Random

It seems no one is immune from the lure of the cell phone. Not even pilots. Not even in midflight.

National Transportation Safety Board records show that the pilot of a medical helicopter sent and received texts before the helicopter crashed in Missouri, killing four people.

As Bloomberg reports, the helicopter was operated by Air Methods Corporation, an air medical transport contractor whose policy forbids its pilots from using their cell phones in flight. The company didn't respond to Bloomberg's requests for comment, according to the news agency. We've contacted Air Methods and will update this report … Read more

Presidents want to be loved just like anyone else.

Actually, presidents want to be loved a lot more than anyone else, which is why they became politicians in the first place. Well, that and the money.

It was touching, therefore, to see President Bill Clinton appear with Stephen Colbert on "The Colbert Report" and admit he was afraid of not being loved. On Twitter, that is. How could the man who turned the last election with one speech fear that he would be left all alone, with just a little blue bird for company? The president admitted that … Read more

Do you believe in life after death?

I believe that several fans of singing icon Cher have had such beliefs bolstered by events that occurred today on Twitter.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher passed away today.

She was admired and derided in almost equal measure. Some adored how she assaulted entrenched British institutions with her handbag. Others thought she was a petty and divisive shopkeeper's daughter.

One Web site that espoused the latter view is called Is Thatcher Dead Yet? It rather looked forward to her passing to the Safeway in the sky.

So when her death was announced, it immediately created the hashtag #nowthatchersdead.… Read more

Would you choose to save your fingers by wearing cat ears on your head?

I am not imbibing alcoholized catnip. I am merely marveling at the ideas that emerge from the minds of clever cats at Berkeley.

One of these ideas uses a technology called Neurosky. Those who find Google Glass to be highly inventive -- but maybe not so stylish -- will look at the Neurosky headsets and wonder just how soon after putting them on they will be intercepted by people in long, white coats.

There is a probe touching your forehead, resembling the same motion you sometimes … Read more

Perhaps your laptop, like mine, fights strange intrusions every day.

Some ads attempt to outwit pop-up blockers, as if it's a bizarre episode of "Survivor."

Yet it seems that some companies might be attempting even more irritating ways of not only attracting your attention, but detracting from the tone of Web site you're looking at.

Would you, for example, want to see a banner ad from H&R Block besmirching the pristine pages of Apple.com?

This is allegedly what happened to computer science Ph.D. student Zack Henkel. As Ars Technica reports, Zenkel was … Read more

Once they've made a movie about you, can you ever be you again?

Perhaps that depends on whether you were you in the first place. Or rather, whether the you that people saw had very much to do with the real human being that lived inside your body.

This has been the dilemma of Mark Zuckerberg for some time.

As his ambitions (and Facebook) got bigger and bigger, as his contempt for any norms of privacy exceeded those of your most nosy grandmother, he suddenly had to appear in the public eye.

Yes, the man who peddled sharing as … Read more

Facebook's relationship with breastfeeding mothers has some Oedipal tinges.

It seems that ever since the site became populated by people who weren't university students desperate to find a warm body, Facebook has shivered at the site of anything that resembled a naked breast.

Even when it was actually an elbow.

Though breastfeeding mothers have always railed against Facebook's anti-breast policies, the company has always claimed that it is a medium, and therefore abides by the same standards as other media.

This is odd, because at the launch of Facebook Home, Mark Zuckerberg insisted that Facebook was actually … Read more

It's that time of the year again.

The one where companies vie to be worse than Comcast.

That used to be the plot, at least, to the point at which Comcast tried to get its own staff to help prevent it winning the Consumerist's Worst Company in America award.

Last year, though, Electronic Arts walked off with the prize, and this year things aren't looking too good.

It's already in the Final Four, where it must face the might of Ticketmaster. So EA's COO, Peter Moore, thought it best not to attempt ballot stuffing.

Instead, … Read more

The lovely thing about Facebook Home is that it allows Facebook to follow you, everywhere you go. You've always wanted that, haven't you?

You've always wanted Facebook to follow you onto your flight to Chicago, for example. Yes, even when you're flying coach.

So here's the launch TV spot for Facebook's new app-less Windows Phone-inspired creation.

A very nice-looking man is on a plane and he wants one last look at everything that's happening to and with his closest humans, before the airplane doors shut and the flight attendants start being passionately rude. … Read more