Archive for April 2013
The Beauty behind 'GOOGLE GLASSES'
Martin Missfeldt created the following infographic that lays out all the details on how Google Glass works so you can enjoy the art behind Google's new toy
Microsoft patches 2 major flaws through today's update
Microsoft has released two critical security updates for Windows and Internet Explorer as part of its latest round of Patch Tuesday updates.
The first critical bulletin affects versions of Internet Explorer 6 and above on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. It also affects Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 and Windows RT-based tablets.
It addresses two separate flaws, one that allows remote code execution -- such as a malware injection -- if an affected user views a specially crafted Web site. This would allow the attacker to access an infected machine at the same user rights level.
The second critical bulletin, which affects the Remote Desktop Client, could allow another such malware injection, giving the attacker the same user rights as the logged-in user.
Both patches fixing the two critical vulnerabilities require the machine to be restarted.
Also today's fixes include a bevy of patches for the Surface RT tablet.
This edition of Patch Tuesday comes at a time when Microsoft is warning that Windows XP support is coming to an end in a year's time. Beginning April 8, 2014, the software giant will no longer provide security updates for the aging 12-year-old operating system.
All patches are available through the usual update channels, including Windows and Microsoft Update.
Apple has an As under...the finger??
Now it looks like Apple is working on some interesting fingerprint sensor-related hardware off the coast of Florida.
A recent job listing posted on Apple’s website seeks a software engineer to work at the Melbourne Design Center. Melbourne, Florida also happens to be the home of AuthenTec, a company Apple recently bought for $356 million that specializes in fingerprint sensors. This job listing is the only one currently available for Apple’s Melbourne division. Among other skills, ”the individual must be capable of writing low-level code to configure and control hardware,” according to Apple.
Several analysts have predicted that the iPhone 5S will have a fingerprint sensor below the Home button. One would theoretically be able to unlock the iPhone without entering a passcode and possibly use fingerprint verification to process mobile payments.
Apple hasn’t owned AuthenTec for very long, so it’s hard to believe that this kind of hardware would be coming this year—but hey, who knows. Rumors are pointing to a late summer iPhone 5S announcement. And what’s to keep fingerprint sensors from coming to the Mac?
Passwords, make place for PASS-THOUGHTS
We try to make our passwords as secure as possible, but sometimes even complicated character strings can be vulnerable.
Google, wants to replace passwords with USB sticks and smart rings but a team of researchers from the UC Berkeley School of Information got something else in mind
To be able to use “pass-thoughts,” as the team calls them, instead of passwords, the team took an affordable and readily available Bluetooth headset with built-in electroencephalogram (EEG) called Neurosky Mindset. Previously, using pass-thoughts would’ve been considered unfeasible because EEG devices are very expensive, but a $199 headset might make using pass-thoughts a reality. The team used Neurosky on test subjects and found that in order for the headset to provide enough brainwave signal, they had to make users perform seven mental tasks and then calibrate the headset for each one of them so nobody else’s thoughts can unlock their devices and accounts.
The team presented their findings at the 2013 Workshop on Usable Security at the 17th international conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security in Japan in early April. While the UC Berkeley team’s method sounds very promising, more research needs to be done, and companies must be willing to make the investment in EEG-enabled headsets before pass-thoughts become widely used.
Windows XP is shutting down....
Microsoft would like to remind you that exactly one year from now, on April 8, 2014, the company will stop supporting Windows XP entirely.
Windows XP’s user shares quickly dropped below 50 percent less than a month after Microsoft announced in July 2011 that support for the OS will stop in 2014.
Full mainstream support for Windows XP ended back in April 2009. Microsoft currently provides extended support for business users, and rolls out security updates for everyone – business user or otherwise.
Stephen L. Rose, Microsoft’s senior product marketing manager for Windows Commercial, wrote on the Springboard blog. “Running Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 in your environment after their end of support date may expose your company to potential risks.”
You won’t be able to update from Windows XP to Windows 8 directly. To be able to make the jump, you need a clean install, which means you need to back up and copy your data over to the new system and reinstall all your old applications
Try the new BB Z10 From your IOS or ANDROID device
If you’re wondering what BB10 is like, and more importantly whether it’s a worthy contender to Android or iOS, then why not give it a try. You can now do so simply by visiting a URL in your browser — you don’t even have to leave the house.
Open your desired web browser on your Android or iOS device and visit BlackBerry.com/glimpse. The feature appears to have been designed for the iPhone’s smaller display, but it works just as well on bigger Android smartphones, too.
Here you’ll be able to try out some of BB10′s gestures, see its Active Frames and the BlackBerry Hub, and even try out its nifty keyboard. Previous BlackBerry users will also notice that BlackBerry Messenger now supports video calls, as well as screen sharing.
