This is our 2nd Obama-related post of the day, but hey: it’s not everyday you see the American president sign an iPad, right? Sylvester Cann (the dude holding the iPad) writes: At a rally in Seattle at the University of Washington, the President signed his autograph on my iPad using the Adobe Ideas app. Generally, the President doesn’t sign autographs along the ropeline because pens can be used as a weapon, so I thought I would try to hand him my iPad with a message on it saying, “Mr. President, sign my iPad”. He looked at it for a second and then used his left hand to sign. It [...]

Continue Reading...

For decades boys and girls have dreamed of becoming astronauts when they grow up. Now young assembly-line robots and claw vending machines can share the same dream with news that NASA plans to send Robonaut 2 (R2) into space. R2 will be the first human-like robot in space when it is launched on the space shuttle Discovery later this year to become a permanent resident of the International Space Station (ISS). Developed jointly by NASA and General Motors (GM) under a cooperative agreement to develop a robotic assistant that can work alongside humans the 300-pound R2 consists of a head and [...]

Continue Reading...

“Hate Man,” a homeless fellow who lives on Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue, wears cast-off women’s clothing, and eats out of garbage cans (because “It’s free [and it] makes your immune system strong”), once worked as a reporter for the New York Times. Actually, he wrote at the Times from 1961 to 1970, nearly an entire decade. Back then, he was known as Mark Hawthorne. Why the identity change? Snip from his interview with Kevin Fagan at the San Francisco Chronicle: Q: You require people to say “I hate you” before you begin a conversation. Do you [...]

Continue Reading...

Ralph Baer, ‘the father of videogames’, has been inducted into America’s National Inventors Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the United States Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. this week Baer began work on the prototype for the first home videogame machine back in 1966, which can still be seen to this day at the Smithsonian Institution. Magnavox Odyssey The videogaming pioneer then sold his invention to Magnavox, and it was later commercially released as the Odyssey in 1972. Baer’s other gaming inventions include the light gun and the popular 1980′s call-and-response [...]

Continue Reading...

Most people are pretty good at guessing which cities rank highest in crime. But, how well does your hometown do when it comes to cybercrime? When I think about criminals, I think about shady characters lurking in dark alleys. Turns out, cybercriminals might be hanging out at the original Starbucks in Seattle. According to a new report by online security giant Symantec, creator of Norton, Seattle ranked number one, by a huge margin as the riskiest online city, followed by Boston, Washington DC, and San Francisco. Not exactly cities you imagine to be hotbeds of criminal activity. The report looked [...]

Continue Reading...

WASHINGTON: US First Lady Michelle Obama usually attracts media due to her style and other unique activities and now she again is being focussed by newsmen. Michelle Obama showed off some fancy footwork while promoting her “Let”s Move” anti-obesity campaign on a football pitch in Washington. The US First Lady took to the ground with a group of children at a football clinic to encourage youngsters to exercise daily for at least an hour. “We”re determined to finally take on one of the most serious threats to their future, and that”s the epidemic of childhood obesity [...]

Continue Reading...

A 14-year-old boy in the US has been arrested for sending naked pics of his ex-girlfriend to friends. The boy and two of his friends have been arrested by police in Washington after they were discovered as the source of the mass text. The 13-year-old girl’s image was forwarded to multiple pupils in three separate schools, and the boy has since been arrested. Facing charges He could be convicted on child pornography charges, despite being only 14 years old himself, which would lead to a one-month jail sentence. It’s as yet unclear whether the boy will be charged with the offence, but [...]

Continue Reading...

US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton warned Beijing that its alleged attack on Google would have “consequences” and compared China’s current censorship of the internet to the days of eastern European communism and the Berlin Wall. In turn Chinese government officials criticised Mrs Clinton this week, accusing America of “information imperialism” in its critique of the country’s online restrictions to information. State-sponsored news The Chinese state-sponsored English-language newspaper the Global Times, said in a recent report that information from the [...]

Continue Reading...

Just about two years ago, we wrote about Google giving away free voicemail accounts to homeless people in San Francisco. While a very nice thing to do, it was also a bit of marketing genius by both Google and SF mayor Gavin Newsom. After all, they were getting great publicity for giving away something that was already free (GrandCentral — which is now known as Google Voice). We wondered if they wouldn’t pull the same stunt in the future. Well, it’s the future; and they are. Again, this is actually a very nice thing they’re doing, but it’s also an ingenious way to promote [...]

Continue Reading...

San Francisco hasn’t heard much from ZocDoc since its TechCrunch40 debut in 2007, but that changes next week. The site, which allows people to quickly see local doctors’ availability and make an appointment with just a few clicks, is finally launching in San Francisco on Monday. So far ZocDoc has been focused on New York and Washington DC, growing users and new doctors by double digits, month-over-month since inception. Last month some 110,000 patients used the site to make appointments. The company decided it was time for a third city, opening it up to an online vote and San Francisco won [...]

Continue Reading...