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Submission + - The FCC Was Hacked After John Oliver Called for Net Neutrality Trolls (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: When HBO host John Oliver called for Internet trolls to deluge the Federal Communications Commission with comments about net neutrality, he may not have expected for the FCC's site to get shut down. That, however, is exactly what happened, but it wasn’t because Oliver’s viewers overwhelmed the site with public comments, as was widely reported. In fact, shortly after Oliver’s 13-minute rant last Sunday, the FCC’s website was compromised by attackers who effectively shut down the site’s commenting system using a database Denial of Service attack, the FCC confirmed to Motherboard on Tuesday.

Submission + - Project Un1c0rn Wants to Be the Google for Lazy Security Flaws (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: Following broad security scares like that caused by the Heartbleed bug, it can be frustratingly difficult to find out if a site you use often still has gaping flaws. But a little known community of software developers is trying to change that, by creating a searchable, public index of websites with known security issues. Think of Project Un1c0rn as a Google for site security. Launched on May 15th, the site's creators say that so far it has indexed 59,000 websites and counting. The goal, according to its founders, is to document open leaks caused by the Heartbleed bug, as well as "access to users' databases" in Mongo DB and MySQL. According to the developers, those three types of vulnerabilities are most widespread because they rely on commonly used tools. For example, Mongo databases are used by popular sites like LinkedIn, Expedia, and SourceForge, while MySQL powers applications such as WordPress, Drupal or Joomla, and are even used by Twitter, Google and Facebook.

Submission + - Tetris Turns 30 (pcmag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Wildly popular video game Tetris launched 30 years ago today, and continues to capture the hearts of folks around the world.

Topping best-of video game lists for years, the colorful block puzzle has sold an estimated 170 million copies—about 100 million of which are played on mobile devices.

Submission + - This Car Can Lean Into Curves, Literally

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: You know how motorcycle riders lean into the corners, sometimes even touching their knee to the ground? Yeah, you can't do that in a car, but Mercedes-Benz has developed new technology that replicates that sensation by leaning the car into bends. It's called Dynamic Curve and it's part of the Active Body control suspension system on the new 2015 Mercedes-Benz S-Class Coupe. In turns, special plunger cylinders raise the suspension struts and lower the opposite side, depending on the direction of the bend. This has the result of tilting the car body slightly towards the inside of the corner, countering centrifugal cornering forces. Mercedes says it's not design for increasing cornering speeds, but increasing pleasure for the driver and passengers. We now live in an era where cars actively lean into corners for driver and passenger pleasure.

Submission + - What is Pepper and Why Do I Need a Personal Robot? (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: Japanese telecoms and technology company SoftBank has announced that it will start selling personal robots next year, making it the first major player in the world to move into this space.

The year 2014 has seen robotics and artificial intelligence coming to the forefront more than ever before. Last month, President Obama made international news when he played football with Honda's humanoid robot Asimo during a state visit to Japan, while a poll of 2,000 people in the UK found that Britons are most afraid of being replaced by artificial intelligence in the work place — but some would be willing to have sex with them.

Pepper is an autonomous, sophisticated humanoid robot made by Aldebaran Robotics, working together with Chinese manufacturer Foxconn and SoftBank since 2012.

Weighing 28kg, Pepper stands 1.2m tall and has two arms. It rolls around on a wheeled base and contains a lithium-ion battery that lasts 12 hours, as well as a 10.1-in tablet mounted on its chest and multiple audio, visual and tactile sensors.

Submission + - Kickstarter won't let you fund a Death Star :(

Submitted by Obscene_CNN
Obscene_CNN writes: When you are only working part time you tend to look for business opportunities and additional employment. After seeing a few kickstarter projects being pimped on here leveraging other people's work they give out for free I figured why not go big time. I decided to try and fund a Death Star.

Of course there are a few problems with trying to create this project on kickstarter. First they want a location and high earth orbit isn't acceptable. Next they won't let you fund a $2,900,000,000,000,000,000 USD project. And finally they have this stupid no weapons or dangerous device policy.

Now the first issue can be fixed by a simple change in the webpage to allow places they don't recognize. Its not like this is the first project to built in space. They should be expecting this as they do have a category for space projects.

For the second issue, funding limits. I guess they worry you can't raise $2.9 quintillion in 60 days. Really it would only cost about $2.7 quintillion http://www.pcmag.com/article2/... but after Kickstarter and Amazon take their cut it bumps the price to another $200 quadrillion. I really think that if they would be willing to drop their percentage in half they could still be happy making $100 quadrillion. Lets face it dropping the funding goal $100 quadrillion improves the odds of any kickstarter project working.

