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Submission + - CSI: Cyber: We Watched So You Didn't Have To

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: From the time the first commercials aired during the American pro football championship game last month, CSI: Cyber has been one of the more talked-about and least-anticipated shows in recent memory. At least in tech circles. For normal viewers, it’s one of those shows that you wake up in the middle of at 10:27 after nodding off during Criminal Minds or CSI: Pet Detectives.

The show centers on the Cyber Crime Division at the FBI, a perfectly focus-grouped cast headed by Special Agent Avery Ryan. She is a former behavioral psychiatrist whose practice fell apart when–spoiler alert!–all of her case files were stolen by a hacker who then murdered one of her patients. Now she is on a mission to “turn” hackers one at a time to the path of righteousness. She is aided in this noble quest by the guy who played Dawson, former child rapper Lil Bow Wow, and the two h4x0r caricatures: a bearded, wisecracking guy named Daniel Krumitz who is the “greatest white hat hacker in the world”, and Raven Ramirez, whom we know is a hacker because she has dyed hair. Also, because her name is Raven.

As a public service, the Threatpost team, Mike Mimoso, Dennis Fisher, Brian Donohue and Chris Brook, watched the first episode of CSI: Cyber and kept a running chat log of the “action”.

Submission + - First Fully Digital Radio Transmitter Built Purely From Microprocessor Tech (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: For the first time in history, a prototype radio has been created that is claimed to be completely digital, generating high-frequency radio waves purely through the use of integrated circuits and a set of patented algorithms without using conventional analog radio circuits in any way whatsoever. This breakthrough technology promises to vastly improve the wireless communications capabilities of everything from 5G mobile technology to the multitude devices aimed at supporting the Internet of Things (IoT).

Comment Re:And who will watch it? (Score 0) 146

by bbsguru (#48707605) Attached to: South Korean Activist To Drop "The Interview" In North Korea Using Balloons
It is true that there are more than a dozen DVD players in North Korea.

Some of those may even be within reach of the electricity needed to run them.

Perhaps a few of them can be shared?

Oh yeah. This is surely how you get a political movement started.

Hey, here's an idea that doesn't depend on things they don't have: how about we send them written copies of some other incendiary and thought-provoking ideas. You know, like maybe someone's Constitution? Perhaps a religious text? How about two or three history books?

I know, most of the population there is illiterate too. But there are a lot more people who can read and think than there are who will get any use out of an extended one-liner movie they can't watch anyway.

Comment and Bad News (Score 1) 233

by bbsguru (#48583965) Attached to: Ford Ditches Microsoft Partnership On Sync, Goes With QNX
Yes, I'm a Ford Sync user (a 2012, a 2013, and a 2014 model).

On my flagship every-bell-and-whistle edition I have been frustrated many times. When I bought the newest one, it was to replace a car with an 8 year old Toyota system. Before I bought it, I saw that it wasn't as polished and easy to use as my old one (partly since I was familiar with it, I'm sure). The Navigation, in particular, was pretty uneven: a couple of things better (able to do limited route setup while underway, for example), and some worse (reoute preferences hard to use, too many menus deep to do many things).

Knowing that, I felt confident buying anyway, because this is 2014: software can be UPDATED. I was sure it would be fixed eventually. I have gotten an update. It changed nothing that I have found so far (good luck finding a list of issues addressed) aside from requiring that I pair my BT devices again and download phone books.

Now the ultimate insult. Ford acknowledges that their system was... poor. They announce a much-better version (they hope). And it is NOT AVAILABLE to those of us who have put up with the one they had.

Come on. QNX runs on nearly anything. Are they seriously unable to upgrade the existing hardware? Really?

Comment At last: an explanation! (Score 1) 275

So, a virus found in "freshwater lakes and ponds" causes decreased cognition in humans. This could explain a vast swath of "Reality Television". Swamp People, anyone?

Actually, with the coming American holiday season, this is just in time. We finally have a reason to be Thankful the western drought...

Submission + - Can't fix it, can't sell it: HP gives PC business to investors (networkworld.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hewlett-Packard’s breakup into two companies was the company's third choice to save itself. The first two – a turnaround and the sale of the business – haven’t worked. According to Re/Code, HP approached both Dell and Lenovo to acquire the business and were rebuffed. Under PC and printer chief Dion Weisler, the business unit has started growing again, but it appears that HP's boat has been raised by the incoming tide of a new cycle of PC growth, which Richard Windsor of Radio Free Mobile once predicted. But in the longer term, the PC business isn’t a growth business.

