Image credit: Ashley Madison

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THE RUN DOWN

Google Launches New Router

Google announced this week that is partnering with networking manufacturer TP-Link to make a new a Wi-Fi router called the OnHub.

In the announcement on their official blog, Google says they want to alleviate the setup headaches and connection problems that many people experience with their wireless routers by introducing a simple, user-friendly device. The OnHub, which looks like a large cylinder with a single light on top, is filled with 13 antennas – 12 for signal, and one that checks the airwaves to make sure there is no wireless congestion in the area. This supposedly will make sure that you?ll always have the fastest connection.

You set up and manage the OnHub by using the Google On Android and iOS app, which Google says will let you prioritize connections for specific devices, and give you easy access to your router password so you can copy and text it to your friends. In a really cool twist, you connect your phone with the router at first by using SOUND.

As for the clean design, Google had this to say: ?Many of us keep our router on the floor and out of sight, where it doesn?t work as well. We replaced unruly cords and blinking lights with internal antennas and subtle, useful lighting, so you?ll be happy placing OnHub out in the open, where your router performs its best.?

The OnHub is available for preorder now (though it apparently is completely sold out). It?s a little pricey for a router at $199.

Google Project Sunroof Tool

According to an article on Vox, Google is working on a new tool called Project Sunroof that will help you figure out if solar power is right for your home. The Project Sunroof tool allows you to enter your address and then uses aerial imagery to calculate how much sunlight your rooftop receives. The tool then uses other information such as your monthly electric bill and whether you want to buy or lease the panels to determine how much going solar could save you.

The tool is still in its early stages. Right now, it doesn?t work for North Florida, where we are located, but you can have fun playing with it for Google?s stomping grounds in California.

And then there was one. Sprint stops offering two-year contracts.

Verizon announced in early August that it would not be offering subsidized phones with two-year contracts to new customers. Existing customers could still get a new phone at a cheaper price, as long as they didn’t change phone plans. This made Verizon the second company to drop the ol’ two year routine. T-Mobile, the company Siri thinks I’m talking about everytime I say “Deemable,” started this trend in 2013 when they became the so-called “unCarrier.”

Now according to the Wall Street Journal, Sprint has jumped on the bandwagon. Sprint is no longer offering subsidized smartphones on two-year contracts, leaving poor old AT&T as the only major carrier that offers subsidized phones.

Now, if you can’t afford to drop $650 for a new iPhone Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile offer a payment plan to buy a phone. At Verizon and T-Mobile, if you have good enough credit, you can pay for the phone in 24 monthly installments. Sprint doesn’t have  a similar purchase plan, but it will let you lease an iPhone starting at $22 per month. No word yet if they will offer the same deal with Android phones.

Google Reveals Real Name Of ?Android M? Version of OS

Okay guys, so as you know Google likes to name each version of its Android operating system out of something sweet, in alphabetical order. The last three versions have been Jellybean, KitKat, and Lollipop, and the next one up is Android M. This week, Google revealed what the ?M? would stand for. Any guesses?

And the answer is?

Google says the new version will be 6.0. Android Lollipop is currently on version 5.1.1.

iPhone 6 Plus Camera-gate

If you have an iPhone 6 Plus, you may have bought it for its significantly better camera. Well, jokes on you! Engadget is reporting that the camera on several of the iPhone 6 Pluses are defective, making the image blurry. If you think you are a victim of this atrocity, you can go to a page on Apple’s website and enter your serial number to find out. If you don’t have an iPhone 6 Plus and your camera lens is blurry, for instance if you have an iPhone 6, 5S, Samsung Galaxy, Nokia 3390, you’re OK, it’s not a defect. Just wipe the lens off

A Dog Joined Twitter

While Ray was worried about robot civil rights last week, a dog joined Twitter! 

Computer science student Henry Conklin thought that his dog, Oliver, was so outspoken that his thoughts needed to be shared with the world. So he created the account @OliverBarkBark. As Conklin says on his blog: rather than transcribe every bark out of his dog?s mouth, he set up a system that ?automatically detected, filtered and published each one of Oliver?s deafening vocalizations.?

Conklin?s system consists of a Raspberry Pi – a type of microcomputer that is promoted for teaching basic computer science in schools – a microphone, and a Wi-Fi dongle. The computer starts recording when it hears a loud sound that matches a library of barks Conklin created. The system then tweets out a random string of ?barks,? ?woofs? and ?ruffs.?

Conklin says he hopes to replace this with a bark-to-text translator he says will be ?more accurate to Oliver?s actual voice.?

Boston Dynamics Unleashes Walking Robots

Robots: threat or menace? No matter what you think about our future robotic overlords, one thing is clear: they are getting better all the time. Gizmodo reports that cutting edge robotics company Boston Dynamics released a video this week showing off two of its robots. Spot, a quadrupedal robot, features a robotic arm that allows it to open doors. A bipedal robot named Atlas is shown walking over uneven surfaces, including a bed of rocks. Atlas is also shown navigating through a forest outdoors. Essentially, the only thing stopping it from running the Boston Marathon is the fact that the model is not yet wireless and must remain hooked up to a power source at all times.

