Cell-site data analysis nabs robber who used mobile phone during heists

License plate readers, parking lot cameras, and social-media posts also doom suspect.

Surveillance video shows two suspects during bank robberies across the US Southeast. (credit: FBI)

A woman charged in connection to a string of armed jewelry store heists was arrested after the authorities analyzed cell-site data of telephone calls made during the nine-month robbery spree across the US Southeast, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said.

The bureau said in court documents that the 24-year-old suspect, Abigail Kemp, wore an earpiece and was talking into it during several of the robberies. Store employees were tied up and shoppers were held at gunpoint during the robberies. At one incident in Florida in August, in which the Georgia woman allegedly netted $400,000 in jewelry, the FBI said (PDF) that the suspect "was observed with a cellular telephone and wearing a cellular telephone earpiece during the robbery and was heard speaking to someone. At one point during the robbery, the earpiece fell out of the white female's ear and she promptly put it back in."

"Based on an analysis of cellular tower information obtained by law enforcement, telephone number (404) 630-2685 appeared at or near all of the robbery locations in Panama City Beach, Florida, Woodstock, Georgia, and Blufton, South Carolina, during the time that the robberies discussed above were being committed," according to an FBI arrest warrant. "A check of law enforcement databases revealed telephone number (404) 630-2685 is associated with an individual named Abigail Kemp." Ars called that number and left a voice message.

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Report: Amazon’s next Echo could be a smaller, cheaper, portable voice-controlled speaker

Report: Amazon’s next Echo could be a smaller, cheaper, portable voice-controlled speaker

A little over a year after the launch of the Amazon Echo, the Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon may have a new model on the way. The original $179 Amazon Echo is a tall, cylindrical speaker that sits in your home, connects tot he internet, and listens to your voice to answer your questions, play […]

Report: Amazon’s next Echo could be a smaller, cheaper, portable voice-controlled speaker is a post from: Liliputing

Report: Amazon’s next Echo could be a smaller, cheaper, portable voice-controlled speaker

A little over a year after the launch of the Amazon Echo, the Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon may have a new model on the way. The original $179 Amazon Echo is a tall, cylindrical speaker that sits in your home, connects tot he internet, and listens to your voice to answer your questions, play […]

Report: Amazon’s next Echo could be a smaller, cheaper, portable voice-controlled speaker is a post from: Liliputing

Testlauf: Kostenloses WiFi in deutscher S-Bahn startet

Eine deutsche Großstadt testet freies WLAN in der S-Bahn. Die Bahnen sind mit verschiedenen technischen Systemen zur Übertragung der Mobilfunk-Signale ausgerüstet. Im Echtzeitbetrieb soll herausgefunden werden, welches System die Anforderungen erfüllen kann. (Deutsche Bahn, WLAN)

Eine deutsche Großstadt testet freies WLAN in der S-Bahn. Die Bahnen sind mit verschiedenen technischen Systemen zur Übertragung der Mobilfunk-Signale ausgerüstet. Im Echtzeitbetrieb soll herausgefunden werden, welches System die Anforderungen erfüllen kann. (Deutsche Bahn, WLAN)

That Dragon, Cancer: A game that wrestles with grief, hope, and faith

Narrative “adventure” shines despite difficult content, moral emphasis.

Death happens a lot in video games, but how often do games stop to reflect upon it, or upon grief? Most games cloak death in hit points, energy bars, and infinite respawns—death is reduced to a gameplay mechanic, a thing that can, with skill, be avoided or defeated. Even when games permanently remove warriors from a quest's adventuring party or force troubled virtual soldiers to question their motivations and press "X" to pay respects, death is not an end. So long as we hold a controller, the bodies are buried, the emotions are overcome, and the battle rages on.

That Dragon, Cancer is the form's rare exception: a game that follows a family's suffering through cancer therapy for their year-old son. The game dares to attach grief and tragedy to its core interactivity, and as such, it has grabbed a lot of pre-release attention. While it's not new for indie and experimental games take on ambitious, emotional concepts and existential crises, never has one come along that has been so frank, so nakedly autobiographical, and so imbued with its creators' spiritual identities.

The game is difficult, but not because of hard-to-solve puzzles or combat. Its most touching moments made me pause to reflect, to collect myself, and, quite frankly, to sob uncontrollably. But this is a video game, not a book or film or TV series, and that means That Dragon, Cancer is difficult for reasons beyond empathy and triggered memories. Video games have the unique power to put players in control of a narrative and then steal that control away, and That Dragon, Cancer employs that power to incredible emotional effect—after all, what can render a parent as powerless as facing an unkillable cancer in your infant child?

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Valve Software: Vorbestellungen für HTC Vive ab dem Schaltjahrestag

Seit einigen Tagen können Spieler und andere VR-Interessierte ihr Oculus Rift ordern. Jetzt hat HTC den Beginn der Vorbestellzeit für sein zusammen mit Valve entwickeltes Konkurrenz-Headset HTC Vive bekannt gegeben. (Vive, Valve)

Seit einigen Tagen können Spieler und andere VR-Interessierte ihr Oculus Rift ordern. Jetzt hat HTC den Beginn der Vorbestellzeit für sein zusammen mit Valve entwickeltes Konkurrenz-Headset HTC Vive bekannt gegeben. (Vive, Valve)

The first Mini-STX motherboards based on Intel’s 5×5 platform are here

The first Mini-STX motherboards based on Intel’s 5×5 platform are here

Intel launched a new platform in 2015 for the smallest motherboards that could support upgradeable CPUs. Now we’re starting to see some of the first actual boards based on that platform: ECS and ASRock both unveiled new mini STX motherboards at CES last week. Basically, this means you can build your own computer that’s not […]

The first Mini-STX motherboards based on Intel’s 5×5 platform are here is a post from: Liliputing

The first Mini-STX motherboards based on Intel’s 5×5 platform are here

Intel launched a new platform in 2015 for the smallest motherboards that could support upgradeable CPUs. Now we’re starting to see some of the first actual boards based on that platform: ECS and ASRock both unveiled new mini STX motherboards at CES last week. Basically, this means you can build your own computer that’s not […]

The first Mini-STX motherboards based on Intel’s 5×5 platform are here is a post from: Liliputing

Finally, over-the-air software updates for your car are becoming a reality

Harman is helping car companies get with the times.

