While one school of thought has assumed for some time now that the last of the neanderthals were killed off by humans a new study using DNA samples reveals that many neanderthals likely died off in Western Europe as a result of the Ice Age.

According to a BBC report a large number of neanderthals died before they ever came in contact with modern humans while only a small group survived 10,000 years after the Ice Age with the rest becoming extinct around 50,000 years ago.

The study’s lead researcher says of his DNA work:

“The fact that Neanderthals in Europe were nearly extinct, but then recovered, and that all this took place long before they came into contact with modern humans, came as a complete surprise.”

To determine the likelihood that Neanderthals mostly died off around the Ice Age researchers used DNA variation tests to figure out when the group began to fade away. According to the study “low genetic variation can make a species less resilient to changes in its environment, and place it at increased risk of extinction.”

According to the Daily Mail had neanderthals survived the cold temperatures they may have led to the extinction of modern humans.

The neanderthal debate continues to rage on with the species making headlines just several short weeks ago when painting found in the Nerja caves of southern Spain are believed to be of Neanderthal origin dating back 42,000 years ago.

Do you think humans survived the neanderthals because we were located in the East while the neanderthals chose harsher conditions to populate?

Neanderthals Weren’t Killed Off By Humans, Were Crippled By Ice Age [Study] is a post from: The Inquisitr

AMD on Monday announced two new quad-core processors for it’s FX family that both offer top “max turbo” speeds of just over 4GHz.

The first new member of the bulldozer multi-core architecture for desktop computers is the AMD FX-4170 which was first announced in October 2011., a four core processor that offers 4.2GHz with a turbo speed of 4.3GHz. The processor also uses the AM3+ socket and takes advantage of 125W TDP, the first of such processors to do so from AMD’s hex core Bulldozer family.  The processor also offers 4MB L2 Cache.

The AMD FX-6200 in the meantime comes in at 3.8GHz with a top speed of 4.1GHz. The FX-6200 also features the AM3+ socket with the power consumption standards while adding an addition 2MB of memory to the systems L2 Cache (6MB total).

AMD didn’t provide the Northbridge clockspeed, although it’s likely 2.2GHz based on TDP and clockspeeds.

At this time AMD has not disclosed pricing for either one of the two processors and it has promised to ship the products on a staggered schedule based on different geographical areas.

Will you be heading out to your local retails to purchase the AMD FX-4170 or the AMD FX-6200 when they release in your area? What price would you be willing to pay for the new quad-core processors with speeds over 4GHz?

AMD FX Quad-Core Processors Break 4GHz is a post from: The Inquisitr

Twitter is a strange beast. I have my periods where I get involved pass just using to announce my posts from various blogs or neat stuff I’ve found but there are time (like recently) where I won’t even open up my Twitter client to see what is going on; and this is someone who used it a lot.

Then there are those who joined because it was the cool thing to do or they heard that their favorite celebrity was hanging out on Twitter. Primarily though it seems to be more marketing these days than anything else (in my opinion anyway) but it also seems that some types of businesses are discovering that the luster of Twitter is fading.

The Financial Brand has a new study that highlights one of these groups of businesses: the credit unions where one in five has apparently given up on their Twitter accounts and let them fall by the wayside.

The study looked at 350 activated Twitter accounts; which they determined to be those that had uploaded a photo, sent at least one tweet, and had at least one follower, of credit unions across the United States. This represents 5% of all credit unions and 10% of those on Twitter.

The credit unions studied were active for an average of 2.2 years – plenty of time to create a stellar Twitter presence. And yet 74 of the 350 had abandoned their accounts.

Most credit unions aren’t exactly chatty when it comes to Twitter: the average number of tweets sent per credit union was 440, which equals out to about 0.6 per day. However, the most active account had sent a total of 3,889 tweets as of the time of the study, which equals about 5.3 per day.

Credit unions follow an average of 292 accounts, but 12 of them follow none – and one follows a whopping 10,858 Twitter users.

via All Twitter

As with all things this breaks down into some simple rules. Twitter will work for some and it won’t work for other but more importantly you only really get out of it what you are willingly to actively put into it.

Twitter not working for one in five credit unions is a post from: The Inquisitr

When Sgt. Brandon Morgan returned to American soil, his partner Dalan Wells was waiting for him. The gay marine’s homecoming kiss was posted onto the Gay Marines Facebook Page and has started to spread across the internet.

