Gadgets & Tech – Spoken Edition

Shooting and killing someone is against Uber’s terms of use. But that didn’t stop an Uber driver in Aventura, Florida who shot and killed a man on Sunday morning during an alleged robbery attempt. Both the Uber driver and his passenger were uninjured. According to the driver, who has yet to be named by police, a Dodge Caravan minivan cut him off shortly after he picked up a passenger at an apartment complex. One man exited the minivan holding two guns and pointed them at the driver.

It’s Sunday morning and Donald Trump hasn’t tweeted about last night’s SNL mockery of him yet. Could it be that he doesn’t want to draw attention to a certain subject? Last night’s edition of Alec Baldwin trying his hardest to make Trump more absurd than he actually is, featured a visit from a shirtless Vladimir Putin. It’s Christmas time so, of course, the Russian President arrives through the chimney. Ya know, because he’s Santa Claus.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents in Los Angeles just confiscated a gigantic teddy bear and posted a photo of the poor guy on Instagram. And if that wasn’t enough, they gave him a depressing backstory. The TSA’s social media accounts really are a fantastic way to keep up to date on how the agency is ruining Christmas this holiday season.

In the latest iOS update, Twitter killed the last feature that made the platform usable—the @-reply. Goodbye “don’t @ me,” hello “literally can’t @ me.” Your replies to someone’s tweets no longer factor into character count, which is good, but removing the @ all together makes your feed look confusing as hell. Shortly after Twitter began buzzing with complaints about the update, many users reported their @-s are reinstated.

Florida is America’s id, and when America wants some cocaine, you better believe Florida is going to come through. According to various local reports, famed Florida fisherman Mark Quartiano—also known as “Mark the Shark”—made an unusual catch on Wednesday. Rather than hauling in a poor, brightly colored fish or random hot women in bikinis, Mark the Shark ended up with a brick of cocaine covered in barnacles. #VERYRARE, indeed.

Australian airline Qantas just announced a new route that will take passengers from Perth, Australia to London. But you might want to stock up on sleeping pills. Because with a total flight time of 17.5 hours, it will be the longest nonstop flight in the world. The flight from Perth to London is 8,989 miles and will take place on the new Boeing 787 Dreamliners that Qantas will be acquiring next year. The 17.

Normally a glitch is a bad thing. Maybe it means your video game character gets stuck in a wall or maybe a glitch gets you wrongfully arrested. For an Australian man named Luke Moore, a simple bank glitch meant that he was able to blow $1.3 million on cars, travel, strippers and drugs over the course of two years. In March of 2010, Moore was a broke law student and claiming government benefits. He applied at his bank, St. George, for a “Complete Freedom Account” with overdraft protection.

A man has been sentenced to five years in prison for hacking celebrities, social security numbers, nude photographs, and trying to sell scripts for popular movies and TV shows. As The New York Times notes, his five year sentence is almost twice the suggested federal sentencing guidelines for hacking. According to the initial complaint, Alonzo Knowles hacked multiple celebrities, and then arranged a deal with an undercover FBI agent to fly to New York and sell scripts for $80,000.

Outside of big brands like Apple and Samsung, there are only two companies that really define wearables: Pebble and Fitbit. Fitbit is the hugely successful fitness tracker brand that’s been struggling to make a device that isn’t just long-lasting and great at tracking steps, but as functional as an Apple Watch. Pebble is the smartwatch brand that’s built such a device.

On Sunday, Mark Zuckerberg interviewed Vin Diesel on Facebook Live before they took the stage together at the Breakthrough Awards—Silicon Valley’s own sort of Nobel prize-Oscars hybrid, which gave $25 million to scientists this year. Clearly a fan, Zuck excitedly asked the action star about topics ranging from science to his tuxedo to Triple X, enthralled by the lure of Vin’s power.