahead and snap up travel software company ITA Software for $700 million, but only if it agrees not to kick the competition to the curb, says the Department of Justice in a statement.
Well, sort of. The DOJ’s antitrust division filed a civil antitrust lawsuit this morning to block the proposed acquisition, then …
Will the Space Shuttle Fly if the Government Shuts Down?
You’re probably all too aware of what could happen at midnight tonight if House leaders can’t reach a budget deal, but what about NASA’s Space Shuttle? You know, the imminent launch of a spacecraft supervised by a government-funded space agency?
“Given the realities of the calendar, however, prudent management requires that we plan …
TechnologizerSocial Networking
Facebook Unveils Cool New Servers, and Shares Them with the World
How does Facebook serve up its social network to more than half a billion people around the world–and do it with surprisingly few outages and glitches? It started out seven years ago by leasing servers in data centers as it needed them. Eighteen months ago, it built its own massive data center in Prineville, Oregon–and decided to …
The US Will Use Twitter and Facebook to Issue Terror Alerts
The U.S. government is working on a new warning system to replace their oft criticized five-color coded terror index, and according to a new document obtained by The Associated Press, they’re turning to Facebook and Twitter.
The AP reports:
The 19-page document, marked “for official use only” and dated April 1, describes the
…
SpaceX’s ‘Falcon Heavy’ Most Powerful Private Rocket Ever
SpaceX‘s ‘Falcon Heavy’ new commercial super-rocket isn’t messing around: It’ll be the most powerful private rocket ever built, twice as roomy as NASA’s Space Shuttle, and second in size only to the Apollo program’s mammoth Saturn V.
“This is a rocket of truly huge scale,” said SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk during a press …