The image have over 20,000 likes, has been shared close to 4000 times, and has gathered more than 4,000, mainly supportive, comments.

Morgan wrote on the JoeMyGod Blog:

“To everyone who has responded in a positive way. My partner and I want to say thank you. Dalan, the giant in the photo, can’t believe how many shares and likes we have gotten on this. We didn’t do this to get famous,or something like that we did this cause after 3 deployments and four years knowing each other, we finally told each other how we felt.”

The picture has received some criticism, however. Some people have complained that Morgan should not have kissed his partner in uniform. Morgan responded:

“If the Sergeants Major, Captains, Majors, and Colonels around us didn’t care…then why do you care?”

Last December, two female navy officers shared the first same-sex homecoming kiss when Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta climbed down off of her ship to meet and kiss her partner Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell.

Here’s a video of the first same-sex homecoming kiss.

What do you think of the gay marine’s homecoming kiss? Are you happy for them?

The “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy that banned openly gay couples from serving in the armed forces was overturned last September.

Gay Marine Gets Support After Homecoming Kiss Hits Web is a post from: The Inquisitr

It’s kind of creepily sobering as a female when you learn that you are born with all the eggs you’ll ever have, and you realize each menstrual period means you’re one closer to being all out- but a new study may change that conventional wisdom.

The study, out of Massachusetts General Hospital and led by Jonathan Tilly, centers around stem cells harvested from patients undergoing sex change procedures. The patients, who were Japanese were in their twenties at the time of the surgeries and donated their ovaries for research. According to CBS News, the researchers located stem cells in the donated ovaries, then “injected those stem cells into pieces of human ovary, transplanting the tissue under the skin of mice, to provide the tissue with a nourishing blood supply.”

What happened next doesn’t necessarily mean researchers will adapt the results into a way to create new, usable eggs- but within two weeks, egg cells had formed from the stem cells. The research could, however, lead to new therapies for older or infertile women seeking to conceive. Tilly commented:

“Our current views of ovarian aging are incomplete. There’s much more to the story than simply the trickling away of a fixed pool of eggs.”

Dr. Avner Herschlag of the Center for Human Reproduction at Long Island Jewish urged caution in becoming excited about the results so soon:

“This is experimental… This is a beginning of perhaps something that could bring in new opportunities, but it’s going to be a long time in my estimation until clinically we’ll be able to actually have human eggs created from stem cells that make babies.”

Further research is expected into stem cells and egg growth.

Stem Cells in Ovaries May Be Able to Grow Eggs, Study Finds is a post from: The Inquisitr

A Chinese company with a deep seeded respect for the Apple iPhone product line was caught this week trying to sell the iStove, an Apple branded product that the company hoped to sell to unsuspecting buyers.

Chinese company’s attempting to sell counterfeit Apple products is nothing new, however this is the first time that portable gas stoves with the Apple logo engraved on them have been found in public.

The company’s actions may not have been discovered had Chinese police in Wuhan not confiscated one of the units after they were deemed unsafe for sale.

According to Chinese tech website M.I.C. Gadget:

Police found 681 stoves sporting Apple’s logo and brand in two warehouses. The stoves had the half eaten apple graphic and “iphone” printed in white on a green background just below the burner. Also, the fake Apple stove was labeled an “Apple China Limited.”

In 2011 25 fake Chinese Apple stores were shut down after selling devices that were nearly identical to the iPhone and iPad. It wasn’t until an American living in China blogged about the stores that Apple took action and had the stores shut down.

The team at Mashable managed to find a video showcasing the look of the iStove. What amazes us most is the fact that the stoves looking nothing like the sleek devices put out by Apple yet people were willing to buy them at face value.

Would you be willing to buy the “iStove” if for no other reason than to own one of the most strange Apple counterfeit products we’ve found to date?

Fake Apple iStove Products Confiscated In China is a post from: The Inquisitr

Next to Reddit the only other site that geeks and nerds love as much is Hacker News.

Similar to Reddit it is a regular haunt of  geeks and nerds who enjoy sharing the interesting bits of news; and thought, that they find on the web. Just as the members of Reddit are passionate and loyal to their favorite site so are the folks that hang out over Hacker News.

