San Francisco – Your computer, your phone, and your other digital devices hold vast amounts of personal information about you and your family. Can police officers enter your home to search your laptop? Do you have to give law enforcement officials your encryption keys or passwords? If you are pulled over when driving, can the officer search your cell phone?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has answers to these questions in our new “Know Your Digital Rights” guide, including easy-to-understand tips on interacting with police officers and other law enforcement officials.
MySpace was sold today for only $35 million. Adding insult to injury, the sale price is mostly stocks and Burger King coupons.
News Corp. has sold struggling social networking site MySpace for $35 million, mostly in stock, according to a person familiar with the matter. The deal values MySpace at a fraction of what News Corp. paid for the site six years ago.
The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion, according to a former Pentagon official.
That’s more than NASA’s budget. It’s more than BP has paid so far for damage during the Gulf oil spill. It’s what the G-8 has pledged to help foster new democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.
Video games have eaten a lot of crap over the years. At best they’ve been perceived as mindless time-wasters, at worst an anti-social activity that could lead to aggression and violent outbursts. Now as society finds itself trying to deal with an aging population and an ailing education system in need of major reformation, video games have become the media’s sweetheart, now being praised for their utility in areas other than “mindless fun”.
What’s the price of gasoline? In the U.S. it’s about $4 a gallon. But some experts say the true price of gas is much higher. What about the costs of pollution, and the global and local problems caused by it? Who pays for those? This animated feature from the Center for Investigative Reporting calculates the carbon footprint and other “external costs” of gasoline use in the U.S.
Wow, just Wow….I never even thought of the power consumption of cable boxes and DVR’s, just sitting there doing seemingly nothing. The luxury of being ready to record your favorite shows is actually costing your household a fair chunk of change.
Although a DVR could be made to spin down the drive and underclock the processor when not in use, a big chunk of power will still be consumed.
