One of Google’s Self-Driving Cars Gets into an Accident

Update: A Google representative tells us that the accident occurred while the vehicle was in manual mode, not self-driving mode, which means there is still no recorded instance of a self-driving car causing an accident.

One of Google’s famous self-driving cars has reportedly been involved in one of its first traffic accidents.

The accident occurred near Google’s Mountain View headquarters in California. According to a report from Jalopnik, the accident involved two Toyota Priuses. It looks like the Google self-driving car rear-ended the other Prius, at least from our initial assessment of a photo Jalopnik published. We’ve reached out to Google for comment.

While this is not the first accident the Google cars have been involved in (one of the cars was rear-ended by a driver), it’s the first time we’ve heard of a Google self-driving car being the cause of an accident.

Google’s self-driving cars have been on the roads for nearly a year now, mostly in California. Recently, the search giant successfully lobbied to get self-driving cars on the streets of Nevada. We’ve even been in the back of one of the vehicles, and we can attest that they can successfully maneuver through dozens of cones at speeds up to 40 miles per hour.

While Jalopnik believes that the fender-bender is proof that self-driving cars may not be in the best interests of society, we have a different take. There were 10.2 million traffic accidents in the U.S. in 2008, which results in 39,000 deaths. That’s 17.9 people per 100,000 licensed drivers. If Google self-driving cars can beat those statistics, they could actually prevent more accidents than they create. We also waste millions of hours commuting and driving through traffic; imagine if you had that time to be productive instead.

Clearly Google self-driving cars are not ready for prime time — nobody thinks they will be for years to come. However, it’s not inconceivable that the time sink that is driving will become a thing of the past, and that would be a good thing for all of society.

What do you think of Google’s self-driving cars? Are they a potential benefit to society or a disaster waiting to happen?


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Anonymous Hackers Take Down Syrian Ministry of Defense Website

Hacktivist group Anonymous has claimed responsibility for taking down the Syrian Ministry of Defense website, posting in its place a message that calls for the removal of President Bashar Al-Assad.

“To the Syrian people: The world stands with you against the brutal regime of Bashar Al-Assad,” the message begins in both English and Arabic. ” … To the Syrian military: You are responsible for protecting the Syrian people, and anyone who orders you to kill women, children, and the elderly deserves to be tried for treason. No outside enemy could do as much damage to Syria as Bashar Al-Assad has done. Defend your country — rise up against the regime!”

This message has since been removed from the still-down Ministry of Defense website, but the Anonymous Twitter account posted a link to a replica.

In April, the Syrian government launched a series of crackdowns on protesters. By the count of some human rights groups, The New York Times reports, more than 2,000 people have been killed since then. Links on the top of the Anonymous message lead to YouTube videos that illustrate the unrest.

Anonymous frequently expresses its opinion through cyberattacks. It is best known for attacks on the websites of the Church of Scientology and those who spoke against or stopped doing business with WikiLeaks. The loosely affiliated group has also claimed responsibility for politically motivated attacks on government websites in Turkey, Egypt and Yemen.

more at Mashable

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Facebook Use May Lead to Psychological Disorders in Teens [STUDY]

Increasing research on social media’s effects on human interaction has revealed the development of antisocial behavior, narcissism and a slew of other character flaws and negative by-products.

Overdosing on Facebook may lead to the development of such psychological disorders in teens, according to a recent study conducted by Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University.

In a presentation titled “Poke Me: How Social Networks Can Both Help and Harm Our Kids” at the 119th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Rosen presented his findings based on a number of computer-based surveys distributed to 1,000 urban adolescents and his 15-minute observations of 300 teens in the act of studying.

Some of the negative side effects of Facebook use for teens that Rosen cited include:

• Development of narcissism in teens who often use Facebook;
• Presence of other psychological disorders, including antisocial behaviors, mania and aggressive tendencies, in teens who have a strong Facebook presence;
• Increased absence from school and likelihood of developing stomach aches, sleeping problems, anxiety and depression, in teens who “overdose” in technology on a daily basis, including Facebook and video games;
• Lower grades for middle school, high school and college students who checked Facebook at least once during a 15-minute study period;
• Lower reading retention rates for students who most frequently had Facebook open on their computers during the 15-minute study period.
• Not all findings were negative, however — one of the more interesting points from Rosen’s research was the development of “virtual empathy.”

