Cell Bytes

Several people are reporting that there are odd charges on credit cards they’ve used to make purchases from online retailer Monoprice. This is what the company had to say:

A few of our customers recently reported to us that information from credit cards they used on the Monoprice website had been misused. We promptly began an investigation with the help of expert computer forensic investigators to determine if any card data had been stolen from our computers.

To date, the investigators have found no evidence that card information has been stolen from Monoprice’s computer network. As a precaution to ensure that our customers’ information is not at risk, we have taken our website offline temporarily while we and our investigators complete the audit of our computer network.

We want to ensure that there is no security vulnerability in any part of our computer network system. We notified local and federal law enforcement agencies, our credit card processing business partners, and all credit card companies that some of our customers reported concerns regarding their card information to us.

We also advised these entities that we are working with outside security specialists to determine if there was breach of our computer system. We will post additional information when it is available. We regret any inconvenience that our investigation and the temporary suspension of the Monoprice website may have caused you. Thank you so much for your great support.

Until this issue is resolved, we recommend keeping a closer eye than usual on your credit card statement. [Monoprice via Facebook—Thanks, Richard!]

Jalopnik’s gathered up the flying car covers from Popular Science’s complete archives and come out with a brief 77-year history of our flying car fantasies, which shift from cautious to optimistic depending on the tone of the decade. [Jalopnik]

For this week’s Photoshop Contest, I asked you to turn today’s user-friendly gadgets into cold, utilitarian Soviet-era relics. It’s probably for the best that these don’t actually exist.

First Place—Bobo the Teddy
Second Place—Paul Vasco
Third Place—Goodie to You Dot Com

Water-scraper is a concept piece entered into the eVoIo Skyscraper Competition which shows a future where people live and work underwater. Harnessing wave, wind and solar power to generate electricity, it’s a future world I’d be thrilled to live in.

We’d also be able to grow food using aquaculture and hydroponic ways—though if it just tastes like algae I might stick with city-living for a while longer. [Water-scraper via Inhabitat]

MacHeist’s nanoBundle 2 offer is almost over, which means the really good apps are on the verge of being unlocked. Already available? Tales of Monkey Island, in both Mac and PC versions.

By the time you read this post, RapidWeaver should already be unlocked, and it should be very, very close to unlocking Tweetie at around 50 or 60k bundles sold. Once Rapidweaver is unlocked, that should be no problem. Note: this isn’t just the Tweetie that’s out now, but beta access (and a free upgrade) to Tweetie 2, with the features that were found on Tweetie 2 for iPhone.

In any case, $20 for all these apps is a great deal. [MacHeist]

Update: It’s all unlocked!

Call me a cynic, but I’m not sure this is ever going to happen: the FCC wants to dedicate a chunk of the wireless spectrum to providing free internet service.

The FCC plans to make its recommendation under the National Broadband Plan set for release next week, which has the goal of making broadband more affordable for everyone in America.

Of course, they didn’t, you know, say how they were going to do such a thing. And they’re going to have to claw that spectrum out of the cold, dead hands of telecom lobbyists. But you know what? Good for them for actually worrying about what people would benefit from instead of what gigantic telecoms want.

But still. We’ll see. [Reuters]

The 4N Watch was designed with a relatively simple goal—display digital time through mechanical, analog function.

Despite the exposed gears and jumble of numbers, the watch operates upon logic that anyone can grasp. Really, three numbered discs rotate to display the proper 3 to 4 digits of time (we’re assuming the hour disc displays the 11 and 12 hours on its own). That’s much more reasonable than a tiny arm sorting through a large pile of numbers with every new minute, which is pretty much what we imagined upon first glance.

Unfortunately, only 16 watches will be produced. So enjoy the picture. [4N via SlashGear]

Thank christ Interscope said “3D DVD” and not “Full HD 3D”—I don’t think I could cope with protruding manladybits in full HD. Not that I’m planning on buying the DVD obviously—though there is a danger that the Interscope rep who told MTV News of Gaga’s 3D desires just doesn’t know the difference between Blu-rays and DVDs. [MTV News via NME]

The WSJ delves into the trials and tribulations of trying to build a gigabit fiber network out to even the 50,000 homes at the low ends of Google’s goals for their trial network. It could cost up to $1 billion, and Google’s already mentioning to people it’s asking for help, like Case Western Reserve University’s Lev Gonick, whose building gigabit fiber to 104 homes, that “we have a lot to learn.” Oh boy, sign me up. (Actually, do sign me up.) [WSJ]

I can imagine a future dry Earth in which nature only exists inside huge buildings like this Freshwater Factory Skyscraper, designed by Design Crew for Architecture to produce freshwater from sea water on the south coast of the Spain.

Here’s how it works: The brackish water—a sightly desalinized water—is pumped into the self-sufficient structure using tide-powered pumps. Then, inside the spheres, mangrove trees feed on that water, transforming it and exuding freshwater that evaporates. This water vapor is collected for human consumption by an internal pipe system.

The result: This building can produce 30,000 liters of freshwater per day. The design won an honorable mention at the [Evolo via Inhabitat]