itwbennett writes "There are tech fads that flare up quickly and then, pouf, they're gone (Tamagotchi, anyone?). And then there are technologies that industry bigwigs predict will follow that familiar pattern and instead end up withstanding the test of time. The Internet, for example, has famously failed to implode, despite dire predictions by Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe. And what about TV, the cornerstone of the American living room? Inventor Lee DeForest, known as one of the 'fathers of the electronic age,' declared TV a commercial and financial impossibility, a sentiment that was shared by 20th Century Fox exec Darryl Zanuck. And FCC engineer T.A.M. Craven was absolutely certain back in 1961 that there was 'no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States.'"

Many submitters have pointed out that Osama bin Laden's hideout is getting a lot of reviews on Google Maps. Some of my favorites of the 600+ so far include: "The hotel is obviously doing quite well, as evidenced by the fact that the cleaning crew is actually helicoptered in each evening, and in fact they go so far as to destroy any furniture that they feel is outdated or in need of repair," and "Privacy was great...until being leaked out on the Playstation Network."

If you think the idea of french kissing someone over the internet with a robotic tongue is kind of gross, go outside and enjoy your afternoon. For those of you still sitting here, The University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo has just what you've been looking for. The Kiss Transmission Device is a motion-sensing receptacle that records your tongue's movements and then sends that information to a corresponding machine in your partner's mouth. From the article: "In addition to real-time smooching, the Kiss Transmission Device can be programmed to 'remember' specific rotations. The pre-recorded information can then be accessed by multiple recipients. According to the inventor, this could be a good way for celebrities to get closer to their fans." The University gave no word on the possibility of tentacles in future models.

TomBifkin writes "A group of hearing-impaired men were recovering today after being stabbed during a night out in Florida when a fellow patron confused their sign language for gang signs. Alfred Stewart, 31, was at the Ocean's Eleven Lounge in Hallandale Beach to celebrate a friend's birthday with a group of friends, all of whom are deaf, NBC Miami reported. The group was communicating using sign language, but a woman at the bar thought the group was making gang signs in her direction. According to police, 45-year-old Barbara Lee became angry and confronted the group, but they motioned for her to leave them alone. She then left the bar, before returning with two others — including 19-year-old Marco Ibanez. Mr Ibanez allegedly pulled out a knife and stabbed Mr Stewart, two of his friends and a bouncer, during a confrontation at the club."

Hugh Pickens writes writes "The Atlantic Wire reports that Superman — Kal-El, the Man of Steel, the Last Son of Krypton — renounces his American citizenship in the latest issue of Action Comics. The moment everyone's talking about comes in a story called 'The Incident,' where Superman wants to fly to Tehran and offer moral support to Iranians protesting an oppressive regime but he's told that Iran will take it as an act of war. Superman decides to get out in front of the problem. 'I intend to speak before the United Nations tomorrow and inform them that I am renouncing my U.S. citizenship,' he tells the president's national security adviser. 'I'm tired of having my actions construed as instruments of U.S. policy.' While some conservative commentators opine that Superman just wants to get out of paying criminally high taxes to a certain merciless Democratic president, Scott Thills concludes that 'the genius of Superman is that he belongs to everyone, for the dual purposes of peace and protection. He's above ephemeral geopolitics and nationalist concerns, a universal agent unlike any other found in pop culture.'"

Sohaib Athar, a.k.a. @ReallyVirtual, had no idea the helicopters he was complaining about on twitter were part of the top secret mission that killed Osama bin Laden Sunday night. 10 hours before bin Laden's death was announced Athar posted: "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).” From the article: "During the raid, Athar speculates that he was two or three kilometers away from the shooting that took place. Once news broke that bin Laden had been killed in Abbottabad, Athar tweeted, 'Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.'”

The downside of not having ones base of children's stories crafted and maintained by trained storytime engineers from the Disney Corporation has reared its warty head in Russia and Ukraine. A map of purportedly Russian folktale characters' haunts has drawn fire from Ukrainians, who object to what they see as the appropriation (from Ukraine) of such famous characters as miraculously strong Ilya Muromets, the gold-producing Speckled Hen, and Kolobok ("a cheerful talking cake who flees animals eager to eat him"). This seems like nothing that couldn't be cleared up with some artfully mis-pointed highway signs and a few tons of papier-mâché.

nonprofiteer writes "An unnamed hotel is now putting RFID tags in their towels: 'The Honolulu hotel (the hotels have asked to remain anonymous, just to keep you guessing) says it was taking a bath to the tune of 4,000 pool towels per month, a number that it has reduced to just 750 (a savings of $16,000 per month). And that's just at the pool.' It's unclear what they do if the towel flies to the Midwest."

angry tapir writes "Turning seemingly normal comments into sexual innuendo by adding the words 'That's what she said' is a cultural phenomenon. This has led some to wonder whether it is possible to determine when it is appropriate to add those magic four words to a sentence. As it turns out, identifying humor through software is hard. Two researchers at the University of Washington, however, were willing to give it their best shot. In a recently released paper entitled 'That's What She Said: Double Entendre Identification,' the researchers describe what they've found and introduce their new approach to the problem: 'Double Entendre via Noun Transfer' or DEviaNT for short." It's good to know that someone is trying to make sure the human race gets a sufficiently lewd AI one day.

InsertWittyNameHere writes "Turkish police disguised themselves as doctors, then knocked on people's doors to see how easily they would fall for a confidence scam. They told residents they were screening for high blood pressure and handed out pills. They were alarmed when residents at 86 out of 100 households visited on Tuesday swallowed the pills immediately. A local gang had been using the same technique to give people heavy sedatives and then burgle them."