Generally, we think of empathy as an in-person activity, where hugs, facial expressions and kind words help improve a loved one’s mood. Rosen says that teens are developing the ability to show virtual empathy for distressed Facebook friends and that the empathy is actually well-received by friends, positively influencing their mood.

This virtual empathy, he says, can even spill over into the real world, teaching teens how to empathize with others in everyday life.


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Friends with Benefits Movie Trailer (2011)

While trying to avoid the clichés of Hollywood romantic comedies, Dylan and Jamie soon discover however that adding the act of sex to their friendship does lead to complications.

Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake are so damn HOT! boy this is the real deal, and it looks so much sexier than "No Strings Attached".
Well, you probably could have guessed the plot: A relationship between two friends gets complicated when they decide to get romantic (read: have sex like animals...)

Coming to theatres on July 22, 2011
Starring: Mila Kunis, Justin Timberlake, Patricia Clarkson, Rashida Jones, Woody Harrelson, Jenna Elfman, Andy Samberg

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Computer Vision Syndrome: Do Your Eyes Have It? Here’s Help

Feeling bleary-eyed after a long day in front of your various screens? Here’s an infographic full of tips and techniques to ease your eyes into the digital world, showing you ways to cope with staring into screens all day.

If that’s not enough, the infographic gives you a peek at present and future tech that will make your eyes positively bionic, as well as new devices doctors are now using to diagnose eye problems much more efficiently than ever.

This must be getting bad — Those Acronym-Making People (TAMP — okay, I made that one up) have created one for the eye health problems that ensue after staring at screens for an average of six hours per day: CVS, or Computer Vision Syndrome:

Infographic created by Mezzmer Eyeglasses

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That Internet Explorer "IQ test" was a hoax

Summary: Last week dozens of tech publications and mainstream news outlets unquestioningly printed the results of a study purporting to show that Internet Explorer users have lower IQs than those who use other browsers. It was a hoax. But the “study” made a telling point about journalism.

See update at end of story, with confirmation from original source that it was indeed a hoax, and a list of 8 tell-tale signs that every journalist who ran with this story missed.

Remember the story last week about a Canadian research firm that supposedly performed online IQ tests and concluded that Internet Explorer users had lower IQs than those using other browsers?

If you fell for it, you might want to go run some tests of your own. A new investigation by the BBC (which initially fell for the story) concludes that the site and the test results were bogus.

Questions about the authenticity of the story were raised by readers of the BBC website who established that the company which put out the research - ApTiquant - appeared to have only set up its website in the past month.

Thumbnail images of the firm’s staff on the website also matched those on the site of French research company Central Test, although many of the names had been changed.

The BBC contacted Central Test who confirmed that they had been made aware of the copy but had no knowledge of ApTiquant or its activities.

The Beeb was unable to reach representatives of the so-called research firm, and third-party experts who looked at the data agreed it was suspicious.

Meanwhile, high-profile tech and news sites, including Business Insider, The Register, CNN, Mashable, the Seattle PI, and even our own Adrian Kingsley-Hughes at ZDNet unquestioningly reported the “news” and reprinted the bogus chart. It made the front page of Techmeme for a while:

 

A few sources were skeptical. Todd Bishop at Geekwire ran a summary of the “study” along with the chart, but headlined it “The Internet Explorer IQ test: Come on, we’re not that dumb” and noted a glaring typo in the report. He also put up this red flag:

I did attempt to contact AptiQuant for more details on this threatened lawsuit, but its online contact form repeatedly responded with an error when I tried to submit my message.

Yes, I happened to be using Internet Explorer. But for the record, the form didn’t work in Opera, either.

When I read the report and watched as it was unquestioningly amplified through the Internet echo chamber, I simply rolled my eyes and noted via Twitter:

But perhaps it was a test after all. If you follow any publications that wrote this story up last week and haven’t yet corrected it, you might ask them where they send their journalists for training.

