Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Iphone

Submission + - iPhone App Contains Secret Tethering Capability (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "The iOS app iRandomizer Numbers contains an unexpected function: It allows users who enter undocumented codes to create a tethered Internet connection. Thereafter, other nearby computers can join an ad-hoc WiFi network and reach the Internet using the tethered iPhone's cellular data connection.

The app purports to be nothing more than a random number generation tool. But entering "1984" in the minimum field and "31337" in the maximum field--numbers of significance in the hacker community--and tapping the "generate" button reveals a tethering network configuration screen.

Nick Kramer, CEO of Shmoopi, LLC, acknowledged in an email that his app supports tethering. "Reluctantly, I will admit that my application 'iRandomizer Numbers' does have a hidden tethering feature," he wrote. "I say reluctantly because I didn't plan on the feature being released. I designed the tethering functionality for my family and close friends not thinking it would be disseminated outside that circle. ""
Science

Submission + - Roomba-Maker Eyes Robot To Keep You Out Of The Hos (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "iRobot, makers of the Roomba and other household robots, has partnered with InTouch Health to develop a new generation of 'telepresence' robots that could help people with chronic diseases remain at home.

InTouch Health, which has FDA approval for its "telepresence" technology, already operates in over 80 hospitals around the world. Its inpatient product allows physicians to remotely operate a robot that can examine patients in the hospital. Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, for example, uses InTouch's platform to enable its neurologists to determine whether a patient in a community hospital is having a stroke and should receive a clot-busting medication.

A home healthcare robot made for consumers would not cost as much as robots used in hospitals or industry, iRobot says. One reason home robots would be affordable is the impact the mobile computing industry has had on robotics. For instance, advances in mobile and gaming devices and apps have created mass-market access to voice and video over IP, touchscreen interfaces, voice recognition, facial recognition, computer vision, and gestural interfaces."
The Military

Submission + - DARPA Works On Virtual Reality Contact Lenses (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "Binoculars and night-vision goggles have their limits. So DARPA is doing work at Washington-based Innovega iOptiks to create wearable eye lenses with tiny, full-color displays onto which digital images can be projected, to give soldiers better situational awareness.

The lenses would allow users to focus simultaneously on images that are both close up (perhaps a display) and far away (perhaps a battlefield.)

Using virtual reality technologies to improve how soldiers perform on the battlefield has been a particular interest of the U.S. military for some time. Two goals: improve not only intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities but also training."
Government

Submission + - Cyber Attacks Becoming Top Terror Threat, FBI Says (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "Hackers will one day outstrip terrorists as top threat to U.S., FBI director Robert Mueller told a Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday.

"Stopping terrorists is the number one priority," said Mueller. "But down the road, the cyber threat will be the number one threat to the country."

The greatest challenges to protecting against cyber threats are the difficulty of providing timely and actionable warning of attacks, and the complex vulnerabilities within the IT supply chain, added director of national intelligence James Clapper.

Clapper singled out attacks from China and Russia as the biggest threats from state actors and said that those two countries have been responsible for "extensive illicit intrusions" into U.S. networks, but also said that Iran's cyber capabilities have "increased in depth and complexity" in recent years."
IT

Submission + - India's HCL Hiring 10,000 In U.S., Europe (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "Indian outsourcer HCL Technologies said it plans to hire 10,000 IT pros in the U.S. and Europe in the next five years as part of an effort to diversify its operations beyond its stronghold on the Asian subcontinent.

A spokesperson said it's too soon to estimate how those numbers will be split between the two geographies.

HCL officials said the company needs more workers located at or near the Western clients it serves as it looks to move beyond routine tech services and into higher-end strategy and consulting engagements. Also, chairman and CEO Vineet Nayar has said that pressure from protest movements like Occupy Wall Street could lead many Western businesses to reduce offshore outsourcing, and that Indian IT firms need to respond by keeping more work on shore."
Microsoft

Submission + - Nokia Numbers Show Microsoft's Mobile Madness (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "Nokia said it "sold" 1 million Lumia devices in the fourth quarter (in quotations because there is no easy way to tell how many units actually made it to consumers or are simply idling in channel inventories). That means every Windows Phone 7 device Nokia shipped in Q4 cost Microsoft $250, minus the royalty. That's for phones, like the Lumia 710, that can be bought for $50 or less with a standard carrier contract.

Ordinarily, this would be madness. Even a kid with a lemonade stand knows you're supposed to sell stuff for more than it costs to make. But these are not normal times at Redmond. Microsoft's willingness to extend what is basically a billion-dollar bribe to Nokia, still the world's biggest handset maker by volume, to ditch Symbian and use Windows Phone as its default OS shows how desperate the software maker is to get back into the mobile race, where it badly trails Apple and Google."
IT

Submission + - American Airlines Couldn't Be Saved By World-Class (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "The November bankruptcy filing of AMR, parent of American Airlines, is a reminder that market forces can sometimes trump even the best business technology.

In 1985, AA's IT was at its zenith. Its IT organization was large and well led. Max Hopper, AA's former senior VP of IT and one of the visionary creators of the Sabre computer reservation system, had just returned to AA from Bank of America.

Hopper's organization, which went far beyond IT, was built around Sabre, which AA owned and which generated revenue on each booking. In 1985, about 10,000 reservation agencies used Sabre to book flights for all the major airlines. Sabre generated more profits for AA than its flights did. Crandall once said that if he had to choose between the airline and Sabre, he would choose Sabre. But he didn't. Crandall retired in 1998 and AA spun off Sabre in 1999.

