Hardware Hacking

Balloon and Duct Tape Deliver Great Space Photos 238

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-can-see-my-house-from-here dept.
krou writes "With a budget of £500, Robert Harrison used cheap parts, a weather balloon, some duct tape, a digital camera, and a GPS device to capture some great photos of the earth from space that resulted in NASA calling him to find out how he had done it. 'A guy phoned up who worked for NASA who was interested in how we took the pictures,' said Mr Harrison. 'He wanted to know how the hell we did it. He thought we used a rocket. They said it would have cost them millions of dollars.' The details of his balloon are as follows: he used 'an ordinary Canon camera mounted on a weather balloon,' 'free software' that 'reprogrammed the camera to wake up every five minutes and take eight photographs and a video before switching off for a rest.' He also ensured the camera was 'wrapped in loft insulation' to make sure it could operate at the cold temperatures. The GPS device allowed him to pinpoint the balloon's location, and retrieve the camera when it fell down to earth attached to a small parachute."
Image

How the TSA Plans On Inspecting Your Monkey Screenshot-sm 114

Posted by samzenpus from the I'm-gonna-need-to-check-your-monkey dept.
The uncertainty of what might happen to your service monkey at an airport security checkpoint won't keep you awake at night anymore, thanks to the TSA. They have issued an easy to follow list of how they will ensure your helper monkey won't go all Planet of the Apes on your flight. Some of the security techniques used to make sure your primate is not a terrorist include: "Security Officers will conduct a visual inspection on the service monkey and will coach the handler on how to hold the monkey during the visual inspection. The inspection process may require that the handler to take off the monkey's diaper as part of the visual inspection."
Patents

Beware the King of the Patent Trolls 286

Posted by CmdrTaco from the lotta-fresh-air-under-the-bridge dept.
superapecommando writes "If you haven't heard of Intellectual Ventures, you may want to check this out. Set up by ex-Microsoftie Nathan Myhrvold, with investments from Microsoft among others, it is basically a patenting machine – filing and buying them in huge quantities. Note that it doesn't actually use these patents – except to threaten people with. In other words, Intellectual Ventures is a patent troll – or, rather the King of the Patent Trolls. So I was interested to come across this extremely positive blog post on the company. That it is so positive is hardly surprising, since the blog is called 'Tangible IP,' and subtitled 'ipVA's blog on adding value through intellectual property.' Nonetheless, it provides valuable insights into the mindset of fans of intellectual monopolies. Here's what it says about Intellectual Ventures: 'They are an invention house, and have adopted and reinvented leading edge patent strategies to create a portfolio of their own IP which, in its own, would be of high high worth.' They don't invent anything in the proper, deep sense of the word; they merely file and buy patents – with no intent of ever making stuff or solving real-life problems."
Security

Obama's Twitter Account "Hacked" 308

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-not-exactly dept.
Oxford_Comma_Lover writes "A 24-year-old living with his mother in France was arrested for 'hacking' into Obama's twitter accounts. (Warning: WSJ does obnoxious paywall things. Your miles may vary.) Apparently he guesses the answer to a question related to password recovery in order to break into the accounts of famous people; he has no computer science training or financial motive. He posted screenshots to a few boards and twitter found out within a few hours, either from a tip or from noticing when someone from France logs onto twitter as the President of the United States. (He did not actually tweet as POTUS, but just wanted to show he could break into the account.)"
Idle

Drunk History Presents Nikola Tesla *NSFW* 91

Posted by samzenpus from the putting-on-your-history-goggles dept.
Amazingly accurate for someone so plastered. I think all history should be taught at this level of intoxication.
Displays

How the Nintendo 3DS Might Handle 3D Display 77

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-can-see-my-hand dept.
itwbennett writes "Blogger Peter Smith weighs in with some possibilities for how the new Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming system will provide 3D gaming without the need for 3D glasses. The DSi has cameras, which means the 3DS will have to have them too if it's going to be backwards compatible. We've also heard rumors that the 'next DS' will have tilt-sensors better than the iPhone. With either the camera or tilt-sensors either of these 'faux 3D' systems would work. But since we've seen the DSi do this already, it doesn't seem likely that the new hardware will rely on the same old trick. Enter our friends at Engadget, who uncovered some details from Japanese newspapers. If they're right, the Nintendo 3DS will incorporate parallax barrier LCD screens from Sharp (see also this explanation of dynamic parallax barrier screens). This is the same technology used in a few '3D Laptops.'"
Image

