Filed under: GPS

Though not quite as bad as toting the GPS module around with you, one particular marijuana farmer had to be mighty embarrassed / wondering what he ever did to deserve such bad luck when a GPS-equipped turtle meandered into his crop. As the story goes, a close friend of the police — a box turtle with no fear of Big Brother — just happened upon a pot stash on US park property. Clearly, Mr. Isiah Johnson (the culprit) was heavily stoned when choosing US land to farm his ganja, and now he’s in custody until he’s “extradited back DC to face drug charges.” And you thought all you had to do was dodge those CCTV cameras…

[Via TechDigest]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Tired of the fuzz body-checking you right off your bike during Critical Mass rides? Well lucky you, New York Police Commish Ray Kelly is responding by flipping the switch on user-generated crime reports, enabling ordinary citizens to submit photos and video as evidence of criminal activity. Granted, we think it’s always been the case that people could dial-a-detective if they’ve got a hot lead on a crime, but here Kelly specifically referred to the “fact of life” that nowadays “everybody has a camera in their telephones. When people can record an event taking place that helps us during an investigation, it’s helpful.” Details are not yet clear, like how much manpower it’s going to take to weed through the billions of tattle-tale clips that will inevitably be sent in of Sbux line-cutters, or what codecs the NYPD will support (fingers crossed for motion-JPEG and 3GPP).

[Via The Raw Feed]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Gaming

Sure, Wii is great and all, but we’re guessing a man in China who tried to extort $1,400 from his parents by “kidnapping” himself and demanding a ransom after they refused to buy him a “Nintendo computer” was probably a little too infatuated with Ninty’s white box. The man, (who we’re hoping is more of a “boy,”) apparently hired two men to kidnap him, and was arrested after he withdrew his own ransom from an ATM. Genius. Quick tip, kids: real tennis, bowling, golf, and boxing are almost as much fun as Wii Sports, believe it or not — and they involve just slightly less jail time.

[Via Wii Fanboy]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Well, that didn’t take long. Atul Malhotra, the HP executive charged with stealing printer market data when he left IBM and sending it to his new colleagues at HP with the genius-level subject line “For Your Eyes Only,” has pled guilty to one count of theft of trade secrets. Malhotra probably made the right choice — he specifically requested the information just before he left IBM and HP itself investigated and turned him in when he was found sending it around, so the case against him was pretty airtight. It’s not clear what his plea deal is, but sentencing is scheduled for October 29, and he can get up to 10 years in the clink with a fine of up to a quarter-million dollars. Crime don’t pay, kids.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

The printer market isn’t exactly full of the most intersting news, but it’s still big money, and big money tends to bring out the worst in people — like former HP VP Atul Malhotra, who was just charged with stealing trade secrets from his former employer IBM and emailing them to other HP execs. Apparently Malhotra requested some confidential sales data two months before he went from the three-letter company to the two-letter one, and when he got there he hit up some other senior execs with the files — marking the subject line “For Your Eyes Only.” Yeah, that’s an effective way to keep a lid on things. Malhotra was fired from HP in 2006, so all this went down some time ago, and HP says it actually conducted an internal investigation about the matter before firing Malhotra and reporting the theft to both IBM and the authorities. Sure, sure — but we’ll know what’s up when the next HP AIO is running a Cell chip.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Passports and licenses are so last century — these days, sophisticated crooks can change their identity on a whim, and one particular Michigan State University researcher is looking to stay one step ahead. Anil Jain has created an automatic image retrieval system dubbed Tattoo-ID, which “includes an annotated database containing images of scars, marks and tattoos” that is “linked to the criminal history records of all the suspects and convicts who have a tattoo.” Essentially, the application will give law enforcement the ability to query on permanent skin markings, which sure beats manually flipping through ginormous books of images just hoping for a match. Reportedly, Jain and his team are continuing to improve the system, but there’s been no word on how long it’ll take before implementation can begin. Better stay on the straight and narrow, Zune Guy Microsoft Zune.

[Via TG Daily]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: GPS, Transportation

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/Japanese_super_thief_uses_GPS_to_steal_rental_cars’;
A criminal mastermind named Mitsuhisa Kobayashi has been arrested for a series of GPS-related car thefts in Japan. According to reports, Kobayashi was responsible for stealing eight cars in the Hyogo Prefecture, five of which he sold on the internet. The man — a former auto factory worker — used two ex-wives to rent the cars, and would then make copies of the keys and install GPS units or cellphones with GPS capabilities inside the vehicles. Kobayashi would use the devices to track the cars’ locations, then steal them once they had been moved from the rental firm. Unfortunately, his accomplices used ID’s which led the authorities right to his front door. Whoops.