Now for the final issue of their weapons policy. Since this project will be built in space there will be no governing laws other than the laws of physics. Why would they prohibit this? I can only speculate that they are under the impression that Death Star owners run around blowing up planets like they see in the movies. In reality there is not one document case of a Death Star owner doing this. As long as they continue to buy into the Death Star control freaks hype from the planet Alderaan we won't be able to get this project off the ground.

This is where I need your help. Please send them feedback to encourage them to make changes to their website and policies to allow this project. You can contact them here. https://www.kickstarter.com/co...

Thank You

Submission + - Garage Owner Fakes Murder For Google Street View

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: A garage owner has apologised for staging a scene that looked like a murder in an Edinburgh street, which was caught on Google Street View. Dan Thompson, 56, who owns Tomson Motor in Giles Street, had to say sorry after receiving a visit from the police. The mechanic had lain on the road while his colleague stood over him with a pick axe handle after spotting the Google camera car from a distance. However, a web user saw the image and made a complaint.

Submission + - GM Wants To Turn Your Car Into A Mobile Hotspot. Is It Worth The Cost? (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: For most Slashdot readers, the idea of your car being a mobile hotspot probably sounds appealing, and on the surface $5 a day — what GM is proposing as a price — sounds pretty cheap. But $150 a month is not cheap at all. You could run it through your phone's data plan, but if you have a phone with a data plan, don't you already have a mobile hotspot? One wonders how many people will take GM up on their offer.

Submission + - User Intention Decoding: £20 Camera System Lets You Control a Wheelchair W (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: Scientists at Imperial College have invented a cheap solution that enables people with spinal cord injuries to control and steer a wheelchair, using only their eyes.

Dr Aldo Faisal and his colleagues have spent the last four years using neural technology to develop software that can detect and decode eye movements in human behaviour, turning these movements into directions.

"Even if you have a spinal injury, the one thing that doesn't change is eye movement, so we built a non-invasive system that can decode eye movement [using] cameras to see where you are looking," Faisal told IBTimes UK.

Although other scientists are focusing on moving objects using brainwaves, Faisal believes eye movements present a far more feasible solution.

He says that a brainwave cap "is not only very expensive, but we've heard from manufacturers and healthcare organisations that patients won't adopt the technology as it feels too unnatural and it's too complicated to use."

Submission + - Is The Future Actually Hydrogen Fuel Cells, Not Electric? 4

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: Back in 2010 Toyota and Tesla teamed up to develop electric cars. That partnership gave us the RAV4 EV electric crossover, but it seems as though that will be the only vehicle we see from that deal. The partnership will soon expire and Toyota has no plans to renew it. Why? Because Toyota believes the future is in hydrogen fuel cell cars, not battery electric vehicles. We knew trouble was brewing when the RAV4 EV failed to set the world on fire when it came to the sales floor. Then Toyota and Honda announced plans to debut hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as early as next year. Add it all together and the writing was on the wall. Is Toyota right? Are hydrogen fuel cell cars the future, or is it missing the mark?

Submission + - A real life example on how bad is the DRM software on a Tablet (iturbide.com)

Submitted by martiniturbide
martiniturbide writes: A good example on how bad can the DRM software be is the Lenovo's 2011 Thinkpad Tablet 1 (Android) example. This Thinkpad Tablet came with a locked bootloader to protect the DRM license agreements with the OEM software included on it. It ended up turning that a software problem can brick the tablet, since you can not access the lower level firmware to fix the tablet software corruption because of the locked bootloader, Lenovo will have to change the perfectly working mainboard if it was under warranty. I tried to escalate this issue for Lenovo to unlock this bootloader, but I my only little victory was for Lenovo to recognize the problem and provide a "Free Mainboard Replacement" warranty until August 31 of 2014. Lenovo did not comply to unlock the bootloader and does not want to provide a full stock ROM because it will need to unlock the bootloader for the user to install it. This was my real case scenario of why you need to stay away of DRM software on a tablet.

Submission + - Researchers Find, Analyze Forged SSL Certs In The Wild

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A group of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Facebook has managed to get a concrete sense of just how prevalent SSL man-in-the-middle attacks using forged SSL certificates are in the wild. Lead by Lin-Shung Huang, PhD candidate at Carnegie Mellon University and, during the research, an intern with the Facebook Product Security team, they have created a new method for websites to detect these attacks on a large scale: a widely-supported Flash Player plugin was made to enable socket functionalities not natively present in current browsers, so that it could implement a distinct, partial SSL handshake to capture forged certificates.

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