Posts Tagged ‘credit’

An absurdist joke is spreading across Twitter in a viral pattern. No one has control, no one is safe, and after two days, the contagion is still growing. The virus will likely hit your stream soon if it hasn’t already, but it’s not so easy to spot — it looks like any other normal tweet. “Wow,” it reads, with a link.

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‘Wow’ all the way down: Donald Trump sparks Twitter’s latest weird meme

Best Buy is offering 20 percent off its entire range of iTunes gift cards in a one-day online deal . The cards are available in $15, $25, $50, and $100 denominations, which now range between $12 and $80 in price, with the retailer also providing an integrated pack of three $10 cards. While 20 percent reductions certainly aren’t unprecedented — as 9to5Mac points out , Walmart offers a similar deal on email-redeemable $50 cards — it’s rare to see such a comprehensive offer, extending right down to the lower end of the spectrum.

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Good deal: 20 percent off all iTunes gift cards at Best Buy

There seems to be no shortage of uses for the credit card-sized Raspberry Pi , whether it’s running Android , being hooked up to your DSLR , or stuffed inside its spiritual forebear, the Commodore 64 . Now one hardware project is looking to add “synth” to the customizable $25 microcomputer’s rapidly-expanding repertoire. The Raspberry Pi synth , called “Piana,” seems to signal that wonderful things are in store for musically-inclined owners of the hard-to-get machine, similar to what we’ve already seen from the Pi’s pricier microcontroller cousin, the Arduino . The project’s blog demonstrates some rich polyphonic sounds and an impressive assortment of patch controls for shaping waveforms at your whim. The software is still in its early..

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Watch this: the $25 Raspberry Pi turns into a synth

While most smartphones attempt to attract consumers by adding more and more features, OwnFone’s biggest appeal is its distinct lack of options — it can make phone calls and that’s about it. Not only that, but the credit card-sized device is also designed to only call the most important people in your life. Before purchasing you’ll need to pick up to 12 different contacts, and the phone will then ship with buttons dedicated to each number.

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OwnPhone will only let you call the people most important to you

Reporter Mat Honan fell victim to a multipronged attack by hackers this past weekend, and he’s just published an exhaustive piece at Wired detailing the incident. Targeted simply because of his short, desirable Twitter handle, ultimately the perpetrators needed only Honan’s Apple ID email address, billing address, and the last four digits of his credit card to wreak havoc on his digital life. But how they managed to obtain that sensitive information is easily the most worrisome aspect of this unfortunate story. By taking advantage of alarmingly relaxed security policies at Apple and Amazon, hackers were able to breach Honan’s Twitter, Google, and iCloud accounts. They remotely wiped all content stored on his iPhone, iPad, and MacBook..

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The inside story of how hackers destroyed Mat Honan’s digital life

As a child, the ice cream truck never swings around the block right when you want it to. On-demand sedan service app Uber wants to alleviate your frustration, if only for a day, and only if you’re in Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, or Washington DC. Uber partnered up with ice cream trucks in these cities and is delivering ice cream straight to wherever you are via its mobile app. The deal is $12 for five ice creams, and if you’re in New York, that means five delectable sandwiches from Coolhaus .

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Uber’s on-demand ice cream truck visits The Verge

Amazon’s trade-in program is a great way to unload old DVDs or a tablet you don’t need anymore , and soon you’ll be able to use it to get rid of used CDs as well. The program lets you trade used items — which currently includes electronics, books, DVDs, Blu-rays, and video games — in exchange for Amazon gift cards, though you’ll need to ship the items to Amazon yourself. The CD selling feature isn’t available just yet, but The Next Web reports that the update should be available “very shortly” — the question is how much Amazon will be offering for the discs. In an age where digital services (including Amazon’s own MP3 store) sell music for cheap, we can’t imagine the retailer will be spending too much on aging discs with little… Continue reading…

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Amazon adds used CDs to trade-in program

Nokia has just confirmed the data connection problems that some early buyers (and reviewers like ourselves) have seen on the Lumia 900 , describing it as a “memory management” issue. That’s the bad news; the good news, however, is that the company claims that it’s strictly a software bug, not a hardware issue or a problem with AT&T’s LTE network. New phones with updated software are apparently already on their way to stores — Nokia expects them to arrive within a couple days — and if you don’t want to exchange yours for a new one, you’ll be able to update your current device using the Zune client on or around next Monday, April 16th. Regardless, anyone buying a Lumia 900 between launch and midnight on April 21st will qualify for a…

