2:59 PM
Hawaii's Legislature is working on a bill that would require every Internet provider to keep track of every Web site their customers visit, saving the URL and the name/address of the visitor for 2 years. The bill doesn't have any privacy protections, so the Internet providers would be allowed to sell user profiles to advertisers and allows police to look at the complete Internet history *without* a court order. The bill also doesn't require the data to be encrypted. The wording of the bill could also require coffee shops, bookstores, hotels, etc. to keep track of the Internet usage of the 6+ million tourists that visit Hawaii every year:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57366443-281/hawaii-may-keep-track-of-all-web-sites-visited/
Two 17-year-old boys sent a Lego man into space--their homemade balloon carried a Lego passenger and 4 cameras. The Lego man went 15 miles above sea level. The project took the high school boys 4 months of free Saturdays and $400 ($160 was for helium) and they did it because they thought it would be cool to do, it wasn't a school project. The took 3 weeks to sew the parachute, breaking 4 needles, but their project worked and they recovered the balloon and Lego man after it returned to Earth:
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1120808--toronto-teens-send-lego-man-on-a-balloon-odyssey-24-kilometres-high
Twitter announced that they will block tweets in specific countries if the government requires it to do so, a controversial change for their service. Revolutionaries used Twitter to organize protests during last year's Arab Spring uprising, so it is not surprising that people in Arab countries are upset at this policy change:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-twitter-censors-20120128,0,7728865,full.story
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57366443-281/hawaii-may-keep-track-of-all-web-sites-visited/
Two 17-year-old boys sent a Lego man into space--their homemade balloon carried a Lego passenger and 4 cameras. The Lego man went 15 miles above sea level. The project took the high school boys 4 months of free Saturdays and $400 ($160 was for helium) and they did it because they thought it would be cool to do, it wasn't a school project. The took 3 weeks to sew the parachute, breaking 4 needles, but their project worked and they recovered the balloon and Lego man after it returned to Earth:
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1120808--toronto-teens-send-lego-man-on-a-balloon-odyssey-24-kilometres-high
Twitter announced that they will block tweets in specific countries if the government requires it to do so, a controversial change for their service. Revolutionaries used Twitter to organize protests during last year's Arab Spring uprising, so it is not surprising that people in Arab countries are upset at this policy change:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-twitter-censors-20120128,0,7728865,full.story