Harman's Yoram Berholtz explains how Harman is helping the car industry stay current with over-the-air software updates. Video shot/edited by Nathan Fitch. (video link)

LAS VEGAS—A constant bugbear in automotive tech is how inconvenient it is to have to take one's car to the dealership to get a software update—something Tesla owners often gloat about since their cars don't suffer that problem. Well, have faith, non-Tesla owners, because it looks like the auto industry is moving in the right direction. To find out more, we spoke to Harman's Yoram Berholtz at CES.

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Hot and dry conditions hammer crops that can tolerate cold and floods

Agriculture in the developed economies is more sensitive to extreme weather.

From hurricanes to heat waves, it seems that no corner of the world has been shielded from the force of extreme weather. While we tend to focus on damage to communities, agriculture has also been hit hard by these events.

The agricultural sector of developing countries accounts for almost 25 percent of all damage and losses from weather-related events. This damage can threaten everything from local food infrastructure to global food security. However, not all extreme weather events result in an agricultural disaster. These depend on several factors: the severity of the event, the susceptibility of the environmental systems, and the exposure of the human and natural systems.

Droughts and floods

Though the influence of weather-related events on agriculture has been explored, previous studies have been limited. Recently, a team of scientists have taken an empirical approach to estimate the influence of extreme weather disasters using data in three areas: cropped area, yields, and production at the global scale.

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Premier League Expands UK Pirate Site Blockades

Major UK Internet providers have been ordered to block access to dozens of domain names belonging to popular sports streaming sites. The Football Association and Premier League recently submitted several new domain names that link to previously blocked sites, to expand the scope of the national piracy blocklist.

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

premierleagueOver the past several years hundreds of domain names have been blocked in the UK for facilitating copyright infringement, and this list is getting longer and longer.

The blocks are somewhat effective, at least in preventing subscribers from accessing the domains directly. However, many site operators and supporters launch alternative domains to bypass the restrictions.

This is also true for several sports streaming sites that were blocked by the High Court following complaints from the Football Association and Premier League Limited, including Firstrow, Rojadirecta, LiveTV and Drakulastream.

The football organizations recently submitted an extensive list of new domains and subdomains which were added to existing ISP filters, including 3pmstream.com, ifirstrowuk.eu and rojadirecta.es (full list below).

With the new blockades they hope to make it harder for UK citizens to stream unauthorized sports broadcasts. However, FirstRow’s operator previously told TorrentFreak that domain blocking is not going to be very effective as the streaming sources remain available.

“Our site uses third-party players, so blocking FirstRow will not stop the streams, as these will still be accessible online. They are saying that FirstRow is illegal, but our site is indexing streams that are available on the web, which is free information,” FirstRow’s owner told us.

“FirstRow will remain accessible for all other countries, and UK users can use proxies or the thousands of other websites like ours that remain open,” he added.

The site’s owner has a point. Interestingly, FirstRow’s most popular site in the UK appears to be Firstrows.eu. This site is not listed among the newly blocked URLs, so the game of Whack-A-Mole will is bound to continue.

The UK is not the only country where sports streaming sites are being targeted, the same is happening in Italy and Spain.

A few months ago a La Coruna court forbid Rojadirecta from linking to unauthorized streams of sports games. The streaming site, which is based in Spain, complied with the order and now blocks visitors from Spanish IP-addresses as well as various VPNs and proxies.

However, even with the site itself complying with orders from the court, success is not guaranteed. In recent weeks various Rojadirecta knockoffs have appeared online, providing unrestricted access to sports streams in Spain.

And so the game continues.

The list of newly blocked domains in the UK (including their original domain names) is as follows:

3pmstream.com
firstrowuk.eu
firstrowsports.eu
webfirstrow.eu
firstrowus.eu
firstrow1.eu
firstrowuk1.eu
firstrownow.eu
firstrowus1.eu
gofirstrow.eu
gofirstrowuk.eu
gofirstrowus.eu
ifirstrow.eu
ifirstrowuk.eu
sportsfeed365.eu
p2p4u.se
firstrowit.eu
firstrownow.se
gofirstrow.se
webmaster.firstrownow.eu
thefirstrow.se
ifirstrowus.eu
firstrowne.eu
firstrowau.eu
firstrowas.eu
firstrowfr.eu
firstrowpt.eu
firstrowir.eu
firstrowca.eu
firstrowes.eu
firstrowge.eu
firstrowgr.eu
ifirstrowpt.eu
ifirstrowit.eu
firstrow.is
webmaster.webfirstrow.eu
cssfiles.thefirstrow.eu
web.thefirstrow.eu
drakulastream.eu
realstreamunited.com
live.realstreamunited.com
rojadirectaes.me
rojadirecta.me
rojadirecta.eu
it.rojadirecta.eu
rojadirecta.org
it.rojadirecta.org
ita.rojadirecta.org
rojadirecta.com
rojadirecta.es
rojadirecta.cat

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