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Nokia confirms Lumia 900 data problem, offering exchanges and $100 credit; firmware update around April 16th

jfruh writes “When tech geeks debate the state of the smartphone world, they usually focus on the iPhone and its high-end Android rivals from the major carriers. But Android is rapidly entering the lower-end world of contractless prepaid phones that you can buy at 7-11 or Wal-Mart. 63 percent of prepaid phones sold in 2011 were smartphones, and while they might not offer cutting-edge hardware or easy customization, they do provide a smartphone experience without an onerous contract.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Smartphones Invade the Prepaid Market

PayPal has more than just a digital wallet system for consumers planned. As rumored , today president and CEO John Donahoe has unveiled a small dongle that can be used to accept credit card payments to compete directly with Square, called “PayPal Here.” The reader, a large blue triangle that snaps on to the top of an iPhone via the headphone jack, can apparently be used both online and offline. The design includes a “wing” on a hinge to “stabilize” the reader on the phone when swiping a card. It uses a new app called “PayPal Here,” in which a merchant needs to only punch in an amount. The merchant then hands the phone to the customer, who can tip and sign, and then request the method he or she would like to use for getting a receipt

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PayPal unveils ‘Paypal Here’ Square competitor for mobile payment

ISIS Mobile Wallet is the official name of the mobile payment system app that was announced by a joint agreement between major US credit card companies MasterCard, Visa, and American Express, and three major US carriers — T-Mobile , AT&T, and Verizon . The company recently also announced a lineup of banking partners which includes Barclays, Chase, and Capital One, bringing the whole system sharply into focus: ISIS has the capability to be a formidable contender in the mobile payment game. While ISIS isn’t completely forthcoming on its launch plans, the first two markets it will come to are Salt Lake City, Utah, and Austin, Texas, sometime this summer. Incidentally, Austin, Texas is where we are right this very minute, and we stopped by… Continue reading…

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ISIS Mobile Wallet hands-on at SXSW

Released today by Hard Case Crime books: The Comedy is Finished, by the late Donald E. Westlake. Book description: The year is 1977, and America is finally getting over the nightmares of Watergate and Vietnam and the national hangover that was the 1960s.

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Donald E. Westlake’s lost novel: The Comedy is Finished – exclusive Boing Boing excerpt

Although Valve says there’s still no evidence that the Steam hack last November compromised passwords or credit card data, it looks like the intruders may have more information than we previously believed. Director Gabe Newell has admitted that it’s “probable” the hacker or hackers obtained a backup copy of a file with information about Steam transactions between 2004 and 2008, including user names, email addresses, encrypted billing addresses, and encrypted credit card information. Newell also said that Valve is in the process of working with law enforcement and “outside security experts” to determine the full extent of the intrusion.

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Valve says Steam hacker probably has data from old transactions

The security of the PIN that protects Google Wallet transactions has been compromised — though most users won’t need to worry about the issue for now, as it only applies to users who have rooted their Android smartphone. The key issue is that the PIN is stored on the device itself instead of in the secure NFC element, although it is in an encrypted format. That means that if your Android smartphone is rooted, if somebody takes your phone, he or she will be able to access to the encrypted file that stores your PIN. From there, it’s a relatively simple matter of running a program that uses a brute force method to guess your PIN.

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Google Wallet PIN cracked on rooted Android devices

The Jamesburg Earth Station in Carmel Valley, California made headlines earlier in the year when its owner decided to sell the place for $2,950,000. Now The Atlantic has delved a little deeper to see just what it’s like at the bomb-proof facility described by some as a ” great place for armageddon .” Located not far from a trailer park, the station, which helped transmit some of the first images from the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, has since been gutted of its now-obsolete tech by current owner Jeffrey Bullis. 26 dumpsters worth of stuff has been removed from the building.

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What’s inside a decommissioned, bomb-proof Earth station?

