Here’s hoping you didn’t wake up this morning to a ransom notice from the hacker/hackers known as “Oleg Pliss”. This goes for iPhones, iPads, and Mac users whose devices are being held ransom until a $50-$150 ransom is paid. Apple blog threads detail how the hack was accomplished through Apple’s own Find My iPhone feature ( https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6270410?start=0&tstart=0 ). “Fortunately, those who had set passcodes were able to regain access, be...
Everyone knows that since mid April, XP is no longer being supported by MS (unless you’re the IRS) and you’d become “officially vulnerable”. Not so fast. This just in from reporter Hankers: There’s a registry hack for XP which will allow you to receive security updates as if you were ‘Windows embedded POS ready 2009’. Per Neowin , the hack was first reported in betanews and ZDNet confirmed it. This will allow security updates until 2...
It’s currently in the beta stage. It was even seen on Gray’s Anatomy. In fact, it’s even been tested successfully by surgeons at the Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikvah, Tel Aviv. For the Schneider trial concluded in October 2013, RealView Imaging used real-time data from 3D cardiac ultrasound and 3D interventional X-ray systems made by the Dutch-based Philips Healthcare. The trial successfully proved the real-time feasibility of using holographic vis...
Engadget came up with an interesting article about one in the Atlantic about the germinal thinking about the internet which involved a Belgian genius by the name of Paul Otlet (whom no one remembers) who in 1934 described a plan for a global network of “ electronic telescopes ” that would enable people all over the world to access a huge library of books, articles, films, photos and audio recordings. Sound familiar? Even better: He wrote about wireless net...
There’s been an apparently successful cyberattack on eBay. Thanks for pm’ing me, Hank. eBay issued a statement in which they’re asking users to change their passwords because of an attack which compromised their database of encrypted passwords and non-financial data: “Cyberattackers compromised a small number of employee log-in credentials, allowing unauthorized access to eBay's corporate network, the company said. Working with law enforcement and leading securit...
Kaspersky has notified that it’s found fake Kaspersky apps in these online stores. Kaspersky Mobile is fake, although it uses Kaspersky’s logo. It costs $4, and claims to protect your phone/tablet. It does nothing. Actually? Be grateful. It could have been ransomware in disguise. Kaspersky has NEVER made an app called Kaspersky Mobile nor any mobile app for the Windows Phone platform. Kaspersky Virus Shield and Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2014 are also bogus. ‘Virus Shield’ (anot...
Comcast is a very big ISP. Comcast executive V.P. David Cohen is quoted as saying recently that caps are going to be reinstated sometime within the next five years. He insisted that this is a much fairer system as those who use less bandwidth will pay less. Wanna bet? I still remember when cable t.v. was sold as television without commercials. How’s that working for you? True, on one level apples and oranges. They maintain that this keeps the cost down. That’s code for ‘this ma...
The ‘But it’s on the Internet, so it’s free’ questions always come up. The fact it’s on the internet doesn’t mean it’s free, or that you can use it any way you please. “There's a simple solution: search for images "licensed for reuse" -- images that you may legally use. Both Google and Bing may be set to show images with this license. The license exists thanks to Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization founded in 2001. The orga...
Softwheel has done just that. They invented a wheel whose spokes are shock absorbers as well as a dynamic suspension system. What do I mean? I mean that the ‘spokes’ are shock absorbers which alter their length according to task: What this means, is that the wheel can go over any type of surface with each wheel on essentially, an independent suspension and absorb the shocks of going over rocks and up or down stairs. The way these shocks/spokes are connected? ...
Mozilla recently tested the most popular extension Adblock Plus. It has approximately 19 million users. Turns out there’s a constant overhead of 60-70 MiB (on a 32 bit machine, it’s smaller, probably). This is due to additional JavaScript memory usage and some extra layout memory. “The difference is significant, especially under the right circumstances. Adblock Plus adds an overhead to Firefox's memory usage of about 60-70 Megabyte. While that may be a lot depending o...
This might help some folks caring for elderly parents… You’d think that eating is a simple thing: Money + food store + cooking (optional) and there you are, right? Not for some. The developer is an engineer whose mom has a tremor. He was engaged by the DoD to create more stable rifles to increase marksmanship (I suppose), and a light went off in his head. He started working on a spoon to cancel tremors. After all, cameras have this, especially Hollywood movi...
Mr. Barry Clifford may have found the Santa Maria. The ship was lost off Haiti on its last voyage in December, 1492 when it ran aground on a reef. The really interesting part of the story is that Mr. Clifford found the wreck back in 2003, but didn’t realize its significance. He found some ballast stones and a ship’s cannon. That cannon was misclassified in 2003. Two years ago, while researching the cannons in use during Columbus’ time, he awoke in the middle of the night wi...
H. R. Giger, the Swiss surrealist whose work includes the art that gave us “Alien” has passed on at age 74. He studied Art and Design in Zurich and his work basically explored the relationship between the human body and machines. He termed his style “biomechanical”, and it was eroto-macabre, as well. The cover art for “Brain Salad Surgery” illustrates that well. He shall be missed. Rest In Peace, sir.
OK…it’s the RC. Almost ready for release (will supercede 2.6.33). What’s new? 1. The selective sync option is now displayed during setup if files stored on Dropbox exceed 10 Gigabytes. “The main idea behind the new feature is to provide users with options to select only necessary files for synchronization if they want to, either to speed up the synchronization process, save bandwidth, or avoid that one of the partitions on their computer system runs out of free d...
Want permanent data deletion? There’s a free version of Hardwipe that will do that. “Hardwipe can not only wipe drives and USB media, but can also sanitize the Windows Recycle Bin , overwrite selected files and folders , and clean unused drive space of unwanted remnant data. Furthermore, you can run Hardwipe as a standard-alone application, or use its convenient " right-click " context menus from within the Windows File Explorer.” – Hardwipe Fea...