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Are unmanned drones now flying over brooklyn That’s the tale of not less than one commercial airliner crew.

CNN reports that the crew of Alitalia Flight 608 reported seeing a drone over Brooklyn on Monday. The unmanned drone came within 200 feet of the industrial jet, and a collision can have caused a primary disaster.

The FAA and FBI at the moment are both investigating the incident. The latter is looking for info on who the landlord of the unmanned aircraft is, and where it came from. The agency said its main concern now “is the protection of aircraft passengers and crew.”

Drones are increasingly getting used in overseas combat operations, but there’s not been many in use within the within the U.S. The commonest use is available in the shape of hobbyist unmanned flying machines. These machines are heavily regulated by the FAA, however, and are just allowed to fly as much as 400 feet. The person who almost hit the industrial jet was flying at 1,750 feet.

This most up-to-date incident will probably cause more people to query using drones in domestic air space. Some have already expressed concerns over privacy violations with regards to using drones, however the potential for mid-air collisions may ignite more discussion at the topic.

No, the web couldn’t just leave it alone. Two minutes of goats yelling like humans wasn’t enough. Inserting a screaming goat into that one Taylor Swift song, and subsequently any other song under the sun also wasn’t enough.

Now, we now have humans yelling like goats yelling like humans.

God, what’s my life

[oldepayphone]

Following yesterday’s rumor of an August 2013 release for the iPhone 5S, iMore reports that another source has confirmed the ideas. That’s now two reports saying that we must always expect the iPhone in August. All of this would prove false, but two reports confirming an analogous month seems pretty legitimate.

Aside from launch date rumors, the iPhone 5S’ general design is likewise touched upon. It’s reported that the 5S can have an identical basic design of the present iPhone 5, but feature a spec bump akin to the bump seen between the iPhone 4 and 4S. It’s specifically mentioned that the iPhone 5S should be getting a far better camera, and hopefully one which doesn’t be afflicted by purple tint.

Interestingly enough, iMore is reporting that Apple could be revealing its next iPad in April. We’ve already heard that the subsequent iPad will be a marked improvement over last year’s surprising, but underwhelming, fourth generation iPad.

It’s also rumored that the corporate will announce a brand new iPad Mini next month besides, however it’s unknown if it’ll feature a retina display.

I don’t know if we must always expect a brand new iPad this early inside the year, but Apple has generally announced not less than one major product in the course of the first few months of the past few years. Last year’s announcement was for the growth of iBooks into educational materials, and an analogous announcement, alongside new iPads to go with the feature, would make sense for this year.

We’re learning further and further about how Facebook plans to advertise their new Gifts program. Last week, we saw that Facebook was starting to suggest which you give gifts when friends post celebratory statuses.

Facebook have been suggesting which you give gifts in your friends on their birthdays and after they get engaged or married for a while. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Facebook has just begun to feature a “give gift” button inside statuses that feature some style of keyword trigger. As an example, we’ve spotted the recent feature inside statuses about new babies, new jobs, and more.

Now, it looks as if Facebook is absolutely hammering the gift idea home by suggesting you give gifts for your friends which are simply in the course of an immense life event, even inside statuses which have nothing to do with said life event.

Let me explain:

My friend just had a toddler. Yesterday (congrats!). As expected with Facebook’s new feature, a “give a present” button appeared on one in all her statuses last night. It said something in regards to the baby and quoted his measurements. It’s clear that those keywords tipped Facebook to indicate that I give them a present in celebration.

But today, i spotted that another one in all her statuses had the “give a present” prompt within it. This status has absolutely nothing to do with the infant or the other big life event, for that matter. See

So, it seems that Facebook is giving those that announce big life events some form of blanket congratulatory period. And inside that period, even statuses that don’t actually reference the life event will still come equipped with the suggestion that their pals give them a present.

Clever move, Facebook.

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that over 1,000 Chicago-area flights had been cancelled. Greater than 850 flights out of Chicago O’Hare International has been cancelled and Midway Airport has cancelled a minimum of 230 flights.

