Comment Re:Charms? (Score 1) 349
Charms are gone in the preview version, such a small change, but it is a good one
Sophisticated Spy Tool 'The Mask' Rages Undetected For 7 Years 98
thomst writes "Kim Zetter of Wired's Threat Level reports that Kaspersky Labs discovered a Spanish-language spyware application that 'uses techniques and code that surpass any nation-state spyware previously spotted in the wild.' The malware, dubbed 'The Mask' by Kaspersky's researchers, targeted government agencies, diplomatic offices, embassies, companies in the oil, gas and energy industries, research organizations, and activists. It had been loose on the Internet since at least 2007 before being shut down last month. It infected its targets via a malicious website that contained exploits — among which were the Adobe Flash player vulnerability CVE-2012-0773, affecting both Windows and Linux machines. Users were directed to the site via spearphishing emails."
Comment Not the first (Score 3, Informative) 72
Last time I was in Hong Kong many of the phone booths were being used as APs for the phone companies pre-paid wifi network. Seemed like a great idea to make use of their even spread across the city.
Comment Re:patching (Score 1) 87
The problem with the Galaxy Nexus is that Samsung are in charge of a updates for a lot of the variants of this phone. There has been some debate on whether it should be called a true "nexus" phone at all.
Why We Should Celebrate Snapchat and Encourage Ephemeral Communication 140
An anonymous reader writes "Within a few months of launching, Snapchat has made an enormous and lasting impact on the culture of communication on the Internet – and we should all be grateful. They have simplified a security process enough to the point that anybody can use it, while validating the market of the next generation of privacy-preserving ephemeral communication. Most importantly, we may finally get a break from the forced permanence of the Facebook and Google world, where everything you do and share is a data point to be monetized and re-sold to the highest bidder."
Comment Re:I actually liked ICS better than Jelly Bean (Score 2) 124
Try Quickpic (free on google play) not only is it the best image viewer I've used, it also has it's own set as wallpaper feature that lets you crop images as a standard rectangle, or you can use Nova launcher (also free on play) which will let you set wallpapers as the standard T or as a square.
Comment Re:Best Countermeasures (Score 1) 179
The problem with step 1 is that the average person no longer trusts a major sites opinion any more than a crappy review site. If the result shows in Google's first page a lot of people will take this as meaning it is legitimate, and generally even one or two negative reviews can make people start to ignore the 100's of positive ones. That is what a lot of these review farming sites seem to rely on, and most seem to manage to be in the top 5 search results for a lot of products, usually by linking or copying several legit reviews as well as spamming their own.
Comment Re:Gamestop's Side (Score 1) 147
Not to mention having to explain why i don't want disc insurance and why im not in the game club and no i don't want to buy a magazine.. ect.
Comment Re:Really bad idea. (Score 2) 1173
Our local government tried to reduce peak hour traffic by getting businesses in the CBD area to implement flexible hours (i.e. I believe the suggested start hours were anywhere between 6am and 10am, instead of the usual fixed 8 or 9am start), somehow all it did was stretch our peak hour out, instead of deadlock from 7am-8am we now have it from 6am-10am.
Comment Re:Worst part (Score 1) 54
People whose cards were cancelled were contacted via SMS or email to let them know (depending on what contact details were available.)
Comment Re:Warballoon (Score 1) 209
What about "Freedomballoon" ?
The Transistor's 60th Birthday 185
Apple Acolyte sends in a Forbes piece noting the 60th birthday of the transistor on Dec, 16. For the occasion the AP provides the obligatory Moore's-Law-is-ending, no-it-isn't article. From Forbes: "Sixty years ago, on Dec. 16, 1947, three physicists at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., built the world's first transistor. William Shockley, John Bardeen and William Brattain had been looking for a semiconductor amplifier to take the place of the vacuum tubes that made radios and other electronics so impossibly bulky, hot and power hungry."
Student and Professor Build Budget Supercomputer 387
Luke writes "This past winter Calvin College professor Joel Adams and then Calvin senior Tim Brom built Microwulf, a portable supercomputer with 26.25 gigaflops peak performance, that cost less than $2,500 to construct, becoming the most cost-efficient supercomputer anywhere that Adams knows of. "It's small enough to check on an airplane or fit next to a desk," said Brom. Instead of a bunch of researchers having to share a single Beowulf cluster supercomputer, now each researcher can have their own."
Quirks and Tips For Upgrading To Vista 236
jcatcw writes "Computerworld's Scot Finnie has some advice for those considering an upgrade to Vista. He praises the work Microsoft has done on the installation program, but thinks it still presents problems for those who wish to upgrade. He recommends the free Windows Vista Upgrade Adviser. Then, be sure to pick the best edition for your use." From the article: "Don't bother wiping your hard disk. Just run the in-place upgrade from your previous installation. You'll be given the option to perform either an Upgrade or Custom (advanced) installation. Opt for the Custom install to clean-install Vista, and Windows Vista Setup does something smart: It creates a folder called Windows.old in your root directory that contains your old Documents and Settings, Program Files and Windows folders. (Note that on my test machine, this added step used an additional 7GB of disk storage.)"
Firefox Losing Its Way? 494
An anonymous reader writes "NeoSmart Technologies has a recap on Firefox 2.0 and its shortcomings. Aside from the technical aspects, the article raises some good questions about the Firefox 'community,' it's future, and what it's goals are at the end of the day. Their conclusion? Firefox 1.5 was a much better open-source project/community model than 2.0 ever will be, and that 'It seems Firefox has lost its way somewhere along the passage to fame.'"
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