Colorful project maps the U.S. through phone calls rather than state lines (Yahoo! News)

We live in a world separated by virtual borders, but a new project aims to show us just how permeable some of them can be. A joint endeavor between research labs at MIT and AT&T visualizes the U.S. through anonymized calling data, painting an organic picture of how people connect to one another across the country. The undertaking, called The Connected States of America, seeks to depict an alternate portrait of the nation, one defined by social interaction rather than state boundaries.

Watch the video above for a glimpse into the mapping project, or play around with a full interactive U.S. map on the Connected States website. In the interactive map, you can select individual counties to see which geographic hotspots most outgoing calls and text messages are reaching, and which locales appear to have a close mobile rapport.

Visualize the U.S. in a new light with The Connected States of America project

MIT via Geekosystem

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Amazon refuses to collect California sales tax, state claims it will send a bill (Yahoo! News)

The online sales giant goes head-to-head with the Sunshine State

One of the benefits of shopping with online megaretailers like Amazon is often being able to avoid pesky sales tax. The state of California is attempting to "correct" that issue, which it saw as a legal loophole, by introducing  legislation requiring online retailers to comply with the state's sales tax laws. The movement was signed into law yesterday, meaning that as of today, Amazon should be required to collect sales tax on all purchases made from within the state — but it refuses to do so.

If a company has no physical presence in the state of sale, it's often not required to collect tax when someone from that state purchases an item online. Past Supreme Court cases have upheld this notion. Because of this, Amazon recently cut ties with all physical distributors in California, effectively killing any claim that the online giant physically operates within state lines.

Regardless of that, state officials in California say they expect Amazon to comply with the new law, but Amazon's legal team doesn't see things in quite the same light. Amazon VP of Global Public Policy Paul Misener stated, "This legislation is counterproductive and will not cause our retail business to collect sales tax for the state." But California is sticking by its guns and claims that if sales tax is not collected at the point of purchase, the state will receive a rather sizable bill at the end of the year in order to balance the books.

(Source)

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