Is It true? BMW i8 plug-in hybrid sports car costs over $135,000

Is It true? 2014 Kia Sorento Justice League ebay auction exceeds $37,000

The Justice League might not normally show up to save the innocent in a minivan, but even Superman and Co. could be persuaded by a one-off Kia Sorento complete with custom Jim Lee artwork. The customized car is the eighth in a series of Justice League Super Heroes models Kia and DC Entertainment have produced. The first seven featured each of the seven heroes themselves – Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg – while this final model brings all of them together.

While the Sorento might initially seem like an odd choice, it’s actually one of the few cars in Kia’s range that could accommodate the whole Justice League team; it, and the similarly 7-seat Sedona, in fact. The custom artwork is the handiwork of famous comic book artist Jim Lee, and then hand-airbrushed by West Coast Customs. On the outside, the metallic blue CUV spreads its quote of superheroes on either side, with Justice League branding across the hood, and sits on some impressively oversized special black-finish alloy wheels. Lee began the process by hand-drawing the design separately, coming up with eight different versions including the all-heroes car that will be auctioned off. West Coast Customs then powered up their airbrushes to splash that custom artwork across the Kia bodywork, a difficult process given there are 3D curves and cut-lines to take into account. Some of the earlier, individual hero cars have been even more outlandish, with Kia cutting Batman logos into the radiator grill, for instance, on the Caped Crusader’s car. Inside, meanwhile, there’s comic book artwork across the transmission tunnel and door trim, and – our favorite feature – each of the leather seats gets a hero’s logo on the headrest, and matching piping. In case you’re wondering, Superman is driving and Batman called shotgun. More normally, the Sorento starts off at just over $24k for the somewhat less ostentations LX 2.4L with a six-speed auto transmission. You still get the seven seats, though, as well as SiriusXM radio, Bluetooth streaming, power windows, air-con, and 17-inch alloy wheels. Both front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive versions are offered, with up to 26mpg possible depending on model and driving conditions. “Kia and DC Entertainment are both global brands sharing a youthful and creative mindset” Michael Sprague, EVP of marketing & communications for Kia Motors America, said of the collaboration. “With Jim Lee’s vision combined with the efforts of some of the best customizing shops in the business, it’s going to be a lot of fun unveiling these cars around the country.” The limited edition Sorento has been shown off as part of a Kia collaboration with DC Entertainment at Comic-Con 2013, in association with the “We Can Be Heroes” campaign, as well as at other events through the year. Best of all, Kia is selling off the Justice League Sorento in a charity auction. Running until July 27, with a starting bid of $35,000, proceeds will go to Mercy Corps. [Limited edition Sorento auction on ebay] Story Timeline 2014 KIA Sorento and Forte First Drive 2014 KIA Sorento test drive: luxury inside and out 2014 Kia Sorento Justice League ebay auction exceeds $37,000 is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear. © 2005 - 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Is It true? FTC selects two winners in its Robocall Challenge, gives each $25,000

Back in October 2012, the FTC decided to make the battle against annoying robocalls public, tasking the hivemind with a challenge to develop technology for dealing with the calls. The incentive was a $50,000 award, in addition to a trip to Washington D.C. where the solution would be presented. Now, nearly six months later, the challenge is over and the winners have been selected.

The award was split down the middle and given to two individuals – Aaron Foss and Serdar Danis – each of whom submitted their own entries for their own respective solutions, both of which apparently had equal appeal to the FTC. As such, each winner has been awarded $25,000 and will be flown to Washington D.C. at no expense, where each will present their solutions to an audience. Foss’s idea centered around a cloud-based platform that operated a secondary phone line that initially accepted calls. The platform would have a way to identify the robotic calls, and would hang up on them, meaning the end destination would never receive the call. Danis’s entry involves an operator-provided device or app that recognized the robocalls and intercepted them, hanging up before the homeowner had to deal with it. In addition to the cash award for entries, we also noted in October that the FTC was offering a Technology Achievement Award to companies with more than ten employees, which ended up going to Dean Jackson and Daniel Klein of Google. Said the FTC: “The solutions that our winners came up with have the potential to turn the tide on illegal robocalls, and they show the wisdom of tapping into the genius and technical expertise of the public.” [via PC Magazine] FTC selects two winners in its Robocall Challenge, gives each $25,000 is written by Brittany Hillen .

Is It true? Two men hacked Subway to steal gift cards totaling $40,000

Two men were charged for an elaborate hacking scheme. They have been identified as Shahin Abdollahi, whose alias was Sean Holdt, and Jeffrey Thomas Wilkinson. The two men hacked over 13 point-of-sale (POS) computers at a variety of Subways located in Massachusetts, Wyoming, and California. This isn’t the first time Subway’s been hacked. Last September, the franchise’s credit card terminals were hacked at over 150 of its locations. It suffered $10 million in losses and 146,000 accounts were compromised.

Abdollahi and Wilkinson went through an elaborate scheme to execute their plans. Abdollahi operated his own POS business, called “POS Doctor”. There he sold POS computers to various Subways, and he preloaded his LogMeIn (remote desktop tool) information into those machines. In order to get a better understanding of how Subway and their POS systems worked, he operated a few of his own Subway franchises in Southern California. After learning how Subway operates and how they use their POS system, he and Wilkinson then remotely accessed Subway’s POS systems to create fake gift cards totaling up to $40,000. They took the fake gift cards and sold them either on eBay, or Craigslist. According to the reports, Abdollahi’s hacked systems were sold to a variety of other businesses besides Subway as well. The two men were charged with computer intrusion and wire fraud. It seems like they did an awful lot of scheming and prep work just to create fake gift cards. Abdollahi went through alot of hassle of owning his own POS company and a few Subways just to get this plan into motion. It’s speculated that Subway was just the testing grounds for an even bigger scheme the two had planned. [via Ars Technica] Two men hacked Subway to steal gift cards totaling $40,000 is written by Brian Sin .

Is It true? Netflix challenges developers to improve cloud computing, offers $100,000

Netflix is looking to boost the reality of cloud computing via its OSS, taking it to the next level and helping it realize its potential. How is it doing this? Via its Netflix Cloud Prize competition, which it is using to challenge developers across the world to come up with improvements in secure, reliable, and usable, among other things. There are ten categories in total.

The contest opened to entries yesterday, and will last six months ending on September 15 of this year. When the contest closes to entries, a judging panel will select the winners and reveal them on October 16. The lucky winners will be given their awards at AWS Re:Invent in Las Vegas in November, all expenses paid. As we mentioned, the contest is split into ten categories. Each category will have its own winner who will get $10,000 in cash and $5,000 in AWS credits, as well as a nifty trophy they can place on their respective mantles. You can check out the full list of rules and how to apply at Netflix’s Github here. Netflix’s CPO Neil Hunt had this to say: “Cloud computing has become a hot topic recently, but the technology is still emerging. No doubt many of the key ideas that will take it to the next level have yet to be conceived, explored, and developed. The Netflix Cloud Prize is designed to improve understanding of what it takes to build native applications for the cloud that take full advantage of the opportunities for scalable computing.” [via PC Mag] Netflix challenges developers to improve cloud computing, offers $100,000 is written by Brittany Hillen .