I love talking about taxes . Our President and both houses of Congress have finally all agreed on a deal on this whole fiscal cliff mess. I’ve been holding my breath on this because I thought for sure that I’d be paying a lot more in taxes this year. But I dodged the bullet. All venture capitalists did, actually. Nothing the government agreed to the last few days actually affects the asset wealthy in this country. If you’re a Hollywood agent barely getting by with a million dollar a year salary and two ex spouses, your life sucks right now. You’re going to have barely any money left over at the end of each month for cocaine with the tax increase. Read more »
‘Demand a Plan’ Campaign Calls for Gun Reform in Wake of Newtown
A new campaign aimed at ending gun violence in the U.S. released a series of videos that highlight Americans who have lost loved ones from shootings. More About: US , congress , newtown Read more »
‘Hunger Games’ Satire Blasts Politicians, Plays With Food [VIDEO]
International relief and development organization Oxfam America has released Food Games , a Hunger Games -inspired satire video featuring a food fight between an elephant and a donkey. The animals irresponsibly throw around food, mimicking how Oxfam feels Congress is acting with the 2012 Farm Bill. Read more »
Apple: Access to Contacts Will Require Explicit Permission
Apple said Wednesday that iOS apps accessing users’ contact lists will require explicit permission, following a week of accusations that a number of iPhone apps were storing data on their servers. “Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AllThingsD . “We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release.” The recent controversy began after an OS X developer discovered Path had been storing users’ contact lists Read more »
Airplanes Can Now Take Off and Land With GPS. Will Flights Be Faster?
The Federal Aviation Administration is finally making the leap from radio-based navigation to a modern GPS system. Congress passed Monday a $63 billion bill to fund and extend the FAA’s programs through 2015, reports ABC News . For the past four years, the FAA has been surviving on life support Read more »
Google to Congress: We’re Still Not Evil
Google sent a 13-page letter to Congress Monday explaining changes to its privacy policy that the search giant announced last week. Those changes are scheduled to go into effect for Google’s 350 million global users on March 1. The letter is a response to a letter Congress sent to Google last week , which requested more specific knowledge about Google’s new privacy policy and practices Read more »
The Week That Killed SOPA: A Timeline
Ladies and gentleman, bid farewell to the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. They’re both being tabled and sent to legislative limbo. How did that happen when just a few days ago it seemed like debates about the bills only existed online? Read more »
Could SOPA Rise From the Dead?
The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act may have been the two most hated bills in recent legislative history and now they’re dead . Or are they Read more »
RIP SOPA: The Internet Kills Its Attackers
Be honest: When this week began, how much did you really know about SOPA ? Five days ago, the Stop Online Piracy Act was still a relatively obscure House bill. Sure, your average geek knew what was contained within ; Mashable , in common with other tech news sites, had been covering it from all angles for weeks Read more »
PIPA and SOPA Co-Sponsors Abandon Bills
The widespread Internet blackout Wednesday, in which sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit went dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), seems to have influenced members of the U.S. Congress Read more »