The company reports that they are working on this.

Ashley Madison, Established Men

Hacker group, Impact Team, announced last month that it had gained access to Avid Life Media’s user database. ALM is the parent company of Ashley Madison, the dating website for married people who want to have an affair, and Established Men, the dating website for rich men to find young, beautiful women.

Impact Team demanded that Avid Life Media take down AshleyMadison.com and EstablishedMen.com, and last week, one month later, Impact Team published the data on the deepweb.

This is the second major hack of a dating website of ill repute. Back in May, AdultFriendFinder was hacked. CNN Money says that customers’ email addresses, usernames, passwords, birthdays and zip codes, were included in that hack.

The data in this hack is just as extensive, and more so. The data includes most recent communications, last four digits of member credit card numbers, and more.

Roughly 10 GB of data in the dump. Almost 23 GB uncompressed. It’s not available on the “regular” web; it was posted to the deepweb. If you don’t know what that is, or how to get on it? educate yourself, we are not going to get into that. We have the data, but we haven’t had enough time to dig into it before this episode was recorded.

CNN Money is reporting that almost 7,000 email American and Canadian government email addresses are in the data dump,

Obviously, this is causing a lot of marital fall outs. The Daily Mail is reporting that lawyers are saying this is going to be “Christmas in September” as spouses find out that their partner was registered or paying to be on the site in the next few weeks. Other lawyers are calling it “Legal Black Friday.”

CNN Money also pointed out one disturbing fact: “The website’s users were worldwide, and there are 79 countries where homosexuality is illegal. In Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the punishment is death.”

Josh Duggar Had Paid Account

One of the first widely known names to be exposed in the Ashley Madison data dump is reality TV star and conservative value promoter Josh Duggar, of TLC?s 19 Kids and Counting fame. Gawker reports that Duggar had not just one AshMad account but two, one linked to his home in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and the other to an address in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Both accounts were ?paid accounts?, which included the $250 purchase of an ?affair guarantee? from the website.

Duggar drew controversy in May when it was reported that he had molested several girls as a teenager, including his own sisters. His family claimed that he had since reformed.

Josh Duggar has been married to his wife Anna for seven years and they have four children.

Ritch Workman

Closer to home, FloridaPolitics.com confirmed that Florida State Representative Ritch Workman was a paying Ashley Madison member. Workman did admit that he had an account on the site, and regretted it. He said it was when he was single, but he still wishes he had never joined the site.

Disney Unveils Plans for Star Wars Lands

Ever since Disney bought Star Wars, speculation has been rampant that the company would introduce Star Wars-themed attractions to its famous theme parks. Well this week Ars Technica reported that the company made it official, announcing massive, fourteen acre Star Wars expansions to California?s Disneyland and Florida?s Disney World. There are few details yet but Disney says guests will be able to fly around in the Millennium Falcon and visit the Mos Eisley space cantina. The attractions will reportedly be staffed by ?local inhabitants? of the Star Wars universe.

What do you think? I think the artist did a great job. Sean wanted his on the right because he’s left-handed.

The Internet loves April Fools’ Day. We didn’t pull any pranks this year; we’re too mature for all of those shenanigans. Also, we were too busy getting our new Deemable Tech tattoos. However, if you enjoy all that tom-foolery, here’s a break down of the best April Fools’ Day pranks for 2013. We’ll keep it updated throughout the day.

Google has built a reputation for almost every product at Google putting out several April Fools’ pranks each year. Starting with the one that made the front page, here are Google’s pranks for the year.

• New! What’s that smell? Find out with Google Nose 
  • Smells like a winner.
• YouTube’s ready to select a winner.
  • And they’re closing, YouTube?! God, Please No!! What am I supposed to do when I am supposed to be working? They have Facebook blocked at work!
• Gmail Blue
  • For those days you miss WordPerfect 5.1 on DOS. (Wait, does anyone have days like that?)
• Google Maps finds pirate, William ?Captain? Kidd’s treasure map and adds Treasure Mode
  • It looks like he didn’t bury any treasure in Jacksonville.
• Google+ adds emoticons to your pictures.
  • Because apparently seeing your face isn’t enough to know how you feel, because “when it comes to expressing yourself, nothing beats the richness and elegance of a few properly placed colons, parentheses, letters and hyphens.”

Another site that has become famous for their hilarious April Fools’ hijinks is the specialty online retailer ThinkGeek. Many of their past April Fools’ jokes have been so genius that they have gone on to become real products. Here’s a selection of this year’s pranks.

