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The ACLU and members of the Insane Clown Posse have filed a lawsuit against the FBI over its classification of the Juggalos (ICP fans) as a gang. Once the FBI calls your subculture a gang, you lose a bunch of rights: the cops treat visible symbols of affiliation as probable cause for stop-and-search, you're prohibited from joining the military, and you are generally discriminated against by government officials.

The best part of the whole thing is that the plaintiffs came to the press-conference in full ICP makeup.

The State Trooper indicated that he detained Parsons for an inspection because of the hatchetman logo on the truck.

The State Trooper indicated that he considered Juggalos to be a criminal gang because of the DOJ’s designation.

The State Trooper asked Parsons if he had any axes, hatchets, or other similar chopping instruments in the truck. Parsons truthfully answered that he did not.

The State Trooper continued to search the truck and interrogate Parsons for about an hour, delaying Parsons’ time-sensitive hauling work. During the search, the State Trooper did not find any weapons or contraband. The State Trooper did not issue a ticket or other citation to Parsons.

Insane Clown Posse Sues FBI For Calling The Juggalos A Gang [Mike Masnick/Techdirt]

Android (4.0+): If you tend to keep your music at Dropbox or Google Drive and you like to listen to it on the go, Beat for Android is a music player that's worth a look. The app supports playback from both services, features floating controls over your other apps, supports locally stored music as well, and more.

Once installed, Beat asks you to set a root path for your music, or where you think most of your tunes are stored. From there you can add in-app shortcuts to any folder on your phone's internal storage or SD card (even if you have music stored in multiple folders), to your Dropbox account, or to your Google Drive storage—anywhere you have music you want to hear. It even sports a software equalizer packed with presets and manual controls for those of you who prefer to equalize your music.

Like many other Android players, most notably previously mentionedSidePlayer, Beat also features persistent, slide-out controls that let you see what's playing, skip forward, go back, or pause without leaving the app you're in, which is perfect if you're surfing the web, chatting, or reading an ebook and don't want to switch apps just to pause the music. Beat is free, and available now at Google Play.

Beat (Free) | Google Play via XDA Developers Forum

There were definitely a lot of Android smartphones and tablets floating around  CES this year, but wearables and smartwatches also made a huge splash. A newcomer to the smartwatch market is ZTE with its BlueWatch, which acts as a pedometer, remote camera controller, and caller ID and can also deliver notifications from applications on your Android device to your wrist. The BlueWatch’s battery life is estimated at five to seven days.

At first glance, the ZTE BlueWatch looks very similar to Pebble. It’s thicker, a lot heavier and doesn’t offer the option of switching out its band for one that’s a bit more stylish. ZTE claims that the BlueWatch that’s on display at CES is still a prototype, but the company does hope to launch it in select markets around the globe in the coming months. We’re not sure what Pebble’s take on the ZTE BlueWatch will be, but we’re sure they are more than a little flattered that entrants into the smartwatch segment are following in their footsteps.

Gallery

Ditch the cables and charge wirelessly

John and Rene talk to Fady Mishriki from PowerbyProxi about better ways to charge your mobile devices. Utilizing intelligent wireless charging pads PowerbyProxi is able to charge your devices just as fast as your wired charger, but allow you to move into the world of wireless charging.

PowerbyProxi hopes you will ditch your charging cables in favor of their wireless technology. Be sure to check out what Fady has to say to John and Rene in the 12 minute demo above.

• Catch everything on the CES Portal

When was the last time you bought a DVD or a Blu-ray? If you're part of the ever-increasing majority of the U.S., it's probably far less often than you used to. The Wall Street Journal has shared data from the Digital Entertainment Group that shows just how far Americans have moved from buying physical copies of their movies. According to the data, digital movie sales are up 47% from 2012, which makes them the fastest-growing category in home entertainment revenue. Although physical sales are on the decline, the Journal notes that "online movie sales are studios' highest-profit-margin transaction," helping to make up for the lack of in-store sales and rentals.