Lim Cheng Soon is one of those people but with a true entrepreneur’s spirit he found a really great way to take his passion for Hacker News, add some value to it and make a business out of it.

You see Lim, like most of the fans of Hacker News, a the type of people who constantly have to deal with information overload but don’t want to miss anything that is happening by going offline. With this thought in mind Lim started gathering up some of the most popular posts from the sites and put them into a magazine called Hacker Monthly.

In this day and age of people being constantly connected and never being out of touch of what is happening in the world you would think that the last thing that would go over well would be a ‘magazine’, let alone a monthly one. Well in this case it has worked and worked well because Lim has been able to make the magazine his fulltime job with a desirable product that attracts advertisers, subscribers, and make money.

Twenty-one issues later, the magazine has about 4,700 subscribers worldwide, Lim said. Annual subscriptions cost $88 for the print edition or $29 for the digital .mobi/.epub/.pdf bundle. Only five percent of subscribers get the print version, he said, but that’s still a tidy sum of about $20,000 on top of an estimated $130,000 in subscriptions per year. He also sells full-page ads.

via Nieman Journalism Lab

Not only is able to pay himself but the project is doing so well that he is able to pay for a graphic artist and hire two copy editors. Every article in Hacker Monthly is hand-selected, any needed editing is done, and set for the page. To be an article that is included in the magazine the post must have gotten more than 100 votes on Hacker News as well as satisfying the ethos that Lim has set for Hacker Monthly: “anything that gratifies one’s intellectual curiousity”.

Hacker News fan turns his fandom into a business selling you Hacker News is a post from: The Inquisitr

The results of a phase 2 trial indicate that a new drug to treat type 2 diabetes shows promise in improving the blood sugar of patients without increasing risk of low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia.

Type 2 diabetes is the one often referred to as “lifestyle-related” diabetes, and is linked with obesity and often other habits. More than 90% of diabetes in general are type 2, with a far smaller portion being type 1 or what has been called juvenile diabetes. According to US News and World Report, type 2 diabetes often “involves a gradual decline in how insulin responds to changes in blood sugar,” or glucose, and the medication used in the trial could be more efficient at treating the condition specifically.

The new drug, TAK-875, responds to changes in blood sugar rather than affecting insulin when blood sugar is well-regulated, slicing the risk of hypoglycemia in type 2 diabetics. The study involved more than 400 patients whom the study identified as “not getting adequate blood sugar control through diet, exercise or treatment with the first-line diabetes drug metformin.” 303 patients were given TAK-875, 61 received a placebo and the remaining patients were treated with another diabetes drug, Amaryl.

Dr. Minisha Sood is an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, and Sood commented:

“…given the rising global incidence of type 2 diabetes, the medical community is eagerly awaiting the development of novel agents to add to our existing armamentarium of anti-diabetic agents… though this study includes a small sample size followed for a short period of time, the results are promising in that TAK-875 appears to be effective for glycemic [blood sugar] control without significant risk for hypoglycemia or weight gain.”

Sood noted that further study is needed, particularly when patients with heart disease are concerned.

Diabetes Drug in Trial Stages Shows Better Glucose Control is a post from: The Inquisitr

Oh this is interesting.

It seems that Mike Masnick, owner of the Techdirt blog, discovered; while doing a search on Google, that one of Techdirt’s key posts about the whole SOPA/PIPA affair got hit with a DMCA Takedown notice.

For those of you not familiar with the site Techdirt is one of the premier sites in the tech blogosphere that centers around privacy and security as well as copyright and trademark issues. While not everyone might not agree with what gets posted on Techdirt both Mike and the site have earned the respect of many of us in the tech world for his work in these areas.

So it was both interesting and humorous to find out that one of the site’s key posts about the important subject, and the resultant discussion had been removed from Google’s search index.

Mike only found out by accident as he was doing a search on Google for something else to do with the site when he notice at the bottom of the search results page that two results had been removed due to a DMCA takedown.

It turns out that the takedown came from a company called Armovore, a company that specializes in sending out DMCA notices on behalf of other companies. In this case they were acting on behalf of a company called Paper Street Cash which is, as Mike discovered, a porn company; and the claim they made was that the takedown was about content from a site called TeamSkeet.

