By Cynthia Herbert :: 9:57 PM
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston today turned down Google’s request to modify or throw out the FBI’s directive to follow a set of National Security Letters (NSL).
The NSLs allow for warrantless electronic data-gathering that does not need to be approved by a court. The ruling comes after two top-level FBI staffers provided classified testimony to Illston’s San Francisco court.
NSLs have quickly become points of controversy with many, as they allow for the government to send secret requests to telecommunications providers to retrieve personal and account information about users as long as the data requested is relevant to a current national security investigation. Court approval is not required for the data to be handed over, and the FBI keeps all such data requests secret.
Google is the first major communications company to resist the FBI’s demands for compliance. The government has issued about 300,000 NSLs since 2000, and in that time, only a handful of recipients have challenged the legality of the letter.
The company has not yet publicly commented on the court’s decision.
By Gilbert Falso :: 8:57 PM
An SUV belonging to The Weather Channel’s storm chasing crew has been destroyed by a tornado in Oklahoma tonight.
The photo, above, shows the vehicle as it was found by Sean Schofer, a professional weather chaser who was on the scene shortly after the incident.
Schofer posted the photo above to Twitter, and verified that the Weather Channel employees in the SUV survived the crash, and had received only minor injuries.
Weather Channel Meteorologist Mike Bettes was driving near El Reno, Oklahoma, chasing a tornado when the storm picked up the vehicle and tossed it about 200 yards.
“I saw my life flash before my eyes,” Bettes told the TV network in a phone interview shortly after the incident. Bettes says that the SUV’s airbags deployed and all passengers were wearing their seat belts at the time of impact.
The greater Oklahoma City area continues to be rocked by heavy storms and tornadoes this evening.
Below, photo of the Weather Channel’s GMC SUV before the accident:
By Gilbert Falso :: 8:46 PM
HTC Corp. has decided against going ahead with plans to manufacture a full-sized Microsoft Windows RT operating system tablet, sources told Bloomberg News today.
Among the reasons for not going to market with such a tablet are the cost to build, and waning customer interest in a device of that size. The company will still build a 7-inch tablet for the Microsoft OS later this year.
Sales of devices that run Windows RT, Microsoft’s OS specially designed for the tablet form factor, have plunged since the company introduced the platform in October. According to estimates by IDC Research, only 200,000 units from any manufacturer were sold in the first quarter of 2013.
By Paul Thomson :: 7:49 PM
Do you have the Facebook app installed on your iPhone or iPad? Have you noticed an issue with your battery life? A German researcher thinks that the social network’s mobile app may be to blame.
Sebastian Düvel, IT researcher and iOS developer, examined the way that the Facebook mobile application drains iOS device batteries. He set up an iOS developer diagnostic tool, Instruments, and measured how each application on his phone makes use of the device’s microprocessor. What he discovered was that while he isn’t a heavy user of the Facebook application, it still accounted for a large percentage of his processor use time.
Every few minutes, the Facebook application would run for about ten seconds – whether or not Düvel was using it at the time. This repeated use of processor resources by the app accounts for battery life issues, says Düvel.
Right now, the only way around the battery issue is to either uninstall the Facebook application, or to kill the app after every use.
To kill any application on an iPhone or iPad, you need to press the home button twice, and then press and hold any app along the bottom tray. Then, the applications should wiggle, and a minus sign will appear on the corner of their icons. Select the minus sigh next to the Facebook application to kill the app.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 5:20 PM
Grab a tissue, because you’re going to need it for this story. The picture above, posted to Reddit earlier today, shows Kaiser the German Shepard, a police dog stationed with police department in the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Kaiser is being led on his final walk, saluted by his fellow officers, as he is taken into the veterinarian’s office to be euthanized.
The dog had been serving with the department for several years, trained for criminal pursuit and apprehension, crowd control and disbursement, and searches of buildings and areas for evidence recovery.
Recently, he was diagnosed with severe kidney disease, and his health declined to the point where his kidneys failed. The department made the difficult decision to euthanize Kaiser, and he was laid to rest earlier today at the Angel View Pet Cemetery in Middleboro, Mass.
In a post to the Plymouth Police Working Dog Foundation’s Facebook page, his handler said the following about his partner:
“Kaiser battled this disease with vigor and toughness like I have never seen before. Although, as of late, the disease has taken the upper hand forcing him out of his craft and ultimately out of this world. Kaiser taught me more about myself and my profession than I could have ever taught him. I feel privileged to have had a front row seat to witness his bravery and heroic actions while serving the people of Plymouth and my brothers and sisters in blue. Although his career was short lived, he made a huge impact that will never be forgotten.”
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