The cancellations come as a winter storm is starting to drop snow at the city. The U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) is predicting as much as 12 inches of snow could fall the Chicago area today.

The NWS has also issued a winter storm warning and a hazardous weather outlook for the greater Chicago area that lasts until midnight. From the NWS warning:

A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW MEANS SEVERE WINTER CLIMATIC CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED. A GREAT DEAL OF SNOW ARE FORECAST MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS. CONSIDER ONLY TRAVELING IF IN AN EMERGENCY. IN CASE YOU MUST TRAVEL…KEEP AN ADDITIONAL FLASHLIGHT… FOOD…AND WATER FOR YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY.

Schools throughout Chicago were closed or closed early today. The Tribune report states that the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation have been salting the roads in and across the city since early this morning, and the Illinois Tollway has snowplows standing by.

Peanut butter & jelly, on a burger. Calling your ex-girlfriend at 3am “simply to talk.” Mashing up Nine Inch Nails’ “Head Like a Hole” and Carly Rae Jespen’s “Call Me Maybe.”

One of those three things is a foul idea, and the opposite two are great ideas. One of the most ones that may be a great idea actually feels like a terrible idea. That’s the one who you’re about to experience and often love. Or not less than tolerate it that’s a miracle in its own way.

Seriously, I’m not kidding. It’s pretty good.

[pomDeter via Gawker]

In a press release released yesterday, The White House said that it sides with the 100,000 plus folks that signed a petition asking that they capable of unlock their smartphones. Having the support of The White Home is great, but not we’d like some legislation to back it up.

Sen. Klobuchar announced today that she is currently drafting a bill inside the senate that might carve out an exemption within the DMCA to permit smartphone unlocking. In her statement, she echoes the White House’s sentiment that the power to unlock smartphones is integral to consumer choice:

“Consumers need to be free to pick the telephone and repair that most closely fits their needs and their budgets. i can continue to work to advance commonsense measures to guard consumers and promote competition.”

It seems like Klobuchar’s bill will only exempt smartphones, but we won’t know needless to say until the bill’s text is released. It might be unfortunate if the bill only covered smartphones, however, as there are other electronic devices that might greatly reap the benefits of unlocking exemptions.

Regardless, a targeted bill that exempts smartphones under the DMCA is a good first step for consumer choice. Hopefully the result of unlocking smartphones will speak for itself if the bill passes. Lawmakers may then be more well-off presenting other exemptions that create a professional-consumer environment while protecting the rights of content holders and manufacturers.

[h/t: PC Magazine]

Google has added another metric to its Transparency Report so users can identify yet another manner where the govt is requesting their information.

Starting today, Google is now including data about National Security Letters on its U.S. Transparency Report.

National Security Letters (NSL) are a sort of a requirement letter which might be utilized by the U.S. Government (mostly the FBI) to extract information from a company inside the name of national security. The type of info requested in NSLs includes stuff like transactions, phone numbers, and email addresses.

In the period following 9/11, the FBI’s use of National Security Letters dramatically increased with the implementation of the Patriot Act.

The thing about NSLs is they also come complete with a gag order (often), so the corporations who received the letter can’t discuss it with the users whose information was requested. For the Transparency Report, Google has worked with the FBI to loosen this secrecy ever so slightly.

The very first thing that you just’ll notice when staring at the recent NSL stats is they are unspecific to a ludicrous degree. For example, Google is barely reporting the collection of NSLs received in batches of one,000. That implies that each year on record (2009-present) has logged between 0 and 999 NSLs.

“You’ll notice that we’re reporting numerical ranges in place of exact numbers. Here’s to deal with concerns raised by the FBI, Justice Department and other agencies that releasing exact numbers might reveal details about investigations. We plan to update these figures annually,” says Google.

I guess something is healthier than nothing. Still, it’s an amazing leap forward for the Google Transparency Report.