by Amar Toor on April 11, 2011 at 10:20 AM

Julian Assange thinks WikiLeaks is more accountable than any democratic government in the world. And if you dare say otherwise, you'll probably get sued.
That was essentially the message that Assange conveyed over the weekend, during his first public appearance since being arrested in December, amid accusations of rape and sexual assault. Speaking to an audience at a public debate in London, ...
by Amar Toor on April 7, 2011 at 08:39 AM

Somewhere near the intersection of online dating and unabashed prostitution is where you can find WhatsYourPrice.com -- a new dating site where cash trumps compatibility.
Site founder Brandon Wade compares WhatsYourPrice.com to eBay. "When you see a hot single you want to date, just make an offer and buy the first date," Wade explains, in a press release. But that's where the similarities ...
by Amar Toor on April 6, 2011 at 11:00 AM

Dish Network has agreed to buy Blockbuster more than six months after the movie rental chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Dish "won" a bankruptcy court auction for the company, with a winning bid of $320 million, although negotiations pushed the final price down to a paltry $228 million. Tom Cullen, Dish Network's executive vice president of sales, marketing and programming, says his goal is ...
by Amar Toor on April 5, 2011 at 10:45 AM

The U.S. Attorney's Office in New York has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Condé Nast after a scammer named Andy Surface swindled the company out of $8 million. Posing as a rep from printing company Quad/Graphics Inc., Surface sent an electronic payment form to Condé Nast in early November, asking the company to wire future payments to his account in Texas. Condé complied, but ...
by Amar Toor on March 31, 2011 at 11:40 AM

A decade after fighting a major antitrust lawsuit, Microsoft has filed exactly the same charges against Google. Today, the company will file a formal antitrust complaint with the European Union, joining a collection of small companies that have already made similar charges against the search giant.
Microsoft is hoping that the E.U. will take some action against Google, and perhaps convince ...
by Abby Seiff on March 28, 2011 at 05:00 PM

Please, Internet, just take our money. No, no, we insist. As we know all too well, group coupon programs have already made a significant dent in the nation's wallets. ("I know that heights terrify me, but what if I change my mind and decide I really do want to go sky-diving? Crap. I should probably buy this coupon just in case...") Well, the sneaky services have struck again where it's bound to ...
by Amar Toor on March 28, 2011 at 08:33 AM

Daniel DeVirgilio of Beavercreek, Ohio was understandably shocked last week when he received a letter from Time Warner Cable. DeVirgilio, a 26-year-old engineer, had apparently failed to pay his cable bill, and owed the provider a chunk of cash -- $16.4 million, to be exact.
Turns out, the company made what it's calling a "human error" in calculating DeVirgilio's bill. An employee reportedly ...
by Amar Toor on March 17, 2011 at 11:39 AM

On March 28th, the New York Times will begin charging all but the most infrequent users to read articles online.
Under the plan, users will be able to read 20 articles per month at no charge. Once they click on the 21st piece, however, they'll be presented with three payment options: $15 for four weeks a month of online and mobile app access, $20 for access to the site and the iPad app, or ...
by Caleb Johnson on March 16, 2011 at 04:05 PM

Visa announced plans on Wednesday for a new personal payments service, with which U.S. customers can send or receive funds from any Visa credit, debit or prepaid bank account across the world. Much like with PayPal, customers with Visa accounts at participating banks will be able to swap money by entering the sixteen-digit account number, e-mail address or cell phone number associated with the ...
by Amar Toor on March 16, 2011 at 03:45 PM

Facebook has yet to go public, and it's still unclear whether it even will. But that hasn't stopped some con artists from using the specter of a Facebook IPO to rip off gullible investors.
The scams are popping up, in various forms, across YouTube and the blogosphere. But they all follow the same general formula: visitors are offered the chance to invest in Facebook and other social media ...
by Amar Toor on March 15, 2011 at 10:06 AM

On May 2nd, AT&T will impose a broadband data cap for all DSL and U-Verse customers, after having already implemented similar usage limits for wireless users nearly a year ago. People connecting to the Internet through DSL will face a monthly limit of 150 gigabytes, while U-Verse users will be capped at 250 GB per month. Anyone exceeding these limits more than three times in three different ...
by Amar Toor on March 14, 2011 at 12:30 PM

Big news, you guys: Apple sold a lot of iPad 2s over the weekend. How many? Nearly a million. Granted, another big opening weekend may seem about as newsworthy as a sunrise, but take a second to chew on this: most analysts expected Apple to move only about 350,000 to 400,000 tablets. Instead, the company ended up selling about three times as many as it did last April, when it unveiled the first ...
by Amar Toor on March 10, 2011 at 12:15 PM

A billionaire isn't cool. You know what's cool? Six billionaires. That's what Facebook has produced, according to Forbes' annual list, published yesterday.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg came in at number 52 on the list, with an estimated worth of $13.5 billion, followed by five other Facebook founders and investors. At 26, co-founder Dustin Moskovitz is the youngest billionaire on this year's list, ...
by Amar Toor on March 10, 2011 at 09:15 AM

Many countries print their currencies in different sizes or shapes in order to help the blind and visually impaired pay for things with greater confidence. In the U.S., however, a $1 bill and a $100 bill have exactly the same dimensions, making it difficult for America's blind to tell the difference. Fortunately, though, there's a new iPhone app that can help.
With the LookTel Money Reader, ...
by Lee Bains on March 4, 2011 at 07:30 AM

The high-tech Zenona Piggy Bank's purpose isn't immediately clear, but when has that ever stopped technology developers? Comprised of an iPhone, Arduino BT and credit card slot, the half-bank half-Tamagotchi gets sad when it's been too long without a payment. Just swipe your card, and a pittance equivalent to pocket change will be transferred to a separate account. Weird.
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