Hasta La Gadget!

WASHINGTON — Concern is mounting among some Senate Democrats that President Barack Obama will make a deal with Senate Republicans during the lame-duck session that would result in changes to the benefit structure of Social Security.

One of the most progressive voices in the caucus, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), said he was heartened to hear Obama tell the AARP last week that he’d be open to raising the cap on income that’s taxed for purposes of paying into the Social Security trust fund. Sanders also applauded the president for taking off of the table any reform language that resulted in the “slashing” of benefits (several Social Security advocates, disagreeing with Sanders, said they were worried such language was counterproductive, as it opens the door for cuts that could be deemed minor).

But the Vermont Independent worried that all of this could be posturing for the lame-duck session immediately after the election, when lawmakers are expected to rush to find another “grand bargain” on tax and entitlement reform to stave off the so-called fiscal cliff.

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Today is a breezy, beautiful fall day in New York City. But if you ask Siri about the weather here, she’ll tell you it’s 90 degrees. This is not the weather in New York City, but rather the weather in New York, Texas. Something’s up with Siri again. More »

A 7-foot, 655-pound sea turtle, described like “a swimming dinosaur,” was rescued from the waters of Cape Cod and then released after treatment on Saturday.

The 655-pound turtle was rescued on Wednesday evening after he was found stranded on a mud flat in Pamet Harbor in Truro, Mass., according to the New England Aquarium.

The black, male, leatherback turtle came in “near death” on Thursday, and medical professionals treated him with a variety of medications to help stabilize his blood valves and oxygen levels, the New England Aquarium notes. Even at 655 pounds, the turtle is considered underweight; adult turtles can weigh more than 1,000 pounds.

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We aren’t sure if analysts love or hate predicting sales of Apple’s extremely popular devices, but the iPhone always gets its fair share of predictions. While some suggested 8-10 million iPhone 5 smartphones would be sold in September, opening weekend only saw about 5 million total. Now we’re seeing predictions for all iPhone models topping 50 million in the fourth quarter of 2012 alone.

While recent analysts have been blaming shortages for their numbers being off, today J.P. Morgan analyst Katy Huberty is giving Apple some rather impressive predictions. Stating they’ll have an awesome end of year tallying up around 50 million iPhone sales for the fourth quarter. The same analyst is stating around 25m for Q3, and essentially doubling that number for next quarter.

With the iPhone 5 offering a bigger screen, 4G LTE, and getting a much wider launch than previous years it’s easy to see why she finds Q4 doing so well. Katy Huberty even goes as far as to state 200 million in sales for 2013. That is a pretty bold prediction, and something we’re sure Apple would love to see.

China will be a major factor and contributor to those sales numbers in Q4 and next year, offering the new device on multiple new carriers throughout the country. Overall Huberty expects that the larger display and addition of those blazing fast 4G LTE speeds will boost the iPhone to massive numbers for the rest of the year and beyond. In case you missed it, feel free to take a peek at our iPhone 5 review!

[via CNET]

iPhone sales could top 50 million in Q4 is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

U.S.-based human rights watchdog Freedom House released a report about internet freedom today, and its conclusions are chilling for everyone who considers the internet to be a transformational force worldwide. The report, which assesses the internet policies and laws of 47 countries between 2011 and 2012, concludes that several regimes are combining tried-and-true techniques of filtering with newer extra-governmental surveillance. In particular, Saudia Arabia, Ethiopia and China have increased internet filtering and monitoring in response to partially-social-media driven political uprisings in the Middle East.

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By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Old private messages publicly show up on Facebook Timelines, Google for Entrepreneurs launched to support startups,