• The Eye of Sauron Desk Lamp
  • Don’t take off your wedding ring and leave it on the night stand next to this lamp.
• Play-Doh 3D Printer
  • Why do only thermoplastics and metals get to have all the 3D printing fun?
• Bane Mask Walkie Talkies
  • You will buy these, then when it is done and Gotham is ashes, then you have my permission to die.
• Death Star Trench Toss
  • Practice taking advantage of the universe’s worst design flaw ever made.
• Batman Family Car Decal Set
  • I hate those stupid family car decals.
• Creeper Body Pillow
  • Ah, Creepers, what would Minecraft be without them? More fun. that’s what it would be. More. Fun. Kill them with a Minecraft Foam Sword, also from ThinkGeek.

Other sites:

Ready to learn how to fly in a wingsuit? Why not learn from an expert that was made that way? For $50 you can take wingsuit lessons from a flying squirrel!

For $4 dollars a month, you can use Twitter premium. – Tme 2 drp d vwls. Twttr s nw chrgng 4 vwls.

Sprint launches Sprint Specs.  – Never look rude again when you’re completely ignoring someone.

 Update 1:03:45 PM EDT

The White House has gotten into the act. – You might not agree with his policies, but Kid President sure can get the world to dance.

Pokester – It’s time for a social network that only lets you do one thing, poke someone. (Thanks, reader Joey for the heads up.)

Search for “Google” on Bing. Try not to get confused.

Upload images to Imgur by mail!

Update 1:37:32 PM EDT

Virgin launces glass-bottomed plane. – As if air travel isn’t scary enough.

Hand written search results from Wolfram Alpha. – Basically, it’s a bunch of nerds being forced to do your homework.

Scope Bacon – We’re actually still not sure if this is a hoax or not. We are hoping that it is. We are really hoping that it is.

Kayak adds Dates. – Compare hundreds of dating sites at once!

Toshiba launches the Toshiba TubeTop, the world’s first inflatable laptop. – How many times have I wanted to surf the web while I was swimming in the pool? (That’s not a joke. I can think of at least 5 times off the top of my head!)

Digg + Konami code + Rick Astley = hilarious. – Just go try it.

Update 2:54:11 PM EDT

iFixit finds the least repairable tech product on the market: the Orange. After a complete teardown, they find it cannot be put back together at all. Orange mobile has not responded.

Nokia changes how you do TV dinners with a smart microwave.

HEX announces new cases for the Apple Newton.

Funny Or Die announces the Darkwing Duck, Wings, Sliders, Family Matters and Baby Sinclair from Dinosaurs Kickstarter movie projects.

Two of our favorite news sources, NPR and WJCT, pulled off their own April Fools Pranks. NPR’s Morning Edition aired this story, Hootie And The Time Traveler Love The 90s, and WJCT 89.9 FM aired Amusement Park Proposed For Shipyards Property.

 Have you found some that we haven’t seen yet? Let us know in the comments down below.

Last year, Sprint was the first wireless carrier to announce a fourth generation (4G) wireless network. T-Mobile came next with what it proclaimed as “America’s largest 4G network.” Then Verizon entered the picture with its own 4G network which they announced as the largest and fastest in the United States. AT&T, of course, eventually released its own 4G network to keep up with the competition, but in hindsight, none of these telecommunications giants have a network that can truly be called 4G. In actuality, what these companies are offering is basically a 3.5G network. A marketing ploy. A hoax…

In November of 2010, the global wireless standards-setting organization, called the International Telecommunication Union, defined 4G as a network that is capable of download speeds of 100 megabits per second (Mbps). While all of the supposed 4G networks out there are clear improvements to the current 3G networks that offer speeds between 500 kbps to 1.5 Mbps, none of them conform to the International Telecommunication Union’s 4G definition. Even more perplexing, each carrier has its own 4G network based on different technologies:

• Sprint offers a 4G network based on Wi-MAX technology.
• T-Mobile offers a 4G network based on an expansion of its 3G-HSPA+ network.
• Verizon offers a 4G network based on Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology.
• AT&T offers a 4G network similar to T-Mobile’s expanded 3G-HSPA+ network and is set to launch their own LTE 4G network sometime this year.

On Wednesday, however, Congress introduced a bill that would hopefully clear up some of the confusion between all of the different 4G offerings. Initiated by the ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), the Next Generation Wireless Disclosure Act would force wireless carriers to provide specific information about coverage, reliability, speed, pricing, and the type of technology used by the service. A side-by-side comparison of the top 10 competing networks’ speeds and prices would also be available to consumers, and the bill would get the FCC to work with the wireless providers to establish a guaranteed, minimum speed standard for 4G.

With all confusion and technical jargon aside, the bill is a great proposal to help consumers make better choices. Eshoo explained, “Consumers need to know the truth about the speeds they’re actually getting. My legislation is simple?it will establish guidelines for understanding what 4G speed really is, and ensure that consumers have all the information they need to make an informed decision.”

You can learn more about 4G in the video below:

Photo by David Goldman via CNN