By Paul Thomson :: 10:35 PM

A series of tornadoes tore through parts of the midwest today, with states like Kansas and Oklahoma among the hardest hit.

Many amateur and professional weather spotters took to their cameras and captured footage of the storms as they swept through their towns. Below are some of the videos, which were posted to YouTube.

Large tornado near Wichita, Kansas

Rope tornado near Viola, Kansas

Tornado in Carney, Oklahoma

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By Gilbert Falso :: 9:29 PM

As Google’s developer conference, I/O, took place in San Francisco last week, a gathering of a different kind was happening across the country in Washington, D.C. Eight members of Congress penned a letter to Google’s CEO, Larry Page, with concerns about how the company would address the privacy implications of its new Google Glass product.

The letter provided eight questions for Google, and requested that the company provide a response by the middle of June. The questions ranged from a followup to Google’s unintentional collection of WiFi data from 2010, to how the new device might make use of facial recognition technology, and to what extent Google would protect non-Glass users from privacy infringement.

“As members of the Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus,” the letter reads, “we are curious whether this new technology could infringe on the privacy of the average American. Because Google Glass has not yet been released and we are uncertain of Google’s plans to incorporate privacy protections into the device, there are still a number of unanswered questions.”

The letter is signed by legislators Joe Barton, Bobby Rush, Richard Nugent, Steve Chabot, John Barrow, Walter Jones, Hank Johnson, and Loretta Sanchez.

Steve Lee, Google’s director of product management for Glass, addressed some of these concerns at the I/O conference, including issues around the availability of facial recognition technology.

“We’ve consistently said that we won’t add new face recognition features to our services unless we have strong privacy protections in place,” he stated.

Other than Lee’s remarks at I/O, Google has not publicly responded to the Congressional request yet.

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By Cynthia Herbert :: 1:59 PM

If all of the news so far has been correct, Yahoo’s board of directors will meet tonight to discuss, and likely approve, the company’s $1.1 billion acquisition offer for start-up blogging site Tumblr.

The deal, the first major one of new CEO Marissa Mayer’s tenure, is an all-cash purchase, and will be a huge win for Tumblr investors if it is approved. Tumblr has raised about $125 million since 2007. It sits with a valuation around $800 million. Its investors include  Union Square Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Greylock Partners, among others.

Tumblr’s CEO, David Karp, will most likely remain in a leadership position at the acquired company, according to sources familiar with the agreements. Tumblr will have a certain level of autonomy within Yahoo, but sources also say Mayer expects Tumblr technology to integrate closely into Yahoo’s current business operations. Karp will be given a four-year contract that can reward him for positive performance of the site.

With the Tumblr acquisition, Yahoo could open itself up to a younger, web-savvy audience that to this point, has largely discounted the company. With many Tumblr users in their teens and early 20′s, Yahoo is almost their parents’ company – not a name that has been hip or cool in their lifetimes. However, Yahoo will have to work to keep this audience from jumping ship once the acquisition occurs.

Tumblr users have long been resistant to advertising on the site. Within the last year or so, the site has slowly begun showing ads on Tumblr user dashboards, and this modest effort has returned about $13 million in revenue, with the potential to hit close to $100 million this year. The new Yahoo-owned Tumblr will have access to Yahoo’s advertising network and tools, which could be a blessing or a curse, depending on how the platform is rolled out.

If the deal is approved by Yahoo’s board, it will be publicly announced at a press event that Yahoo has already scheduled for Monday.

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By Gilbert Falso :: 3:31 PM

The Pentagon announced yesterday that it has approved the use of certain Apple mobile devices on military and government networks. This paves the way for Apple to compete in the government arena with devices from rivals like Samsung and BlackBerry.

In a statement released by the Pentagon, the Department of Defense declared that Apple products running iOS 6 as the operating system have been vetted by military and government IT tests to access restricted government networks.

BlackBerry has long been a favorite platform for military use, but has fallen out of favor as many employees prefer Apple and Android devices on their personal time. Until the recent BlackBerry upgrade and offering of its new Z10 handset, much of BlackBerry’s technology was dated, compared to other offerings. Earlier this month, the Pentagon approved military use of several of Samsung’s Android-based devices.

According to statistics published by the Department of Defense, there are about 600,000 mobile devices in use across the agency. These include 470,000 BlackBerry handsets, 41,000 Apple devices and 8,700 Android devices. Until now, most of the Apple and Android products at the agency were not connected to military networks.

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By Paul Thomson :: 1:14 AM

The mayor of the city of Toronto, Canada, Rob Ford, is no stranger to controversy. Earlier this week, he skipped out on a city council meeting to place election magnets on cars in parking lots. He’s been known to make racist gaffes. He’s often the butt of jokes and scorn from the local press.

However, the latest installment in Ford’s saga could bring the most earth shattering news of all. Two reputable news outlets, the Toronto Star, and Gawker, were apparently both approached by someone in Toronto the claims to have a video of Ford inhaling crack cocaine from a pipe. The person who approached the news outlets to tip them off provided the photo seen above.

