wiredmikey writes "Security researchers have discovered new Android malware controlled via SMS that can do a number of things on the compromised device including recording calls and surrounding noise. Called TigerBot, the recently discovered malware was found circulating in the wild via non-official Android channels. Based on the code examination, the researchers from NQ Mobile, alongside researchers at North Carolina State University said that TigerBot can record sounds in the immediate area of the device, as well as calls themselves. It also has the ability to alter network settings, report its current GPS coordinates, capture and upload images, kill other processes, and reboot the phone. TigerBot will hide itself on a compromised device by forgoing an icon on the home screen, and by masking itself with a legit application name such as Flash or System. Once installed and active, it will register a receiver with a high priority to listen to the intent with action 'android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED.'"

With the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking coming up, ancestry.com has released 200,000 documents online relating to the ill-fated ship. The documents provide information about survivors and the 1,500 people who died, a number of wills, and hundreds of coroner inquests. You can look at the Titanic document collection for free until May 13. From the article: "The records include the ship's official passenger list, which shows the names, ages and occupations of those on board the ill-fated liner. It also details the nationalities, positions and addresses of the ship's crew which had more than 900 members."

linjaaho writes "Three major textbook publishers have sued a startup company making free and open textbooks, citing 'copyright infringement,' as the company is making similar textbooks using open material. From the article: 'The publishers' complaint takes issue with the way the upstart produces its open-education textbooks, which Boundless bills as free substitutes for expensive printed material. To gain access to the digital alternatives, students select the traditional books assigned in their classes, and Boundless pulls content from an array of open-education sources to knit together a text that the company claims is as good as the designated book. The company calls this mapping of printed book to open material "alignment" — a tactic the complaint said creates a finished product that violates the publishers' copyrights.'"

Hugh Pickens writes "With the advent of long-range bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles in the 1950s, it was inevitable that military attention would be drawn to remote but strategic arctic regions. Now Defense Tech reports on Project Iceworm — America's secret cold war plan to build a network of underground missile bases under the Greenland ice cap capable of launching 'Iceman' ICBM missiles at Russia. The first base, 'Camp Century,' built 800 miles from the North Pole, contained 21 steel-arch covered trenches; the longest of which was 1,100-feet long, 26-feet wide and 26-feet high. The massive base, constructed to house 200 troops, was officially built to conduct scientific research. But the real reason was apparently to test out the feasibility of burying nuclear missiles below the ice, since Greenland is so much closer to Russia than the ICBM fields located in the continental U.S. If fully implemented, the project would cover an area of 52,000 square miles with clusters of missile launch centers spaced four miles apart. New tunnels were to be dug every year, so that after 5 years there would be thousands of firing positions, among which the several hundred missiles could be rotated. Camp Century was powered by a portable nuclear power plant designated PM-2A, the first of the U.S. Army's portable reactors to actually produce power, and was rated at two megawatts of electrical power, also supplying steam to operate the well that provided water for the troops. The Army team assembled the prefabricated reactor in 77 days, and just nine hours after fuel elements containing forty-three pounds of enriched Uranium-235 were inserted into the reactor, electricity was produced. Maintaining the tunnels at Camp Century required time-consuming and laborious trimming and removal of more than 120 tons of snow and ice each month. The camp, begun in 1959, was abandoned for good in 1966 and it is anticipated that the Greenland icecap, in constant motion, will completely destroy all the tunnels over the course of the coming years."

netbuzz writes "Marking the latest escalation in the technology industry's intellectual-property arms race, Microsoft is paying AOL a shade over $1 billion for 800 patents, the cream of which AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has described as 'beachfront property in East Hampton.' Armstrong insists they haven't left the cupboard bare: 'We continue to hold a valuable patent portfolio as highlighted by the license we entered into with Microsoft. The combined sale and licensing arrangement unlocks current dollar value for our shareholders and enables AOL to continue to aggressively execute on our strategy to create long-term shareholder value.'"

theodp writes "More and more, reports the Chicago Tribune, churches are embracing the use of tablets and smartphones during services. At Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side, the Rev. Otis Moss III preaches from his iPad. 'There was a time in the church when the Gutenberg Bible was introduced,' notes early adopter Moss. 'There was a severe concern among ministers who were afraid the printed page would be such a distraction if you put it in the hands of people in worship.' Tech-savvy churchgoers are also on board. 'In the service, when they say to pull out Bibles, I pull that phone out,' Ted Allen Miller said of using his Android smartphone at Willow Creek Community Church."