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The proliferation of connected devices, coupled with rapid advances in data analytics and sensor technology, has fundamentally changed the way people interact with and manage their health. Thanks to smartphones and a new generation of smart, wearable gadgets, it’s now easier than ever before to monitor and and analyze a dizzying array of inputs and physiological signals and inputs — from your heart rate and calorie intake to your biorhythms and stress levels.

The promise of today’s health apps is that, by leveraging mobility and realtime analytics, they can help Average Joes like you and me transform biometric data into something more substantial Information, knowledge and changes in behavior. While the market continues to brim with all manners of behavioral change and health management apps, only a tiny fraction of startups are addressing an area in which health management and tracking technology could (arguably) have the greatest impact: Chronic diseases and conditions.

Glooko launched in late 2011 to bring mobility and data tracking to people living with Diabetes, a population underserved by advances in mobile technology. After all, Diabetes, like any chronic condition, by nature requires constant monitoring from patients — across a number of devices. So, the company set out on a mission to address the lack of interoperability and standardized methods for data transfer among devices (and glucose meters) to finally create a unified diabetes management solution.

The effort has begun to pay off, as Glooko now supports data transfer between 26 glucose meters and 28 different mobile devices. For some perspective, compatibility with 26 meters means that it covers roughly 85 percent of existing meters in the U.S., says Glooko’s Vikram Singh. In November, on the heels of approval from the FDA, Glooko took another big step toward device agnosticism, expanding its support from iOS to Android devices — a move which the company says makes it the the “only FDA-cleared mobile diabetes management system to support the transfer of glucose data from dozens of meters to Android devices.”

With its coverage increasing, the company is ready to take the next big step, says CEO Rick Altinger, thanks to the help of a few familiar names in the world of mobile technology. Today, the company announcement that it has raised $7 million in a Series A-1 financing round from investors that include Samsung Venture Investment Company and Lifeforce Ventures, with participation from existing investors, The Social + Capital Partnership, Sundeep Madra and Yogen Dalal, among others.

With its new capital in tow, which brings its total to around $11.5 million, Glooko will focus on the next phase of data tracking technology applied to health: Predictive care. In order to have the biggest possible impact, Glooko will look to leverage its patient datasets to enable predictive diabetes care by delivering both patient data and decision-making algorithms to health providers and payer groups, Altinger says.

With the help of a huge mobile player like Samsung, Glooko believes that it can begin to liberate blood glucose data from meters and make it more accessible to both patients and health providers. Going forward, the company will look to scale its diabetes management system across the globe, while adding a predictive layer of analytics and messaging that it hopes will allow healthcare providers to make therapeutic recommendations to its patients in realtime.

As it stands today, Glooko’s system now includes its “MeterSync Cable” and applications for both iOS and Android, which combined, allow data to be transferred from meters directly to a user’s mobile device. The apps then integrated directly into the existing Glooko management web dashboards, enabling healthcare providers and care management teams to remotely monitor at-risk patients.

By doing so, Glooko is hoping to provide health systems and disease management organizations with access to better population management and analytics tools that can allow them to both increase focus on at-risk patients and, over the long-run, achieve higher levels of adherence to treatment plans. By focusing on increasing involvement of healthcare providers, Glooko also sees a path towards monetization, as it could begin charging health insurance companies a subscription fee for access to tools that allow them to better execute managed care (and higher savings).

For more, find Glooko at home here.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden will be invited to contribute to a European Parliamentary committee’s ongoing inquiry into the U.S. NSA surveillance program.

The European Parliamentary Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) committee voted to ask Snowden to contribute to its inquiry via video conference earlier today, with 36 votes in favour of inviting the whistleblower to air his views. There were just two votes against, and one abstention.

Snowden is currently living in Russia where he was granted temporary asylum after the U.S. cancelled his passport, stranding him in Moscow airport. It’s unclear whether he will take up the offer to contribute. Snowden has previously indicated he wants to testify before the American Congress before making other contributions.

Later today the LIBE committee will debate its draft report into the U.S. NSA surveillance program, produced by MEP Claude Moraes, which looks at the impact on EU citizens’ fundamental rights and on transatlantic cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs.

