Geek Gestalt

Burning Man tackling community fury in ticket snafu

Burning Man organizers are scrambling to quiet a loud and angry response to its recent ticket lottery, a drawing that resulted in less than a quarter of its most ardent community members getting selected.

And while the organization behind the countercultural arts festival that's held annually in Nevada's Black Rock Desert didn't offer any specific solutions to upset members of the Burning Man community, they did say they are looking for ways to ensure that most artists and others involved in "key" projects will be ensured of being able to attend.

The problem arose after Burning Man--which more

Path shares photos--oh, and uploads your contacts, too

The popular photo sharing service Path is deep in the weeds today after a blogger revealed that the company's app automatically uploads iPhone users' entire address books to its servers.

In a blog post, a developer named Arun Thampi said that he discovered that his "entire address book (including full names, emails, and phone numbers) was being sent...to Path." And while he also wrote that he wasn't accusing Path of doing anything "nefarious," he noted that the service had never asked for his permission to upload something as sensitive as his contacts.

In a response to Thampi'more

Anonymous targets Oakland city officials

Oakland city officials, meet Anonymous.

In response to what it claims is a series of community-busting moves by the California city's leaders and police, such as Occupy Oakland-related arrests and crackdowns, budget cutting and school, park, and library closings unaccompanied by City Hall salary cuts, the hacktivist group today released a document containing personal data on a number of officials.

"Anonymous has been watching," the group wrote on Facebook. "Since the inception of Occupy Oakland, we have been actively monitoring your behavior and exposing the identities and sensitive information of Officers of the Oakland Police Department; as they have more

Vintage military planes fly high in art exhibit

If there's one medium that you wouldn't expect to see get taken on by graffiti and other contemporary artists, it's military airplanes.

But thanks to the folks behind the Round Trip: Art from the Boneyard Project exhibition, now on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Ariz., visitors can see just that.

Although only five full airplanes have been painted--out of dozens in the museum's full collection--the show also includes two cockpits and a large group of airplane sections, all reimagined with an artist's flair. The exhibition, which runs through May 31, "resurrects more

Did Opie & Anthony cross line in Tom Green Twitter controversy?

Can radio hosts be held accountable for the behavior of their listeners?

It started as a slowly percolating and largely private dispute over the ownership of the @TomGreen Twitter handle between two people named Tom Green--one a Toronto college professor who grabbed that account ID, and the other a celebrity comedian who was too late to get it. It exploded into a sewer-full of insulting, obscene, and even threatening tweets sent to the teacher.

And now the professor wants the radio hosts who may have inspired their listeners to send the offending tweets to take responsibility for what happened to more

Is Bleacher Report ready for some football?

SAN FRANCISCO--The Super Bowl takes place in just over 72 hours, and Brian Grey and his lieutenants are trying to plan what is by far their most important day of the year.

Grey is the CEO of Bleacher Report, one of the largest sports Web sites in the U.S., and a place nearly 26 million people visited in January for the latest insights into their favorite teams.

Unlike many sports publications, Bleacher Report doesn't concentrate on breaking news with a team of paid writers. Instead, it relies on sports enthusiasts around the country and the world who are more

Social video sharing app ShowYou goes deep with v3.0

ShowYou, a social video sharing tool that Apple called one of the top social-networking iPad apps of 2011, is letting its users go deeper.

First launched last April, ShowYou is sort of like Flipboard for video. Users see a grid of aggregated videos from sources like YouTube, Vimeo, and many others that have been shared by their friends on services like Twitter and Facebook.

Although the service is also available on the iPhone, its real value is on Apple's tablet, where users can easily scroll through an attractive grid of the latest and greatest videos making their way around more

Rumgr is the iPhone app Craigslist should have built

There's something fun about rummaging through garage sales, but what if you could see what people are selling near you before spending the time driving all around your neighborhood?

Starting today, Rumgr, which has been in beta and attracting a small but loyal following in its home base of Las Vegas, is hoping to help with that problem. The company, which was founded by former Zappos employees Dylan Bathurst, Ray Morgan, and Alex Coleman, has released the second version of its iPhone app, a tool that lets buyers see what is being sold near where they are right now more

Zite inks Intel as first major sponsor

Zite, a leading news aggregator app for iPad and iPhone, says it has struck its first section sponsorship deal--with Intel.

According to Zite CEO Mark Johnson, the chipmaker will sponsor the aggregator's technology section. In addition to seeing an Intel logo in the section banner (on the iPad), Zite users will see occasional sponsored content from Intel's MyLifeScoop site interspersed with the app's standard selection of articles from a wide variety of publications. The sponsorship is expected to last three months.

Although Zite has an existing pact in which women's sports apparel maker Lululemon Athletica creates more