As Mike said in his post:

If you’re scratching your head, you’re not the only one. There’s clearly nothing infringing in our post. I just wasted too much time going through all 300+ comments on that post and I don’t see anything that includes any porn or even links to any porn as far as I can tell. Instead, it seems that Armovore and Paper Street Cash sent a clearly bogus DMCA takedown notice, which served the purpose of censoring our key blog post in the SOPA fight. And they did it on January 20th… the day that SOPA was officially shelved.

Between this and the bird chirping story that I posted earlier we are being give a perfect example of just how flawed, and a joke that this whole DMCA idea is.

At the end of his post Mike said that they will be looking into their options and I for one hope that Mike and Techdirt go after these idiots one way or another because this was just wrong.

Techdirt discovers it was hit by a bogus DMCA Takedown Notice on a key SOPA post is a post from: The Inquisitr

Early this morning in Europe, the organization WikiLeaks promised the slow release of more than 5 million private emails obtained out of the intelligence organization Stratfor in a massive Anonymous hack late last year.

The hack was certainly embarrassing for a company that trades in security- particularly one that had been likened to a “shadow CIA” in the past. The first batch of leaks is out and currently being pored over by the press, and Stratfor has struck back at the full-disclosure org with a press release condemning the release of the information, a move they describe as a “deplorable, unfortunate- and illegal- breach of privacy.”

Stratfor has taken the interesting stance of refusing to deny any of the (somewhat serious) bits of misconduct leaked so far or anything that will be leaked- among the allegations are improper collusion with journalistic organizations as well as insider trading. In the release, Stratfor says:

“Some of the e-mails may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies; some may be authentic…We will not validate either. Nor will we explain the thinking that went into them. Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questioning about them.”

Stratfor also claims that the WikiLeaks dump is an attempt to silence the intelligence organization, and also wants to add that the emails (which may or may not be forgeries, they add) were casual transmissions:

“As with last year’s hack, the release of these emails is a direct attack on Stratfor. This is another attempt to silence and intimidate the company, and one we reject. Under the continued leadership of founder and Chief Executive Officer George Friedman, Stratfor will not be silenced and will continue to publish the geopolitical analysis our friends and subscribers have come to rely upon… The emails are private property. Like all private emails, they were written casually, with no expectation anyone other than the sender and recipient would ever see them. They should be read as such.”

In relation to the information contained in the leak, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange commented that it is “of grave concern is that the targets of this scrutiny [by Stratfor] are, among others, activist organizations fighting for a just cause.”

Wikileaks Publishes Stratfor Emails, Intelligence Firm Will Not Confirm, Deny Validity is a post from: The Inquisitr

For those of you not old enough to remember the infamous Nintendo PowerGlove it was all the rage for about a week or so back in the Dark Ages of 1989 and was designed by Grant Goddard and Samuel Davis for Abrams Gentile Entertainment and manufactured by Mattel for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Due to a total lack of consumer interest the PowerGlove thankfully faded into gaming history but the idea of a wearable controller has never gone away with many other attempts over the years with the newest attempt coming from a company called Ion Wireless.

Looking like something that might have been used by Tom Cruise in the movie Minority Report the Ion Air Mouse is a half glove with little buttons worn on the finger for the right and left click of a traditional mouse. In addtion after doing some setup on your computer you can can also use your wrist somehow as part of the controller.

The strange looking thing is wireless with a 35 foot range and is rechargeable using a USB port. If this sucker is up your alley you can apparently order for the price of $79.99

via SlashGear

The Powerglove gets it on with Minority Report and births the Ion Ergonomic Air Mouse Glove [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

We all know that YouTube is full of some pretty awesome; and crappy, videos but one of the problems that YouTube has always had to deal with is the uploading of copyrighted material by people who don’t own the content in the video being uploaded.

For the longest time YouTube played under the radar when it came to this stuff but as they tried to continually improve their relationships with the entertainment and music industry they had to find some way to deal with this problem. While not perfect the automated copyright checking system that they finally put in place does a fairly good job in the larger scheme of things but it isn’t perfect.

I know myself that I have had videos that I have uploaded flagged even though being a ‘news’ type show whatever content flagged the video in their system was truly ‘fair use’ but every once in a while you hear about some really silly stuff that gets caught by the system.