The LIBE’s inquiry into the program started in July last year. So far it’s held 15 hearings and submissions from EU and US experts, across EU institutions, national parliaments, U.S. Congress, academics, journalists, civil society, security and technology specialists and private business.

The Inquiry’s draft report, which will be debated by LIBE today, contains recommendations for a “European Digital Habeas Corpus for protecting privacy” with seven suggested actions.

The suggested actions include: adopting the Data Protection Package in 2014; concluding an Umbrella agreement between the EU and US that ensures “proper redress mechanisms for EU citizens in case of data transfers from the EU to the US for law-enforcement purposes”;  suspending the Safe Harbour agreement until a full review is conducted and current loopholes “remedied”; developing a European strategy for “IT independence”; and developing the EU’s role as a “reference player for a democratic and neutral governance of Internet”.

The LIBE’s draft report into NSA surveillance can be viewed here.

Motorola stunned us a few months ago when it announced plans to develop a modular smartphone through a collaboration called Project Ara, but we've yet to see even a prototype of the device. Here at CES, ZTE is showing off its own modular phone concept, named the Eco-Mobius. The model on display is locked behind glass, and try as we did representatives would not remove it from its tomb for a close look. But the concept does show how users could replace the camera, battery, display, and "core" modules. The core includes separate modules for the processor, RAM, storage, and graphics processor.

It's an extremely attractive design. All of the components are snapped together inside of a clear plastic case that conveniently exposes how...

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The holidays took us out of the office on Wednesday, meaning no wallpaper for two whole weeks! Now that we're back, we're giving you an extra large pack featuring the best of 2013.

Thor's Lightning

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Baby

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Herp and Derp

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Tree Shroom

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Farewell

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If At First You Don't Succeed...

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Descent

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Emerging

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Nude Grass

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Sensual Sunset

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The Birds at Midnight

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Vertex

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Watchtower

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Bay Bridge

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To Another World

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Cloudy Lake

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Deserted

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Chubble Bubbles: Jurassic Park

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I'll Catch You

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Clone

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Crimes Against Orange Juice

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Cupcakes

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Breaking Bad Cooking Suits

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S&S EP

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Super Meat Boy

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For more great wallpapers, check out our previous Wallpaper Wednesdays. Got any great wallpapers you'd like to share? Email me a link with "Wallpaper Wednesday" in the subject line. Submitting your own work is highly encouraged!

35 Perfect Examples of the Art of the Short Story

With both Hollywood and the major recording labels seemingly taking a step back from major legal action against sites they claim are infringing on their rights, some other mechanism would clearly have to take its place.

Currently in fashion is the voluntary agreement, whereby companies and organizations with an interest in the entertainment industry ecosystem are encouraged to enter into anti-piracy collaborations. The so-called six-strikes scheme in the United States is probably the most prominent example, although there is another with more global reach.

Advertising is what keeps millions of websites alive today and that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the entertainment industries. For some time they have been putting well-known companies and agencies under pressure not to place their ads on so-called pirate sites, and not without success. The ultimate aim is that with no financing, sites of which the entertainment companies disapprove will wither and die.

One group employing such a strategy is BVMI (Federal Music Industry Association). This RIAA-style IFPI member in Germany has around 300 label members which together dominate around 90% of the local music market. In its quest to bring the very popular YouTube-MP3 ripping site to its knees, BVMI recently approached the site’s advertisers in the hope that a few choice words would cause them to abandon their business partner.

“The lawyers of BVMI in Germany sent letters to business partners of mine to notify them that they are ‘cooperating with a service that is clearly illegal’ and asked them to cease their cooperation immediately,” YouTube-MP3 owner Philip Matesanz informs TorrentFreak.

Matesanz says he obtained a copy of BVMI’s letter sent to one of his business associates and decided to take immediate action.

“We think that the behavior of the music industry and its spreading of false rumors violates several laws including anti-trust law,” he explains.

