Geeking Out

judgecorp writes "German researchers from the Fraunhover and Karlsruhe institutes have achieved 40Gbps transfers over 1km using a wireless link. The new record raises the hope that point-to-point wireless could be used instead of expensive fibers in some rural broadband applications." Partially thanks to transmitting between 200GHz and 280GHz. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Congrats to our YouTube winner and thanks to everyone that participated, new contest starting on tonight’s show. Thoughts and prayers go out to the families affected by the storms the past several days. Sponsored by: $2.49 for one new or transfer .com @ GoDaddy Promo Code geek249 32% off total new order @ GoDaddy Promo Code go32off1 Subscribe Today: Audio | Video (HD) | Mobile Video | iTunes | Zune Download the Audio Show File Follow me on Google+ Follow @geeknews on Twitter Geek News Central Facebook Page Show Hotline 24/7 1-619-342-7365 or e-mail geeknews@gmail.com Links to articles covered in this Podcast on the GNC Show Notes Page [Click Me]

DavidGilbert99 writes "LulzSec's star burnt brightly in the short period it was active, but things quickly turned sour when its core members began getting arrested. Last week three of the six core members were sentenced in the UK, but this only served to highlight the fact that one member of the group, known as Avunit, has been able to remain unidentified despite the FBI having turned the group's leader Sabu into an informant. Who is Avunit? And does he hold the purse strings of the group's Bitcoin wallet which could have up to $180,000 in it?" As usual, be warned of the horrendous autoplaying video ads surrounding good content at the primary link. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

richlv writes "Latvian police recently raided the home of a history teacher and confiscated his computer. The crime? Scanning a history book and making it available on his website covering various topics on history. The raid was based on a complaint from the publisher (Google Translate to English), which has a near-monopoly on educational materials in Latvia, often linked with shady connections in the Ministry of Education." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

By Christopher Cerasi Last night’s season finale of Mr Selfridge packed a lot into it’s 1:45 minute running time, as PBS showed the last two episodes of series one together. Some story lines wrapped up more satisfyingly than others, but all in all it was a good end to what has been an overall tepid season. Given the amount of characters and scope of the story, Mr Selfridge should have been a juicy soap opera filled with drama and passion and fun. And while it was lovely to look at, it never quite took off the way it could have – and should have. Still, it resonated with viewers enough for the BBC to commission a second series, so hopefully they will pack some more story punch to match the visual opulence it delivered so well. Read more »

hypnosec writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has started accepting donations in the form of Bitcoins again after a two year hiatus, stating that the legal uncertainty hovering over the digital currency has all but disappeared. On their blog the EFF noted that a report from U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in addition to their own findings, 'have confirmed that, as a user of Bitcoin or any virtual currency, EFF itself is likely not subject to regulation.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One of my favorite childhood books of all time, and one of the first books I remember enjoying, was The Monster At The End Of This Book. A Little Golden Book featuring Sesame Street‘s Grover, TMATEOTB is a “post-modern” book … Continue reading →

Flickr looks a lot different today than how it used to. Yahoo! (which owns Flickr) has given Flickr a makeover that includes a brand new design. What once showed you small thumbnails of photos, with a lot of white, empty, space surrounding them, now features the photos much more prominently. To me, it seems like Flickr’s new look resembles that of Facebook, or perhaps Pinterest. The photos are bigger, filling up the screen. Users now have a homepage that includes an activity feed that combines your friends’ recent uploads with the activity on the photos that you have uploaded. I wasn’t thrilled with the new design at first, because it takes me a long time to “re-learn” how to use social media when it visually changes. Eventually, I figure the new design will grow on me. In addition to the very obvious design change, Flickr also announced that users will get a free terabyte of space. Their blog says: At Flickr, we believe you should share all your images in full resolution, so life’s moments can be relived in their original quality. No limited pixels, no cramped formats, no memories that fall flat. We’re giving your photos room to breathe, and you the space to upload a dizzying number of photos and videos, for free. Just how big is a terabyte? Well, you could take a photo every hour for forty years without filling one. In December of 2012, Flickr released a Flickr iPhone app. Today, it announces the release of the Flickr app for Android users, which can be found at the Google Play store.

Marvel's Avengers Assemble, which is what the live-action movie was called in English-speaking countries where they have fonder memories of John Steed and Emma Peel, is the newest Marvel cartoon, and the first episode is now available to watch free. Granted, if you're like me and don't use iTunes much, it's still a pain - upgrade the software, restart the machine, create a new account, update your credit card info all for a cartoon - but I soldiered on. And will be royally screwed if they snuck a Human CentiPad clause in all umpteen of those damn boxes. It seems to be roughly based on movie continuity but with some differences. The Stark Tower looks the same, the team roster too (Falcon joins in this first episode). Yet Modok is a known threat (though Red Skull is presumed dead, but not for long) and the Avengers have broken up over what seems to be the shared agreement that Tony Stark's kind of a prick. Also, Hulk stays Hulk - he's never puny Banner in this episode, but he is slightly more articulated than in the movies. It's got some good cliffhangers - a major character seems to get killed off right off the bat, and another one comes close at the end of the episode. For very little kids, this might not be the first Marvel toon to show. And if you can't get Samuel L. Jackson, Chi McBride is a damn good lower-budget Nick Fury. Too bad they didn't get Werner Herzog to actually be Red Skull.

By Kevin Cafferty Ladies and gentlemen, Peter Dinklage’s Emmy submission! Tyrion’s (Peter Dinklage) been a little sidelined so far this season, and I was glad to see him back at the forefront of this week’s episode. Peter Dinklage had a lot to do with this week and, from drunkenly threatening Joffrey to hinting at the humiliation he felt when his stepladder was removed during his wedding ceremony, he was pretty damn fantastic doing all of it. Game of Thrones episodes tend to work best when they narrow their focus a bit rather than checking in with every single character, and this week mostly dealt with the going-ons at King’s Landing, Yunkai, and Dragonstone. Melisandre (Carice Van Houten) needs to leech Gendry’s (Joe Dempsie) blood (the lead-up to this sequence, with a naked Mel seducing Gendry, is about as Red Shoe Diaries as I’ve seen the show get, which is saying something) to cast some kind of juju on Stannis’s enemies. Stannis (Stephen Dillane) names Robb Stark (Richard Madden), Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson), and Balon Greyjoy (Patrick Malahide) as usurpers to the throne during the ceremony, burning a leech for each one. The last time Team Dragonstone took out an usurper king, Melisandre gave birth to a shadow assassin to kill Renly (Gethin Anthony) – will she give birth to leech monsters now? I can’t wait to find out! Also on Dragonstone: Davos (Liam Cunningham) is freed by Stannis and is learning that reading is FUN-damental. Read more »