Such is the case with YouTube user eeplox who had uploaded a video he took while out in the wilds collecting some fresh ingredient for a wild salad, and being that he was out in the wonderful of Mother Nature his video caught the sounds of some birds chirping in the background.

The next thing he knew his video had been flagged for copyright violation because YouTube detected that the video contained some sounds that belonged to the music company Rumblefish. As eeplox wrote in the YouTube help forum

I posted a video which is basically just me walking and talking, outdoors, away from any possible source of music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPBlfeuZuWg

And apparently youtube identified my video as containing copyrighted music from a company called rumblefish. I filed a dispute, and now I’m waiting for said company to respond to it. Is this a freak occurrence? I feel pretty violated by this, a mysterious entity claiming to own my content and apparently profiting from it with ads.

There are birds singing in the background in the video, could they own the rights to birdsong?

So not only had the YouTube system decided that not only were the bird chirps copyrighted material but it would seem that it thought the sounds were a musical composition.

All is not lost though because shortly after the story hit Reddit a Rumblefish representative by the name of ‘Paul’ left a comment and said that this had nothing to do with Rumblefish but rather with YouTube’s system

We (Rumblefish) didn’t claim it as anything actually. The YouTube Content ID system, ID’d the song and associated it with one of our artists / labels. I found out about this a few hours ago, watched the video myself and there was clearly no music in it at all….only birdsong. I hit up the right person on our team to remove the claim and it was removed earlier tonight. We don’t know why YT claimed birdsong as one of our artists songs. It’s confusing.

Here’s hoping that Mother Nature doesn’t hear about this because knowing her she’d be first in line to file a copyright infringement claim.

via The Next Web

Chirping birds run afoul of YouTube’s automated copyright infringing system is a post from: The Inquisitr

Samsung has finally started to showcase its new and upcoming products at Mobile World Congress 2012. They have not disappointed this year.  They started out by unveiling for the first time the Samsung Galaxy Beam.  It is running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and a 1GHz dual-core CPU. Just like its predecessor it brings an integrated projector capable of 15 lumens of brightness, enough to shoot a high definition image that’s up to 50 inches wide.

There’s a dedicated app that activates the projection, it allows users to share movies, pictures, home videos and documents on the big screen for all to see.  It is being hailed as the ultimate business, study and entertainment machine of this century.  If you are worried about battery life, don’t.  The Galaxy Beam has a 2000 mAh battery which allows for many many hours of continuous use.  The smartphone also packs  8GB of built-in storage and,  it turns out, the device is actually packing 768MB of RAM.

Samsung has yet to unveil which countries or carriers are going to be offering the Samsung Galaxy Beam just yet.  It is rumored that the Beam will be available in the United States in time for the summer.  Carriers in the US also have not been chosen.

This Beam is an upgrade to the last Beam which was a big hot in many different markets.  The projector makes it so that you can now attend business presentations without having to lug a laptop or flash drive with you.

Do you think you will be purchasing a Galaxy Beam Smartphone?

Check Out this video demo of the Galaxy Beam

Samsung Unveils The Galaxy Beam With Built In Projector [Video] is a post from: The Inquisitr

The team at LG could soon be in the process of creating Google’s newest Nexus Smartphone model, that according to CNET who spoke with LG’s smartphone division head, Ramchan Woo.

While the Google Nexus line was first helped along by HTC has never been the best selling Google Android smartphone on the market. Sales have been moderate at best but the devices released under the Nexus name have always worked to showcase the highest standards in technology expected from future Google Android based devices.

LG’s deal would also mean that the company could jump ahead of some competitors by being the first carrier to release major updates to the Android operating system.

At this time Google and LG have not disclosed any specifics about their partnership.

If LG can make the most of the partnership they could create the next popular Smartphone, after all Samsung was able to take over much of the Android market with their Galaxy line of Smartphones after initially launching the Google Nexus S and the current Galaxy Nexus.

A smartphone release may not be the only partnership in the works, it’s also believed that LG could take the Nexus brand to the tablet and Google TV market.

It’s not clear when the new LG led Google Nexus Smartphone may arrive however Google Android’s next release known as Jelly Bean is expected for a spring release, perhaps during the company’s traditional Android launching platform at the June I/O conference.

Would you be willing to make the jump over to the LG brand of Smartphones if it comes with the backing of Google and the newest in Google Android technology?