RedEaredSlider writes "Now even vending machines are getting in on the social media act. Pepsi has rolled out a new machine that can send a soda to a friend, using a Facebook-like functionality. From the article: 'Along with buying a soda with either cash or credit, the Social Vending System allows people to send a user a soda as a gift. All they have to do is enter the recipient's name, mobile number and a personalized text message. Consumers can even send a video along with the gift. Once received, the recipient will learn where they can redeem it.'"

cobracommand0 writes "After winning two out of three charges in a small claims court against Best Buy for sending his receiver for repairs without getting his permission first, a customer received a check and a letter informing him of his perma-ban from the entire chain. From the article: 'Jed basically took his defective Sony home theater receiver in for a fix and paid a $35 non-refundable deposit. He was informed that a Geek Squad agent would shortly get back to him with a repair estimate. This never happened and when Jed called to inquire why, he was told that Best Buy already sent the unit to Sony and he now owed Best Buy $115. After a tussle he was then asked to pay $94.94 instead. Jed told Best Buy this was unacceptable as they didn't ask his permission before doing the fix and was then told he had no extra charges owing.'" People still shop for electronics at brick and mortar stores?

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has proposed "differential tuition," a tuition structure that varies based on your major. An engineering major for example, would now pay considerably more than an English major. Liberal Arts majors would presumably get their education for free. From the article: "Charging different tuition rates for different courses of study is a growing trend among public research universities across the country. According to research by Glen Nelson, senior vice president of finance and administration for the Arizona Board of Regents, only five institutions used the practice for undergraduate students before 1988. As of this year, 57 percent of 162 public research institutions did so, including the University of Iowa and Iowa State University."

If you're sick of banning or deleting troublemakers on your Drupal website, you might want to check out Misery, the module designed to give trolls a taste of their own medicine. Creating a random length delay for a user, redirecting them to a random page, presenting them with a 404 error, and crashing their browser if they're using IE6 are just a few of the things you can make users endure with Misery. I'm still waiting patiently for a Punch In the Nose module, but this is a good start.

SEWilco pointed out that the last typewriter factory has shut its doors. Indian typewriter manufacturer Godrej and Boyce stopped production today after 60 years. The company's general manager, Milind Dukle, says, "We are not getting many orders now. From the early 2000s onwards, computers started dominating. All the manufacturers of office typewriters stopped production, except us."

leek writes "An Amazon.com pricing algorithm which lets sellers set prices based on other sellers' prices led to a positive feedback loop, causing the biology text The Making of A Fly to reach $23M. Biologist Micheal Eisen writes: 'What's fascinating about all this is both the seemingly endless possibilities for both chaos and mischief. It seems impossible that we stumbled onto the only example of this kind of upward pricing spiral. And as soon as it was clear what was going on here, I and the people I talked to about this couldn't help but start thinking about ways to exploit our ability to predict how others would price their books down to the 5th significant digit -- especially when they were clearly not paying careful attention to what their algorithms were doing.' The price of the book was reset but is currently back up to $976.98."

Frosty Piss writes "Lazar Greenfield, M.D. is no ordinary surgeon. Until last week, he was the president-elect of the American College of Surgeons, and was also the lead editor of the Surgery News. In the February issue, he penned some thoughts on Valentine's Day under the heading of 'Gut Feelings.' Greenfield proceeded to then discuss the mating habits of fruit flies, and the rotifer. In each case, Dr. Greenfield made sure to reference to the scientific literature. Then he turned his attention to humans. Dr. Greenfield noted the therapeutic effects of semen, citing research from the Archives of Sexual Behavior which found that female college students practicing unprotected sex were less likely to suffer from depression than those whose partners used condoms (as well as those who remained abstinent). His comments apparently didn't sit well in certain quarters. Dr. Greenfield was forced to resign as editor of the Surgery News and gave up his stewardship of ACS after learning that his article had spurred threats of protests from outside women's groups."

tomhudson writes "The Walkato Times in New Zealand is reporting that someone forgot to tell the computer not to unlock the supermarket on the Friday holiday. 'About half of the 24 people who came into the supermarket paid for their groceries using the self-scan service. The service stopped working after alcohol was scanned, requiring a staff member to check a customer's age before the system is unlocked.' The owner, Mr Miller, was quoted as saying 'I can certainly see the funny side of it... but I'd rather not have the publicity to be honest. It makes me look a bit of a dickhead.' Rather than take legal action, Mr Miller is hoping that the people who didn't pay will do the right thing."

People are willing to do some crazy things to lose weight: immersing themselves in ice-water baths to increase the metabolism, for example. But the people of Hong Kong have upped the ante with the rising popularity of parasite dieting. The practice has become so popular that the Hong Kong Health Department has issued a warning that parasitic worms can cause abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea and even death.

The first rule of murder club is: you don't talk about murder club. The second rule of murder club is: you don't get a chest tattoo about murder club. From the article: "Anthony Garcia, a member of the Rivera-13 gang, had a tattoo that resembled the scene of the liquor store killing of 23-year-old John Juarez in Pico Rivera on Jan. 23, 2004, reports the Los Angeles Times. There were numerous details the murder inked on the gang member. The paper reports that the tattoo included the Christmas lights that lined the roof of the liquor store where Juarez was shot and killed, the direction his body fell, the bowed street lamp across the way and the street sign. Above everything read the title, 'RIVERA KILLS,' a reference to the gang. A helicopter was also placed above the scene raining down bullets, a nod to Garcia's alias 'Chopper.'"