Technology

Moto X now permanently priced at $399 without contract

After initially launching in August at $579, Motorola's well-received Moto X is getting a permanent price drop to $399 on any carrier without a new contract. That's slightly higher than the $349 deals that Motorola intermittently offered (with some difficulty) in the run-up to the holidays, but it's still a great deal considering that the Moto X is almost universally regarded as one of the best Android smartphones currently available. The $399 price includes Moto Maker — that is, you can get a bespoke Moto X designed to your tastes — but does not appear to include the recently introduced bamboo-clad "natural" option, which runs an extra $100.

The new pricing puts the Moto X in more direct, permanent competition against Google's...

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/1/5263458/moto-x-now-permanently-priced-at-399-without-contract

A war veteran with PTSD is the first person to buy legal weed in Colorado

Colorado's marijuana dispensaries opened their doors to recreational users this morning, but their first customer was far from someone just looking to have a good time: Sean Azzariti, a Denver-area veteran of the Iraq war who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), instead purchased weed to help alleviate symptoms of his illness.

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/1/5263314/Sean-Azzariti-first-person-legal-recreational-marijuana-colorado

Dubai rings in the new year with largest fireworks show ever

Your New Year's Eve celebrations had nothing on this. In Dubai, organizers successfully pulled off a fireworks display so epic that it set a new world record: an estimated 500,000 pyrotechnics were set off from 400 different locations along 60 miles of coastline at midnight.

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/1/5263214/dubai-new-years-2014-fireworks-world-record

Alleged Snapchat hackers explain how and why they leaked data on 4.6 million accounts

The individual or team claiming responsibility for SnapchatDB has responded to The Verge's requests for comment the morning after the database went online, containing a leaked collection of some 4.6 million apparent Snapchat usernames and partial phone numbers. "Our motivation behind the release was to raise the public awareness around the issue, and also put public pressure on Snapchat to get this exploit fixed," they say. "Security matters as much as user experience does."

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/1/5263156/alleged-snapchat-hackers-explain-how-and-why-they-leaked-data-on-accounts

Federal judge upholds the government's right to search electronics at the border

A US judge has declared that the government can still search and confiscate your electronic devices when you cross the border — dismissing a lawsuit against the policy largely on the grounds that such searches are rare occurrences.

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/1/5263162/federal-judge-upholds-right-to-search-traveler-electronics

New York City mayor plans to outlaw iconic horse carriages

New York's new Mayor, Bill de Blasio, wants to remove horse-drawn carriages from the city. In a news conference held before he took office, de Blasio said that he planned to "get rid of the horse carriages, period," calling them "inhumane" and "not appropriate for the year 2014." A petition signed by more than 4,500 people called for the horses to be replaced by electric replicas of vintage cars, something de Blasio called "a cleaner, safer, wiser, more humane alternative that will be very appealing to tourists."

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/1/5262694/new-york-mayor-de-blasio-wants-to-ban-horse-carriages

Hubble telescope finds evidence of clouds on a distant planet

40 light-years away lies the exoplanet GJ 1214b, a searingly hot "super-Earth" orbiting a red dwarf star. And thanks to the Hubble telescope, researchers believe they've found what lies in the planet's upper atmosphere: thick clouds. A paper, published in the January 2nd issue of Nature , relies on the telescope to settle a debate about the planet's composition. First documented in 2009, GJ 1214b is one of several exoplanets that researchers are studying in hopes of finding a habitable world in another solar system. It's been previously described as a "steamy waterworld," with a density too low to be purely rock and too high to be a gas giant. But despite years of study, researchers hadn't come to a conclusion about what kind of...

via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/1/5262368/hubble-telescope-finds-clouds-in-weather-study-of-exoplanet

Wednesday, January 1, 2014