It looks like Simmons was still smarting from whatever the robot sprayed in his face when he was booked into Hennepin County Jail yesterday.

A seven-hour standoff ended yesterday thanks to a high-tech arrest by the Minneapolis Police Department.

SEE ALSO: MNGOPers introduce anti-drone legislation

An MPD SWAT team used a robot armed with a chemical irritant to subdue 29-year-old Eric Simmons before actual human officers swooped in to arrest him.

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via Reddit

A Best Buy employee couldn't let this rare find go.

Two days ago, a Best Buy employee discovered that some nerd-illiterate Nintendo R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) owner had dropped the 1980s-era gaming system off for recycling.

The employee couldn't allow the rare toy robot to get scrapped. First, he asked his boss if he could take it home, but heard that, per corporate policy, he would get fired if he did. So he took to Reddit.

The post instantly went viral, attracting more than 5,000 comments and 31,000 "up votes." Inspired by the reaction, the employee decided to go rogue and hatch a plan to save robot R.O.B.

See Also:
- Best Buy to eliminate 400 good Twin Cities jobs
- Best Buy's Brian Dunn is the worst CEO of 2012, according to Bloomberg
- Chris Kluwe rickrolls Roger Goodell during Reddit Q&A
- The Soap Factory explores robots as metaphor More »

Image by Tatiana Craine -- photo from ceriseyyy's Flickr

A battery fire engulfed a Rochester student's pants.

Earlier today, a student at Kellogg Middle School in Rochester was injured when his cell phone suddenly combusted, burning his leg.

SEE ALSO: Massive Uptown fire engulfs building near Lake Street and Irving Avenue [PHOTOS] [VIDEO]

The classroom where the incident occurred was evacuated, and in an audio message delivered to parents, Kellogg Principal Dwight Jennings asked them to monitor their children for sulfur poisoning.

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Franken wants mobile app companies to be forthcoming about when they're selling your location data.

Al Franken's Location Privacy Protection Act won approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, meaning the bill moves to the full Senate for debate.

SEE ALSO:
-- For Franken and Klobuchar, does money from big media mean support for PIPA?
-- Al Franken cries on Senate floor [VIDEO]

"The bill would require companies to get a customer's consent before collecting or sharing mobile location data," The Hill reports. "It would also ban mobile applications that secretly monitor the user's location -- a feature that Franken said allows for stalking and enables domestic violence."

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Track the Police

Rybak wants plate data gathered by these cameras to no longer be publicly accessible.

A day after we told you about how the MPD's publicly available license plate data could be used by stalkers to track their victims, Mayor R.T. Rybak is requesting the state remove that information from the public realm.

SEE ALSO: Melissa Hill's new blog allows you to "Track the Police" using public data

In a Facebook post announcing his decision, Rybak wrote, "While LPR data can aid in the work of the Minneapolis Police Department, residents also deserve to have this data, and their privacy, protected."

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The Minneapolis Police Department has been taking heat for its license plate tracking records, but cars aren't the only way to get monitored around town.

About two weeks ago, Nice Ride published usage data for the 2012 season. Quickly, writers on the Minneapolis Bike Love forum and a local blogger realized that they could de-anonymize the information (read: link it to a specific person). After they voiced concerns, Nice Ride removed the database, and now is reassessing what it shares.

See Also:
- MPD's license plate data allows stalkers to track their victims using public data
- Nice Ride hits 500,000 trips
- Melissa Hill's new blog allows you to "Track the Police" using public data


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Tony Webster's blog

The above image and information was captured by an MPD squad car's plate scanner.

For $5.91, Tony Webster obtained data about the location of 2.1 million Minneapolis-area cars from August 30 to November 29. But for less than that, you can request information about where any particular car has been spotted in the last three months.

SEE ALSO: Melissa Hill's new blog allows you to "Track the Police" using public data

The Automatic License Plate Reader data has uses most probably wouldn't find objectionable -- for instance, finding where a fugitive drove after committing a crime -- but it also has applications many would deem problematic.

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Xbox Kinect and Ryan Siverson for City Pages

You can now be as crazy as the athletes on the right, from the warmth of your living room.

Last year, 80,000 people gathered around the St. Paul Cathedral to watch international athletes tear down the city's streets on skates, slam into each other, hurtle over drops, and generally jockey to win the Red Bull Crashed Ice World Championship.

Now, just in time for the event to return for its second year here, Xbox has turned it -- and St. Paul -- into a video game.

See Also:
- Slideshow: Red Bull Crashed Ice World Championship in Saint Paul
- Winter Guide to the Twin Cities 2012: Top Five Winter Carnival Activities

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Geekahertz via Flickr

Apple's and Microsoft's stores face off across the hall at the Mall of America. (The Apple logo's pretty clear, but if you missed it, the Microsoft store is marked by those four boxes on the left).

Back in 2010, when Microsoft opened its fifth retail store directly across from Apple at the Mall of America, it generated heaps of buzz. But now, the average mallrat passing by the two tech giants might guess that iWorld is handily outpacing its competition.

On Black Friday, a consulting team from Piper Jaffray confirmed the impression.

See Also:
- The Full MOA: Think Black Friday was bad? Try living at the Mall of America for a whole week
- Black Friday strike at St. Paul Walmart: "If I lose my job it doesn't really bother me that much"
- How family business FirstTech got to be the world's longest-running Apple dealer
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courtesy FirstTech

The FirstTech store on Hennepin in the 1980s, left, and today.

In 1977, when the Zuckman family started stocking the Apple II computer, it was just another one of their products.

The three Zuckman brothers -- Arnie, Rick and Harvey -- had taken over their parents' electronics business, and sold all kinds of devices -- radios, television, stereos -- out of their Hennepin Avenue store. The personal computer was a natural extension.

See Also:
- Slideshow: FirstTech: A look back at 35 years of Apple
- Steve Jobs will testify in Al Franken's hearings on iPhone tracking
- This Old Mac: Computer obsolescence is in the eye of the beholder


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