YouTube-MP3 acted quickly against BVMI. The letter seen by the site was sent in the first days of last month and by December 13, 2013 a motion had been filed with the anti-trust chamber at the district court of Berlin. Just seven days later the court handed down its ruling.

“The defendant [BVMI]….has encouraged the recipient of its letter sent on the 3rd of December 2013 to end its business relationship or rather stop buying advertisements on the website of the plaintiff [YouTube-MP3] and therefore acted with the intention to illegitimately disrupt its business,” the three judges of the chamber wrote in their ruling.

“The illegitimacy of the disruption by evaluating the interests of both parties arises from the wording of the letter by which the defendant wants to make the recipient believe that the service of the plaintiff is without a doubt illegal and therefore the recipient must end its business partnership with the plaintiff. As a matter of fact the legal situation is not as obvious as the defendant concludes.”

The judges ordered BVMI to immediately cease and desist from their actions. The group was further warned that a failure to comply could see its board of directors subjected to prison sentences or have fines as high as 250,000 euros ($340,550) imposed for every violation of the order.

Matesanz says that holding the music business to account over its meddling via anti-trust legislation is an important step forward.

“What would happen if gas manufacturers like SHELL engaged in talks with financial institutions to make sure they won’t work with producers of electric cars, talk with ad-agencies to make sure electric car manufactures won’t advertise its products and so on? The situation is pretty absurd,” he concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services.

Nicky Wishart is a 12 year old from Eynsham, a village in Oxfordshire, England, where the local youth club is slated to close due to austerity. He decided to organise a protest outside of Prime Minister David Cameron's nearby constituency office (after all, Cameron once told Parliament, "we need youth clubs, we need things to divert people from crime"), so he posted a call-to-action on Facebook. In response, the Thames Valley Police's anti-terrorism squad visited Wishart's school, pulled him out of class, and warned him that he would prosecuted if the protest led to violence, even if he decided not to attend.

Hundreds more youth clubs in England are slated for closure. 20 out of 27 of the clubs in Oxfordshire alone are set to close.

When Nicky Wishart began a campaign to save his popular local youth club from closure, he might have been praised for showing the type of community-minded spirit that his local MP, David Cameron, has championed since he entered Downing Street. In fact, the 12-year-old's reward for attempting to rescue the centre – a small, brick hall in the leafy Oxfordshire village of Eynsham – was a visit from the police.

After his plans to hold a small protest outside the constituency office of Mr Cameron were spotted by anti-terror officers on Facebook, Nicky was pulled out of a lesson and warned by police that he would be held responsible if any violence broke out. Without his mother with him, he was frightened. "It was terrifying," said Nicky. "I was told that I could be arrested if there was any trouble at the protest. I was also told that I could be arrested even if I decided not to go myself. I didn't know what to do."

'I was told by police that I could be arrested. It was terrifying' [Michael Savage/The Independent]

(via Interesting People)

(Image: Your worry or your life, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from ggvaidya's photostream)

Recent studies have shown that many vitamins and supplements do little for our health and are a waste of money. This chart will make it abundantly clear how true that is.

In this brilliant chart by David McCandless from 2010, you can see a gorgeous visualization of how many supplements are actually helpful — based on scientific studies — and how many are basically nothing more than snake oil.

McCandless, writing on Information is Beautiful, explains:

This image is a "balloon race". The higher a bubble, the greater the evidence for its effectiveness. But the supplements are only effective for the conditions listed inside the bubble.

You might also see multiple bubbles for certain supps. These is because some supps affect a range of conditions, but the evidence quality varies from condition to condition. For example, there's strong evidence that Green Tea is good for cholesterol levels. But evidence for its anti-cancer effects is conflicting. In these cases, we give a supp another bubble.

via Information is Beautiful (h/t Nicholas Thompson)

At its two-hour press conference at CES, Sony unveiled a raft of new products, including the Xperia Z1s — a version of the Xperia Z1 for T-Mobile U.S. — and the Xperia Z1 Compact, a miniaturized version of the Z1 for global markets. We've been playing around with Sony's new handsets here in Las Vegas over the past day, and we've brought you hands-on coverage of both devices. Now we've got a full gallery of the Z1s and Z1 Compact, along with the European Xperia Z1, giving you a complete comparison of Sony's current flagship lineup. Check 'em out after the break.

