58094029
submission
concertina226 writes:
Mind Candy, creator of the hugely successful Moshi Monsters children's online game franchise, has decided to launch a magazine aimed at getting young girls between the ages of 7-10 interested in technology.
Each issue of the magazine will feature the different types of jobs women can do in the technology industry; developers, product managers or programmers. The magazine will also introduce new monster characters like Zaffi, a tech-savvy Moshi Monster who runs a Tech Squad, similar to the tech version of the Brownies' after-school activity organisation.
To join Zaffi's Tech Squad, readers learn about technology through puzzles, recipes, interviews and stories, and are encouraged to complete tech-related challenges like learning simple computer coding so that they can earn a badge of honour.
58091505
submission
concertina226 writes:
Microsoft is pulling support for the old Windows XP operating system from 8 April, in a bid to get consumers to move to newer Windows operating systems, but the decision puts a majority of ATMs at risk of cyber attacks.
Windows XP currently runs on almost 95% of all cash machines around the world as ATMs are designed to last between seven to 15 years. In theory, Windows XP embedded is actually supported by Microsoft until 2016, but other systems connected to the ATMs run regular Windows XP and will thus be susceptible to cyber attacks.
However not everyone wants to pay Microsoft more money and upgrading an ATM to Windows 7 requires additional hardware upgrades, so some financial firms in other parts of the world are considering moving to Linux.
58084021
submission
concertina226 writes:
Albert Einstein's "spooky" quantum mechanics theory about entangled particles that can stay connected even when separated by large distances could be applied to encrypt communications and improve security over the internet.
The phenomenon is known as the N-partite Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) steering and over half a century later in the 1990s, scientists finally succeeded in using it to securely transmit a message from one person to another.
They created a shared quantum key that decoded the message only for the sender and receiver – meaning that the message would be completely secure from interception until it was received. However, until now, the quantum key has only worked for sharing messages between two parties.
58052557
submission
concertina226 writes:
Singer-songwriter Imogen Heap has launched a Kickstarter campaign for Mi.Mu wearable tech gloves that can help musicians produce complex audio effects with just the swipe of a hand.
Each glove contains an x-IMU chip mounted on the back of the hand, which contains a Wi-Fi transmitter, magnetometer, gyroscope and accelerometer. There are also movement sensors embedded in the glove fabric.
A sensor on the glove picks up the light made from users flexing their fingers in the fibre optic data gloves and converts it into a digital signal. The music control signal is then sent wirelessly from the gloves over Wi-Fi to a computer, where musicians can customise the controls for the glove on open source software.
57943503
submission
concertina226 writes:
Using a simple off-the-shelf helicopter drone bought off Amazon with no fancy features, the researchers were able to create a piece of software called Snoopy that can detect those signals and trick the phone into thinking that the drone is a familiar network.
"In the old days, to hack someone you needed a laptop with a big antenna which would be really obvious, but now we're in the age of really small devices. We thought, can we apply an old-school Wi-Fi hack called Karma?" Sensepost's chief operating officer Daniel Cuthbert tells IBTimes UK.
The firm first programmed an old Nokia N900 smartphone to become a spying device two years ago, put the device in their pocket and then spent some time hanging out in major London train stations Liverpool St, Oxford St, Victoria and Kings Cross St Pancras. While they blended in and sat having a coffee, the device picked up over 60,000 smartphones in the four stations.
Sensepost took the data and put it into Wigle, an open-source geo-location service. When they cross-referenced the data with Google Streetview, they were then able to track all the people and their smartphones as they moved throughout the stations and beyond.
57915023
submission
concertina226 writes:
The missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 might have been found by now if a small communications box on the plane had been configured to send out more frequent reports, according to British satellite communications firm Inmarsat.
Critics of the aerospace industry are now calling out its "outdated" accident investigation process and asking for data from the black box to be streamed in-flight to the cloud, which could be expensive, but Inmarsat's Senior VP Chris McLaughlin says that the plane could have been found by now if the communications box buried in the plane's avionics had been configured to send out more frequent reports.
"What we have at the moment would have been fine if the airlines had been mandated to provide data on all their flights. The only area where data is mandated is on the transatlantic route, which is so busy that everyone needs to know where all the other planes are," he said. "We may never know what happened to the plane because the cockpit is not mandated to be monitored in other areas, and we urge regulators to look into this."
57910309
submission
concertina226 writes:
A pair of travellers have set a new Guinness World Record by visiting five continents in a single calendar day, which they achieved in 28 hours and 25 minutes using only commercial airlines.
Adrian Butterworth, a Bournemouth-based documentary filmmaker and Gunnar Garfors, a hobby traveller from Norway set out from Istanbul, Turkey in Asia and travelled to Casablanca, Morocco in Africa; Paris in Europe; Punta Cana, the Dominican Republic in North America; and Caracas, Venezuela in South America.
Armed solely with two cameras and two tripods that were surprisingly allowed as carry-on luggage on each flight, Butterworth set off with Garfors from Istanbul at 01:00 on 18 June and arrived in the final location – Caracas, Venezuela – at 22:30 on the same day.
