In recent news a software developer has been discovered outsourcing his job to China. The company identified the crafty programmers scam when it allowed Verizon to start monitoring its VPN connections and identified an open and active VPN connection from Shenyang, China.

How did he spend his days? His internet history shows a penchant for cat videos and Reddit (one and the same really). Evidence has shown that he may have been using the same scam with other companies in the area.

To top it off his performance reviews cited well-written code. A job well done I say. This guy should get a promotion.

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Booking a flight can be a stressful experience. Ticket prices can fluctuate dramatically and you never know what time is the best time to buy. To help alleviate ticket-buying stress KAYAK has a launched a new price forecasting tool that will predict whether the prices in your search are likely rise or fall over the next week.

In addition to the fare history chart we’ve provided for some time, KAYAK flight search results now include a forecast of whether the prices in your search are likely to rise or fall within the next 7 days. The feature also provides the statistical confidence level behind the forecast.

Giorgos Zacharia, KAYAK’s Chief Scientist, led development of KAYAK’s price forecasts and comments, “our algorithm incorporates data from multiple faring and availability providers across the over one billion annual queries performed

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Digital activist and cofounder of Reddit, Aaron Swartz died on Friday after committing suicide according to a relative of Swartz. Along with co-founding Reddit, Swartz was the founder of DemandProgress.org, co-creator of the RSS 1.0 standard at the young age of 14 and was a strong proponent of Internet freedom.

Swartz was arrested in 2011 for accusations of stealing more than 4 million documents from MIT and JSTOR consisting of articles, book reviews and academic partner journals. He would have faced as much as $2 million in fines and as much as 50 years in prison if convicted. Swartz pled not guilty in September of 2012.

The news of Swartz death comes only two days after JSTOR announced that it will be releasing more than 4.5 million articles to the public.

According to an analyst from Piper Jaffray, Apple’s next big thing might be wearable technology such as a Smart Watch pictured here. “We believe that wearable computers will ultimately be a major future trend,” said Gene Munster in a note released on Wednesday.

Munster also made a number of other predictions for technology in the coming years. Aside from wearable tech he is expecting Apple to sell a TV with Siri and Facetime built in, an update the Apple TV, an Apple radio service and Retina display to the iPad mini and the MacBook Air.

LA Times

The company behind the Linux-based OS Ubuntu announced on Wednesday that it will be offering a version of its software that will run on smartphones. Namely, the Ubuntu operating system uses the same drivers as Android and would work as a replacement software for existing phones running the Android OS, according to Canonical.

Canonical will release the open-source code as a file that can be installed on Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus, initially. Plans are also in the works with manufacturers to provide the software pre-installed on a device sometime before the end of the year.

Aside just from the fact that Ubuntu is a powerful, popular, free and open-source OS that will now be available on a smartphone, this news could mark a milestone in tech history as an operating system significantly blurs the line between a …

Sony’s Playstation 2 game console has practically been a staple with gaming retailers for years, and is likely found in homes of most gamers throughout the country. After nearly 13 years of production, despite newer Playstation generations, it looks like Sony is calling an end to the production of the PS2 game console, according to Famitsu.

Even though the PS3 launched in in late 2006, Sony continued to keep the PS2 alive with a major design update and a few game launches here and there, not to mention the large library of existing titles. This announcement is announcing the end of production for the PS2 console in Japan with a plan to sell of the remaining production stock, and a stop to production in the US and other countries is …

This is the first post in a while. We’re just trying to fire this up again….

Windows has had it’s share of vulnerabilities in the past, so now Microsoft is offering more than $250,000 in cash and prizes for contestants who can come up with new ways to mitigate exploits. Anonymous and LulzSec are out there after all, taking companies down.

Microsoft will pay $200,000 for the best “novel runtime mitigation technology designed to prevent the exploitation of memory safety vulnerabilities.” Two runners up will also receive $50,000 and a MSDN Universal subscription valued at $10,000. I’d say that is lots of incentive to come up with some new tricks, wouldn’t you?

This sexy Elecom stand designed by Nendo is pretty unusual and cool. It’s not very practical, but at least it looks stylish. It’s made from polycarbonate and ABS faucet parts and is designed to look like a faucet with water flowing out of it.

It will be available in clear, black, blue and white, but there is no word price or the availability. It is certainly unique.

Teclast is offering their new Android tablet called the P72. As far as specs, the device has a 7.0-inch 800 x 480 resistive multi-touch display, a Renesas ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core processor, and 1GB of RAM.

Other specs include 4GB of storage, a microSD card slot, Flash 10.2 support, 1080p Full HD video playback support, WiFi, 3G card support, a 4000mAh battery and Android 2.2. The P72 will cost you 799 Yuan ($125). Interested?

Verbatim’s Ergo Mouse is an ergonomically designed mouse that features an ultra-smooth, rubberized grip and scroll wheel designed for comfort when you’ve been using it for long hours.

It connects to your computer using the 2.4GHz wireless frequency and comes equipped with a nano receiver that can stay in your laptop. It comes in blue, red or black and retails for $29.99.

The Sharp Galapagos A01SH Android tablet features a 7-inch (1024 x 600) display, a 1Ghz nVidia Tegra 2 chipset and the Google Android 3.2 Honeycomb OS.

Other features include a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash, a 2-megapixel secondary camera for video calls. The battery will deliver up to 7.5-hours of battery life. The Sharp Galapagos A01SH will arrive in Japan later this month.

Fans of Black Ops have something to be very happy about. The latest map pack titled “Rezurrection” will be coming to the Xbox 360 followed by PC and PlayStation 3 later. Sadly these maps will not be multiplayer maps though.

You get a new map level called “Moon” along with four re-mastered zombie maps: “Nacht der Üntoten,” “Verrückt,” “Shi No Numa” and “Der Riese.” They should be released on August 23rd for the XBox, with PS3 and PC following later.

The Verizon Fascinate was the last Samsung Galaxy S variant to hit the U.S. and the carrier is doing its best to keep the phone up to date with software updates, even though some of them caused problems for users. Interestingly, Verizon is now listing the phone with a “retired” label.

You can see the red watermark embedded all over the device page. It says the phone is retired and so has already been removed from the carrier’s online store. So what would they replace it with? Probably the Galaxy S II variant for Verizon (whether it will be called Samsung Galaxy S II, Function, Fascinate II or Stratosphere).

Say what? Sony’s new handheld console already passed through the FCC and the rumor was that it had an October release date. But now it looks as if Santa has let us down this year.

Bloomberg is reporting that Kazuo Hirai says the Vita won’t launch in the US and Europe until early next year, but Japan is still getting the device before Christmas. We hope this is not the case. It’s like getting coal in our stockings several months early.