This is your first experience of BB10, you can get a nice idea of what the interface looks like and see some of its headline features
Future convertible MackBook
A new Apple patent applications published today show how the company might be thinking about competing with recent innovations from other big tech companies with similar, but different designs.It describes a convertible MacBook design, with a touch-sensitive screen that separates from the base.
The first design for a convertible MacBook may look familiar, since it actually resembles a lot of designs available from Windows device makers, and some previous Android tablet designs. The screen detaches from the keyboard and body portion, which isn’t in itself terribly unique, but the screen in Apple’s version communicates with the brains in the base via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and other wireless communication protocols, meaning all the serious computing work is still handled by the traditionally located GPU and CPU. The screen itself is touch-sensitive, but doesn’t act as a standalone tablet in quite the same way it does in some new Windows device designs.
The screen also can charge wirelessly via the same kind of tech used in induction charging, drawing power from the base. What Apple describes here isn’t so much a convertible tablet, but more of a MacBook with a screen that solves the clumsy issue of how to use touch effectively on a notebook by allowing it to temporarily come off the base for more ergonomic touch-based interaction. Apple has talked about how touch doesn’t work on a traditional computer form factor in the past; this is one way around that.
New Chorme Update.. 5% faster
The latest Chrome beta just hit Google’s release channels and Chrome 27 for desktop and mobile promises to speed up your web browsing experience by making web content appear on your screen 5% faster than before. Also new in this release are a new user interface for HTML5 date and time input forms, support for live audio input using the Web Audio API, some minor updates to the Chrome DevTools and a few other minor updates like unprefixed support for the allowfullscreen attribute for <iframe>.
peed, of course, is something Google has always been obsessed with and a 5% increase in how soon web content appears is something the Chrome team is obviously proud about. To make this possible, Google says, the scheduler is now “more aggressive about using an idle connection and demoting the priority of preloaded resources so that they don’t interfere with critical assets.”
Those are the only major changes users will likely notice in this update, but developers can now also use the Web Audio API to use live audio an input for local audio manipulation and playback.
New Seagate HDD Barracuda
Seagate announced today the shipment of its 4TB Desktop HDD 3.5-inch internal hard drive for general consumers. While this is not the first 4TB hard drive on the market, the company says it's the first that uses the 1TB-per-platter design. Basically, on the inside, the Desktop HDD comes with four platters (disks), each offering 1TB of storage space.
The new Desktop HDD comes with 64MB of cache memory and supports the latest SATA 3 (6Gbps) standard. It also works with previous versions of SATA, including SATA 2 (3Gbps) and SATA (1.5Gbps). Unlike the previous Barracuda drives that spun at 7,200rpm, the new Desktop HDD spins at only 5,900rpm and consumes about 35 percent less energy. Seagate says that the drive will still offer fast performance with a sustained writing speed of about 145MBps.
The Desktop HDD is also the first desktop internal drive from Seagate that uses the new streamlined naming convention. Seagate's consumer-grade hard drives were formerly called Barracuda.
The 4TB Desktop HDD is available now and costs about $190, which is much lower than its competitors.
To put things in perspective, 4TB is equivalent to about 500 hours of HD video, 1 million MP3 songs, or 800,000 digital photos. The 4TB Desktop HDD is about 800,000 times larger in capacity than the first desktop hard drive Seagate introduced back in 1979, but the physical size has remained about the same.
TSMC steals Apple's A7 chip contract from Samsung
(TSMC) will reportedly land a deal for Apple’s future “A7’ processors when the Cupertino company’s current contract with Samsung expires in 2014.
Samsung has been responsible for Apple’s mobile chips since the introduction of the A4 back in 2010, but Apple has seemingly been looking to take its business elsewhere since the pair became embroiled in a series of lengthy legal battles.
If true, the A7 will be the first mobile chip from Apple that wasn’t built by Samsung. The Korean electronics giant has been responsible for a number of Apple’s components in recent years — particularly those for its iOS devices — and Apple has long been one of its biggest customers.
But since Apple secured more than $1 billion in damages from Samsung last summer, the company has been looking to distance itself from its biggest rival in the smartphone space.
TSMC will produce the A7 chip in 2014 for the iPhone 6, which means it won’t be ready for the iPhone 5S or the fifth-generation iPad this year. Apple has traditionally launched its latest chips inside of its new iOS devices.
Callers Display patent for Apple
Granted to Apple today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, a patent called "Communications system that provides user-selectable data when user is on-hold" envisions a system for showing useful and interesting information to mobile phone callers waiting on hold.
The information being displayed would be adaptive and contextual, according to the patent, meaning it would vary depending on the caller, the caller's location, the date and time, and other items. As one example, the caller might see details describing the last conversation or future appointments with the person being called. As another example, the caller could be treated to local news and weather reports based on their locale.
As such, some of the details displayed would be pulled from the phone itself, while other details would be oobtained via the Internet. The caller would be presented with a choice of which information to display.
For the technology to work, each caller would have to have a profile on the phone so the system can identifythat person and present the appropriate on-hold information.