12:41 PM
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01/pentagon-shares-earthquake-images-from-high-flying-spy-drone
China is trying to keep its dispute with Google from hurting its relationship with the US government and foreign investors. Google's workers in China did not have much work to do on Friday, so Google bought 200 tickets to Avatar to give them something to do during their work day today:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/15/business/AP-AS-China-Google.html?_r=1
A law firm that filed a lawsuit against the Chinese government (for the alleged stealing of code used in China's web filtering software...they really should have removed the in-line comments that said that the software was copyrighted by Cybersitter) was hit by a cyber attack that appears to be similar to the ones that originated from China against 34 companies including Google and Adobe:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/15/cybersitter_law_firm_attack/
Montana airport is trying to see if it is possible to remove the TSA screeners and hire a private company to handle security at Gallatin airport. They were outraged when the TSA screeners let a man with a *gun* in his carry-on bag through security:
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2010/01/14/news/100airportsecurity.txt
This unfortunate 8-year-old boy cannot get off the TSA's "selectee" list. The first time he was patted down when at an airport was when he was 2 years old! He has to answer a series of questions every time he goes through airport security...he was born about a month before 9/11 so you might think that they would figure out he had no involvement! The weird thing is that only the young boy is stopped by airport security--his Mom even got clearance by the Secret Service to fly onboard Air Force 2 before:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/nyregion/14watchlist.html
Verizon Wireless is reducing its number of plans from 40 to 14 (6 single line plans and 8 family plans), significantly *dropping* the price of some of their plans (30% decrease in at least one case):
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/verizon-drops-unlimited-voice-prices-overhauls-data-plans/2010-01-15?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal
Microsoft might release Windows Mobile 7 next month after all--this may be their last chance to stop their loss of market share:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=ae2ZHx4IVQzY
Google's new mobile search service offers suggestions based on the phone's current or last location to make the search results more relevant:
http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/01/optimized-search-suggestions-using-your.html
Two teenagers from Korea won the World texting championship, splitting the $100k top prize. 13 countries participated in the competition, with the US team placing second (winning $20k) and the Argentina team placing third (winning $10k). One of the contestants from Portugal broke the world's record for fastest texting (which requires 100% accuracy on typing), typing a 264-character text in just 1 minute 59 seconds, 23 seconds faster than the world record that was set in 2005. Note to Lori: the record was set on an LG enV3 phone:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/press-releases/fastest-most-accurate-texters-world-are-crowned-lg-mobile-world-cup-new-york-city?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal
Arizona woman was arrested after she traded her 2-year-old daughter for a gun:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,582992,00.html?test=latestnews
Conan put the Tonight Show up on Craigslist:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/clt/1551463643.html