By Patricia Zengerle and Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama warned on Friday that surveillance powers used to prevent attacks on Americans could lapse at midnight on Sunday unless “a handful of senators” stop standing in the way of reform legislation.
Read moreBy Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) – The accused mastermind behind the Silk Road underground website was sentenced on Friday to life in prison for orchestrating a scheme that enabled more than $200 million of anonymous online drug sales using the digital currency bitcoin. Ross Ulbricht, 31, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest in Manhattan after a federal jury in February found him guilty of charges including distributing drugs through the Internet and conspiring to commit computer hacking and money laundering
Read moreBy Patricia Zengerle and Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama warned on Friday that surveillance powers used to prevent attacks on Americans could lapse at midnight on Sunday unless “a handful of senators” stop standing in the way of reform legislation. Obama said he had told Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other senators that he expects them to act swiftly on a bill passed by the House of Representatives that would renew certain powers and reform the bulk collection of telephone data
Read moreNEW YORK (Reuters) – The accused mastermind behind the underground website Silk Road was sentenced on Friday to life in prison for orchestrating a scheme that enabled more than $200 million of anonymous online drug sales using the digital currency bitcoin.
Read moreBy David DeKok HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) – None of the women in nude photographs posted on a Facebook page for a now-suspended Penn State fraternity is cooperating with investigators, police said on Friday, frustrating efforts to bring charges against the fraternity’s members. Earlier this week, Pennsylvania State University suspended the school’s Kappa Delta Rho chapter for three years after discovering a private Facebook page that included photos of female students who were undressed, and in some cases, apparently unconscious or sleeping.
Read moreBy Nita Bhalla NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A virtual reality film aims to help raise funds for survivors of last month’s earthquake in Nepal by giving viewers a first-hand experience of the disaster’s aftermath, the director said on Friday. Los Angeles-based company RYOT – which produces news stories for audiences to act on – shot the footage in the days following the 7.8 magnitude quake which struck the impoverished nation on April 25, killing more than 8,000 people.
Read moreBy Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) – The accused mastermind behind the underground website Silk Road will be sentenced on Friday for orchestrating a scheme that enabled more than $200 million of anonymous online drug sales using the digital currency bitcoin.
Read moreBy Julia Love SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Action camera maker GoPro Inc and Google Inc introduced a virtual reality system using 16 cameras and Google software, sending GoPro shares up nearly 7 percent on Thursday. GoPro's helmet- and body-mounted video cameras are popular with adventure sports enthusiasts, and the new GoPro system will use Google’s new Jump technology to help create a 360 degree view.
Read moreSaudi Arabia's Kingdom Holding, the investment firm owned by billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, has no plans to invest in Snapchat, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday. The meeting, in which Snapchat Chief Executive Evan Spiegel and chief strategy officer Imran Khan were present, triggered speculation that Alwaleed may take part in Snapchat's new funding round that has already seen Alibaba Group Holding invest $200 million — giving the Los Angeles-based firm a valuation of around $15 billion.
Read moreBy Yasmeen Abutaleb and Jennifer Saba RANCHOS PALOS VERDES, Calif./NEW YORK (Reuters) – Live streaming-video app Periscope and media companies are discussing how to address piracy on the new service, but Periscope says technological fixes many programmers want are difficult to do in real time.
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