One of the world’s most loved tech giants, Microsoft, has just patented a GPS design which will allegedly offer users high quality information for pedestrian routes. Among the high quality features are options to avoid open areas with harsh temperatures and an option to avoid unsafe neighborhoods — aka ghettos.

The GPS technology was created for Windows Phones and will use the latest crime statistics and weather data in its route calculations.

Now I’m just guessing here, but I’m assuming that if the option to avoid unsafe neighborhoods is selected, the GPS map for Detroit will just show a circling road around the whole city.

via cbslocal

During the Midnight Mass held at the St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve, Pope Benedict XVI said:

Today Christmas has become a commercial celebration, whose bright lights hide the mystery of God’s humility, which in turn calls us to humility and simplicity. Let us ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season, and to discover behind it the child in the stable in Bethlehem, so as to find true joy and true light.

via edition.cnn

PS: Regular posting will resume on the second week of 2012.

Back in  March 2009, a New York man by the name of Gilberto Sanchez bought a workprint copy of the X-Men: Wolvering movie at a street corner near his home.

Because he had the copy a month before the theatrical release of the film, he thought he’d put it online so that other people would enjoy it too. Unfortunately for him, though, Fox heard about it and tracked him down, dragging him to court.

Sanchez pleaded guilty in March to one count of uploading a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution. He admitted he put the workprint of the film on Megaupload.com in March 2009 and publicized the posting on other websites.

 

“Although Fox was able to get defendant’s Wolverine workprint removed from his Megaupload account within approximately one day, by then, the damage was done and the film had proliferated like wildfire throughout the Internet, resulting in up to millions of infringements,” prosecutors said in court documents.

On Monday, US District Judge Margaret Morrow described Sanchez’s actions as ”extremely serious” and sentenced him to one year in federal prison, much to the disapproval of internet pirates.

Now, if you think about the sentence from a pirate’s perspective, it looks as if the justice system is broken and unjust. And it is, but not in this case. This time, I think the sentencing was spot on. I mean, it’s one thing when someone uploads a movie months after it had its theatrical release, and an entirely different thing when an unfinished workprint is shared before the movie had the chance to earn anything. I’m not saying either of these are justified, but the latter is major a dick move that can have significant financial consequences for the studio. Besides, one year isn’t that much time and I’m sure Sanchez couldn’t have afforded to pay damages to Fox even if he wanted to.

So yeah, pirates, I’m sorry but this guy deserved it. You could say that he was a moronic, unethical pirate.

via hollywoodreporter