[Via GPS Tracking Systems; Thanks, Rich]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Displays, Household

What else can we say? The concept here is pure genius, and it totally makes those pricey security systems seem way pointless (okay, slightly less critical). The FakeTV is a strobe that sets up in an occupied room at night and flashes up beams of light. From the inside, we can imagine it looks fairly curious, but from the outside, it gives prospective burglars the idea that someone is actually awake and watching a television program. It promises to produce the effects of “scene changes, fades, swells, flicks, on-screen motion and color changes,” just like they were generated by a bona fide set. We can’t speak for how well (or not) this thing actually works, but at just $49, we’d say it’s a solid buy if you’re the paranoid type.

[Via BoingBoing]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Gaming

Edward Keith Stoddard Jr. really likes his PlayStation 3. So much, in fact, that if you were to touch his PS3, he may just kill you. Such was the fate of his neighbor, Douglas F. Abrams, who Stoddard believed had taken his console. During an argument over the missing system, police say Stoddard shot Abrams, fatally wounding him. When cops showed up on the scene, Stoddard surrendered and was taken to Land O’Lakes jail (no, really) in Dade County, Florida. It’s okay to love your console, people — just don’t get jealous if it drops by the neighbor’s house for some tea.

[Via PS3Fanboy]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Man, that tiny Eee PC can be used for just about anything: surfing the web, blogging, surreptitiously hiding inside an ATM machine and stealing your identity. You know, the usual stuff. Yeah, so three creative Brazilian thieves were recently caught stuffing a black Eee into an ATM, where it replaced the ordinary magical-money-making workings and instead stole unwitting customers’ card numbers and PINs. The thieves didn’t stop there, however — they purposefully damaged all the other nearby ATMs so that theirs would be the only one in service. Clever! Of course, that doesn’t explain why it was so easy to crack open the target ATM in the first place — we’d pretty much consider our cash flow problems solved if we could pull that trick. Check out the Brazilian TV report after the break — any Portuguese speakers care to translate?

Continue reading Thieves use Eee PC in Brazilian ATM scam

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones

Make no mistake, we’ve seen some fairly boneheaded moves made by technologically-illiterate bank robbers, but the latest case involves a fellow who was quite the opposite of that. Yes, the 20 to 25 year male who decided to hold up an Alabama bank the day before his taxes were due actually did the deed without hanging up his cellphone. And there’s surveillance footage to prove it. Quite honestly, we can’t imagine what the conversation here would’ve been like, but at least he made the most of whatever minutes he had remaining as a free man, right?

[Via textually]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

There’s depressing gaming stories, and then there are outright travesties. Unfortunately, this case falls squarely into the latter category, as a 7-year old cancer patient had his beloved PlayStation Portable swiped — right along with his medical records, a backpack full of medication, his games and even his homework — while en route to a chemotherapy treatment for a tumor in his brain. Apparently the boy’s family had stopped at a restaurant while traveling from Oklahoma to Texas, and while inside, thieves had their way with what was left inside the vehicle. Thankfully, authorities from the Dallas police department came to the rescue by purchasing a brand new PSP and raising over $1,000 to repurchase the goods that were lost, and as for the crooks, we’ll just trust karma to handle the rest.

[Via PSPFanboy, image courtesy of Flickr]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones

Apple’s no stranger to having its wares ganked (a lot), but this one really has us scratching our noggins some kind of fierce. Apparently a couple of meddlesome 20-somethings working at a Salem, New Hampshire Apple store managed to scoot away with somewhere between 330 and 700 iPhones. After somehow stuffing that many handsets into a panel van / pickup truck / privately owned C-130, they seemingly sweet talked a single high-roller into snatching up their entire stash for upwards of $138,000 — which could be a bargain (or not) depending on the actual quantity included in the deal, internal capacity, etc. Minutiae aside, both individuals are currently residing under the strong arm of the law (surveillance cameras are hard to dodge), but curiously, nothing is mentioned about the buyer who didn’t find spending over a hundred large with a couple of average joes (who just happened to have an inordinately large amount of iPhones for sale) the least bit odd.

