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Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in Bahamas
The Bahamas Attorney General's Office announced Monday that Bankman-Fried has been arrested there and is likely to be extradited in short measure back to the US to stand trial
Two attendees of doomed Fyre Festival win $5 million suit
You know a festival was a nightmare when the organizer is arrested for wire fraud, pleads guilty to the charge and then Hulu picks up a documentary about it. There is some justice in the world, however, as two Fyre Festival attendees have ended up winning millions in a lawsuit. According to a report over at Vice News, two attendees who live-tweeted the garbage fire of an event were each granted $2.5 million dollars for compensatory and punitive damages.
Hulu snags documentary series on the Fyre Festival fiasco
Last year's ill-fated Fyre Festival (almost) took place in the Bahamas; it also ended up with seven fraud and negligence class-action lawsuits. Co-founder Billy McFarland (above), who co-created the festival with rapper Ja Rule, was also arrested and charged with wire fraud. He ultimately pled guilty to misleading investors. Now Hulu has picked up a multi-part documentary series about the debacle, which is being jointly developed by Billboard, Mic and production company The Cinemart.
The NSA is recording all cellphone calls in the Bahamas
You might want to be careful of what you say over the phone the next time you visit the Bahamas. According to The Intercept, NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal that the security agency is not just listening to all mobile calls made to, from and within the island nation, but also recording and archiving them for up to a month. Apparently the access was legally obtained via the US Drug Enforcement Administration and is part of a top-secret program called SOMALGET, which itself is a piece of MYSTIC, a larger NSA program that The Washington Post wrote about in March. While MYSTIC can detect metadata such as the time, location and date of the call, SOMALGET can supposedly store "full-take audio" or the call's entire contents.
Clippy hits the road as Office 365 expands to 38 new countries
Almost five months after its debut, Office 365 is getting 38 new passport stamps. Clippy's hitting such exotic locales as Fiji, the Bahamas and Barbados, and it's even picking up new languages along the way. The subscription-based productivity suite now includes support for Vietnamese, Arabic and Malay. What's more, Redmond is happily accepting five new currencies for payment, too. Brazil, Hong Kong, Mexico, Malaysia and India can all use their native money to pay for the software as a service. Sadly, there's still no word from Microsoft about accepting Bitcoins.
Huge stash of HTC Android codenames found within 2.1 ROM
You know that leaked HTC Sense ROM with Android 2.1 underneath? Well, somebody did some digging and found a wild stack of HTC Android handset codenames buried within. It starts in the realm of the familiar, with mentions of Dragon, Passion, Dream and Hero, but then it starts to get a little wild. Here's the full list: Bahamas, Bravo, DesireC, Dragon, Dream, Espresso, Halo, HeroCT, HeroC, Hero, Huangshan, Incredible, Legend, Liberty, Memphis, Paradise, PassionC, Passion, Sapphire and Supersonic. Pretty wild, right? There's no telling what exactly this list implies, other than the fact that Passion and Dragon are indeed on the books, and that HTC's naming department can really let the superlatives fly, but we're sure all will be made clear over the next year or two.
Autonomous glider robot safeguards whale pods
We've all heard the diehards claiming that the whales are the ones we should save, and thanks to an autonomous glider crafted by Webb Research, they're finally getting their wish. Recently, a trial was pursued in which a radio / satellite phone-equipped Slocum Glider was sent up to 200-meters beneath the depths in order to survey, pinpoint, and record location data for various whale pods swimming about. The device then surfaces and "phones home" the recently gathered information, which can then be disseminated out to ensure nearby vessels don't enter whale-packed territories. Jim Theriault of Defense Research and Development Canada, Dartmouth ran the experiment, and noted that this iteration of whale sensing and reporting improved on previous attempts by being uber-stealthy, featuring a remote data reporting system, and boasting a signal processor capable of tracking even the baleen whale's "lower-frequency call." Currently, the torpedo runs on batteries which last a month or so without needing a recharge, but future renditions are planned to scour the waters for "between five months and a year" by utilizing a special recharging gel. Look for these to hit your nearest ocean later this summer, and try not to be too alarmed when it surfaces beside your craft.[Via The Raw Feed]