Weekend Roundup from Senior Correspondent Arnold Woodworth

Apple Has Simple But Brilliant Cure For Spam Email

People have often used disposable accounts as a means of fighting spam, but Apple's system would enable you to continue checking a single inbox for all your communication.

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-spam-email-patent-2014-2




7 Little-Known Tricks To Get More Out Of Your iPad

http://www.businessinsider.com/ipad-multitasking-finger-tricks-2014-2




Greenpeace Praises Apple for Improving Supplier Working Conditions

http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/greenpeace-praises-apple-for-improving-supplier-working-conditions




A look at Apple's R&D expenditures from 1995-2013

http://www.tuaw.com/2014/02/12/a-look-at-apples-randd-expenditures-from-1995-2013/




Apple delays Mac Pro shipping date again, this time to April

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/apple-pushes-mac-pro-shipping-date-april-abroad/




Here's What To Do If Your iPhone Gets Stolen

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-to-do-if-iphone-gets-stolen-2014-2




Will iPads in the Classroom Make the Grade for Students and Teachers?
Santa Barbara Unified School District is rolling out 1,200 iPads to three elementary schools and an alternative high school.

http://www.cio.com/article/748212/Will_iPads_in_the_Classroom_Make_the_Grade_for_Students_and_Teachers_




Senate Introduces "Kill-Switch" Bill For Mobile Phones

This is something that iPhones and iPads have had for years.

Four Democratic senators have proposed a bill that would mandate mobile device manufacturers to build in a way to remotely wipe and disable stolen phones. Though the Senate bill proposes giving all consumers a kill-switch option, they are not required to enable it.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3026517/fast-feed/on-the-heels-of-california-senate-introduces-kill-switch-bill-for-mobile-phones




14 Apps Every Entrepreneur Needs

http://www.businessinsider.com/14-best-apps-for-entrepreneurs-2014-2




This is how in-app purchases should be handled

http://www.tuaw.com/2014/02/12/this-is-how-in-app-purchases-should-be-handled/




Our Love Affair With the Tablet Is Over

I wasn't the only one swooning in the presence of the iPad and its imitators.

Now - three years and 225 million tablets later - I'm starting to see how misplaced that passion was.

What I realize now is that it has been the phone all along. What we are witnessing today is a merger of phones and tablets.

It comes down to size. The vast majority of the hundreds of millions of people who use tech every day are just fine with having two primary computing devices: One for your pocket and one for your desk.

http://recode.net/2014/02/06/our-love-affair-with-the-tablet-is-over/




Essential Tips To Make Google Search Better And Faster

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-search-tips-2014-2




Why Traffic To These Google Alternatives Is Soaring

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/02/10/why-traffic-to-these-google-alternatives-is-soaring/




Don't Post an "Over the Top Snark" on Social Media
You WILL pay the price

The Facebook Comment That Ruined a Life
A young man's violent threat on Facebook lands him in jail, and limbo.

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2014-02-13/news/the-facebook-comment-that-ruined-a-life/




7 ways to protect your credit card number

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/7-ways-to-protect-your-credit-card-number-2014-02-11




in one of the biggest breaches of bank secrecy, Barclays had stolen and sold the confidential personal and financial data of up to 27,000 clients to the highest market bidder, in most cases rogue traders who had seen Glengarry Glen Ross one too many times, and who would then use Jordan Belfort-inspired tactics to sell money losing investment products to those unlucky thousands who had entrusted their data to the bank.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-09/barclays-busted-stealing-selling-confidential-financial-data-thousands-clients




Why You MUST NOT CONSENT To Electronic Medical Records

The data accessible to attackers included a combination of names, social security numbers, dates of birth, and possibly addresses, the organization said. For the affected patients, medical information was also accessible, and for some employees, bank account information was exposed.

The attackers appeared to be operating from IP addresses in “China and elsewhere”, the organization said.

approximately 405,000 former and current patients', employees' and some employees' beneficiaries' information was accessible to the unauthorized parties.

http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=228490

https://www.securityweek.com/hackers-break-server-st-joseph-health-system-putting-405000-risk




Bitcoin core developer to Mt. Gox: 'Bitcoin is not broken'

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2014/02/10/bitcoin-core-developer-to-mt-gox-bitcoin-is-not-broken/




Bitcoin Flash Crashes, Drops By 80% In Seconds

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-10/bitcoin-flash-crashes-drops-80-seconds




There's a lack of understanding at major exchanges about how bitcoins are sent

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2014/02/11/theres-a-lack-of-understanding-at-major-exchanges-about-how-bitcoins-are-sent/




Bitcoin hit by denial of service attacks as regulators prepare clampdown

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/12/us-usa-bitcoin-idUSBREA1A20X20140212




Major Online Marketplace Silk Road Hacked — Someone Stole All Its Bitcoins
The anonymous marketplace for illegal drugs has been hacked.

http://www.businessinsider.com/silk-road-hack-2014-2




A dangerous mistake lies at Bitcoin's intellectual core

Calibrating monetary policy to the needs of the economy is an enormous undertaking.
Bitcoin is designed to take this job away from central bankers and give it to a simple algorithm instead.

putting money creation beyond the reach of meddling central bankers ...... ignores the ebbs and flow of economic cycles

we need central bankers who can adjust monetary policy to promote prosperity when people behave in unexpected ways.

The software behind Bitcoin is a remarkable technical achievement but those who tout such systems as a way of saving capitalism are profoundly wrong. Governments should be wary of allowing any virtual currency, unless they first find a way of putting central bankers back in charge.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e9db5fda-9242-11e3-8018-00144feab7de.html




FINANCE PROFESSOR: Bitcoin Could Harm Nations

with currency and the ability to create it, control it, dispense it, and regulate it being at the very core of sovereign power – Bitcoin and other virtual currencies, if unchecked, could be an existential threat.

the vital role of currency management-- needed to spur economic growth -- is reserved for central bankers.

If not controlled and tightly regulated, Bitcoin -- a decentralized, untraceable, highly volatile and nationless currency -- has the potential to undermine this longstanding bond between sovereign and its currency.

Compared to fiat currency, virtual currency has several distinct weaknesses.

Up until recently, Bitcoiners pointed to open-source code and five years of existence as proof that software was failsafe. However, in recent days cyber hackers proved otherwise by cracking the code, exploiting a software flaw, triggering a chain reaction, forcing three of the largest exchanges -- representing over seventy percent of all trading volume -- to halt investor withdrawals.

In reality, Bitcoiners are not central bankers but high-risk commodity traders.  To suggest they can do the equivalent work of dedicated and experienced central bankers is farcical.

Bitcoin fixed-supply formula has one major fatal flaw; it fails to acknowledge that human behavior, not mathematical formulas, drives markets.

http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-sovereign-attack-2014-2