Straight from Korea, we have a story that seems to meld all the most awful components of video game stories that hit the mainstream media: Gaming addiction, an Internet cafe, a neglectful mother, and a dead baby in a dumpster. More »
from Kotaku
From Ars Technica: AT&T to set (some) iPhones free beginning April 8
AT&T has confirmed that it will begin unlocking iPhones for qualifying customers beginning Sunday, April 8. This means that, if you have purchased an AT&T-locked iPhone and you meet AT&T’s (somewhat strict) requirements, you’ll be able to take that phone to another GSM carrier here in the US or abroad.
Engadget was first to report the anonymous information about the new policy, but AT&T was quick to confirm once the word got out. According to AT&T, the iPhone you want to unlock can’t be associated with a current active term commitment, and you must already be out of your contract terms (usually two years from purchase) or you must have paid an early termination fee. Your account must be in good standing, too—no $700 overdue phone bills for you.
Apple does sell already unlocked, contract-free iPhones that work on GSM carriers, including AT&T. But those devices cost $649 up front for the 16GB iPhone 4S, going up to $849 for the 64GB version—significantly higher than the $199 subsidized starting price when you buy from AT&T or another carrier. As such, the majority of current iPhone users in the US have carrier-locked devices, but AT&T’s latest announcement will undoubtedly help to set a few of those users free with minimal pain involved. How many of you are going to try and get your devices unlocked come April 8 so you can hop over to T-Mobile?
from Ars Technica
From Morning Edition: Aung San Suu Kyi Wins Myanmar Parliament Seat
Former political prisoner and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi won a seat in Myanmar’s parliament Sunday. Suu Kyi spent years under house arrest by the military.
from Morning Edition
From NPR News: In China’s Crime Crackdown, Claims Of Abuse
The downfall of ambitious politician Bo Xilai exposed a bitter, high-level political power struggle in China. Now, victims of his crackdown on organized crime are breaking their silence, with stories of torture and disregard for the law that reveal the campaign’s dark side.
from News
From News: Syria Accepts U.N. Plan For Peace
Finally! It’s about time!! But it’s still too early to tell…
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The plan by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan includes a cease-fire by Syrian forces, a daily two-hour halt to fighting to evacuate injured people and provide humanitarian aid and inclusive talks about a political solution. But there was no immediate end to fighting.
from News
From The UberReview: Adam Savage Describes How Credit Card Companies Shot Down RFID Episode
Uh oh… man, I don’t wanna carry around my credit cards anymore! Â At least not the ones with RFID!
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Here is something that you might not know. Mythbusters had planned to air an episode on how “hackable and trackable†RFID chips are – it never saw the light of day. What happened was this: calls were made to arrange a meeting with someone at Texas Instruments and when the meeting was scheduled to happen a bunch of legal heavies from Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover explained that showing the episode would be a really, really bad idea.
So the episode never happened and Mythbusters won’t be examining any RFID-related myths anytime soon.
I’ve got to admit that I am finding myself curious. It isn’t like the Mythbusters episode was going to show people how to defraud their credit card company – so the card companies’ objections more likely stemmed from other aspects of RFID that they might be uncomfortable with customers finding out about.
Click here to view the embedded video.
[Source]
from The UberReview
From The UberReview: FAA gives OK to space tourism from the USA for 2014
If you grew up like me, watching the Jetsons jet around in their aircrafts, commuting to work in their flying hovercars, flying them on air highways, and spend a holiday on the Moon, or Mars, or Saturn then this might jerk a tear from your eyes.
Starting in 2014, space tourism will begin to spread its wings in the United States, rocket planes and spaceships to carry passengers beyond the atmosphere, similar to the suborbital hops taken by Mercury astronauts Alan Shepard and Virgil “Gus†Grissom in 1961, are being built and tested, with commercial flight services targeted to begin in 2013 or 2014.
Another perk will be commercial flights that will take passengers from one location to another on Earth, but that will be flying at an altitude of 62 miles, allowing the passengers to experience weightlessness and giving them a view of the Earth’s curvature and of black space.
Will I go to space? Tragically not. I don’t have the physical fortitude for that kind of trip (read I’m a wimp, I can barely stand on a chair because I’m afraid of heights…) but I’m sure they’ll have plenty of customers. George Nield, associate administrator for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation also testified that they expect commercial space tourism to take up to a 1 billion $ marked within 10 years.
from The UberReview