MSNBC:

Electronics retailer Best Buy said Thursday it will close 50 big box stores in the U.S. and cut 400 jobs in corporate and support areas as it changes the focus of its operations to mobile.

Translation: Online retailers, such as Amazon and EBay, are kicking Best Buy’s butt. Brick and mortars are going the way of the dodo.

The Pew Research Center offers an interesting look at how coverage of the Trayvon Martin case has differed across blogs, Twitter, and mainstream media:

On Twitter, the conversation has focused on sympathy for the slain teenager and expressions of outrage at the killing. On blogs, the emphasis has been on the role of race in the highly charged case. In the mainstream media, the Trayvon Martin controversy was heavily a cable news and talk radio story. And there, the primary discussion has focused on two politically oriented issues-gun control laws and the Florida Stand Your Ground statute, which gives citizens the right to use deadly force when they believe they are being threatened.

Check out the video of this self-driving car in action. Autonomous driving is amazing technology that offers the promise of independence for people with disabilities. Another possibility is increased safety conditions for everyone. This is the Google I love.

That said, to stay true to their Don’t Be Evil mantra, Google should have taken him someplace other than Taco Bell.

Dave Pell:

In a way, staring at a screen is lot like being alone in your car. When someone cuts you off, you adopt a totally different personality; one defined by urgency and often explosive anger. No one can hear you scream as you speed down the highway with the music blaring and windows rolled up.

Screen rage is the new road rage. Except everyone can hear you scream.

If I could choose but one trait to remove from my life, it would be screen rage. Perhaps rage isn’t the ideal word - maybe screen-induced social withdrawal is more appropriate. The attention that our screens demand really shouldn’t trump the attention that our friends and loved ones deserve. Life is finite and those “just a minute"s add up. Hopefully we will all remember that and turn off our screens when presented with the opportunity.

Information is Beautiful presents an awesome infographic that illustrates common errors and manipulations of rhetoric and logical thinking. You can see it applied to a real-life example here.

(via: John Siracusa)

Matt Brian, The Next Web:

Under new rules, travellers [sic] will be able to select a separate roaming contract from a [foreign] operator before they travel and keep the same number when they arrive in a country, instead of bolting it on top of their existing tariff at home (at inflated prices). The agreement is expected to drive competition between operators and work out more cost-effective for consumers.

As of July 2012, European carriers cannot charge roaming customers more than 0.29 Euros ($0.39) per minute to place a call, 0.08 Euros ($0.11) per minute to receive a call, 0.09 Euros ($0.12) to send a text messages, and 0.70 Euros ($0.93) for every MB of data transfer. Those will be further reduced by July 2014.

Compare those limits with what AT&T charges U.S. per-use customers while roaming in Europe: voice calls often cost $1.50 or greater per minute, $0.50 per text message, and $19.99 per MB of data transfer. That is exactly why I limit my communications to Wi-Fi solutions (email, FaceTime, instant message) when traveling abroad.

There was an unusual story last week about police pulling over Batman on Route 29 in Silver Spring, Maryland. When I first heard the story, I thought it was simply a rich guy living out a fantasy in a Lamborghini.

Michael Rosenwald offers a follow-up on the identity of the Dark Knight:

The Caped Crusader is a businessman from Baltimore County who visits sick children in hospitals, handing out Batman paraphernalia to up-and-coming superheros who first need to beat cancer and other wretched diseases.

In a world where news favors perpetual negativity, I am not ashamed to say this story melted my heart. If your faith in humanity needs renewal - if only for a brief time - read about the Route 29 Batman.

Jeff Bezos:

I was five years old when I watched Apollo 11 unfold on television, and without any doubt it was a big contributor to my passions for science, engineering, and exploration. A year or so ago, I started to wonder, with the right team of undersea pros, could we find and potentially recover the F-1 engines that started mankind’s mission to the moon?

I’m excited to report that, using state-of-the-art deep sea sonar, the team has found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the surface, and we’re making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them from the ocean floor.

Pretty awesome. This continues the trend of rich guys exploring the ocean.

Liz Goodwin, Yahoo! News:

Conservatives, particularly those with college educations, have become dramatically more skeptical of science over the past four decades, according to a study published in the April issue of the American Sociological Review. Fewer than 35 percent of conservatives say they have a “great deal” of trust in the scientific community now, compared to nearly half in 1974.

Science is now just another tool used to create political polarization. It only works in this context if people fail to think for themselves. Unfortunately, it appears to be working.

Adam Martin, The Atlantic Wire:

When Colorado Springs canceled its Easter egg hunt over the weekend it blamed too many pushy parents jumping over a rope barrier to help their kids find eggs, which seems pretty much inevitable once one crosses the line.

For shame.