Reporters from both outlets have viewed the video, and independently, both believe that the video, which they were not given, does indeed show Ford inhaling the drug. The creator of the video is seeking substantial payment from the press to release it. Neither Gawker nor the Toronto Star will pay the asking price for the footage.

It is not known at this time if additional press outlets have been offered the opportunity to purchase the video.

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By Paul Thomson :: 11:27 PM

Earlier tonight, Georgia Institute of Technology, in cooperation with online education company Udacity and AT&T announced the availability of an online open Master’s degree in computer science that could cost students as little as $7000.

The school is billing the new program as a Massive Open Online Course, or MOOC. AT&T has offered to financially back a portion of the pilot program, which will begin in the next academic year.

“Georgia Tech’s vision is to define the technological research university of the 21st century,” said Rafael Bras, Vice President for academic affairs at the school. “We will explore technologies and instructional approaches that will improve our role as a leading provider of the best and most effective education in the state of Georgia, the nation and the world.”

Courses that make up the new computer science curriculum will be available free of charge via Udacity’s website, however only  students granted admission to Georgia Tech will receive academic credit. Students who are seeking a degree at the end of their coursework will be charged tuition based either on individual courses taken, or on the entire degree program.

Georgia Tech and Udacity will also arrange for a separate credential for students who successfully complete courses but do not qualify for full graduate-level standing.

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By Paul Thomson :: 5:31 PM

It’s been a tumultuous couple of months for the Rutger’s men’s basketball team, and it looks like they’re still in the middle of a wild ride.

After their former coach, Mike Rice, was fired for hurling insults and basketballs at players, the school has been touting its new basketball coach, Eddie Jordan, who took over on April 23. The school refers to Jordan as a Rutgers graduate, who earned a degree in health and physical education in 1977.

However, no one bothered to check with Rutgers’ registrar. It turns out that Jordan did not earn enough credits to graduate from Rutgers, and does not have a college degree.

Sports news website Deadspin broke the news earlier today, and has a copy of Jordan’s transcript from his time at Rutgers, showing that he clearly did not have enough credits to graduate.

For now, it appears that the University is sidestepping the issue of Jordan’s degree. It provided this statement to Deadspin: “Eddie Jordan was inducted into the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni in 2004 and he has been a part of the Rutgers family since 1977. His athletic skills and leadership and his professional accomplishments have been a source of pride for Rutgers for more than three decades. We are excited to have him as our men’s basketball coach and we look forward to many winning seasons.”

Regulations set forth by the NCAA generally require that coaching staff have bachelor’s degrees. The school has yet to make any other formal statement about the revelation of Jordan’s degree news.

The screenshot below shows the page on the Rutgers Athletics website that refers to Jordan’s degree status. The sentence about his 1977 degree is highlighted in yellow.

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By Cynthia Herbert :: 3:42 PM

Many Google Drive cloud storage users had a brief moment of panic this afternoon when the file list for their stored documents would not load.

Users took to Twitter and Facebook to complain that they had “lost” their files in Google’s cloud storage service. In reality, the files were never gone, but they did not display properly in the Google Drive file list for a short time around 3:00 PM Eastern time this afternoon.

Google has not yet addressed the issue, although it appears that the service is again functioning normally for most users. On Google’s status page, the status of Google Drive is noted as orange, which generally means there is some sort of service disruption.

If you have the direct URL to your cloud document, you can still access it that way until it appears again in your list of Google Drive documents. Google’s mobile application for smartphones does not appear to be suffering from this issue.

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By Gilbert Falso :: 3:14 PM

A Utah-based company has developed a data forensics tool that allows photos from the temporary photo sharing app Snapchat to be resurrected from a user’s smartphone.

The company, Decipher Forensics, has found that while the popular mobile application prevents users from seeing photos they receive after a sent amount of time, the images are not truly deleted from the device.

Research conducted by Decipher in coordination with Utah Valley University verifies that Snapchat simply alters the file extension of the photo that has been shared, which prevents the application from viewing it. The file itself remains on the phone. There is no way to prevent someone from removing the file from the phone and looking at it on a computer.

“This type of information can be very valuable in any investigation, especially one involving exploitation of a minor,” explained Decipher researcher Richard Hickman. “This research will help law enforcement officials retrieve what has been believed to be unrecoverable.”

Privacy experts have long been warning Snapchat users about the dangers of the application, especially for sharing risque or illegal images. Ray DeLong, a security consultant from RTD Communications says, “we’ve been telling people for a while now that once something is posted or sent through the Internet, it can never be truly deleted. It almost always exists out there somewhere, and with the right tools, someone can bring that file back.”

Right now, Decipher’s Snapchat recovery tool only works on Android devices. The company says it is currently building a tool to retrieve photos from the iPhone as well.

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By Cynthia Herbert :: 10:17 AM

Nearly twelve years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, New York City’s skyline today boasts the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

The final piece of the communications tower and antenna assembly that sits atop the One World Trade Center tower was moved into place by crane this morning.

Freedom Tower, as it is known, stands 1,776 feet tall, and is planned to open later this year.

A time-lapse video of the final antenna installation is below.

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