Want to Tweet at Aliens? Now You Can

As of today, you can fire off a tweet-length message to a far-flung solar system, but you'll need patience—it won't get there for about 18 years, and it will take just as long to receive any extra-terrestrial response. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer explains, a start-up called Lone Signal has...

Google Fighting Gag Order on Surveillance Data

Google is going to court to try to bring more transparency to the government's surveillance program—and maybe to beef up its public image on privacy along the way. The company will file a petition with the top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court demanding that it be allowed to provide more...

Kickstarter Users Uncover Huge Scam on ... Kickstarter

They were almost taken for fools. But one almost-unlucky group of Kickstarter users managed to uncover a $120,309 scam on the site less than an hour before the campaign was set to end—and their money was whisked out of their bank accounts. CNNMoney reports on what sounded intriguing...

Yahoo: Most Data Requests Tied to Fraud, Murder

Yahoo has never been a big fan of the NSA's surveillance activities, and it tried to distance itself from them even further yesterday by revealing just how many requests for data it got from the government. The number, CEO Marissa Mayer wrote in a Tumblr post, was "between 12,000...

Netflix to Become DreamWorks' TV Network

Netflix made another big splash in its original content push today, announcing a deal with DreamWorks that will see the animation studio create 300 hours worth of original TV shows for the streaming service. The shows will be "inspired" by DreamWorks' existing properties, so get ready for shows based on...

Apple: Feds Made 5K Data Requests Since December

After revelations from Facebook and Microsoft , Apple is offering the public some details on government information requests. The US made between 4,000 and 5,000 requests to Apple for user data from December through May, the firm says; the requests were tied to between 9,000 and 10,000...

The Move From Hell: 15-Ton Magnet, 3.2K Miles, 5 Weeks

Say you have a 15 ton, 50-foot-wide electromagnet kicking around. And say a lab halfway across the country needs it. Scientists at Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island are facing down the logistics of that very move, reports the AP , a 3,200-mile trek to the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory...

Forget Prism: NSA Is Tapped Straight Into the Internet Pipeline

The existence of Prism has shocked many Americans, but perhaps it shouldn't have, because the program is a direct result of two things we already knew about, the AP says in an extensive new report. Firstly, the NSA is tapped straight into the fiber optic cables that carry a large...

Google Launches Balloons That Beam the Internet

Wrinkled and skinny at first, the translucent, jellyfish-shaped balloons that Google released this week from a frozen field in the heart of New Zealand's South Island hardened into shiny pumpkins as they rose, passing the first big test of a lofty goal to get the entire planet online. It was...

Facebook, Microsoft Unveil Thousands of User Data Requests

In the second half of last year, Facebook got between 9,000 and 10,000 requests from local, state, and federal officials for user data on 18,000 to 19,000 accounts, the company says. It complied with 79% of the requests, it says. Under fire, Facebook released the data...

Microsoft, McAfee Exchange Data With Feds: Sources

Thousands of US companies—including banks, and software, internet, and telecommunications firms—are exchanging information with national security agencies, according to anonymous sources in a new Bloomberg report. Only, they aren't sharing your personal info or browsing data with the NSA, FBI, and CIA, but rather things like software vulnerabilities...

The World's Last Telegram Will Be Sent Next Month

We're not sure if it's more surprising to learn that the last telegram in the world will be sent next month... or that people are still sending telegrams somewhere. They are, though: 5,000 telegrams are still sent every day in India. But that's all coming to an end on...

Growing Threat to Medical Gadgets: Malware

What happens when malware attacks the very devices keeping us healthy? The threat has the FDA concerned, the Wall Street Journal reports: "We are aware of hundreds of medical devices that have been infected by malware," says a senior official. Thus far, there haven't been any known deaths or injuries...

On NSA Spying, Yahoo Fought Law (Law Won)

When the government came to Yahoo with a request that Yahoo help it spy on foreign users without a warrant, the company refused and sent its top lawyers to argue the case in a secret court proceeding, sources tell the New York Times . Its argument: users' Fourth Amendment rights would...

Microsoft to Open Mini-Stores in Best Buy

Microsoft has unveiled plans for "store-within-a-store" sections in Best Buy stores, becoming the latest major consumer electronics maker to acknowledge advantages of the brick-and-mortar format. The sections will begin opening this month and offer Windows-based PCs, tablets, Xbox, and accessories, as well as trained staff to explain Windows 8 to...

