Tech

Ones and Zeros: North Korea’s Information Age, Facebook’s Filter Scam and Stuxnet’s Movie Debut

Our weekly round-up of what’s hot and what’s not on our network of bubbles, filters and cyber terrorists. See last week’s.

ZERO: No “Pyongyang Spring” with North Korea’s Information Age

Sure they’ve got a million cell phones and something you could call the Internet (more like Intranet) but it’s only helping to further government interests and control.

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ONE: AT&T allows FaceTime over cellular

But don’t give them too much credit, we should have always had it in the first place. The problem here? “This is AT&T’s world — the FCC is just living in it,” writes the Verge.

ONE: Twitter wasn’t hacked

They just screwed up.

ZERO: Waiting for Apple

By now we’re used to it. The latest long line? Developers waiting for app approval.

ONE: China has election fever

The hypothetical map, created by Sina Weibo users (China’s Twitter) pits the ruling Chinese Communist Party (red on the above map) faced off against the Kuomintang, or KMT (blue on the above map), which fled to Taiwan in 1949.

ZERO: SEC computers were vulnerable to cyber attack

The computers belonged to a employees in the SEC’s Trading and Markets Division leaving highly sensitive stock market data vulnerable although no breaches were made, according to a Reuters report. Ironically, that’s the office “responsible for making sure exchanges follow certain guidelines to protect the markets from potential cyber threats and systems problems.” So guys, when are we going to start taking this stuff more seriously?

ONE: With the fiscal cliff coming up, here’s a primer on our debt

ONE: George Takei is going to expose Facebook’s filtering practices in his new book

The conspiracy theory is that Facebook is filtering page post’s using an algorithm called EdgeRank so page owners pony up for advertising or Facebook services that reduce EdgeRank filtering. “I am writing a chapter in my book Oh Myyy about Edgeranking and what I have done to try and achieve higher engagement,” Takei writes. “I am curious as to why interactivity rates on my page appear to fluctuate so much when I have done nothing different. I have not been pressured to use Promoted Pages [advertising], but I have had to take active steps to get fans to add my page to their ‘Interests’ so that it has a higher likelihood of appearing in their newsfeed.”

ONE: The best car is an electric one

The Tesla Model S was named Car of the Year by Automobile Magazine. “We weren’t expecting much from the Tesla other than some interesting dinner conversation as we considered “real” candidates like the Subaru BRZ and the Porsche Boxster,” the editors wrote. “In fact, the Tesla blew them, and us, away.”

ZERO: NEWSFLASH: America is dead – Iran’s Press TV

ONE: Second Life creator’s second act

ONE: This guy has Luke Skywalker’s hand

ZERO: Check out President Romney’s website

The site he had whipped up in case he’d won. It’s even got some Comic Sans!

ONE: The new 007 movie was inspired by Stuxnet

“There is a cyberwar that has been going on for some time, and we thought we’d bring that into the fore and let people see how it could be going on,” Skyfall producer Michael G. Wilson told FoxNews.com. Meanwhile, the real Stuxnet just infected Chevron.

ZERO: This mouse requires you to connect to the Internet to use it

Stupid.

ONE: William Shatner has an iPhone app and you’re going to love it says William Shatner