[Thanks, Scott]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

In yet another “innocent prank” that turned out to have very real-world effects, a 14-year-old Polish boy has admitted to modifying a TV remote in order to manipulate the junction-switching devices on the Lodz tram system, resulting in four derailed trains and 12 injuries. According to reports, the teenager snuck onto tracks to study the switching mechanisms, and used the resulting knowledge to re-direct trains “like any other schoolboy might a giant train set,” as a police spokesman put it. The young man now faces charges in juvenile court for endangering public safety.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Wireless

An armed robbery at a Columbus, Ohio Wendy’s restaurant on Wednesday morning was thwarted mid-progress, partly due to an employee’s Bluetooth headset automatically answering a call because of the robber screaming at her to do just the opposite. We’ve all learned to live with the wonky voice command features in our headsets and handsets, but on this occasion it actually turned out to be a benefit, as 35-year-old Keith Allen Sturgill’s screams to NOT pick up an incoming call actually opened the connection, while the parolee and his three hostages waited for the safe to unlock before customers arrived . The caller, a friend of the employee who worked at a nearby bank, heard the screaming and called police, who were eventually able to talk Sturgill into surrendering — but not before he had “rammed the gun to his own forehead until he bled,” as you can see from his mugshot. Luckily for the habitual offender, he’ll soon be back in a familiar place where neither cellphones nor their many accessories will bother him for a very long time.

[Via UPI]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Displays

Employing public signage in the pursuit of suspects is probably about as old as criminology itself, so it’s no surprise to see the FBI leveraging the latest technology to erect some of the largest, most versatile wanted posters in history. Thanks to a partnership with advertising giant Clear Channel Outdoor, the G-men will deploy some 150 digital billboards — capable of displaying fugitives, missing children, or public safety info in real-time — to 20 major cities around the country, following a successful trial launched in Philadelphia in September. So if you’re planning on committing a felony in Des Moines, Iowa or Akron, Ohio soon, better get it done quick, lest your ugly mug become the talk of the car pool during your morning commute. List of all the lucky cities after the break.

[Via Slashdot]

Continue reading FBI rolling out digital billboards in 20 cities

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc. Gadgets

Not nearly as intrusive as it first sounds, the Body Orifice Security Scanner (BOSS) is a chair-shaped mobile metal detector that officials are considering installing in every prison in England and Wales. Designed mainly to weed out one of the most popular forms of contraband — cellphones — the new BOSS II is said to be sensitive enough to detect even a single SIM card being smuggled somewhere inside an individual. So far the two £6,500 ($12,900) chairs that have been used at the Woodhill jail in Milton Keynes since April have helped authorities seize 21 handsets, with inmates who trigger an alert segregated and swiped down by a metal detector every time they leave their cells until the metal object has been, um, passed. While this system does humanely do away with uncomfortable cavity searches, those poor souls with a knee replacement, a bit of shrapnel embedded in their hip, or the like seem destined to toil away in solitary confinement for eternity.

[Via SlashGear]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Gaming

While we understand that people will do anything to become rock stars, we don’t really think stealing 1,000 copies of Rock Band is the way to do it — fame atop the Xbox Live and PSN leaderboards is so fleeting to begin with. Regardless, it looks like a pair of thieves was desperate enough to hijack a truck full of Harmonix and EA’s hot new party game in LA last night, hold the driver at gunpoint, unload the gear and make off with the goods. Police think it was an inside job, since the truck was unmarked and the driver picked up his cargo late Saturday night — meaning the thieves must have known the truck was worth jacking, and already have had a place to unload the less-than-compact boxes. No leads yet, but looks like gamers in LA wanting to rock out this holiday season are going to have to start shopping out the back of shady vans, eh?

[Via Joystiq; read link requires free registration]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

We’ve certainly gotten cranky after being denied some quality gaming time, but 16-year-old Cory Ryder took it to the next level by attempting to hire a hitman to kill his parents after they took away his PlayStation and denied him television. Seems young Cory had been making threats around the house, so his mom hired a cop to pose as a hitter — and Cory took the bait, offering up his dad’s truck as payment. After a couple rounds of “negotiations,” the officer revealed himself and arrested Cory for attempted murder, for which he’s now awaiting trial. Of course, you’d think that having a hitman conveniently show up after you’d been threatening to kill your parents might set off an alarm or two, but Cory’s apparently not the brightest bulb around — his PlayStation was confiscated due to failing grades.

[Via Joystiq]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

We’ve certainly gotten cranky after being denied some quality gaming time, but 16-year-old Cory Ryder took it to the next level by attempting to hire a hitman to kill his parents after they took away his PlayStation and denied him television. Seems young Cory had been making threats around the house, so his mom hired a cop to pose as a hitter — and Cory took the bait, offering up his dad’s truck as payment. After a couple rounds of “negotiations,” the officer revealed himself and arrested Cory for attempted murder, for which he’s now awaiting trial. Of course, you’d think that having a hitman conveniently show up after you’d been threatening to kill your parents might set off an alarm or two, but Cory’s apparently not the brightest bulb around — his PlayStation was confiscated due to failing grades.

[Via Joystiq]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!