Snapchat's Biggest Fans: Teens and ... Bankers?

It's the happening social media app that swept through high schools across the country, and now it's coming for … Wall Street? Yes, financiers are going absolutely nuts for Snapchat, the service that lets you send photos, with messages attached, that will self-destruct soon after they arrive, sources tell New...

Czechs Test Flying Bike

Is it a bike? Is it a plane? Three Czech companies have teamed up to make a prototype of an electric bicycle that successfully took off today inside an exhibition hall in Prague and landed safely after a remote-controlled, five-minute flight. Looking like a heavy mountain bike, it weighs 209...

Time Warner Bribes Partners to Keep Shows Offline

Cable companies must be terrified of cord-cutters, because they're playing hardball to try to keep shows offline. Time Warner and other "pay-TV operators" are offering media companies higher payments if they'll keep their content off of web video services, and even threatening to drop networks that don't fall in line,...

Tech Giants to Feds: Let Us Air Our Role in NSA Spying

Google and other tech giants are far from happy about being seen as willing partners in the NSA's Internet surveillance program and they want the government to lift gag orders so they can show otherwise. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo have requested secrecy orders be eased so that they can...

US Sabotages al-Qaeda Mag

US operatives sabotaged al-Qaeda's Inspire magazine last month, temporarily delaying the publication of the latest issue, the Washington Post reports. When the issue initially came online on May 14, some text was garbled and some pages were blank. That version was removed within 30 minutes, and a new version was...

Sorry Apple, Looking Cool Won't Save You

Tech pundits aren't exactly swooning over Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference presentation, in which it showed off an iOS revamp , a new streaming music service , and a cylindrical computer . Here's what the nay people are saying: Apple really needed a new iOS, and "thanks to these upgrades, the iPhone will be...

Meet Edward Snowden’s Pole-Dancing Girlfriend

A few outlets have identified Lindsay Mills as the girlfriend of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden , and up until this morning, quite a bit of information about her (not to mention quite a few scantily-clad pictures) was available online. She had a blog , which now appears to have been taken down;...

@HillaryClinton Joins Twitter

"Wife, mom, lawyer, women & kids advocate, FLOAR, FLOTUS, US Senator, SecState, author, dog owner, hair icon, pantsuit aficionado, glass ceiling cracker, TBD..." That's Hillary Clinton's bio on her shiny new Twitter handle , which she launched today. Her move into the Twittersphere has fueled speculation that "TBD" will eventually be...

Apple Dramatically Redesigns Mac Pro

Rumors of the Mac Pro's death have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, at its developer conference today, Apple unveiled a dramatic new redesign of its fastest workstation as an eye-catching black cylinder with twice the performance of the last generation of Mac Pro. The computer will also be entirely assembled...

How to Block NSA Spying

Don't like the idea of the NSA spying on your phone calls and emails? In the Washington Post , Timothy B. Lee offers five ways for you to protect yourself: Tor : This Internet browser lets you remain anonymous, and does not reveal your IP address or other identifiers. One fan: NSA...

If NSA Trusted This Guy, Why Should We Trust It?

Forget the constitutional questions surrounding the NSA program for a second, and ask yourself this: Can we trust our secrets in the hands of an agency that would trust the likes of Edward Snowden? Snowden "sounds like a thoughtful, patriotic young man," Farhad Manjoo allows in Slate . But "he isn't...

Get Ready for Online Radio From Apple

After a decade of iTunes, Apple looks poised to delve into another form of online music distribution: Internet radio. The service, likely to be unveiled today as the company's annual developers conference begins, could shepherd new consumers into the online-radio world, experts tell the New York Times . As it stands,...

Meet Google's Next $1B Buy

Google is close to finalizing one of the biggest acquisitions in its history, with a more than $1 billion deal for the maps and traffic app Waze, the Wall Street Journal reports. Here's what makes the move interesting: Google already has a maps app. You might have heard of it....

US: Obama Pushed China on Cyberspying

President Obama pushed Chinese President Xi Jinping to do more to address the online theft of US intellectual and other property coming from his country and said the hacking is "inconsistent with the kind of relationship we want to have with China," a top White House aide said. Obama national...

Phone Spying Prevented NYC Subway Attack: Sources

On Thursday, Rep. Mike Rogers defended the NSA's phone and Internet snooping program with the claim that, "Within the last few years, this program was used to stop a terrorist attack in the United States." Now we (likely) know which one he meant: The 2009 subway bombing plot by Najibullah...