After overindulging in berries, flocks of cedar waxwings flew drunkenly to their doom. That's the conclusion of a new report in the Journal of Ornithology. Cedar waxwings have evolved to live on a diet that averages 84 per cent fruit. But those evolutionary innovations backfired on several occasions between 2005 and 2007 when flocks of them died after crashing into windows and fences in broad daylight in the Los Angeles area. Residents puzzled by the deaths sent the bodies to the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory in San Bernardino. Necropsies performed by Hailu Kinde and colleagues at the lab showed the birds had been healthy when they gorged on berries from the Brazilian pepper tree, then died from ruptured livers or other traumas ... Continue reading →
Background: I'm a programmer-turned-reporter. I cover the kinds of privacy topics that make you an evangelist for IPsec, full-disk encryption, and TEMPEST shielding. I spent a decade in Washington, D.C. and now live in the San Francisco bay area (and have worked at Wired, Time, CBS News.com, and now CNET). My wife and I have a toddler son who shows promise as a hardware hacker, Lego-style. Here's a piece I wrote earlier this month disclosing that the FBI is asking Internet companies -- including Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google -- to build in backdoors for government surveillance (and the accompanying Reddit thread. It prompted an exchange last week between two senators and the FBI director. This week I disclosed that the FBI has formed ... Continue reading →
This Sunday, the Golden Gate Bridge turns 75. (Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET) SAN FRANCISCO--It's one of the wonders of the world, and one of the most photographed things on the planet. And this Sunday, the Golden Gate Bridge turns 75. While New York may have dozens of world-famous landmarks, and Paris is, well, Paris, San Francisco -- a great city in its own right -- may be best known for its outstanding red bridge, a masterpiece of workmanship that connects the city to its northern neighbor, Marin County. 1-2 of 37 Scroll Left Scroll Right In the late 1800s, the only way to cross the Golden Gate was by ferry, and those who ran the local vessels were among the region's elite. But starting in the ... Continue reading →
The new Google+ app for Android puts photos front and center. (Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET) Google has released the Android version of an overhauled Google+ app, part of the company's attempt to move to a "simpler, more beautiful Google," in the words of Vic Gundotra, the company's senior vice president of engineering. The new app catches up with the iOS Google+ app that Google released a couple weeks ago with a new visually rich, photo-first interface. And in some ways it surpasses it, for example in its support for tablets. Google trails Facebook by far when it comes to the magnitude of membership on the overt social-network Google+ site, but the company is trying to compensate by wiring Google+ social interactions into major properties ... Continue reading →
19-year-old entrepreneur Eric Simons spent two months secretly living at AOL's Palo Alto, Calif. campus, sleeping each night on a couch like this one. (Credit: Eric Simons) It was 6 a.m. when Eric Simons was jolted awake by the yelling. After working until 4 a.m, the 19-year-old entrepreneur had finally passed out. A few hours of sleep would help with the day ahead. But unlike most people working at AOL's Palo Alto, Calif., campus who were surely still hours from showing up at the sprawling complex, Simons was already there. He'd been living there for two months, hiding out at night on couches, eating the company's food, and exercising and showering in its gym. And now, with an angry security guard bellowing at him, it ... Continue reading →
After John Malkovich gets philosophical, Siri is ready with an answer. Continue reading →
My friend said he dosen't like this song for what it's talking about, he said he'll be him and stick with it... He completely missed the entire point of the song. What the entire album is about is things getting out of control, there's so much stuff going on in the world, people hating others, selfishness, disasters, war, paranoia of pretty much anything, death. ScarRaven3127 1 week ago Continue reading →
