Geekly Update - 29 March 2012

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

"An idea that bombed." German computer company Convar Deutschland came up with a novel advertising idea for their data recovery service. They glued alarm clocks to hard drives, and mailed them to several dozen companies with a note reading, "Your time is running out." The scary-looking time bombs created mayhem all over Germany.

"Blast from the past." Check out the Internet Archive, a not-for-profit org that contains access to texts, audio, images, software and web pages. The WayBack Machine will show you what a site looked like in years gone by, with files dating back to 1996.

"Good news for Chinese factory workers..." AT&T acknowledged that Friday's launch of the new iPad broke a single day sales record. Apple confirmed that more than 3 million were sold between Friday, March 16 and Monday, the 19th.

"CU IN JAIL L8R." Jason Wrenchy was a wanted man, with two outstanding arrest warrants on felony charges. For reasons that remain shrouded in mystery, he unwittingly texted a police detective, who arranged a meeting with Wrency by responding to his text messages.

"Has anyone seen my glasses?" If you're constantly losing your keys or cell phone, Smart Goggles can help. But you'll have to wear some really nerdy glasses. The head-mounted video camera with an attached computer records everything you see, and can help you recall it later.

Microsoft and Swedish tech company NetClean are giving PhotoDNA to law enforcement agencies to help identify child p**n. The image matching software was given to Facebook last May to catch questionable pictures before they were made available on the social network.

"Pigs... in... SPAAAAAAAACE!" Rovio has teamed with Walmart in offering t-shirts, toys and yummy snacks to entice players to purchase the new Angry Birds Space game.

Dating sites Match.com, eHarmony and Spar Networks plan to weed out sexual predators from their sites by screening potential members, giving safety tips and reporting abuse. The move comes after a woman was sexually assaulted by a man she met on Match.com who was on a sex offender registry.

"Please return your iPad to the full upright position." The FAA is reconsidering allowing some electronic gadget usage during flights.

Twitter turned 6 years old this month and it was noted on their blog that there are more than 140 million users with 340 million Tweets per day. In honor of the event, Jimmy Kimmel posted a hilarious segment on his show that presented celebrities "fave" Tweets (see it here.)