LG And Google In Talks To Create New Nexus Smartphone is a post from: The Inquisitr

The HTC One S was shown off during MWC 2012 on Sunday and it was announced that T-Mobile users in the U.S. will be the first customers allowed to pick up the super-sleek smartphone.

The phone offers a super-fast Snapdragon S4 processor to complement it’s super-slim design and T-Mobile customers will also receive ultra-fast internet speeds via the networks HSPA+ platform that delivers speeds up to 42Mbps.

The device also features 16GB on-board storage along with a 4.3″ qHD Super AMOLED display that outputs at 960×540 pixels of resolution. The program will also feature 802.11b/g/n WiFi access and an 8MP camera with a single LED flash and 1080P HD video recording.

Buyers will also receive Stereo Sound with Beats Audio for a truly interactive media experience.

Throw in Google Android 4.0 with HTC Sense technology and you’re left with a very attractive phone with features HTC and Google Android users have come to expect from their smartphones.

Unfortunately at this time there’s no release date and no cost of ownership. The device will however go on sale this Spring which may give many T-Mobile users reason to wait before making a new smartphone purchase.

Will you be waiting around for the HTC One S to arrive before purchasing your next T-Mobile smartphone?

T-Mobile Will Be First US Carrier To Receive HTC One S is a post from: The Inquisitr

The fallout of the Megaupload seizure continues to ripple through the whole file-sharing world with both site closures and now abandoned users looking for new places to be able to share files on.

One of those site, Russian based RapidGator, saw their traffic swell from a few hundred to over a hundred thousand visitors a day but unfortunately while most sites would give their eye teeth to have that kind of traffic boost it created a huge problem for RapidGator.

As a result of the jump in traffic PayPal, the company that RapidGator used to process any payments in relation to the site, took notice of the  and from the site’s PayPal account.

“PayPal just informed us that our PayPal account is closed due to the high risks of processing file sharing payments,” RapidGator announced. According to the site’s operators this may very well be the end of the file-sharing industry.

PayPal has frozen the cyberlocker’s funds for 6 months and new users can no longer make payments through PayPal. The ban probably means that “affiliates” can’t be paid through PayPal either.

via TorrentFreak

Of course it is PayPal’s prerogative to do this but I think this sets a really bad precedent for the company as it now truly sets them up as a gatekeeper on the web; which in my opinion is not something that they should be doing regardless of whether a site is a file-sharer or not.

This act, on top of the Megaupload seizure is only going to accelerate the closure of these file-sharing sites, many of which are used for legitimate reasons, and may end up having all cloud based services reconsidering using PayPal as their payment option.

In the long run this won’t make that much of a dent in the file-sharing business but it will affect users wanting to use those services and while it might not really affect the bottom line of PayPal’s business it will definitely further tarnish the reputation of the company which is already having many problems in that area.

File-sharing sites continue to bleed – RapidGator shuts down is a post from: The Inquisitr

ALK has announced more details regarding the company’s Android and iOS GPS application. The program will be called CoPilot GPS and it will provide driving and walking directions without needing to search online in most cases.

According to the company the program which will offer paid and free versions and it will include points of interest which are not offered in other offline-capable GPS mapping products.

While users can pay a premium for added features many of the company’s options will be given at no cost, for example users can share directions on social sites and choose from two alternate routes provided by their phones GPS app.

According to ALK the main limitations will be based on the sophistication of directions and restrictions placed on features that require an Internet link.

Users will be required to pay $20 (in-app purchase) if they would like voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions and the ability to take advantage of 3D maps.

For $10 per year users can also receive live traffic updates, although that feature does require the users Google Android or iOS based device to have an active internet connection since traffic updates occur in real time.

Fans of former CoPilot GPS based programs will be able to pick up both the Android and iOS versions of the application in the second week of March.

Here’s a quick look at the CoPilot GPS mapping outlay:

Are you excited to give CoPilot GPS a try on the free end or will you be paying $20 for the paid-app and then $10 annually for the traffic updates portion of the mobile GPS offering?

CoPilot GPS To Offer Free Offline Navigation Starting In March [Android and iOS] is a post from: The Inquisitr

At the beginning of the month I wrote about the news that Oklahoma was trying to pass a bill that would see all violent video games get an additional tax tacked onto them and at the end of the post I suggested that if the bill passed that it would end up in the courts.