More: Sony Xperia ​Z1s hands-on, Sony Xperia Z1 Compact hands-on

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CyanogenMod, the popular alternative Android installer, is partnering with OnePlus to create a smartphone called the OnePlus One. This horribly named handset will be OnePlus’s first phone, and OnePlus hopes to launch it in the first half of this year. According to OnePlus’s announcement, "The CyanogenMod team will work in tandem with us to combine the best hardware with the best software." This announcement is a boost for CyanogenMod, which had a brief appearance on the Google Play store last year before being removed in November. By having its software pre-installed on a handset, CyanogenMod can avoid dealing with Google Play altogether.

This past summer, Apple was found guilty of colluding with book publishers to fix eBook prices. The consumer tech giant appealed the ruling and lost, and part of its punishment is to play host to a court-appointed external antitrust monitor who would be tasked with ensuring that the company complies with the court's various orders. Apple, needless to say, is not happy about it. The company has complained about the monitor a number of times, arguing that his fees are exorbitant and his methods are invasive, and now Apple is once again asking the court to remove him from his post.

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Revolv, the device that connects all your smart devices, will begin sales in selected Home Depot stores across the U.S. and on Home Depot’s website.

As a reminder, Revolv could become an important piece of the so-called Internet of Things. It’s a simple $299 box that you plug in your house, and after that you can control all your smart devices from your phone and get smarter triggers.

For example, TechCrunch’s Matt Burns tested the Revolv with a Nest thermostat, WeMo outlets and a Kwikset deadbolt. These devices couldn’t talk together and didn’t know that they existed in the same house. Now, instead of having to open three separate apps, everything happens in the Revolv app.

And thanks to location sensing, when someone is close to his or her home, Revolv can turn on the heating (Nest), switch on the light (WeMo), unlock the door (Kwikset), etc. It’s as simple as that.

Software could still be improved as the geofenced area only works with one smartphone. It could be an issue if you leave your house but someone is still there.

Other integrations include Sonos, Philip Hue lights, Insteon and GE smart systems. As some of these devices are already available in-store at Home Depot, adding Revolv to the lineup will put the device in front of interested eyeballs.

Electric cars have a bad reputation as ugly, expensive, slow cars with limited range. Cars like the Tesla Model S have gone a long way towards reversing public opinion, but what if there was a Formula 1 for electric cars? Come this September, there will be: it's called Formula E, and we've just seen the series' very first race car here at CES. It's called the Spark-Renault SRT_01E, and it has been made in conjunction with legendary motorsport companies like McLaren, Williams, and Dallara.

There's nothing slow about this electric car: it maxes out at roughly 140mph and accelerates from 0 - 62mph in just 3 seconds. But unlike its motorsport cousins powered by combustion engines, it sounds nothing like a race car. Former F1 driver Lucas di...

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The first two days of CES are a non-stop, insane flow of news. Company after company takes the stage to talk about new products and new ideas, and to convince press and buyers alike that their products are going to take over the world this year. And every once in a while, if we're lucky, something truly remarkable happens.

This year in Las Vegas, there was no Big Bird. (But there was Bean Bird.) There was also a slew of new, huge, high-resolution TVs and PCs, and a massive focus on wearable devices. In 48 hours we've seen countless new devices, prototypes, and ambitious plans for how we'll work and live in the future.

The defining moments of CES often happen during these press events. So we've compiled below the best moments from the...

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It’s CES 2014, and once again, SmartThings has taken over an entire house in Las Vegas to showcase all the cool things you can do with its home automation platform. Last year, when we visited the SmartThings house, the company didn’t have any actual products on the market.

Well, a lot has happened since then — it’s shipped the first generation of SmartThings products to its Kickstarter backers, it’s launched a whole new app to make it easier to get your house up and running, and it’s signed up more than 5,000 developers making hardware and apps that work on its platform.

