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One unfortunate New Zealander found out the hard way after losing a bet which involved his friends choosing him a new name if he lost.

His new name:

Full Metal Havok More Sexy N Intelligent Than Spock And All The Superheroes Combined With Frostnova

If this is true, I can’t imagine the hell he’ll have to go through now. Wow. Nice friends.

He’s just an odd fellow.

An easy to use new “Remote Administration Tool” malware package for Android offers to infect users, steal their photos and text messages, secretly capture audio or video, record their calls, download their web browser history and steal their email, Facebook and VPN account information.

I’m shocked.

Not skipping a beat, Chen was quick to throw a few jabs in Apple’s direction, answering that iPhone users are constantly searching for power outlets because battery life on the iPhone can’t even last a full day.

“I call you guys wall huggers”, Chen remarked in jest.

You make shit and can barely give your devices away.

This is great.

SBNation:

I got up there on a Saturday, and caught up with them a little bit, and then they said, “Well, let’s go look at the bird.” They were all in small hangars, all closed. We unlocked the back doors, turned on the lights, and I thought “Oh lord, there’s a spaceship.”

It’s still the most amazing aircraft. I remember seeing it at the Vancouver Air Show. They had it do a flyover of the city and watching it bank around the buildings of English Bay was incredible.

NPR:

A Canadian beverage company has concocted a low-alcohol, protein-packed “fit beer” that is expected to be marketed as a sports drink later this year.

I prefer skipping the workout part and going straight to the beer part.

This is funny as hell.

Mac OS X Hints:

Here is a way to disable sleeping when pressing the power button on 10.9.2.

Great tip. That action is incredibly annoying.

There are some interesting designs here, but more than anything I think this shows how companies are recognizing the importance of packaging. Apple led the way with this a decade or more ago.

Atlee Clark talking about the affect hosting the Olympic Games had on Canada:

However, there are less obvious but equally powerful outcomes from hosting the games. The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver had a deep impact on the Canadian psyche, creating a brazen, publicly demonstrated drive to win. That ambition rippled into the entrepreneurial community and has influenced much of the current crop of business leaders who are dedicated to keeping Canada on the proverbial podium.

So sorry.

Mercedes told us its “goal is to offer an after market solution by the end of the year.”

Great news.

You have to watch it now.

Apple:

There iTunes Festival has made a tradition of hosting some of the biggest names in music. The app has been updated to feature the iTunes Festival at SXSW.

If you aren’t lucky enough to attend the iTunes Festival at SXSW, the app is the next best thing.

It’s no surprise that some organizations are raising safety concerns about Apple’s forthcoming CarPlay technology, but the ship has already sailed on their main concern: distracted drivers. The fact is, CarPlay will help alleviate many of the biggest distractions in cars today.

Ars Technica:

I’m not shocked that the middle-aged me didn’t learn anything new in the first episode, at least not in terms of science. But the people involved in the show include some of the best in the business of communicating science, and I expect I will learn enough about the craft to make tuning in for more worthwhile.

I never saw the original Carl Sagan version (it wasn’t available to us in Canada when I was a kid) and the relentless promotion of it makes me squirm a little but I’ll certainly tune in to at least the first episode. How about you? Did you see the original? Will you watch this version?

CNNMoney:

“We’re very, very concerned about it,” said David Teater, senior director at the nonprofit National Safety Council. “The auto industry and the consumer electronics industry are really in an arms race to see how we can enable drivers to do stuff other than driving.”

This is the flip side of putting more and more technology within arm’s reach of the driver. I know I’m an outlier on this but, as a motorcyclist, these kinds of technologies scare the crap out of us.

MacStories:

The problem with iCloud Tabs is that they’re limited to Safari, so if you’re using Chrome or Firefox on OS X, you can’t access the tabs that you have open on your iPhone or iPad. For this reason, Josh Parnham has devised a simple and clever solution: CloudyTabs is a menu bar app that lists iCloud Tabs open on all your devices.

I’m surprised at how often I access them and how useful iCould tabs are.

The Sweet Setup:

Between losing an iPhone, never-ending security issues, and the NSA, having an account accessed by an outsider is more likely than ever. While having a good password is critical, enabling 2-Step Verification is a great way to ensure data you’ve stashed in an online service like Gmail or Dropbox is limited to your eyes only.

Yes, 2-Step verification can be a PITA but trust me, “getting hacked” is a bigger one.

The Week:

According to a recent study by Ookla Speedtest, the U.S. ranks a shocking 31st in the world in terms of average download speeds. It falls behind countries like Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, and Uruguay.

How did the country that literally invented the internet fall behind so many others in download speeds?

It’s the same situation here in Canada – little competition means no incentive to get better/faster.

Observatory:

Historically, Apple has been very smart about strategy, while Microsoft has been very … shall we say … un-smart.

Now that Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella has appointed Mark Penn to the position of Chief Strategy Officer, it’s a whole new ballgame, right?

Not so fast.

From what we know of Mark Penn, the gap between the quality of strategy at Apple and Microsoft isn’t about to shrink.

Ouch. Ken Segall is very unimpressed with Mark Penn.

Unmark was just released today and I signed up. The interface is very nice and it’s really easy to use. If I had one complaint, it would be the window that pops up when you save something to read later—I don’t need that, but I don’t see a way to turn it off. An FAQ on the service has been posted too.

As the web gets more commercial, more companies want to track and know the real you. The backlash against this — and the desire to have “ephemeral” interactions in the digital world — is why Andrew Busey, the creator of iChat 19 years ago, has built Banter, a chat app with no names and little storage. The app lets people sign up with any user name and discuss … well, anything they want.

LG’s newest commercial is… odd.

I don’t disagree, but Google seems a little bitter.

Benjamin Mayo:

This means that in the future Getty could replace your image blocks with other images, advertisements … or well anything. It also means that your site now has a dependency on Getty’s CDN uptime. If their servers are down, your site has no images.

Good points.

Fascinating.

There are conditions of course, but this is huge.

I like it—the site is minimal, but shows a lot of information in an easy to read site. I have some issues with the fonts used, but overall, a good job.