Matt's Favorites: Video Of MLK Assassin, Death For Facebook Killer, Massive Data Leak Shows How The Rich Hide Wealth, Giant Pong, And Much More
So what's new, different and wonderful in the high-tech world this fine sunny Opening Day Friday? Glad you asked...
* Primitive early videotapes from 1968 have been released showing the arrest and initial detention of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassin.
* Facebook says it wants to flip the smartphone focus from apps to people. At a press event in Menlo Park, Calif., Thursday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the announcement by joking: "Today, we're going to finally talk about that Facebook phone." Zuckerberg went on to elaborate that the company is not announcing a new phone or operating system. Instead, the social network is launching a new "experience" called Home, which is a collection of apps that features a home screen and user interface that is focused around Facebook.
* A self-styled street preacher who teamed up with a high school student in a deadly plot to lure men with bogus Craigslist job offers was sentenced to death Thursday. An Ohio judge sentenced 53-year-old Richard Beasley after a jury recommended last week that he be executed.
* A massive data leak reveals how the ultra-rich hide their wealth. CBC says there was a 260-gigabyte leak of files containing information on over 120,000 offshore entities like shell corporations and trusts involving people in over 170 countries. In many cases, the leaked documents expose insider details of how agents would incorporate companies in Caribbean and South Pacific micro-states on behalf of wealthy clients, then assign front people called nominees to serve, on paper, as directors and shareholders for the corporations -- disguising the companies' true owners.
* Philadelphia is getting ready for a supersized game of "Pong" - on the side of a skyscraper. The classic Atari video game will be re-created later this month on the facade of the 29-story Cira Centre, where hundreds of embedded LED lights will replicate the familiar paddles and ball.
* Groups such as Tibet in Action or Citizen Lab Munk School of Global Affairs have put together resources to help educate and enhance the security of people in oppressive regimes like China, Syria and Iran.
* Bumblebees and Pavlov's dogs have something in common: Both can learn to associate two things they've never seen together before. A new study finds that bees use simple logical steps to learn from other bees which flowers hold the sweetest nectar.
* White baby tigers! Squeeeeee!
* Today I like Anonymous. Look what they did to North Korea's Twitter and Flickr accounts.
* So what's the difference between 99 percent accurate and 99.9 percent accurate? Well, for one thing, it might stop the Zombie Apocalypse. Read on.
* Hewlett-Packard Co Chairman Ray Lane, who has come under fire from shareholders for his role in the botched, costly acquisition of British software company Autonomy Plc, has stepped down, the company said on Thursday.
* A new national poll reveals that Americans differ along political party lines even in their endorsement of conspiracy theories, including the belief that President Obama is the Anti-Christ and the idea that global warming is a hoax.
* Methinks a rewrite is in order: Anyone under 18 found browsing the news online could face criminal charges under the latest draft of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which is supposed to be "rushed" to Congress during its "cyber week" in the middle of April.
* The author of the Flashback Trojan that hit 650,000 Apple computers through a vulnerability in Java has been revealed as a 30-year-old Russian criminal.