This year, when we stopped by the new SmartThings house, we got to see exactly how far it’s come. That starts with the app that powers it all. SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson gave us a demo of how users can quickly get up and running on the platform.

We also got a demo of some of the automation features that have been added to SmartThings. Thanks to its new SmartThings Labs initiative, it’s got apps to support apps and products from companies like Sonos and Philips Hue bulbs. With that integration, you can do things like let your house know that you’re awake, and have it turn on the lights, start up your coffeemaker and turn on your music player.

SmartThings recently raised $12.5 million from Greylock Partners and Highland Capital Partners. Other investors include First Round Capital, SV Angel, Lerer Ventures, CrunchFund*, Max Levchin, Yuri Milner’s Start Fund, David Tisch, A-Grade Investments, Chris Dixon, Vivi Nevo, Alexis Ohanian, Loic Le Meur, Martin Varsavsky, Kal Vepuri, Ryan Sarver, Jared Hecht, Steve Martocci, Emil Michael, Aaron Levie, Zorik Gordon, and Nathan Hanks.

–

*CrunchFund was started by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington

We're slap bang in the middle of CES at the moment, but if you're full up on wearables and Android-powered ovens, take a break and check out the best apps of 2013's final month. Below in no particular order you'll find our favorite new apps that debuted during the holiday season. There were a ton of significant app updates, of course, but these are the best new entries from December, along with a few honorable mentions.

• Dolphin 7.0 Adds Cloud Sync Of Preferences And Gestures, Revamped WebZine, Exclusively Available In GetJar Now And Android Market October 23rd
• 'Dolphin For Pad' Beta Hits The Android Market, Brings Dolphin Love To Tablets
• [New App] Snazzy Contextual Lockscreen Alternative Cover Is Now Available In Open Beta
• Dolphin Browser Updated, Now Offers One-Tap Sharing, Cross-Device Sync, And Evernote/Box Support

[App Roundup] Our Top Seven Picks For The Best New Apps Of December 2013 was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Just when you’ve guarded your computer against CryptoLocker, there’s a newer threat that's capable of holding gigabytes of your computer's data hostage at a time.

Unlike Cryptolocker, which was custom-made for one ring of thugs, any criminal with $100 and a computer can easily purchase a copy of PrisonLocker—alternately called PowerLocker—for themselves.

See also: How To Fight CryptoLocker And Evade Its Ransomware Demands

Make no mistake: PrisonLocker is ransomware. It encrypts your personal data until you cough up hundreds of dollars for the decryption key, and even then, since you’re negotiating with criminals, there’s no guarantee they’ll make good on their promise.

Malware Must Die, an independent group of security analysis vigilantes based in India, said it had been monitoring a discussion about PowerLocker on a forum for hackers, where its anonymous programmer was selling licenses of the ransomware for $100 apiece.

Aside from being more easily accessible than CryptoLocker, PrisonLocker also boasts additional deterrents to security analysis like the ability to disable functions built into the Windows OS, according to the researchers. 

Last October, CryptoLocker, which was run by just one group, netted 10,000 victims in one week. Since PowerLocker is up for sale, it has the potential to wreak exponentially more havoc. 

How To Protect Yourself

Fortunately, the threat of PrisonLocker is, so far, just that—a threat. Nobody has been infected with the malware yet because its criminal creator is still developing it. 

According to Harry Sverdlove, CTO of threat assessment company Bit9, this is both good and bad for users. On the one hand, we have an advantage since it isn't out yet. But on the other hand, all the press and hype about CryptoLocker meant hackers had plenty of information to improve the program. 

For example, with CryptoLocker, users could preemptively protect themselves by regularly backing up their data. But with PrisonLocker, even data backups might not be enough to save you, according to Sverdlove. PrisonLocker is designed to seek out connected drives with even more power and accuracy than its predecessor. 

“Depending on the backup policy and user access, your backups also could be encrypted and unusable,” he said. “If your backups are inaccessible to the system in question, then yes, it can save your data, at least since your last backup. But it can’t save your time. If you have to restore your entire system from a backup and possibly reinstall Windows and all your applications, well then you can kiss your weekend goodbye.”