Well it won’t be going to the courts as the news out today is that the bill has been defeated, by a 5-6 vote, in the Oklahoma House Appropriations and Budget Subcommittee on Revenue and Taxation.

It would seem, at least according to the Oklahoma Watchdog site that the bill’s original sponsor, Will Fourkiller (D), had figured out that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all just prior to the bill going to committee.

The idea as proposed by Fourkiller was ripped apart by Representative Pat Owenby (R) and Oklahoma City rep Mike Reynolds (R)

Reynolds: I don’t see many task forces that meet beyond the legislative session. What do you hope to accomplish?

Forkiller [sic]: ways to curb childhood obesity and also bullying that go on today.

Reynolds: so you’re saying video games lead to obesity?

Fourkiller: they can contribute to obesity.

Ownbey: why just video games? Why not French fries or rap music or movies?

Fourkiller: we have to start somewhere. There’s no magic bullet that will solve these issues, but I want to raise awareness of these two issues.

via Oklahoma Watchdog

As a side effect of this defeat is that Oklahoma may not face the same fate as California did when they tried the same thing only to end up in court where lost and it ended up costing the state $1.8 million.

via Geekosystem

Bye bye to Oklahoma’s attempt at a violent video game tax is a post from: The Inquisitr

Czech publisher and writer Jiri Kuchar was visiting a Czech monastery recently when he discovered a treasure trove of Adolf Hitler artwork.

The writer says he unearthed seven paintings valued at nearly $2.7 million.

According to Kuchar:

“They’re part of Hitler’s collection of about 45 paintings, about 30 statues, a writing table and some gifts, which was declared former Czechoslovakia’s war booty.”

Before he found the paintings Americans had already taken much of the monastery collection including the Mannheimer collection which was purchased by Adolf Hitler in 1941 and the Rothschild collection which was confiscated by Vienna in 1938.

Paintings left behind included 1943′s “Memory of Stalingrad” by Franz Eichhorts who he calls “Hitler’s ace painter.”

According to AFP:

“The collection was deposited at the southern Czech monastery of Vyssi Brod during World War II, together with two larger collections formerly owned by German-born Jewish banker Fritz Mannheimer and the Rothschild family.”

Kuchar has made it his mission to track down paintings and statues that one belonged to Hitler and over the last five years he has turned up items all over Europe include some pieces that ended up in German and British auction houses.

As the writer says of many pieces of the artwork Hitler once purchased, stole and controlled:

“To put it delicately, let’s say they disappeared.”

It’s likely that many of the lost works will never be found given the channels they have already went through to be procured by unofficial sources.

Do you think many pieces of artwork Hitler once controlled will never be found?

Writer Discovers Works From Hitler’s Art Collection In Czech Monastery is a post from: The Inquisitr

When the Dolphin HD browser developed for the Google Android Market appeared on the BlackBerry App World portal most users probably assumed that the developer had agreed to the submission, however it turns out that 3rd party app development team MoboTap had no idea their application had been placed. That’s because a third party application website decided to submit the application on the company’s behalf, without its permission.

Submitted by multi-platform app store Handster the reason for the submission has not been made clear however it’s a free program that doesn’t earn direct revenue from each download.

Speaking to Engadget a MoboTap spokesperson noted:

“We do not condone Handster submitting our Dolphin Browser app to BlackBerry’s App World for us and are currently working to take it down and assure Handster will not submit our app for us again.”

Upon quick examination of Handster submitted applications it turns out that the company has submitted thousands of apps to the BlackBerry App world and some of those submissions are not free to download mobile apps.

Perhaps the worst part is the fact that “Handster, Inc.” is named as the apps “Publisher” and while that may be different then “Developer” we can see such action leading to lawsuits from developers who may not have planned to release their apps to the Blackberry App World or who may be working on more stable versions of those programs for the platform.

In the meantime it’s likely some developers are receiving support requests from BlackBerry users which could quickly turn into an ugly situation for developers who are not yet or don’t plan to support BlackBerry users.

Do you think Handster erred in submitting Android Apps to the BlackBerry App World without developer permission?

RIM Placing Android Apps On BlackBerry App World Without Developer Permission is a post from: The Inquisitr