ZDNet’s Zack Whittaker, a trained researcher, also covers the news, noting that crunching the test data from a population of more than 100,000 users is an extraordinarily difficult task and concluding, in understated fashion, “Not all research is as accurate or as empirical as others.”

Thanks to Paul Thurrott for the pointer.

Update August 3, 10:45AM: AptiQuant, the fake research company that posted this bizarre study, admits it was indeed a hoax, calling it a “lighthearted joke” that got out of hand. In a follow-up post, they also have some unsparing criticisms for the sloppy journalists that fell for this gag: Tell-Tale signs that should have uncovered the hoax in less than 5 minutes!

The list notes that the press release had a phony address and that the phone number listed as a press contact is also listed on the site owner’s other properties, including the shopping site (AtCheap.com) that it was designed to promote, and which is linked in the site’s footer.


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Facebook Vs. Shagbook: Social Network in Trademark Dispute with Adult Dating Site

In an eyebrow-raising trademark battle, Facebook filed suit against adult dating site Shagbook in May. Facebook’s contention: that the world’s largest social network would be “damaged by the issuance of a registration for the mark Shagbook.”

Shagbook has now filed its own opposition, along with counterclaims, with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

As represented by SNRG Ventures, Shagbook, in the filing, “denies the allegation that Facebook is highly distinctive as it is a generic term.” It also challenges the validity of Facebook’s trademark, arguing that it should never have been granted.

Shagbook, in Facebook’s reasoning, is in violation of Facebook’s trademark because the site’s name is highly similar in “appearance, sound meaning, and commercial impression.” Its filing says the name was adopted with “the intent to call to mind and create a likelihood of confusion … and/or trade off the fame of Facebook.”

Not so, says Shagbook. When its American owner was living in the UK, he “referred to his little black book as his little ‘Shagbook’,” a representative for SNRG Ventures told Mashable. “He was amused with the word ‘shag,’ and picked up the name Shagbook.com, all perfectly innocently,”

Just how far will Shagbook go to fight Facebook’s trademark suit? “SNRG and Facebook’s attorneys have spoken but there have been no formal negotiations as of yet,” the representative tells us. “SNRG plans to vigorously defend the Shagbook mark.”

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This isn’t the first instance of Facebook attempting to protect its mark. The social network has made several prior trademark claims against web companies using “face” or “book” in their names.

The full text of Facebook’s original filing against Shagbook, and Shagbook’s counter are included below.

Facebook vs. Shagbook



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ICloud.com Goes Live, Betas and Price Plans Revealed

Apple’s iCloud.com Web site has gone live, allowing developers to test out the online version of MobileMe’s replacement. At the same time, beta versions of the iWork suite for iOS and iPhoto have also been made available. And inevitably, many details have already leaked to the web.

ICloud is Apple’s new “sync” service. When you create or edit a photo or document on your iPhone, iPad, Mac or Windows PC, it is automatically pushed to any other device you have chosen. Thus, you can snap photos on your iPhone and have them ready to edit on your iPad in seconds, along with a safe backup on your home Mac.

The iCloud.com site is the online home for your data. There’s a calendar, an address book, a mail web app, access to the Find My iPhone service and a new section called “iWork.” These all look a lot like their iOS counterparts, right down to the icons. This is no surprise, as even the awful MobileMe used a very iPad-like interface for its Mail web app.

Most interesting are the online versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Posted screenshots show that there is no editing or even viewing functionality yet. Visitors are told instead to launch the apps on their iOS device and switch on iCloud. Perhaps there will never be a way to view your documents on the web, or maybe it will be added before the official launch.

Right now there doesn’t seem to be any way to view your photos at iCloud.com.

Windows users needn’t feel left out, either. Also available is the iCloud Control Panel for Windows (beta 3), which lets you configure iCloud on the PC. Photo Stream, contacts and calendars are supported, and presumably iWork documents might somehow be wrangled to open on the PC, too.

Cloud backup is also working in devices running the latest iOS 5 beta. You can choose to back up your camera roll (photos actually taken with the device), accounts, documents and settings to iCloud automatically whenever the iDevice is plugged in to power. This is essential for anyone using an iPad as their main machine, and not tied to a computer with iTunes.

