By Kelly Faircloth 4/17 8:49am

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Totally, totally innocent... or is it?

Booting Up: Silk Road Founder Unruffled by Bitcoin Ups and Downs

There are now 150 million Snapchats sent every day. Very few of them are sent by people older than 30. [Business Insider]

Facebook is testing ads in your Graph Search, but so far they’re not based on your searches. (So you won’t get an eHarmony ad when you search “ex-girlfriends who I still love.”) [TechCrunch]

The founder of the Silk Road–who goes by the name “Dread Pirate Roberts”–isn’t too worried about Bitcoin booms and busts. “Bitcoin’s foundation, its algorithms and network, don’t change with the exchange rate.” [Forbes]

The New York Times won a Pulitzer for investigating Apple’s business practices. [Pulitzer]

Meanwhile, Funny or Die has released iSteve, its very own movie about Steve Jobs. [Funny or Die]

By Jordan Valinsky 4/15 8:56am

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Charlie Ergen? (Photo: NBC)

Booting Up: Dish Network’s Chairman Thinks He’s Jerry Seinfeld

Dish Network announced today that it has submitted a $25.5 billion bid for Sprint Nextel in an effort to circumvent an offer from Japanese telecom company SoftBank. Charlie Ergen, the chairman of Dish, related the company’s purchasing strategy to the plot of Seinfeld: “You initially didn’t know exactly where things were going, but it seemed to all come together in the end.” [New York Times]

Facebook Home has only been out for three days, but that’s totally enough time to call it a failure. Out of 4,000 reviews, roughly 47 percent of users gave it a 1-star rating. [Daily Dot]

Foxconn is adding 10,000 new employees to its ranks as it prepares for the launch of the next Ping Home iPhone. [CNet]

Cornell’s planned high-tech campus on Roosevelt Island is still years away, but some of the classes are getting started in a nondescript, third-floor loft in Chelsea. [New York Times]

Baidu, a.k.a “Chinese Google,” has opened an artificial intelligence lab in Silicon Valley to look for top talent to join the growing company. [ZDNet]

By Kelly Faircloth 4/09 8:46am

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This is not an Apple store. (Photo: Flickr.com/crazytales562)

Booting Up: WhatsApp Denies They’re Selling to Google

Ron Johnson, the guy who created Apple’s gleaming retail stores, has now been fired from his job as CEO of J.C. Penney. Turns out doing away with coupons was not a very popular strategy. [Bloomberg Businessweek]

“Why do people watch tightrope walkers? Not to see them get to the other side. It’s because they might fall. Not everything you do is going to be successful, but that’s part of the allure.” A look back at the creation of Wired. [Ad Week]

It was only acquired by Twitter six months ago, but Vine just took the number-one spot on Apple’s leaderboard for free apps. [TechCrunch]

The messaging app WhatsApp denies they’re selling out to Google. [AllThingsD]

“It’s Big Brother, sort of, but with a good intent.” Thank God we all got out of college before the advent of ebooks that can track your progress. [New York Times]

By Jessica Roy 4/05 2:38pm

Apple in Your Eye

(Photo: Technabob)

In China, Fake Apple Products Are an Acceptable Offering for Your Ancestors

Every spring during the Qingming Festival, people in China honor their ancestors by cleaning and repairing their tombstones. Offerings are also made to the dead, typically consisting of food and drink, but because Chinese culture dictates that deceased relatives will need money and other material goods in the after life, many will also burn fake money or paper replicas of homes and cars as offerings. Read More

By Kelly Faircloth 4/05 8:45am

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Booting Up: Welcome to the Wonderful World of Piracy, Netflix!

Now that Netflix is in the original content business, the company has to deal with piracy. It took some time, but House of Cards is now all over the torrent sites. [Variety]

Is Apple working on a competitor to Street View? [Apple Insider]

New software would leave student essays to be graded by A.I., leaving professors more time for other tasks. What professors are doing that’s more important than evaluating the progress of their students is anyone’s guess. [New York Times]

“If you install this, then it is very likely that Facebook is going to be able to track your every move, and every little action.” [GigaOm]

A secrets-sharing app named “Whisper” just raised $3 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners. [PandoDaily]

By Jordan Valinsky 4/04 12:00pm

Hack Hack Hack Hack It Apart

(Photo via Flickr.)

The U.S. Government is Annoyed That It Can’t Break Into Apple’s iMessage

The technology behind iMessage, Apple’s built-in chat service, is so complex that not even our nuclear-armed government can crack it. According to an internal memo issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration, and obtained by CNET, the government agency conceded that it can’t hack into the heavily encrypted software thus making it “impossible to intercept iMessages” between Apple devices. Read More

By Jessica Roy 4/03 8:43am

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(Photo: How to get real)

Booting Up: Wish Your Cellphone a Happy 40th Birthday

It should probably come as no surprise to you that Facebook has employees whose job it is to read private messages that have been flagged as inappropriate, particularly if they contain malicious URLs or child porn. [BuzzFeed]

Zynga’s first big real-money casino games, ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino, are launching this week in the U.K. At least you’ll have the potential to win actual dollars instead of spending them on virtual crops? [AllThingsD]

Apple is finally beginning iPhone production this quarter so calm down ya fanboys. [Wall Street Journal]

If you live in California, you may soon be able to know exactly what personal information your telecom company collects on you. [Ars Technica]

Happy 40th birthday to the cellphone. Oh, how far we’ve come. [The Verge]