Facebook Leads To Increase In STDs in Britain Screenshot-sm 270

Posted by samzenpus from the friends-and-really-good-friends dept.
ectotherm writes "According to Professor Peter Kelly, a director of Public Health in Great Britain: 'There has been a four-fold increase in the number of syphilis cases detected, with more young women being affected.' Why the increase? People meeting up for casual sex through Facebook. According to the article, 'Social networking sites are making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex. There is a rise in syphilis because people are having more sexual partners than 20 years ago and often do not use condoms.'"
Education

US Not Training Enough Cybersecurity Experts 112

Posted by CmdrTaco from the just-pay-them-more dept.
graychase writes "Homeland Security's cybersecurity director, Richard Marshall, warns that universities aren't turning out enough cybersecurity experts and urges greater scholarship funding. 'Look at all the great football and basketball programs. They're all on scholarships. They're not playing for fun — they're playing for money.'"
Government

Will Your Answers To the Census Stay Private? 902

Posted by CmdrTaco from the depends-how-you-define-private dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "James Bovard writes in the Christian Science Monitor that Americans are told that information gathered in the census will never be used against them and the House of Representatives, in a Census Awareness Month resolution passed March 3, proclaimed that 'the data obtained from the census are protected under United States privacy laws.' Unfortunately, thousands of Americans who trusted the Census Bureau in the past lost their freedom as a result. In the 1940 Census, the Census Bureau loudly assured people that their responses would be kept confidential. Within four days of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Census Bureau had produced a report listing the Japanese-American population in each county on the West Coast. The Census Bureau's report helped the US Army round up more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans for concentration camps (later renamed 'internment centers'). In 2003-04, the Census Bureau provided the Department of Homeland Security with a massive cache of information on how many Arab Americans lived in each ZIP Code around the nation, and which country they originated from — information that could have made it far easier to carry out the type of mass roundup that some conservatives advocated. 'Instead of viewing census critics as conspiracy theorists, the nation's political leaders should recognize how their policies have undermined public faith in government,' writes Bovard. 'All the census really needs to know is how many people live at each address. Citizens should refuse to answer any census question except for the number of residents.'"
Spam

Millions Continue To Click On Spam 210

Posted by CmdrTaco from the no-seriously-knock-it-off dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Even though over 80% of email users are aware of the existence of bots, tens of millions respond to spam in ways that could leave them vulnerable to a malware infection, according to a Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) survey. In the survey, half of users said they had opened spam, clicked on a link in spam, opened a spam attachment, replied or forwarded it — activities that leave consumers susceptible to fraud, phishing, identity theft, and infection. While most consumers said they were aware of the existence of bots, only one-third believed they were vulnerable to an infection."
Science

Tracking Pedophiles By Their Typing Habits 292

Posted by CmdrTaco from the you-gotta-be-kidding dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Pedophiles using the internet to target youngsters could be tracked down — by the way they use a keyboard. Researchers are investigating ways to use technology which can determine a typist's age, sex and culture within ten keystrokes by monitoring their speed and rhythm." Since Phrenology hasn't exactly panned out, they gotta try something new.
Youtube

YouTube Is Down 152

Posted by CmdrTaco from the what-it's-2012-already dept.
A number of readers have noted that YouTube is currently giving back 400 and 502 http errors, and has apparently been doing so for an hour or more. I suggest you use this window of opportunity to get something done: the dancing kitties will still be there when you're done.
Google

Google Wants To Be Your Electricity Meter 206

Posted by samzenpus from the google-watt-hours dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Google has teamed up with microcontroller maker Microchip to develop an API for a piece of software called Google PowerMeter, according this EE Times story. Why? Because Google wants to host all the details of the electricity and other energy consumption of people's homes. It wants to do this so that it can show people on their iGoogle homepages when and where they are consuming energy so that they can start to reduce their power consumption. The good news is that it is an opt-in service and free so you don't have to make Google your energy-monitor if you don't want to do so."
Math

Math Skills For Programmers — Necessary Or Not? 609

Posted by samzenpus from the who-needs-theory-when-you-have-practice dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Currently, the nature of most programming work is such that you don't really need math skills to get by or even to do well; after all, linear algebra is no help when building database-driven websites. However, Skorks contends that if you want to do truly interesting work in the software development field, math skills are essential, and furthermore will become increasingly important as we are forced to work with ever larger data sets (making math-intensive algorithm analysis skills a priority)."

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