Taco Cowboy writes "Here comes a chip that can pinpoint you in-door and out, it can even tell others on which floor of a building you are located. It's the Broadcom 4752 chip. It takes signals from global navigation satellites, cell phone towers, and Wi-Fi hot spots, coupled with input from gyroscopes, accelerometers, step counters, and altimeters The company calls abilities like this 'ubiquitous navigation,' and the idea is that it will enable a new kind of e-commerce predicated on the fact that shopkeepers will know the moment you walk by their front door, or when you are looking at a particular product, and can offer you coupons at that instant."

New submitter Cazekiel writes "If you think your boss is a fearless, miserable beast whose only worries lie in how well his company or business competes, think again. The 'Business Video Behavior Project' survey conducted by Qumu reveals that those in-charge are growing more and more paranoid about something the Average Joe fears just walking down the street nowadays: employees who will 'secretly film him with his metaphorical pants down and then post the footage for public delectation.' It would seem that it doesn't matter if you're powerful, wealthy and lording over hundreds of cubicles; they know the internet exists, everyone has a cell phone camera and thick wallets don't make discarded banana peels magically move out of their path." The company that paid for the study, note, promises to "securely distribute business video simultaneously over multiple Edge routes," so they probably don't mind some workplace paranoia.

MatthewVD writes "Our cars run millions of lines of code that need constant and, often, critical updates. Jim Motavalli writes that Mercedes-Benz's new mbrace2 'cloud infotainment system' has a secret capability: it can update software automatically and wirelessly. In a process called 'reflashing,' the Mercedes system turns on the car operating system (CU), downloads the new application, then cuts itself off. With companies like Fisker paying dearly for constant recalls for software problems, automakers will likely rush to embrace this technology. No more USBs in the dashboard!"

An anonymous reader writes "A new imaging technique combines light and sound to create detailed, color pictures of tumors deep inside the body. It's hoped the technology, called photoacoustic tomography, will help doctors diagnose cancer earlier than is now possible and to more precisely monitor the effects of cancer treatment — all without the radiation involved in X-rays and CT scans or the expense of MRIs. By combining sounds and light, the technology can penetrate the body's tissues to visualize tumors at depths never before possible."

MrSeb writes with ExtremeTech's account of how director (and deep sea explorer) James Cameron spent a reported $18 million converting his blockbuster movie, Titantic, to 3D. The article "looks at the primary way of managing depth in 3D films (parallax), how you add depth to a movie that was originally filmed in 2D, and some of the software (both computer and human-brain) difficulties that Cameron had to overcome in the more-than-two-year process to convert Titanic into 3D."

An anonymous reader writes "The Utah Department of Health has been hacked. 181,604 Medicaid and CHIP recipients have had their personal information stolen. 25,096 had their Social Security numbers (SSNs) compromised. The agency is cooperating with law enforcement in a criminal investigation. The hackers, who are believed to be located in Eastern Europe, breached the server in question on March 30, 2012."

yuhong writes "On April 10, the second Tuesday of April, Windows Vista will exit Mainstream Support and enter Extended Support. This means that no-charge (free) support will end, no further service packs will be created, nor will future IE versions (such as IE10) be available for Vista. Also, no new non-security hotfixes will be created or be available without an Extended Hotfix Support Agreement (EHSA). This will last for 5 years before support for Vista completely ends in 2017."