In other words, there’s an additional step to staying safe. You don’t just need to make regular backups; you need to keep your backups on a drive that isn’t connected to your computer at all times, like an external hard drive that you keep offline. 

But more importantly, Sverdlove says to be very careful about which links you click and which files you download. PrisonLocker can’t work if it can’t trick you into installing it. Even if you’re too tech savvy to fall for this (or simply not running a Windows computer), be sure to let your less geeky friends, family, and coworkers know. It’s a reminder we can’t share often enough.

Photo by Don Jenkins. 

Sony has finally spilled the details on its Gaikai-powered streaming service PlayStation Now, and we wasted no time in giving it a try. PlayStation Now lets owners of Sony hardware (including PS4, PS3, Vita, and Bravia TVs) stream some of the company's greatest games — all from the cloud. The demo at Sony's CES show booth features four titles, including The Last of Us, God of War: Ascension, Beyond: Two Souls, and Puppeteer. All running on a Bravia HDTV, and all running without a PlayStation 3 anywhere in sight. For our demo, we first booted up God of War. The game's loading time left a bit to be desired, but once it was running, things went on without a hitch. Yes, there's a slightly perceptible lag between button presses and the...

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Maybe not what you think, says Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale. In an interesting piece about the findings of a new Pew survey, he makes a case for why saying you don't believe in evolution isn't necessarily a sign of being anti-science, and points out how belief in evolution isn't as clearly broken down along political party lines as you might guess.

Jelly, a new question-and-answer platform from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, is coming out of stealth today. The app, available on both iOS and Android worldwide, will go head-to-head with the likes of Quora and ChaCha but also go a step further, incorporating features like visual imagery to steer people to getting better answers from within and outside their social networks.

Stone has announced the new app on the Jelly blog, and also in an email that he has sent out to some people today. Here’s what he’s noted in the email:

Jelly is available on both iOS and Android worldwide. We’ll be announcing today with a blog post at http://jelly.co [the link is now live] including links to download the app for free [these are not]. Jelly is a new way to search with pictures and people from your social networks. It’s also people helping each other—something that’s both meaningful and fun.

- Jelly works with your existing social networks. In addition to asking, you may find yourself answering questions as well.

- Questions can be forwarded outside the app so your friends who don’t have Jelly can still help. It feels good to help!

- Ask questions with images to deepen the context. Crop, reframe, zoom, and draw on your images to get more specific.

The UK's proposed new Antisocial Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill creates a new kind of injunction, the Ipnas ("injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance"), which judges can hand down without proof of wrongdoing to anyone over ten, and send them to jail to violate them (kids go to young offenders centres for up to three months). Along with the Ipnas comes "dispersal orders," which police can use to order anyone to leave any public place for any length of time, for any reason, on their own say-so.

As George Monbiot writes in the Guardian "The new injunctions and the new dispersal orders create a system in which the authorities can prevent anyone from doing more or less anything."

The bill would permit injunctions against anyone of 10 or older who "has engaged or threatens to engage in conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to any person". It would replace asbos with ipnas (injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance), which would not only forbid certain forms of behaviour, but also force the recipient to discharge positive obligations. In other words, they can impose a kind of community service order on people who have committed no crime, which could, the law proposes, remain in force for the rest of their lives.

The bill also introduces public space protection orders, which can prevent either everybody or particular kinds of people from doing certain things in certain places. It creates new dispersal powers, which can be used by the police to exclude people from an area (there is no size limit), whether or not they have done anything wrong.

While, as a result of a successful legal challenge, asbos can be granted only if a court is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that antisocial behaviour took place, ipnas can be granted on the balance of probabilities. Breaching them will not be classed as a criminal offence, but can still carry a custodial sentence: without committing a crime, you can be imprisoned for up to two years. Children, who cannot currently be detained for contempt of court, will be subject to an inspiring new range of punishments for breaking an ipna, including three months in a young offenders' centre.

