Link Collection

Nuclear plant in Sweden was forced to shut down when it was attacked by jellyfish:
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20131002-jellyfish-attack-shuts-down-swedish-nuke


Study across 34 countries confirmed what seems to be obvious--support by parents and by the administration of the school results in students being more successful:
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20131002-parental-administrative-support-breeds-academic-success


Dish Network shareholder (a Retirement System fund) claims that Charlie Ergen used his position in Dish to make personal gains by buying LightSquared's debt.  Ergen purchased more than $1 bil of LightSquared's debt at a discounted rate and could make a huge profit if Dish buys LightSquared.  This sure smells bad--Ergen controls Dish, so he knew that he could be confident in buying the debt, and he got a big discount on the debt because nobody knew that LightSquared was going to be able find a buyer:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/dish-shareholder-sues-ergen-lightsquared-spectrum-auction-set-nov-25/2013-10-02


Scientists have been able to charge a smartphone via lightning:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24347185


LA Unified's $1 bil program to give an iPad to every student sure hasn't been implemented well.  Having some iPads given out without security software, letting the students remove the security software with just 2 clicks, enabling students to go to banned websites, and letting the students take the iPads home even though they were supposed to stay at school...*not* the smoothest rollout of a huge taxpayer-funded program:
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-1002-lausd-ipads-20131002,0,3394023,full.story


If the government shutdown lasts for awhile, new wireless devices may take longer to get to market because the FCC has to test and approve new wireless products...and those people stopped being able to work on Tuesday:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/01/upgrading-to-a-new-cell-phone-a-government-shutdown-means-you-could-be-waiting-a-while/


Somebody or some group has been pooping in the laundry for Yale students:
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2013/10/02/police-probe-saybrook-laundry-incident/

Two generals were effectively fired for their failure to protect a huge base in Afghanistan that Taliban fighters attacked last year:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/10/two-generals-sacked-over-taliban-attack/


Anonymous claims that Apple's touch ID provides NSA access to fingerprints.  Can't they get it from the existing databases already (driver's license, police, etc.)?
http://9to5mac.com/2013/10/01/anonymous-claims-apples-touch-id-and-authentec-purchase-gives-nsa-access-to-fingerprints/


AT&T appears to be able to offer gigabit fiber internet service soon...in cities that Google offers their Google Fiber service.  So, AT&T can offer gigabit service, but they will only do it when Google enters a market:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/10/at-eventually-stepping-up-to-match.html


For the first time, Android tablets outsold the iPad in a quarter:
https://www.abiresearch.com/press/android-ecosystem-takes-the-baton-from-apple-ipad-


The government shutdown resulted in the Air Force eliminating all travel for athletic contests, including their football game against Navy on Saturday:
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/air-force-cancels-travel-navy-army-game-against-181832106--ncaaf.html

For the first time in the 14-year history of the "Best Global Brands" report, Coca-Cola is not the world's most valuable brand.  Apple is #1, Google is #2, and Coke fell to #3:
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/apple-ousts-coca-cola-top-brand-historic-shift-152793


Apple and AT&T settled the lawsuit that claimed that they tricked customers into buying an Apple iPad in 2010, with AT&T switching the data plans from unlimited to usage-based pricing.  Anyone in the US who bought an iPad 3G before 6/7/2010 will get $40, where customers who didn't sign up for AT&T service will get a $20/month discount on AT&T's 5GB monthly plan for up to a year:
http://www.fiercebroadbandwireless.com/story/apple-att-settle-unlimited-ipad-data-lawsuit/2013-09-29


I knew about Verizon's website's glitch over the weekend that was allowing people to keep their unlimited data plans when getting a subsidized smartphone...but I had just gotten a new phone!  It turns out that Verizon will honor the upgrades that people rushed to make while their website was accidentally allowing them to keep their unlimited plans:
http://www.androidcentral.com/verizon-will-honor-upgrades-unlimited-data-resulting-system-glitch


Verizon is dominating the smartphone market--37.1% of the smartphones sold in the US over the past quarter were for Verizon's network, up from 30.2% the previous quarter.  AT&T was way behind at 21.7%, with Sprint at 14.6% and T-Mobile at 13.2%.  Apple got 39.3% of the US smartphone market, up from 33.9%, while Android dropped to 55.1% from 60.7% the previous year:
http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/kantar-apple-fueled-40-us-smartphone-sales-ahead-iphone-5s-5c-launch/2013-09-30

FAA Advisory panel has recommended that passengers should be able to use their ereaders, tablets, and smartphones (in airplane mode) throughout the flight, even during takeoff and landing:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/report-faa-panel-recommends-loosening-restrictions-passenger-access-mobile/2013-09-27


