Gizmodo: busted

Playing Your PSP at Work Is a Bad Idea, Especially When You Drive a City Bus

Sean Fallon — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:40:00 EDT

A bus driver in Honolulu, Hawaii, was suspended without pay recently after he was discovered playing video games while driving. Photos taken by a concerned passenger caught him red-handed with his PSP, and she complained that he would play at stoplights and "with two hands… at times, while he was driving in traffic." As baffling as all this is, I am even more surprised that he wasn't fired on the spot. And why didn't anyone speak up with a "hey dumbass, keep your eyes on the road before you kill us all?" [KITV via Kotaku]

Verizon Tech Busted for Using Customer Lines to Make $220K in Sex Calls

Sean Fallon — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:20:00 EDT

Add Joseph Vaccarelli, of Nutley, NJ to the long list of employees busted for engaging in sex-related activities on the job. A former Verizon technician, Vaccarelli stands accused of making $220,000 in sex calls using the landlines of some 950 customers. The math works out like this: 900 chat lines, 5,000 calls and a hand-numbing 45,000 minutes of talk time. Apparently he spent 15 weeks over a 40-week span for solid sex chats. Despite its name, it looks like Nutley is off the hook as the horniest town in America. [wcbstv via Geekologie]

Brando's iPhone Kit Lets You Replace Busted Screens Yourself

Kit Eaton — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:00:00 EDT

Bless Brando for coming up with something that sounds amazingly useful at last: a "replacement LCD Display for your iPhone 3G." That's all the info there is, strangely, but assuming it's a good quality LCD with touchscreen, it'll no doubt be massively handy if your new toy has had an unfortunate screen-snapping incident. There's also the "iPhone Opening Tools Kit" with screwdrivers and prising gizmos which will certainly help you out. The screen costs a cheap-sounding $85, while the toolset will set you back an extra $11. [Brando via Reg Hardware]

Police Take Down Dangerous Perp Armed With a Philips MP3 Player

Sean Fallon — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:10:42 EST

Mechanic Darren Nixon recently got a rude awakening when he was arrested at gunpoint because a bystander and a team of British police both mistook his 4GB Phillps MP3 player for a pistol. Amazingly enough, the ordeal was not cleared up with a simple "It's an MP3 player stupid"—in fact, Nixon was taken back to HQ, swabbed for DNA, fingerprinted, and thrown into a cell based on suspicion. Naturally, the whole ordeal has left Nixon shaken and disillusioned with his local police force. Hey, at least he didn't get shot. Update: Additional pic after the break.

[Daily Mail via Crunchgear]

The Fuzz Have a New Way to Bust Your Drunken Ass

Sean Fallon — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:20:38 EST

You can chew all of the gum you want, but it won't save you from the latest weapon in the police arsenal against individuals driving under the influence. A new device dubbed the "Hawkeye," can record your eye movements/pupil size and accurately determine whether or not you are impared—regardless of the substance used.

The device has just been awarded two separate patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, so you can expect to see these out in force at sobriety checkpoints sometime soon. On the bright side, you might make it on TV as the latest guy on COPS pressed face down onto the hood of a car with no shirt on. [Hawkeye via Press Release via Ubergizmo]

Linksys Seizes Misprinted Hotline Number, Puts An End To Sexy Party

Wilson Rothman — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:29:31 EST

Remember that misprinted Linksys tech-support number that led callers to a phone-sex hotline? Well, Cisco-Linksys has flexed its muscles, scooping up the number and reprogramming it with good old-fashioned helpful info. No more sexy time for you, unless of course you listen to our previously recorded version of the message. Linksys customers who want to bypass all shenanigans can call the usual US tech-support line: 800-326-7114. [Linksys]

Satellite Radio Receivers Already Capable of XM & Siruis?

Mark Wilson — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 11:52:21 EDT

In highly technical communications to the FCC, a man named Michael Hartleib makes a strong argument for the possibility of current satellite radios becoming interoperable—or gaining the ability to switch between Sirius and XM as easily as traditional radios do AM and FM. A firmware download could be all that's needed to upgrade the players...that is, if XM and Sirius followed FCC regulations and produced interoperable receivers in the first place. From the way Hartleib tells the story, XM and Sirius are more interested in selling you newer, "dual-mode" tech...

"Dual-mode" allows both signals to be downloaded to a radio at once, as if you were receiving AM and FM concurrently. But that difference—between needing or not needing to switch between music providers—would not be worth the cost of upgrading components to most consumers.

Let me make this one clear to Sirius and XM: if you offer me both services through the stuff I already own, you have a much better chance of up-selling my subscription.

[orbitcast]
We stole their nice picture, too.

Stealth Cam Prowler Catches Man or Beast in the Act

Charlie White — Mon, 07 May 2007 13:00:00 EDT

We're seeing more infrared cameras lately, but this one has a different marketing angle for these perverted porncams: it's pitched to photo hunters. You position the Stealth Cam Prowler digital video infrared scouting camera where those animals you'd like see usually hang around, and then you can capture video or 2-megapixel stills of them in the dark or 5-megapixel color shots in daylight, triggered by its motion sensor.

It has 42 infrared emitters that surreptitiously light up moving critters within 50 feet, and its pictures or video are stamped with the time and date, as well as the moon phase and temperature. You can have its burst mode shoot one to nine pictures at a time, or set it to capture 5 to 90 seconds of video. This looks like it would be great for catching animals—human or otherwise—in the act. No pricing or availability was announced yet. – Charlie White

Product Page [Stealthcam, via Be Sportier]