Day: April 10, 2012

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From Ars Technica: Twitter helps free kidnapped South African from trunk of his car


A South African man, whose name has not been published, was carjacked, robbed, and stuffed into the trunk of his car near Johannesburg on Sunday. The robbers, however, had overlooked his mobile phone, which he used to text his girlfriend, Lynn Peters. From there, Twitter took over.

Two armed men grabbed the driver and his Volkswagen Golf in the Honeydew area northwest of Johannesburg at about 9:00pm local time. Carjacking is a crime that is common in the country—over 10,000 such incidents occurred last year.

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from Ars Technica

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From Engadget: Facebook to buy Instagram

How’s this for some big news on an otherwise slow Monday? Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has let slip that his company plans to buy popular photo-sharing app Instagram (pending all of the standard regulatory approvals, naturally). According to a report from All Things D‘s Kara Swisher, Facebook will pick up the social app, which got its own long-awaited Android version, for a cool $1 billion in cash and shares. Ole Zuck confirmed the news on his personal blog, adding that the deal won’t affect Instagram’s integration with competing social networks:
We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.
Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom confirmed via his site’s blog that the service, “is not going away,” adding, “The Instagram app will still be the same one you know and love.” Check out some PR on the subject after the break.

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from Engadget

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From Autoblog: Video: Mythbusters tests the square wheel theory

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Mythbuster tests square wheels

The Mythbusters have finally tackled the long-unanswered question, “Why don’t cars have square wheels?”

What’s that? You’ve never wondered why? Neither have we, because it’s freaking obvious. But equally obvious is how awesome it would be to test out a square-wheeled vehicle anyway, which is exactly what the Mythbusters guys did, using an older Ford F-Series pickup.

While the full episode is not available online, you can get the gist of the segment by watching the eight clips Discovery has posted, which we’ve conveniently organized for your viewing pleasure below.

Continue reading Mythbusters tests the square wheel theory

 

from Autoblog