Interesting article about why 2 nuclear reactors in Europe are 7 years behind schedule and cost 3x more than the nuclear reactors made for China:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/09/why-two-european-nuclear-reactors-will.html


China has their first Moon rover and they are inviting the public to come up with a name for it:
http://www.rdmag.com/news/2013/09/china-unveils-its-first-and-unnamed-moon-rover


Retired F-16 jets have been turned into UAVs...they are used for target practice, with other jets shooting them down:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/09/f16-drone/


This sure seems like a smart move for Motorola--they are planning a hiring spree in Waterloo, Ontario...the home of BlackBerry, which has a lot of experienced engineers that will soon be looking for work:
http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/26/motorola-plans-expansion-in-canada/


Report about how Apple's iOS 7 has a host of HTML5 defects.  The bugs are so bad that a company that is normally like an Apple fanboy is publicly posting their disappointment and pointing out the serious flaws.  They basically call the iOS 7 release a beta and another company says that this is "the buggiest Safari version since 1.0".  Some of these bugs were actually reported by developers during the beta period...but Apple didn't bother to fix them:
http://www.infoworld.com/t/html5/bad-news-ios-7s-html5-full-of-bugs-227685


Apple is selling their iPhone 5s for $100 more than the less-capable 5c...but it basically costs them the same amount to make each device!
http://www.infoworld.com/t/iphone/how-apple-makes-the-iphone-5s-the-same-price-the-iphone-5-227559


The startup that makes Candy Crush Saga filed for an IPO that values their company at $5 bil:
http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/report-candy-crush-saga-maker-king-files-ipo-5b-valuation/2013-09-27


19-year-old college student in Temecula was arrested for hijacking the webcams of young women (including Miss Teen USA), taking nude photos, then blackmailing them to send him more explicit material:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/26/justice/miss-teen-usa-sextortion/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

T-Mobile says that their ads target AT&T the most because AT&T has the most dissatisfied customers...having AT&T "being big and being bad" gives T-Mobile the chance to get customers to switch in their opinion:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/t-mobile-cmo-knocks-att-being-big-and-being-bad/2013-09-25


That sure didn't take long...2 weeks after Apple introduced their gold iPhone, Samsung introduces their gold Galaxy S4:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/25/4769086/samsung-counters-iphone-5s-with-a-golden-galaxy-s4

NASA's Curiosity rover found that the Martian atmosphere doesn't have nearly the level of methane that had been thought, decreasing the chance that Mars has life now:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/09/nasa-curiosity-rover-detects-no-methane.html


The NSA pays AT&T, Verizon and Sprint several hundred million dollars a year for access to 81% of all international phone calls into the US. Consumers pay the large telecom companies for their communication services and the NSA pays the large telecom companies ~$300 mil/year to find out who we talk with, how long, and when and where the communications occurred:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/09/23/attverizonsprint-are-paid-cash-by-nsa-for-your-private-communications/


The FAA is meeting this week to finalize their decision that could allow airline passengers to use their tablets and e-readers even on takeoff and landing.  Since I flew to DC again today and have traveled to DC 3 times in 4 weeks, this type of rule change is of great interest to me:
http://www.fiercemobilecontent.com/story/report-faa-set-relax-restrictions-passenger-access-mobile-devices/2013-09-24


I forgot to include this yesterday--BlackBerry reached an initial deal with a group led by one of their biggest investors to have that group buy BlackBerry for $4.7 bil and take the company private.  The deal allows for BlackBerry to try to find other bidders that will pay more...which would benefit BlackBerry's investment group since they own a sizable portion of BlackBerry:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/blackberry-strikes-47b-deal-go-private-fairfax-bid/2013-09-23


Android users have been waiting for Plants vs. Zombies 2 for years and have been wondering why it has been exclusively on iOS for the past few months.  The reason for the Android delay has been revealed--EA says that Apple paid EA a "truckload of money" to make Plants vs. Zombies 2 an exclusive on iOS for a period of time:
http://www.droid-life.com/2013/09/24/apple-reportedly-paid-ea-a-truckload-of-money-to-keep-plants-vs-zombies-2-a-temporary-ios-exclusive/

http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20130923-universal-flu-vaccine-within-sight


Famous balloonist says that he tried to talk Google out of their Project Loon because he feels that their plans aren't feasible.  Per Lindstrand points out that at the altitude that Google plans to have their balloons, wind speeds can reach up to 120 knots, so they won't stay in place for more than a minute:
http://www.fiercebroadbandwireless.com/story/googles-project-loon-full-hot-air-contends-famed-balloonist/2013-09-23


Apple announced that they sold a record 9 million iPhones on the debut weekend of the 5c and 5s.  Apple said that more than 200 million devices are now running iOS 7, saying that is the fastest software upgrade in history:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/apple-sells-9m-new-iphone-5s-5c-models-debut-weekend/2013-09-23