Roundup: Not very pinteresting

I’ve got a few days to get myself interested in Pinterest. It’s not working. Anyway, we had a great podcast with Victoria Rae Black this weekend, check it out.

 Motorola being slashed apart by Google.

Motorola Mobility, who was recently purchased by the Googs, announced today that they will be slashing 20% of their workforce in a move to slim down the company. Also mentioned was the future focus on producing fewer – and hopefully better – phones. The 4,000 jobs lost will mean that they will no longer be able to support their avalanche of devices, so maybe trimming down the company will allow the phones that are produced to shine. Fun fact: The linked article says “…Motorola, whose last hit was the Razr flip-phone launched eight years ago,” which is a really dumb statement. Moto sold tons of Droid phones, as well as their successor, and it’s well known that the only company that counts their success in the mobile market by the sales of one phone is Apple. Everyone else branches out with multiple devices.

New Species discovered via Flickr.

Image Credit Guek Hock Ping

It’s not every day you photograph an unknown species of lacewing fly, but when you do, be sure to post it up on Flickr. Photographer Guek “Kurt” Hock Ping snapped the beautiful shot you see above, which was later discovered by entomologist Shaun Winterton, who contacted the photographer. After talking to Ping, Winterton was told that the photographer had only the one shot of the insect, which then flew away. However, over a year later, Winterton recieved a note from Hock Ping, who had captured one of the same insects and had it in a jar on his desk. Once the finding was confirmed, the entomologist named Semachrysa jade, after Winterton’s daughter. No comment about the photographer who found the dang thing.

WikiLeaks DDoS’d after revealing TrapWire.

WikiLeaks, the website that gladly lets you air someone else’s dirty laundry, recently posted some documents outlining TrapWire, a piece of government technology that taps into data from surveillance cameras all over – casinos, stores, etc – and analyzes the images using facial recognition software. The catch? No US citizens were aware that they were being observed to this extent. That must have pissed some people off, since they were under a massive DDoS attack, and had been for over a week.

Michael Dell can’t keep secrets in the family.

Or more correctly, his daughter can’t. It seems that Alexa Dell, daughter of PC magnate Michael Dell, doesn’t understand basic computer safety, a problem that’s exacerbated by the fact that she’s worth millions. It seems that she has been using Twitter and Instagram to document her every move, complete with GPS and timestamp. Considering daddy pays a rumored $2.7 million a year for family security, that’s pretty freaking stupid, Alexa. Since this was uncovered, her Twitter and Instagram profiles have been shut down, and she’s probably been told to avoid all the places she used to check in at.

Google cracks down on piracy sites, conveniently forgets YouTube.

Google has been cracking down on piracy sites by lowering them or removing them from search results, with one exception: YouTube. Searching for songs will still have YouTube copies – usually illegal or non-approved – of that song. I guess we don’t want to go too crazy and cut our own ad revenue, right?

Come see Curiosity’s panoramic view.

It’s awesome that we have the technology to take, send, receive and share pictures like this. The panorama, with incorrect distances to New Mexico included, allows you to pan, tilt and zoom through the Curiosity’s POV on Mars. I have nothing more to say.

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