AA's current predicament makes you wonder--what if Crandall had decided to keep Sabre and dump the airline?"
IT

Submission + - Why Bully IT Bosses Lose The Game (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "Research and case studies prove something you may have already known in your gut: The so-called "weak" sides of humanity--kindness, consideration, warmth, empathy, optimism, actually create competitive advantage, particularly at service organizations. So why do we still have pockets of our IT service organizations that don't believe this? Could it be that we're hiring the wrong people?

Scorched-earth thinkers may think that you're being weak by being "nice", but it's really the other way around."
Cloud

Submission + - States Allow Voting Via Cloud For Citizens Oversea (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "If a ballot was lost in the cloud, would anyone know?

  Several states are using an online balloting website based on Microsoft's Azure cloud-computing platform to allow U.S. voters living overseas to cast their votes via the Web in 2012 primary elections.

In addition to a now complete Florida primary, Virginia and California will use the system for their primaries, and Washington state will use it for its caucus.

To ensure the ballots are from legitimate voters, people use unique identifying information to access their ballots online, according to Microsoft. Once received, the signature on the ballot is matched with registration records to further verify identity."
Google

Submission + - Google Foes Fighting Social Search Ignore One Trut (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "Google's decision about a week ago to integrate content from its Google+ social network into its search listings was met with immediate criticism from competitors like Twitter, which argued that the mixed bag of links would make its more relevant content harder to find.

Over the weekend, the fight turned nasty, as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter engineers got involved, releasing a Chrome extension bookmarklet called "Don't Be Evil."

But there's one big problem with arguing Google's favoring its own content, writes Thomas Claburn: "Search results cannot be organic. There's no natural way to determine relevance. It's all artificial.""
Government

Submission + - IRS Website Revamp Plans Too Vague, Watchdog Says (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "The IRS plans to spend $320 million over 10 years to improve its website, but the agency's plans on how exactly it will do that remain unclear, according to a government watchdog agency.

In 2011, nearly 80% of individual taxpayer returns were filed electronically, a system that is "more accurate, faster and less expensive for IRS than processing returns filed on paper," according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

One goal of the new website: Reduce the number of call center inquiries. Among the web site revamp roadmap items still missing--plans for how taxpayers will view their own information online."
Government

Submission + - SOPA: Stop Grandstanding, Start Crafting An Altern (informationweek.com) 1

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "InformationWeek editor-in-Chief Rob Preston says it's time for breathless SOPA grandstanding to end. "An argument making the rounds among the digerati is that SOPA and PIPA are 20th century answers to a 21st century challenge, that the movie, music, and media industry lobbyists and their Congressional puppets just don't understand the dynamics of the Internet," he writes.

If Congress is so clueless about Internet dynamics, it's up to SOPA opponents to create a workable alternative for stopping online content piracy, Preston says.

"To its credit Google, whose YouTube is a dumping ground for pirated material, is behind an alternative bill--The Online Protection & Enforcement of Digital Trade, or OPEN, Act--and is seeking industry comment and collaboration. That collaboration must include movie, music, and media companies," he writes.

"Google and friends, the ball's now in your court. Where do you propose we go from here? ""
Crime

Submission + - Megaupload Execs Had Thing For Bling, Indictment S (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "The indictment in the Megaupload case reveals intriguing details, including assets that could be seized by the Feds. For starters, think $8 million allegedly spent on yacht rentals, 15 Mercedes-Benzes, and a Rolls-Royce with this license plate: GOD.

Depite the Anonymous protests, the indictment makes clear that the Feds didn't build their case overnight. The investigation described took two years to build.

The feds accused Megaupload of amassing $175 million "in criminal proceeds" since the site was founded in 2005. In 2010, according to the indictment, 37-year-old Megaupload CEO and founder Kim Dotcom (aka Kim Tim Jim Vestor, aka Kim Schmitz) alone earned $42 million, while Mathias Ortmann, a Germany citizen who served as Megaupload's CTO, earned more than $9 million.

 "
Medicine

Submission + - The Problem With Personalized Medicine (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "Talk of individually tailored medical treatment isn't pie in the sky. This approach eventually will help us address risk factors even before a disease can invade our cells, and detect preclinical disease before it gets out of hand. What role will medical informatics play in this brave new world? Hint: Little data projects may be as important as big data projects such as gene sequencing.

At a recent symposium on personalized medicine, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, chairman of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health at the University of Pennsylvania, questioned whether it would make more sense to target all the lifestyle mistakes that patients make rather than analyze genetic defects. His view: "Personalized medicine misses the most important fact about modern society--little ill health and premature death is genetic, much more is lifestyle and social."

Is Emanuel a dinosaur or a pragmatist?"
Government

Submission + - Post-9/11 DOJ Tech Project Dying After 10 Years? (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "A secure, interoperable radio network that the Department of Justice has been working on for more than a decade and that has cost the agency $356 million may be headed for failure, according to a new report by the agency's inspector general.

Called for in the wake of 9/11, the Integrated Wireless Network (IWS) project has already been repeatedly scaled back.

Today, the Department of Justice continues to rely on several separate land mobile radio systems, some of which are unreliable, obsolete, and fail to interoperate with one another. Agents often have to swap radios, share channels, or refer to a book of radio frequencies and manually switch between those frequencies to stay online. Radios remain insecure, as much of the current equipment fails to meet encryption requirements. Much of the agency's equipment is more than 15 years old and is no longer even supported by the manufacturer."

Slashdot Top Deals

"It's the best thing since professional golfers on 'ludes." -- Rick Obidiah

Close