57904403
submission
concertina226 writes:
The continued hunt for missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 has prompted calls for black box data to be streamed in-flight and uploaded to the cloud to speed up the rescue and accident investigation process.
Air France Flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, killing all 228 people onboard. Although some major wreckage was removed from the sea within five days of the crash, it took another two years and €32m for the black boxes to be recovered from the ocean floor.
"There's a tombstone mentality at times. You actually have to have a very tragic event to get things done. I predict that this is one of those events," said Bob Benzon, a former US Air Force pilot and NTSB investigator. He said it would cost billions of dollars to fit out every single plane in the world with flight data real-time streaming capabilities.
57838559
submission
concertina226 writes:
The NSA has a voice interception system called Mystic that can record the phone calls of an entire country and store the calls for 30 days, according to sources and documents leaked by Edward Snowden to the Washington Post.
Mystic was first used in 2009 and two years later, an additional tool, "Retro", was introduced that had the ability to retrieve and replay voices from any call, a senior manager for the system said. The documents list at least seven target nations where the collection systems were still being used to record "every single" conversation.
Billions of audio files can be stored for 30 days, after which the oldest are deleted unless analysts decide to keep them. Although the analysts listen to less than 1% of all calls, millions of voice clippings are processed and sent to long-term storage every month.
57828663
submission
concertina226 writes:
There's less than a month to go before Samsung launches its new flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone worldwide on 11 April, and the new device has still not gone into mass production due to camera module manufacturing problems.
The 16 megapixel camera module consists of six plastic pieces, one more piece than in the existing 13 megapixel camera modules in the Galaxy S4. The problem that Samsung is having is that even though the number of plastic pieces has gone up, the thickness of each piece has remained the same, so in order to fit the new camera module into the Galaxy S5, the lens makers will likely have to develop new technology to make thinner lenses.
Not only that, joining six pieces together instead of five for the 13 megapixel camera modules increases the risk of optical faults surfacing at the lens manufacturers' plants dramatically.
57788635
submission
concertina226 writes:
Just when you thought that Hollywood had won and that illegal movie torrent streaming service Popcorn Time was gone forever, the service has made a comeback, thanks to new backers.
On Saturday, a developer from YTS, a movie torrent website, told TorrentFreak that it would be picking up the Popcorn Time project, and that the project had been replicated several times on GitHub to ensure that it would survive.
However, by Sunday night, YTS issued a statement publicly on its website stating that it is not affiliated with Popcorn Time: "YTS is not taking over, and is in no way affiliated with Popcorn Time. This has been misreported on and caused much confusion for many users, for which we apologise. Popcorn Time is a community driven project, not owned nor maintained by a single person or entity.
The new version of the software installer works on Windows, OS X and Linux, and can be downloaded from GitHub.
57704029
submission
concertina226 writes:
A group of Dutch architects are bravely going where no architect has been before – they have decided to build an entire canal house in Amsterdam from 3D printing.
The front of the house will measure 15 metres high, 6 metres wide and 6 metres deep and if you're interested you can visit the construction site to see how the house is being built for €2.50.
In order to achieve their goal, Dutch firm DUS Architects have custom-built a giant 3D printer inside a shipping container, called the "KamerMaker XL", which means "room maker" in Dutch.
The giant 3D printer uses bioplastic pellets made from Macromelt, a product of rapeseed oil, which can easily be shredded and reused again if the piece doesn't come out of the printer correctly.
57700525
submission
concertina226 writes:
QuiQui (pronounced Kwi-Key) operates 24 hours-a-day and users only need to pay for the cost of their medication, plus a $1 (60p) delivery charge.
"We can't ring the bell, but we'll meet you outside," says the company's website, which explains that it has decided to launch the drone service in the Mission district of San Francisco as the lack of tall buildings and generally flat landscape makes it much easier for the flying drones to get around.
The company is working with local pharmacies in San Francisco to deliver your prescriptions and says it chose pharmacy items because they're typically very small and easy to transport. Carrying larger items would not be commercially viable it says.
57693857
submission
concertina226 writes:
The Swan Centre in Eastleigh becomes first UK shopping centre to launch Bluetooth-based beacon technology to connect retailers directly with consumers through their smartphones.
From today shoppers entering the Swan Centre will be able to receive offers and discounts directly on their smartphones from retailers throughout the shopping centre — as long as they download a SmartRewards app first.
As they wander through the shopping centre, tiny devices called TagBeacons send targeted ads and discounts directly to their smartphones using low-energy Bluetooth technology, which enables information to be sent to devices that are up to 50 metres away.
Over time, as the data collected builds up, users will begin to receive more targeted offers, and there will also be the option for retailers and shopping centres to monitor customer behaviour.
57666853
submission
concertina226 writes:
Just when you were getting excited about smart wristbands and glasses, along comes Ring — a smart ring that lets you send text messages, pay bills and control household appliances from your fingertips.
Ring works by using gesture recognition technology to sense gestures while users wear the device on their index fingers. Users tap the side of the ring to turn it on, and then make a gesture to select what function they want to use.
Logbar inc, the device's creators, also say that users can make payments if low-energy Bluetooth iBeacon technology or GPS is activated, and from the video you can see a user writing $12 in the air and seeing a smartphone instantly accept payment.