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Nintendo

Nintendo Blocks Homebrew Installation 251

Posted by kdawson from the see-how-long-that-lasts dept.
ElementC writes "Sometime yesterday Nintendo uploaded the latest Wii system update. This update quietly patches a few bugs that allowed the installation of both homebrew and warez apps. Currently installed apps such as the Homebrew Channel and the video DVD library, DVDX, are reportedly not affected. Those not installing this update are blocked out of the Wii Shop channel and in the future may be blocked out of certain games. Team Twiizers cracked the last update within about eight hours. They're already on the case. Readers familiar with the architecture of the Wii will find the list of currently discovered changes interesting."

Comment Re:Adblock Plus + Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Hel (Score 1) 173

by aymanh (#21472043) Attached to: Facebook Users Complain of New Ad-Based Tracking
I forgot to say that blocking the same URL with Adblock achieves the same results. The feature works by letting websites post updates to the URL http://www.facebook.com/beacon/beacon.js.php. So if you block this URL with Adblock (or another extension), websites won't be able to update your profile.
NASA

Digitized Apollo Flight Films Available Online 74

Posted by CowboyNeal from the earth-to-the-moon dept.
Pooua writes "SpaceRef reports that NASA and Arizona State University have teamed up to offer all of NASA's Apollo lunar films online at no charge. The images are scanned from the original films at high resolution, then offered as 16-bit TIFF or 8-bit PNG or ISIS files. The project is expected to take 3 years, but some images are already available. The ASU-NASA website is located at the Arizona State University Apollo Image Archive."
Security

Blurring Images Not So Secure 166

Posted by CmdrTaco from the release-the-blue-dot dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Dheera Venkatraman explains in a webpage how an attacker might be able to extract personal information such as check or credit card numbers, from images blurred with a mosaic effect, potentially exposing the data behind hundreds of images of blurred checks found online, and provides a ficticious example. While much needs to be developed to apply such an algorithm to real photographic images, he offers a simple, yet obvious solution: cover up the sensitive information, don't blur it."
Java

2007 Java Predictions 284

Posted by kdawson from the steaming-mug-of-prognostication dept.
jg21 writes "Java Developer's Journal has published the results of its end-of-year poll of various Internet technology players, from its own internal editors to industry high-ups like the founder of Apress, Gary Cornell, and including too the thoughts of professor Tony Wasserman of Carnegie Mellon West. Participants were asked to foretell what they saw happening in 2007. Among the predictions — Cornell: 'The open-sourcing of Java will have no effect whatsoever on Java's slow decline in favor of dynamic languages (Ruby, Python) and C#'; Wasserman: 'The use of the GPL 2 for open-sourcing Java will inhibit the completion and acceptance of the GPL 3 proposal'; and Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson: 'The stigma of being a Web programmer still using Windows will increase.'"

Greek Blog Aggregator Arrested 180

Posted by kdawson from the careful-what-you-link-to dept.
arcanumas writes to tell us that Greek authorities have raided the house of Antonis Tsipropoulos, administrator of the blog aggregation site Blogme.gr. His hard drive was seized and he was arrested. The impetus was a satiric website, not named in the stories, that apparently offended a Greek public figure (also unnamed). The site in question was not hosted by Tsipropoulos but was merely linked to by his RSS fed. From the first article: "The developing story coincides with the Internet Governance Forum being hosted in Athens this week, to be attended by Internet luminaries, entrepreneurs, and activists like Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, and Joi Ito and featuring panels on Openness and Freedom of Expression."
Slashdot.org

Journal Journal: Hmm, is it a bug?

Journal by aymanh

I was browsing the developers section earlier today when one entry sounded familiar. I read it again and found out that it was a journal entry I submitted to the frontpage back in August but it was rejected. Somehow the story made it to the developers section a couple of days ago without crediting me. Notice how it starts with "writes" without any us

Vista Speech Recognition Goes Awry 418

Posted by CowboyNeal from the egg-on-face dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It seems even MSNBC is willing to take a jab on those rare occasions when Microsoft products don't work. During a demo of Vista's speech recognition technology, Vista couldn't differentiate between mom and aunt, and all attempts to rectify the problem just made it worse. Wait until you see what it spat out, I think we have a new 'All your base.' Don't you just love Microsoft's live demonstrations?"

PowerPoint 0-Day Points to Corporate Espionage 111

Posted by Zonk from the best-kind-of-warez dept.
Rakesgate writes "A second Trojan used in the latest zero-day attack against Microsoft Office contains characteristics that pinpoint corporate espionage as the main motive, according to virus hunters tracking the threat. This eWeek story walks through the attack, which uses a tainted 18-slide PowerPoint file, a Trojan dropper, 2 Trojans and a server in China that is used to communicate with compromised machines." From the article: "'Once this type of attack is out, it's very unusual for it to be limited to just one company. I think it's safe to assume that it's ongoing, especially since there is no patch for this vulnerability,' Huger added. Microsoft plans to issue a patch on August 8 for users of Microsoft PowerPoint 2000, Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 and Microsoft PowerPoint 2003. In the meantime, anti-virus experts are urging Microsoft Office users to be on the lookout for suspicious attachments, even those that appear to come from colleagues internally."

Paul Thurrott Bitten by WGA 591

Posted by Zonk from the watch-who-feeds-you dept.
suntory writes "Paul Thurrott, one of the most important Microsoft advocates, has been bitten by Windows Genuine Advantage. As some Slashdot users have reported, Paul installed a bunch of updates in his machine and now Microsoft thinks that he is using pirated software." From the post: "Truthfully, I can only imagine what triggered these alerts. The software was installed to a VM a long time ago and archived on my server. I no doubt used a copy of XP MCE 2005 that I had received as part of my MSDN subscription. If the WGA alerts are to be believed, it's possible that Microsoft thinks I've installed this software on too many machines, though that seems unlikely to me. I can't really say. Anyway, that's what it looks like to be a suspected pirate. Like many people who will see these alerts, I don't believe I did anything wrong. I'm sure that's going to be a common refrain in this new era of untrusting software and companies. Ah well."
Biotech

Journal Journal: Bush Uses Veto On Stem Cell Bill 3

Journal by aymanh

One day after the Senate voted 63-37 for lifting the restrictions imposed in 2001 on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, President Bush killed a bill that he claimed would sanction "the taking of innocent human life." The vetoed bill, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, would have scrapped limits on federal funding, but it failed to reach the two-thirds majority in its Senate vote which would have overturned
It's funny. Laugh.

Journal Journal: Dvorak Rants on CSS 522

Journal by aymanh

John Dvorak writes on CSS after working on redesigning his weblog, the article ended up being extremely funny. From the write-up:

As we move into the age of Vista, multimedia's domination on the desktop, and Web sites controlled by cascading style sheets running under improved browsers, when will someone wake up and figure out that none of this stuff works at all?!
Yahoo!

Journal Journal: Yahoo and Microsoft IM Merge in Public Beta

Journal by aymanh

After the first announcement last October, Yahoo and Microsoft said they have begun a limited public test to allow users of Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger with Voice to connect to each other through either service, exchange messages, check their friends' online presence, view status messages and share emoticons. Users can register to a limited pub
Security

Journal Journal: Month Of Browser Bugs

Journal by aymanh

HD Moore, the creator of the Metasploit toolkit, announced publishing details on one browser vulnerability per day for the month of July. Moore says on the Month of Browser Bugs blog that published information will be carefully chosen to demonstrate the concept without disclosing enough details that may lead to remote code execution. The blog currently contains vulnerabilities f

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