Geekly Update - 27 March 2013

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

What happens in an Internet Minute? Intel blogger Krystal Kemple says more than 204 million emails are sent; Amazon makes $83,000 in sales; 20 million photos are viewed; and 1.3 million YouTube videos stream while 61,000 hours of music play on Pandora. And you wonder why you come home from work tired.

Hacker Andrew Auernheimer was sentenced to the maximum 41 months in federal prison on March 18, 2013, and ordered to pay $73,000 in restitution. He was convicted of breaking into AT&T servers to steal the email addresses and other information of 120,000 iPhone customers.

"Just do the math..." Of the world’s 7 billion people, 6 billion have access to a mobile phone. But only 4.5 billion have access to toilets or latrines, according to a United Nations report. So obviously, that's 1.5 billion people who needn’t worry about dropping their phones in the privy.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a person can buy a copyrighted work in one country and resell it in the U. S. without the publisher’s permission. Publishers must be wondering "What good is capitalism if anyone can do it?".

Every geek thrives on caffeine, but a jug of Jolt seems juvenile. Grow up and try Death Wish Coffee Beans with 200% more caffeine than Starbucks. It’s organic and fair trade, too, so hipsters can drink it.

In a stunning leap forward for technology, Google has added the ability to restrict an image search to GIFs. Now you can find all the Grumpy Cat animations your heart desires.

Twitter has patented a messaging service that lets users follow each other and send messages that don’t have specific recipients – in other words, Twitter. Also Facebook and other social networks; but don’t worry, Twitter says it will use this overly broad patent only for “defensive purposes.” Kinda like Iran and nuclear weapons.

Amazon is enlisting Web site operators in its army of Kindle content providers. A free snippet of code that adds a “Send to Kindle” button to Web pages does just what it says. Early adopters include the Washington Post, Time, and Boing Boing. Soon, Web pages will be more buttons than text.

Evernote has more competition from Google Keep, now available on PCs and Android-powered devices. It saves text notes, voice memos, and pictures.

The U.S. has surpassed 500 million Internet-connected devices, according to researchers at NPD Group. The average household has 5.7 devices. PCs remain the most commonly used means of connecting to the Internet, with 93% of households harboring at least one.

Even billionaires get pwned. Take John Doerr, general partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield, & Byers. A hacker known as “Guccifer” got into Doerr’s AOL account and sent mocking emails to The Smoking Gun.

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Comedian Bill Cosby has launched a cease-and-desist letter at the owner of CosbySweaters.com, a two-year-old site devoted to “sports fans who love music, tech, pop culture and dumb Internet videos.” Eschewing the obvious name confusion issue, Cosby claims that garish sweaters have become his intellectual property.