Submission + - Former Department of Defense Chief Expects '30 Year War'

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Susan Page writes at USA Today that Leon Panetta, former head of the CIA and Secretary of the Department of Defense, says Americans should be braced for a long battle against the brutal terrorist group Islamic State that will test U.S. resolve. "I think we're looking at kind of a 30-year war," says Panetta, one that will have to extend beyond Islamic State to include emerging threats in Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere. Panetta also says that decisions made by President Obama over the past three years have made that battle more difficult — an explosive assessment by a respected policymaker of the president he served. Not pushing the Iraqi government harder to allow a residual US force to remain when troops withdrew in 2011, a deal he says could have been negotiated with more effort "created a vacuum in terms of the ability of that country to better protect itself, and it's out of that vacuum that ISIS began to breed." It is no surprise to Panetta that the assessment in his new book "Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace" is drawing White House ire. "Look, I've been a guy who's always been honest," Panetta says. "I've been honest in politics, honest with the people that I deal with. I've been a straight talker. Some people like it; some people don't like it. But I wasn't going to write a book that kind of didn't express what I thought was the case."

Submission + - Why Is Internet Access In Africa So Difficult? (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Eight of the ten countries in the world with the lowest levels of Internet penetration are in Africa. Some of the reasons may seem obvious to outside observers — the poverty of much of the continent's population for instance. But it's also true that broadband rates on undersea cables that connect the continent remain prohibitively high.

Submission + - Google's Security Guards Are Now Officially Google Employees (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: People concerned about the growing gap between the rich and poor point to a common practice in Silicon Valley: going through staffing agencies for non-core jobs like janitorial and security work, leaving those workers disconnected from the company and lacking in the job security and benefits their co-workers take for granted. Google has now decided to buck the trend, bringing their security guards in-house.

Submission + - Romans Used Nanotechnology to Turn Lycurgus Cup From Green to Red 1,600 Years Ag (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: Cambridge University researchers have succeeded in mimicking nanotechnology used by ancient Romans to make a 4th century AD glass cage chalice change colour in different lights. Using the same process, they have made a breakthrough that could greatly increase the storage capabilities of today's optical devices.

In order to produce the dichroic effect on the Lycurgus Cup, Roman artisans are believed to have ground down particles of gold and silver to 50 nanometres in diameter, which is less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt, and then laid these nanoparticles within the glass before it set. No one has been able to replicate the effect, until now.

The researchers created nanoscale metallic nanoparticle arrays from a thin layer of silver that mimic the dichroic colour effect of the Roman chalice to create multicoloured holograms containing 16 million nanoparticles per square millimetre.

Each nanoparticle scatters light into numerous colours depending on its size and shape, and the light, when put together, produces an image.

Submission + - Is it time for Carbon Monoxide detectors in commercial vehicles?

Submitted by bbsguru
bbsguru writes: While the details of the story may not be certain for months, there are some reports from the California Tour Bus Crash last week that made me wonder. What if the truck really was on fire before the crash? What if that fire was in the cab, as reported by (at least some of) the eyewitnesses? If so, carbon monoxide poisoning could account for the seeming unresponsiveness of the FedEx truck driver. Should commercial vehicles be required to have the $15 device that could have prevented this?

Submission + - US FCC Decision to improve WiFi speeds "Nationwide" (thehill.com)

Submitted by bbsguru
bbsguru writes: Wi-Fi networks will soon be improving thanks to a vote by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today.
    The FCC voted unanimously to open 100 MHz of wireless spectrum in an unlicensed 5GHz block . The move will increase the number of frequencies available to unlicensed wireless networks (such as those set up through Wi-Fi routers) by nearly 15 percent, and in turn, allow them to handle a greater level traffic at higher speeds.
    In English: Private Wi-Fi networks in your homes, businesses, convention centers, airports, music venues, etc., are about to get a lot faster.
    “Today’s action represents the largest amount of spectrum suitable for mobile broadband that the Commission has made available for auction since the 700MHz band was auctioned in 2008,” the FCC wrote in a statement.
“Access to these bands will help wireless companies meet growing consumer demand for mobile data by enabling faster wireless speeds and more capacity.”
    The increased spectrum should mean that Wi-Fi networks will be less congested, and next-gen routers will be able to take better advantage of gigabit broadband speeds that are cropping up all over the country.

Comment +1 Nomination for AWESOME (Score 4, Insightful) 22

by bbsguru (#46376999) Attached to: Gesture Recognition Without Batteries
OK, so the effect of body position and proximity on a received signal has been known for a long time. Interpreting it and assigning meaning isn't that big a stretch, I guess. But to combine that with this kind of low (no?) power implementation is brilliant!

I suppose some killjoys will complain that the parts of the world most in need of low power tech are also those most lacking in the ambient signals needed to make this work. Pffft! This is simply brilliant.
The Military

United States Begins Flying Stealth Bombers Over South Korea 567

Posted by samzenpus from the nice-day-for-a-flight dept.
skade88 writes "The New York Times is reporting that the United States has started flying B-2 stealth bomber runs over South Korea as a show of force to North Korea. The bombers flew 6,500 miles to bomb a South Korean island with mock explosives. Earlier this month the U.S. Military ran mock B-52 bombing runs over the same South Korean island. The U.S. military says it shows that it can execute precision bombing runs at will with little notice needed. The U.S. also reaffirmed their commitment to protecting its allies in the region. The North Koreans have been making threats to turn South Korea into a sea of fire. North Korea has also made threats claiming they will nuke the United States' mainland."

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