ICloud is free, and comes with 5GB storage. You can also pay for more. $20 per year will buy you 10GB storage, $40 will get you 50GB and for $100 you will get 50GB. But before you rush out and spend the extra, remember that iCloud’s storage quota doesn’t include your photos, your iTunes music, you apps or your purchased books. In fact, 5GB looks like more than enough for most people. Extra storage can be purchased from within the iCloud settings app on your iOS device.

The iCloud service will launch to the public along with iOS 5, some time in September.

iCloud.com [Apple]


more at Wired

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Alleged Miley Cyrus Hacker Pleads Guilty to Spamming From Hacked Celebrity Accounts

A hacker who boasted that he was responsible for stealing and posting provocative pictures stolen from Miley Cyrus’ Gmail account pleaded guilty on Monday to other charges involving credit card fraud and hacking.

Josh Holly, 21, pleaded guilty to possessing about 200 stolen credit card numbers, and to breaching celebrity MySpace pages in a spamming scheme that earned him at least $100,000.

Holly has never been charged with hacking Cyrus’s e-mail account, but after bragging online about this and other activity, and taunting authorities that they would never find him, his apartment in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, was raided in October 2007, at which point authorities found evidence of the cards and spamming scheme.

Holly, who went by the screen names “TrainReq,” “Rockz” and “h4x,” told Threat Level in 2008 that he had gained access to a Gmail account Cyrus had used (messagemebaby@gmail.com) and found images the Hannah Montana actress had purportedly sent to singer Nick Jonas of the Jonas Brothers.

Holly claimed that he tried to sell the pictures to TMZ.com and other celebrity outlets, but no one would buy them, given the illegal manner by which he’d obtained them. He then posted some of them online at digitalgangster.com, after which numerous gossip and celebrity websites published them for free. More photos followed thereafter.

The images showed the then-15-year-old Cyrus in a wet T-shirt in the shower, baring her midriff while blowing a kiss to a mirror, and posing seductively in her underwear and bathing suit.

Holly told Threat Level he got access to Cyrus’s Gmail account after obtaining unauthorized access to a MySpace administrative panel where he found passwords for MySpace accounts stored in cleartext. Holly said he obtained access to the administrative panel by social engineering a MySpace employee. Once inside the panel, he found the password Cyrus used for her MySpace account — Loco92 — and tried it on a Gmail account she was known to use.

In addition to stealing Cyrus’s password, he reset MySpace account passwords for a number of other celebrity MySpace users, then used their accounts for a spamming scheme that he said netted him about $50,000.

According to an affidavit (.pdf), Holly admitted to the FBI that beginning in 2005 he had hijacked numerous celebrity internet accounts to conduct spamming. An investigation of his bank records showed that between November 2007 and July 2008, he received more than $110,000 from companies for spamming on their behalf. Holly told Threat Level that half of his illicit income went to an accomplice in Israel who used the online nickname elul21 (Elul is the Hebrew name of a month on the Jewish calendar).

Holly also said that the celebrity MySpace accounts he accessed to conduct his spamming activity belonged mainly to recording artists and groups — Chris Brown, Rihanna, Linkin Park, Fall Out Boy. He accessed about 20 accounts. Once he had passwords to the accounts, he used the accounts to send bulletins to all of the friends on the MySpace accounts advertising a ringtone or call service for the recording artist. For example, he’d send out a bulletin from Fall Out Boy’s MySpace account telling fans that the band would call their phone and send them a ringtone if they clicked on a link and entered their details.

Holly said the advertising affiliates he worked for paid him between $5 and $12 per person who responded to the ad. The affiliates didn’t know he was spamming customers, he said, and when they found out they terminated their work with him and refused to pay him outstanding earnings.

Asked at the time charges were filed against him if he was concerned about the repercussions of his actions, he replied, “There’s no way I can get out of this at all. Not even OJ’s lawyers or Michael Jackson’s lawyers can get me out of this. To be blunt, I was an idiot and I didn’t delete any of my [hard drives]. I never thought they would raid me. They’re going to get full proof evidence of everything that I’ve said I’ve done.”

Holly’s sentencing hearing is set for October 31


Photo: Mug shot of Josh Holly courtesy of The Smoking Gun


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