Google has just announced that it’ll be updating its privacy policy and terms of service across its entire range of products and services on March 1st. The company says that it has made the changes in order to streamline its legal documents and to help it offer better services that integrate with each other well. In a post on its official blog, the company says it has removed 60 out of over 70 privacy notices and consolidated them into one main privacy policy. The update comes after some complaints and accusations that Google has been unfairly promoting search results, especially in regards to the recent integration of Google+ results in the new “Search, plus Your World” feature

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Google to streamline privacy policies and terms of service across all services on March 1st

In my latest Guardian column, “The internet is the best place for dissent to start,” I look at Ethan Zuckerman’s recent talk on the Internet and human rights, and the way that cute cats create the positive externality of a place for dissent to begin and flourish, and look at the problems this causes: Zuckerman’s

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Can we get cat-sharing sites to harden themselves against Iran’s secret police?

On the CBC Ideas podcast, a lecture by Ethan Zuckerman on the connection between LOLcats, Internet activism and the Arab Spring: In the 2011 Vancouver Human Rights Lecture, Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, looks at the “cute cat” theory of internet activism, and how it helps explain the Arab

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LOLcats and the Arab Spring – human rights and the Internet

You know how everybody loved that Bank of America monthly debit card fee thing? Or that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you pay Ticketmaster to let you print something out on your computer? Well, Verizon is apparently looking to get in on some of that feel-good action. According to Droid Life ‘s sources, it appears that Verizon Wireless is looking to add a $2.00 “convenience fee” to bills paid online or over its automatic phone payment system.

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Verizon might add $2.00 ‘convenience’ charge for you to pay your bill

You know how everybody loved that Bank of America monthly debit card fee thing? Or that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you pay Ticketmaster to let you print something out on your computer? Well, Verizon is apparently looking to get in on some of that feel-good action. According to Droid Life ‘s sources, it appears that Verizon Wireless is looking to add a $2.00 “convenience fee” to bills paid online or over its automatic phone payment system. There are a number of still-free workarounds, including mailing an old fashioned check, or Verizon’s obvious favorite: AutoPayment, but this seems a bit like a bait and switch after all the work everybody did to get away from paper billing in the first place

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Verizon might add $2 ‘convenience’ charge for you to pay your bill

Batman, he’s a popular fellow, isn’t he? Christopher Nolan’s trilogy of Batman movies for the 21st century is about to wrap up next summer with The Dark Knight Rises , whose latest video teaser managed to tally up 12.5 million downloads from Apple’s iTunes trailer site and iOS app in its first 24 hours of being there. That’s a new record for the entertainment distribution service by a clear two million, but is still only part of the overall story. A quick browse through YouTube shows various uploads of the DKR trailer with millions of views attached to them

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‘The Dark Knight Rises’ trailer breaks iTunes download record: 12.5 million in 24 hours

Kickstarter is funding an era of product development uncompromised by focus groups and committees The million dollar idea. We’ve all had it at one time or another, with very few luxuries to show for our sudden fits of brilliance. Unfortunately, it’s not the idea but its execution that yields rewards. Faced with the daunting prospect of applying for a bank loan or seeking private investors, most would-be inventors wither against the obstacles, shrinking into the comfort and stability of their nine-to-five lives and disappearing into what T

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Kickstarted: How one company is revolutionizing product development

Apple’s “Think Different” ad campaign was recently resurrected as a somber requiem to Steve Jobs following his death in October. In particular, the 60-second Here’s to the Crazy Ones spot narrated by Jobs himself took on the tone of a eulogy when viewed in retrospect, some 14 years after the original aired with a Richard Dreyfus voiceover. Walter Isaacson wrote about the evolution of the media blitz in his authorized biography  Steve Jobs , attributing much of the celebrated Crazy Ones script to Jobs himself. However, that’s not the truth according to Rob Siltanen’s account in Forbes : “How do I know what took place? I was there—right in the thick of it

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Steve Jobs was not the mastermind behind ‘Here’s to the Crazy Ones,’ says Rob Siltanen

Quinn Norton continues her excellent Wired coverage of the Occupy movement around America, reporting today from Boston, where a court has ruled that the tent-city at Dewey Park is a form of “protected symbolic expression.” But in order to capitalize on this, Boston’s Occupiers have to swear an oath to abide by the ultimate decision

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Court: OccupyBoston can stay, but has to appoint mediators and abide by final ruling

In a 2007 ComicMix article, Glenn Hauman recounts the bizarre story of “Letitia Lerner, Superman’s Babysitter,” a comic story by Kyle Baker with Liz Glass that was spiked by DC Comics publisher and president Paul Levitz, who ordered the whole run of Elseworlds 80 Page Giant #1 spiked. The early shipments to Europe survived, though,

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How comics downloading was born, a Streisand effect tale with a twist