Who says that behemoth corporations are heartless? Virgin Media had eleven engineers work for three days straight, just to find a single voicemail that 68-year-old Stan Beaton had thought he’d lost forever. It was the outgoing message recorded by his beloved wife Ruby, who died from cancer in 2003. Stan Beaton had kept wife Ruby Beaton’s outgoing voice message for all those years, listening to it himself on occassion, when a change in the Virgin Media voicemail system caused it to be deleted.

A new logo of a flying bear, being quietly rolled out by Khabarovsk Airport in Russia, has become a Russian viral sensation. All manner of “Bearport” memes have cropped up in Russian social media, such as RuNet, and are now flying out of Russia and around the world.

While Skype Translator was announced last year, Skype is now accepting Skype Translator registration signups. The first roll-out of the Skype voice translation tool will be Skype Translator for Windows, with Skype Translator for Mac to follow. (For a Skype Translator demo, see below.)

Sony Pictures, for reasons known only to them, has done a 180 and will now allow a “limited theatrical release” of the movie The Interview, according to Sony CEO Michael Lynton. So what theaters are showing The Interview? At least two theater chains are known to be airing The Interview, with, almost certainly, more theatres to follow. There have also been hints of The Interview streaming via video on demand (“VOD”), and while the outlet has not been announced, there are rumours that it will be on Crackle, which Sony owns.

With the Obama administration’s plan to ease trade restrictions between the United States and Cuba, Cubanos may finally have easier access to an unrestricted Internet. At present, only 5% of Cubans have unfiltered access to the Internet, but if technology and electronics start flowing into Cuba as predicted, the Internet floodgates will open, opening up whole new avenues of communication and trade.

It seems like there is a new acronym on the Internet every week. Most recently, the acronym “GPO” has started cropping up online. Curiously (and perhaps frustratingly) to what it may refer won’t be clear from the GPO acronym itself, as it can refer to a couple of different things. (This is what happens when “professionals” start playing loosely with language.)

With all of the information, misinformation and, yes, hysteria about Ebola these days, you may be wondering which websites you can trust for factual information about Ebola. Here are a few online sites that are likely to be more reliable than most, some of which include an Ebola FAQ.

As a companion piece to our article on Bitcoin ATMs and Colorado’s new local currency, the COjack, here is a fantastic, plain English local currency definition and explanation of how local currency works, provided exclusively to the Internet Patrol by Dr. Stephen J. Schmidt, Professor of Economics at Union College in Schenectady. A huge thank you to Prof. Schmidt for this!

Pedestrian smartphone lanes – also known as “e-lanes”, “talkways” and “mobile phone sidewalks” – are becoming a thing, as are other measures to protect texting pedestrians from themselves, as more and more people are injured in “distracted walking” accidents.

We all know the importance, in business, to have a social media team. However, that the Syrian rebels have a social media team in Turkey, set up to meet United States CIA arming requirements may come as a surprise to some.

Scientists in India and France have successfully transmitted a brain-to-brain thought, or communication, over the Internet. Using a non-invasive procedure, scientists in India wired a man’s head to capture and decode his brain impulses, had the man think the words “Hola” and “Ciao”, and then transmitted the impulses over the Internet to recipients that colleagues in France had wired similarly, who received the transmission as flashes of light, from which they were able to interpret the “Hola” and “Ciao”. The scientsts involved were Carles Grau, Romuald Ginhoux, Alejandro Riera, Thanh Lam Nguyen, Hubert Chauvat, Michel Berg, Julià L. Amengual, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, and Giulio Ruffini.

UK agencies have once again been surprised, or, at least, shown a stunning lack of clue about human nature, as many choose the unavoidable choice of disabling the porn filter on their Internet connection. This according to the UK’s Ofcom, who are the independent regulator for Britain’s communications industries. Yes, it turns out that broadband users want their porn and other inappropriate (or at least non-child-friendly) content.

Almost immediately after Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down on Thursday, July 17, messages appeared on the Twitter and VK social media site accounts of the pro-Russian separatist Donetsk Republic(DNR) group, claiming responsibility. But the messages, attributed to DNR commander Igor Strelkov, claimed responsibility for downing an An-26 Ukrainian military plane. The messages were then hastily deleted as it became clear that the plane that was shot down was in fact a civilian commercial airliner.

Last week a BBC staffer testing their breaking news app alert system disappointed countless Game of Thrones fans when they sent a test alert stating “BREAKING NEWS No nudity in latest episode of Game of Thrones!!!”

The “One Ring” and “Missed Call” cell phone scam is becoming more common. According to both the FTC and the FCC, the way this works is that you will get a call from a number that you don’t recognize, starting with what seems to be a U.S.-based area code, such as 809, 876, 649, 268, 473, or 284. The scam is that when you call back to see who it is trying to reach you, you are actually connected to an international “pay per minute” or “pay per call” line, that will run up your phone charges.