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Contractor hoped to sell social media surveillance to oppressive regimes
Western companies are still interested in selling surveillance tools to governments that could easily abuse them. The Intercept claims to have leaked documents suggesting that Circinus, the defense contractor run by Trump fundraiser Elliott Broidy, planned to sell social media surveillance tools to governments still known for suppressing free speech, including Tunisia and the UAE. Circinus' tools harvest sites like Facebook and Twitter in a bid to find and identify "detractors" -- that is, political dissidents. While the software only sifts through public data, it's likely this information would be used to punish critics who could otherwise count on a degree of anonymity.
African mobile game rewarded its top players with a real cow
What did your favorite mobile game give you the last time you topped its leaderboard? In Tunisia, the developers of a game called Bagra, which translates to "cow," gave its top players a real, living bovine. To win, the couple had to be better than everyone else in a game of keeping a digital herd of cows safe while stealing from others.
The Big Picture: Stormtroopers return to Tatooine
Oung Jmel in Nefta, Tunisia, is better known by many as an outcrop of Tatooine called Mos Espa. The above image was taken on location in preparation for a parade organized by the local tourist board as part of "Star Wars day" celebrations over the weekend. May 4th has been adopted by fans as a day to celebrate the movie franchise, but this year was of particular significance, as just days earlier the cast for Episode VII was confirmed to include a number of actors from the first three movies, and a recent crowdfunding campaign has been launched to save the location from being swallowed by the sands. The Big Picture is a series of short features where the image takes center stage. [Image credit: REUTERS/Zoubeir Souissi]
US funds networks that help dissidents avoid internet spying
The US doesn't mind dealing in irony, it seems. While many criticize the country for its aggressive internet surveillance, it's also pledging millions of dollars towards mesh networks in Cuba and Tunisia that help dissidents avoid online snooping. As with earlier efforts, these automatic, ad hoc grids aren't connected to the internet; they exist to help locals communicate without fear that the government will watch or block what they're doing. They're not completely spy-proof, but they're designed from the start with secure services in mind.
ATI's Radeon HD 2900 XT benchmarked, trumps NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GTS
Although preliminary testing proved that ATI's R600 architecture wasn't messing around, DailyTech added another layer of proof to the pudding as it benchmarked a bonafide Radeon HD 2900 XT against NVIDIA's 640MB GeForce 8800 GTS. The DirectX 10-capable card is a notch above the HD 2600 XT that was snapped in the wild, and the tested unit featured 320 stream processors, 512MB of GDDR3 RAM, a dual-slot "blower-type heat sink," dual dual-link DVI ports, and a serious desire to crank out impressive FPS numbers. While the marks weren't the end-all answer to the ATI vs. NVIDIA question, the Radeon managed to best its opponent in every single trial, including Call of Duty 2, Company of Heroes, F.E.A.R., Oblivion, 3DMark06, Maya 02, Cadalyst C2006, and a few more for good measure. Of course, we're sure NVIDIA will be hitting back with something of its own, but feel free to hit the read link if you take pleasure in graphical beat downs with ATI escaping victorious.[Thanks, Mathieu]
