Nerd Notes: Gay marriage and sushi, printable guns, and a 5-year-old’s $2,500 iPad spending spree

National Day of Unplugging

Editor’s Note: Nerd Notes is GeekWire’s roundup of random geekiness from around the globe. National Day of Unplugging (NDU): Beginning tonight at sunset, and ending 24 hours later, citizens across the nation are encouraged to unplug from all media. Even GeekWire’s John Cook is giving it a shot. Participants are asked to share their reasons for… Read More…

Turning coins into digital currency, Coinstar expands PayPal trial

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The digital and physical worlds are colliding, and Coinstar is poised to take advantage of the trend. The latest example is today’s news that the Bellevue-based coin-counting kiosk operator plans to expand a deal in which customers can convert their coins and dollars to a PayPal account, and even send some of those funds to… Read More…

GeekWire Radio: Inside the world of pinball

pinball

We get to explore one of our favorite activities on this week’s GeekWire radio show and podcast, talking in the studio with a pinball competitor and a pinball collector representing the upcoming Northwest Pinball & Arcade Show in Seattle. Joining us are Dan Halligan, who has been collecting pinball and arcade games for 15 years… Read More…

A faster way to pay for your haircut at Rudy’s

rudy's-barbershop

Mobile technologies are changing the way we do a lot of things, from reading books to taking photos to consuming news. Now, a new service being rolled out by PayPal and Erply promises to change the way you pay for your haircut, among other things. Rudy’s, the popular Seattle, LA and Portland barbershop chain, is one… Read More…

Ignition leads $10M round in online payments provider WePay

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Ignition Partners is leading a $10 million venture capital round in WePay, a Silicon Valley online payments company. The money will be used to build out the company’s team and technology, with WePay claiming that its business grew by 10 times last year. The company certainly is entering a crowded field, one dominated for years… Read More…

Yahoo picks PayPal president Scott Thompson as new CEO

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Well, at the end of the day and after weeks of speculation, Yahoo didn’t go with a former Microsoft or ex-Amazon.com exec for the CEO post. Instead, the struggling Silicon Valley search and media company picked a guy with ties to PayPal. Yahoo today announced that it has named Scott Thompson as CEO. The former president… Read More…

Infographic: Amazon versus Apple, PayPal, Dropbox and the rest of the tech world

Why is Jeff Bezos so happy?

We’ve been watching in amazement over the past 18 months or so as Amazon.com has risen to prominence as one of the most dominant companies in technology. (And yes, in case you’ve missed out, Amazon is more than an online retailer these days). Amazon Web Services is a pioneering juggernaut, and its recent forays into… Read More…