33298397
submission
Trailrunner7 writes:
Yahoo on Wednesday launched a new browser called Axis and researchers immediately discovered that the company had mistakenly included its private signing key in the source file, a serious error that would allow an attacker to create a malicious, signed extension for a browser that the browser will then treat as authentic.
The mistake was discovered on Wednesday, soon after Yahoo had launched Axis, which is both a standalone browser for mobile devices as well as an extension for Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer. Yahoo is touting the browser's predictive search capability, which will guess what the user is trying to search for as she is typing and bring up thumbnail images of potential matches.
But that's not the thing that got the most attention. Within hours of the Axis launch, a writer and hacker named Nik Cubrilovic had noticed that the source file for the Axis Chrome extension included the private PGP key that Yahoo used to sign the file. That key is what the Chrome browser would look for in order to ensure that the extension is legitimate and authentic, and so it should never be disclosed publicly.
33298147
submission
Zothecula writes:
Voyager 1, which is now in the outermost layer of the heliosphere that forms the boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space, is set to be the first man-made object to leave the Solar System. It has taken the car-sized probe over 35 years to reach its current point, but at its current speed of about 3.6 AU (334,640,905 miles) per year it would take over 75,000 years to reach our nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Despite the mind-boggling distances involved, DARPA has just awarded funding to form an organization whose aim is to make human interstellar travel a reality within the next century.
33297863
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
Researchers uncovered a series of biological events that implicate the stem cells' surroundings, known as their "niche," as the culprit in loss of stem cells due to aging.
33297407
submission
mikejuk writes:
Microsoft has finally demonstrated its corporate insanity for all to see. The next version of VS Express 11 will only produce Metro and not desktop apps — and it gets worse.
The next generation of Express products will be much more limited with just three editions — Express 11, Express for Windows Phone and Express for Azure. The Express 11 IDE will support C++, C#, VB and JavaScript in one neat and easy-to-use package. This sounds great until you realize that this neat package only supports the creation of Metro applications.
There are no templates and no targets defined for the desktop.
If you want to develop a .NET app then you need to stick with Express 2010 and don't even think about going forward with new editions. To stay current you have no choice but to convert your apps to Metro. If you don't agree then you need to start looking for an alternative desktop environment — perhaps this is the opertunity Linux has been waiting for.
33277619
submission
alphadogg writes:
An Ohio startup company has raised $200 million to fund gigabit-per-second broadband projects in six university communities across the U.S., the company announced Wednesday. Gigabit Squared will work with the University Community Next Generation Innovation Project (Gig.U), a coalition of 30 universities focused on improved broadband, to select six communities in which to build the ultra-fast broadband networks, they said. The two organizations will select winning communities between November and the first quarter of 2013, Mark Ansboury, president of Gigabit Squared, said. The new project comes at an important time, when many commercial broadband providers have stopped deploying next-generation networks, said Blair Levin, executive director of Gig.U and lead author of the FCC's 2010 national broadband plan.
33239067
submission
wintersynth writes:
Kickstarter-funded audio-adventure game, BlindSide, launched today on the iOS App Store . The adventure/horror game uses gyros in the phone to create an audio-only virtual reality experience .
33132697
submission
medv4380 writes:
38 Studios, run by Curt Shilling, is having a hard time paying its bills and employees. The gaming community hasn't been happy with 38 Studios since issue with an Online Pass for Single Player Content discussed previously here. For Curt to rant against Obama and welfare addiction makes it seem like the pot has been calling the kettle black since he received a $75 million dollar loan from Republican Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee. When 38 Studios defaults RI will have to cover the loan and interest of nearly $100 Million.
32911549
submission
Sparrowvsrevolution writes:
A DC appeals court has ruled that the National Security Agency doesn’t need to either confirm or deny its secret relationship with Google in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and follow-up lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The NSA cited a FOIA exemption that covers any documents whose exposure might hinder the NSA’s national security mission, and responded to EPIC with a "no comment." Beyond merely rejecting the FOIA request, the court has agreed with the NSA that it has the right to simply not respond to the request, as even a rejection of the request might reveal details of a suspected relationship with Google that it has sought to keep secret.
Google was reported to have partnered with the NSA to bolster its defenses against hackers after its breach by Chinese cyberspies in early 2010. But to the dismay of privacy advocates who fear the NSA's surveillance measures coupled with Google's trove of data, the company has never explained the details of that partnership.
32910515
submission
Gunkerty Jeb writes:
Senator Al Franken (D-MN) is demanding answers to questions about the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) practice of gathering data from wireless providers in order to monitor individuals’ movements using mobile phone location data.
