A British tank near Basra in 2003. The Tankchair doesn’t have a gun. Photograph: Dan Chung for the GuardianA burst of 8 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team
For a while there it looked like Microsoft would either purchased Barnes & Noble's struggling Nook e-book reader business or partner with the firm to create Windows-based Nooks. But today, Barnes & Noble upended those possibilities in announcing a partnership with Samsung in which the consumer electronics giant will make future Nook tablets.
Some may see this as a blow to Microsoft and/or Windows. But I see this as bullet dodged: Let's face it, the last thing Microsoft needed was another money-losing hardware product line.
Certainly, for Barnes & Noble, this is a nice out, too, since it really couldn't afford to invest in the hardware lineup.
Post-Heartbleed,, OpenSSL turns out to have another vulnerability, explains Brian Gorenc: .
So, why is this vulnerability interesting beyond just the technical aspects?
According to the commit logs, Robin Seggelmann introduced this vulnerability into the OpenSSL code base four years ago. Yes, Robin Seggelmann is also responsible for introducing the Heartbleed vulnerability. Two big vulnerabilities introduced by the same developer. Seggelmann is not completely to blame, of course. OpenSSL is an open source project. The 'many eyes' that look at this code failed to catch this bug, but a new breed of individuals are looking at this code…especially at Seggelmann's code. This code is now known for having vulnerabilities. There is blood in the water.
Dear Members of the Senate:
It's been a year since the first headlines alleging the extent of government surveillance on the Internet.
We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But the balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish, and it must change.
A letter signed by the chief executives of AOL, Apple. Dropbox. Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo.
Encrypts files on the SD card (if there is one) and demands a ransom:
Android/Simplocker.A will scan the SD card for files with any of the following image, document or video extensions: jpeg, jpg, png, bmp, gif, pdf, doc, docx, txt, avi, mkv, 3gp, mp4 and encrypt them using AES.
Android/Simplocker.A will also contact its Command & Control server and send identifiable information from the device (like IMEI, et cetera). Interestingly, the C&C server is hosted on a TOR .onion domain for purposes of protection and anonymity.
As you may notice on the nag-screen above, there is no input field for a payment-confirming code of any kind, as we've seen in earlier examples of Windows ransomware. Instead, the malware listens to its C&C server for a command – probably issued after payment is received – to decrypt the files.
The sample we've analyzed is in the form of an application called 'Sex xionix'. It was not found on the official Google Play store and we estimate that its prevalence is very low at this time.
[Brad] Soden is the inventor of the Tankchair, which is a wheelchair in the same sense that an aircraft carrier is a boat. His fearsome-looking machine can traverse rugged hillsides, sandy beaches, snowy embankments, and, with a top speed approaching 30 miles per hour, keep up with traffic on a typical city street. Its brain is built by a company that designs Apache helicopter control systems, so the chair can elevate to a standing position or fully recline to aid blood flow. Some versions have gun mounts and fishing reels. Some have roll bars. A few glow in the dark. One chair Soden built for a paralyzed Phoenix police officer has a "vomit light" to neutralize suspects—a pulsing LED so powerfully incapacitating that it induces nausea. If Michael Bay had devoted himself to making medical equipment instead of action movies, this is what he would have built.
Can't decide if that's a good or bad thought. But the story is inspiring.
That's Google's Project Tango:
Game developers could, for example, use it to paint a 3D virtual battlefield in your living room. Or create large scale virtual and augmented reality experiences. Real estate companies could build interactive, 360-degree "fly-through" tours. Interior designers could scan a client's home and test design ideas, such as moving walls or inserting furniture. Retailers can guide the user to specific places or products.
All these applications are a perfect match for general purpose GPU computing, which takes the parallel architecture of GPUs and puts it to work solving some of the world's toughest problems. And because our Kepler GPU architecture is already used in PCs, workstations, and supercomputers, the tools needed to put Tegra K1 to work are already here.
Priced at just over $1,000.
there's a deeper and older dynamic starting to come into play now. Apple invented the smartphone as we know it 7 years ago and since then the concept has been built out. All the stuff that really should have been there has been added step by step by both Apple and Google, and the pace at which essential improvements are made is starting to flatten out. But as that happens, the two platforms start to converge. Copy & paste is copy & paste, but iBeacon is a very Apple sort of idea, just as Google Now is a very Google product. That is, as the core features are built out and commoditised, the changes are coming more and more in ways that reflect the very different characters of Apple and Google.
This difference in approach is pulling in entirely different directions, though.
Jan Dawson:
To suggest that Apple is trying to "win" in the messaging wars is equivalent to suggesting that iTunes was an attempt to "win" in the music-playing software wars. Neither is the case. The first thing to understand about Apple is that it's motivated first and foremost by creating the best possible experience on Apple devices. This imperative drove Steve Jobs to the extent that he made poor business decisions early on in his time at Apple, ultimately leading to his ouster. He was so fixated with this objective that he lost sight of others and ultimately of what it would take to keep Apple in business as a public company, a lesson he learned the hard way and ultimately brought back to Apple when he returned. But that has always been the fundamental motivation for Apple's senior leaders above all else.
Also takes in the potential model for Amazon, if it does a smartphone. Educative.
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