Technology

California AG Kamala Harris is at it again, filing pimping and money laundering charges against the current and former owners of Backpage, despite a judge’s dismissal of similar charges just two weeks ago.

With drones becoming increasingly popular, metro Phoenix cities are scrambling to figure out how to regulate the unmanned aerial vehicles. Phoenix, Glendale, and Paradise Valley all are considering drone laws that would limit the use of aerial recordings and restrict flights over certain parts of their individual cities.  But because drone…

Many of us stared at the star-besotted sky as children and wondered how long it would take to count all those pinpricks of light. The answer is 10 years, once the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope begins its count in 2022. Construction began in October. Everywhere we look, our mastery grows…

Facebook went down this morning in an apparent worldwide outage, throwing social media users into a panic and boosting the use of rival site Twitter. With no Facebook on which to share thoughts for — what, about 23 minutes? — Twitter was abuzz with various quips and laments about the…

A woman who complained to US Airways received a shocking Twitter message in reply — a picture of a woman masturbating with a scale model of a Boeing 777. According to jalpoknik.com, the US Airways tweet with the X-rated photo remained up for more than 20 minutes before the company…

You’re safe — the asteroid known as 2000 EM26 did not hit Earth Monday night. Scientists predicted it wouldn’t. But by interstellar standards, this block of rock the length of three football fields was on our front porch. As our cover story “Space Invader” explains this week, these so-called near-Earth…

Lesson of the day: Social media is a good way to connect with friends but a bad way to share child porn.The Tucson police department says a local swim coach was arrested after uploading images of child pornography to a social media site…

A Glendale man is facing prison time thanks to being tagged in a photograph on Facebook.Augustine Escobar, 40, is a convicted felon, and is not allowed to have any firearms. According to court documents obtained by New Times, an officer cruising Escobar’s publicly viewable Facebook profile found a photo of…

About 9:30 p.m. Sunday, our iPhone — and perhaps yours, too — began buzzing like the bridge of the Enterprise just before a Romulan attack. Dashing to the kitchen counter, where the phone was plugged in and recharging, we discovered that no, North Korea hasn’t launched an EMP strike –…

There’s no doubt that many people have been disappointed by an in-person meeting with someone they met online, but a Glendale man didn’t just meet up with someone who fudged their stats a little on their online profile.Instead, police say the man — who planned on meeting with a woman…

Phoenix resident Jorge Valencia has been conducting marijuana sales in full view of anyone who visited his public Facebook account, according to police.”There were two conversations between Valencia and other subjects wherein they inquired about purchasing illegal drugs from Valencia and Valencia responded,” state court documents obtained by New Times…

Sorry to the people who don’t like looking out of the windshield while operating a motor vehicle, but state legislators are proposing a ban on texting while driving.If you’re worried you’ll get a ticket for sending naked pictures of yourself on your phone while driving, fear not, because it doesn’t…

Erstwhile Peoria Police Sergeant Pat Shearer remains Officer Pat Shearer for posting a picture on Facebook of a bunch of kids who’d apparently just shot up a T-shirt depicting President Obama.A city spokesman says the three-member personnel board upheld the demotion, but reduced the amount of unpaid suspension from 80…

Arizona shook from the tremors of nearly 1,000 earthquakes between 2006 and 2009, according to data recently published by Arizona State University researchers. New data from a National Science Foundation program recorded the seismic activity, which has scientists excited because of the unexpected frequency of quakes and the fact that…