At last, a law to stop almost anyone from doing almost anything [George Monbiot/The Guardian]

(Image: HMP London, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from kradlum's photostream)

In an excellent editorial, Bruce Schneier explains how the NSA weakens American security (because the NSA relies upon weaknesses in American technology to permit it to spy) without stopping terrorism (by General Keith Alexander's own admission, the only plot foiled by bulk NSA spying was a plan by a guy in San Diego to send $8500 to some Somali militants).

It's not just domestic abuse we have to worry about; it's the rest of the world, too. The more we choose to eavesdrop on the Internet and other communications technologies, the less we are secure from eavesdropping by others. Our choice isn't between a digital world where the NSA can eavesdrop and one where the NSA is prevented from eavesdropping; it's between a digital world that is vulnerable to all attackers, and one that is secure for all users.

Fixing this problem is going to be hard. We are long past the point where simple legal interventions can help. The bill in Congress to limit NSA surveillance won't actually do much to limit NSA surveillance. Maybe the NSA will figure out an interpretation of the law that will allow it to do what it wants anyway. Maybe it'll do it another way, using another justification. Maybe the FBI will do it and give it a copy. And when asked, it'll lie about it.

NSA-level surveillance is like the Maginot Line was in the years before World War II: ineffective and wasteful. We need to openly disclose what surveillance we have been doing, and the known insecurities that make it possible. We need to work toward security, even if other countries like China continue to use the Internet as a giant surveillance platform. We need to build a coalition of free-world nations dedicated to a secure global Internet, and we need to continually push back against bad actors—both state and non-state—that work against that goal.

How the NSA Threatens National Security [Bruce Schneier/The Atlantic]

One of the key differentiators for Vimeo over the years is simply its user experience, and a lot of that comes from its video player. It’s one of the reasons that all sorts of artsy independent creators decide to upload and distribute their videos on Vimeo instead of just putting them on YouTube.

But believe it or not, Vimeo thought it could improve that experience and its video player. With that in mind, it went back to the drawing board and built its video player from the ground up, with an eye toward making it faster, more accessible, and more beautiful.

The new Vimeo video player is the fastest player yet, loading up videos almost instantly. In fact, the company has cut load time in half compared to the previously player. It’s also more responsive, defaulting to HTML5, which can be played directly in most browsers without having to load a plugin.

The fact that it’s HTML5 also means that the Vimeo player is now a lot more accessible. The same player will be available on desktop, mobile, and tablet browsers. It’s also added screen reader and voiceover compatibility, allowing creators to add closed captioning and translated subtitles.

The Vimeo player is also designed for better sharing, with tools for sending to friends via email, as well as embedding and posting on other social networks.

But one of the biggest new features is support for in-player transactions, which is meant to bolster sale of videos through the company’s Vimeo On Demand offering. Now creators who have videos for sale on the platform can add a purchase capability directly within the player.

Vimeo’s putting a lot of effort behind trying to get people on its on-demand platform. It takes only about 10 percent of all sales in an effort to get folks to sign up. Allowing people to make purchases within the player will speed transactions and should boost conversion for on-demand video sales, since potential customers will no longer have to go to another page to actually make a purchase.

Coming off of a notable profit miss for Q4, Samsung is looking to start 2014 off with a bang. The South Korean company kick-started CES on Monday with an abundance of hardware announcements, including four new tablets of various shapes and sizes, but the most exciting Samsung reveal of Tuesday might not be from CES at all. The latest images from @evleaks purport to show off Samsung's new smartphone UI, or at least an interface that the company is testing.

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Mobile apps have become a very big business indeed. Apple on Tuesday reported that its App Store generated a record $10 billion in sales in 2013, which included around 3 billion downloads and $1 billion in sales for the month of December alone. Apple credited some of the December surge in sales to the fall launch of iOS 7, which the company said let developers "create stunning apps that took advantage of the redesigned user interface and the more than 200 new features and APIs." In all, Apple says that developers have no made a total of $15 billion from the App Store. The company's press release follows below.

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