Media

Man allegedly put GPS on woman's car before burglary

Planning a burglary always seems to take so much time in the movies.

Joints must be cased. Hoods must be bought. Cars must be tuned to perfection and driven by people who aren't terribly clever.

One man, though, allegedly used technology to bypass some of these irritants.

As the Kansas City Star reports, Steven Alva Glaze stands accused of 14 counts of criminal damage, attempted burglary and real, actual burglary.

The owner of one of the homes believes that Glaze found a simple way of discovering if she and her son were home. He allegedly placed a GPS device … Read more

Are Apple fans really more loyal?

Having faith in other people is often as sensible as having faith that your bus will arrive on time.

People are, by their very nature, mercurial. The current world of supposed sharing often makes them more selfish, as they must spend more time considering how to present themselves publicly at all periods of the day.

It's somewhat surprising, then, that Apple still enjoys the loyalty that it does.

Wander past any Apple store and there always seems to be half the neighborhood in there.

And whenever surveys of brand loyalty are performed, Apple so very often seems to be … Read more

Undercover cops' devious new method to stop iPhone theft

If a man in a bar offers you a laptop for $70, you know it's probably stolen.

Yes, he might be wearing glasses and look a little like Bill Gates, but, please think, it's probably stolen.

Similarly, if someone tries to sell you an iPhone for a radically reduced amount, suspicion should surely be your guide.

Police in San Francisco are now using a slightly suspicious method to test your suspicions to the full.

Officers in plain clothes (which presumably means plaid shirts and 7 For Mankind jeans) are wandering around areas known to be popular for stolen … Read more

Coming soon: A Breathalyzer for pot and cocaine?

Some people drive high.

They shouldn't, but they're high, so they don't really know what's good for them and what isn't.

Should they get stopped by police, the long nose of the law can sometimes sniff the presence of marijuana in their car.

Should they happen to have nosed their way into some cocaine, there might be traces of white powder around their nostrils.

As yet, though, there hasn't been a machine that can detect the presence of such drugs on one's breath, as there is for alcohol.

Scientists in Sweden, however, believe they have made some progress in creating such a device.… Read more

AOL shuts down music-related services

It's a sad day here at @aol. We'd like to say goodbye to our colleagues at @aolmusic, @thebootdotcom, @noisecreep, @spinner and @theboombox

— AOL Radio (@AOLRadio) April 26, 2013 AOL, which tried for years to become a player in digital music with several online music services, is ending that effort on a down note.

The company is shutting down The Boot, Noisecreep, The Boombox, and Spinner, according to tweets from people involved in those operations.

We've contacted AOL for further comment and will update the post when there is more information.

Earlier, Dan Reilly, who was the editor … Read more

In new iPhone 5 ad, Apple tries to get the feeling back

You know those people who wave their iPhones about everywhere they go, in a desperate need to record every moment of their lives?

You're one of them, aren't you?

At least there's a very good chance you might be, if Apple's new iPhone ad is to be believed.

For, in an attempt to re-pluck your emotive twang-elements, the company claims that every day more people take pictures with an iPhone than with any other camera.

I am not sure how the company knows that, say, my engineer friend George doesn't take 65,000 pictures on … Read more

Twitter may soon tell you what's going on nearby, right now

If you've ever wondered what people near you are tweeting about in real-time and thought that might help you find cool things going on nearby, Twitter may soon offer exactly that feature.

According to AllThingsD, Twitter may well be working on new features that would show tweets from people near you.

"Twitter is in the process of testing a new feature that lets you discover tweets from people within a certain distance of your location," AllThingsD said it had been told by multiple sources. "The idea is to surface relevant activity based on where you are … Read more

Amazon's slim profits beat analyst expectations

Even as Amazon keeps spending to expand operations, its first quarter results, announced Monday, beat analysts' earnings expectations.

Net income dropped 37 percent to $82 million, or 18 cents a share. That still topped analyst expectations of 9 cents a share. Sales climbed 22 percent to $16.1 billion just a smidgen below consensus expectations of $16.2 billion.

The online retail giant is seemingly always in investment mode, and this quarter was no exception. The company acquired Goodreads, a social network for people who love books. It inked new deals for its Prime Instant Video service with A+E … Read more

Suicide is funny, says Hyundai ad

Can you laugh about suicide?

Can you laugh about suicide while you're trying to sell someone a car?

It seems that someone at one of Hyundai's ad agencies felt that selling a healthy car merited flogging a dead man. Or, at least, a man who wanted to be dead by his own hand.

The perfect opportunity, the agency must have thought, came with the Hyundai iX35. It has 100 percent water emissions -- nothing noxious, you see. That's a killer feature.

So they made an ad in which a man tries to commit suicide in his garage … Read more

Sunil Tripathi, falsely linked on social media to Boston bombings, found dead

Sunil Tripathi, the Brown University student falsely identified by people posting on Reddit and Twitter as a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, is dead.

The 22-year-old's body was recovered from the waters around India Point Park in Rhode Island. In a post on Facebook, Tripathi's family confirmed Tripathi's death and offered the following note:

As we carry indescribable grief, we also feel incredible gratitude. To each one of you-from our hometown to many distant lands-we extend our thanks for the words of encouragement, for your thoughts, for your hands, for your prayers, and for the love … Read more