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Patents

8-Year-Old Receives Patent 142

Knile writes "While not the youngest patent recipient ever (that would be a four year old in Texas), Bryce Gunderman has received a patent at age 8 for a space-saver that combines an outlet cover plate with a shelf. From the article: '"I thought how I was going to make a lot of money," Bryce said about what raced through his brain when he received the patent.'"
Security

Two Unpatched Flaws Show Up In Apple iOS 171

Trailrunner7 writes "The technique that the Jailbreakme.com Web site is using to bypass the iPhone's security mechanisms and enable users to run unapproved apps on their phones involves exploiting two separate vulnerabilities. One of the vulnerabilities is a memory-corruption flaw that affects the way that Apple's mobile devices, including the iPad and iPod Touch, display PDFs. The second weakness is a problem in the Apple iOS kernel that gives an attacker higher privileges once his code is on a targeted device, enabling him to break out of the iOS sandbox. The combination of the two vulnerabilities — both of which are unpatched at the moment — gives an attacker the ability to run remote code on the device and evade the security protections on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. The technique became public earlier this week when the Jailbreakme.com site began hosting a set of specially crafted PDF files designed to help users jailbreak their Apple devices and load apps other than the ones approved by Apple and offered in its official App Store."

Comment Missing the point (Score 1) 376

Pretty much all the responses so far completely miss the point.

I work for a large finiancial institution - one of the biggest. Plenty of folks here have sensitive client information on their laptops, which they take with them on business trips to see clients, technology partners etc. We have some extremely large clients (all the major banks, US and worldwide) and the client information could include contacts, details of trading, holdings in various stocks, etc. This information can be worth millions of dollars, and the company could be fined similar amounts if it was stolen from their posession.

Most of the employees/managers/sales guys etc that go on business trips are not particularly technically savvy. All they know is that they have their laptop, and it is encrypted, and they have been told that their laptop is safe because the evil h4xx0rz can't decrupt the 124-byte RSM keylock. This will give them a false sense of security, and will leave their laptop in their hotel room, safe in the knowledge that it has a kingston lock on it and no-one can walk off with it.

The data on some of these machines is valuable enough that people certainly would think about trying to get their hands on it.

This needs to be a wakeup call to the big banks that they need to educate their staff - simply telling them "your laptop is encrypted, you are safe" is not good enough. They need to keep the machine with them at all times

All the talk of "boot from liveCD" or BIOS passwords, or hidden TrueCrypt volumes, simply are not feasible on a large corporate scale, and are certainly above your average client portfolio manager.

Comment Production challenges (Score 3, Interesting) 232

I can see this (and the whole of 3D cinema, to be honest) being a nightmare for directors/cameramen/producers.

I know that in the LOTR trilogy, they did a lot of clever work with perspectives, using split furniture/scenery and having actors closer/further away from the camera to make Gandalf appear significantly bigger than the hobbits, for example. I imagine this kind of trick is done quite a lot in TV production as well.

Stereoscopic cameras will mean that this trick just can't work - certain types of production just couldn't be done using camera tricks alone. It might be possible to add these effects using CGI or something - but would be a lot more expensive.
Movies

Sam Raimi To Direct World of Warcraft Movie 298

Decado writes "Blizzard has just announced that Sam Raimi is to direct the new World of Warcraft movie. 'Raimi, acclaimed director of the blockbuster Spider-Man series, will bring the forces of the Horde and the Alliance to life in epic live-action film. Charles Roven's Atlas Entertainment will produce alongside Raimi's Stars Road Entertaiment.' While it's still early in the process, does this offer hope that someone might finally make a good movie based on a game IP?"
Math

String Theory Predicts Behavior of Superfluids 348

schrodingers_rabbit writes "Despite formidable odds, condensed matter physicists have made a breakthrough most thought impossible — finding a practical use for string theory. The initial breakthrough was made by physicist and cosmologist Juan Maldacena. His theory states that the known universe is only a 2D construct in anti-de-Sitter space, projected into 3 dimensions. This theory manages to model black holes and quantum theory congruently, a feat that has eluded scientists for decades; but it fails to correspond to the shape of space-time in the known universe. However, it does predict thermodynamic properties of black holes, including higher-dimensional viscosity — the equations for which elegantly and almost exactly calculate the behavior of quark-gluon plasma and other superfluids. According to Jan Zaanen at the University of Leiden, 'The theory is calculating precisely what we are seeing in experiments.' Unfortunately, the correspondence cannot prove or disprove string theory, although it is a positive step." Not an easy path to follow: one condensed matter theorist said, "It took two years and two 1000-page books of dense mathematics, but I learned string theory and got kind of enchanted by it. [When the string-theory related] thing began to... make predictions about high-temperature superconductors, my traditional mainstay, I was one of the few condensed matter physicists with the preparation to take it up."
Hardware Hacking

Bohemian Rhapsody On Old Hardware 137

eldavojohn writes "The sweet sweet melodies of Queen and the late Freddie Mercury are reproduced by hardware almost as old as the song is. 'There are millions of computers sitting idle at home consuming fantom electricity. Let's see where all that power is going. This is dedicated to all fans of Queen and hey let's not forget about Mike Myers and Dana Carvey of Wayne's World. Please note no effects or sampling was used. What you see is what you hear (does that even make sense?) Atari 800XL was used for the lead piano/organ sound, Texas Instruments TI-99/4a as lead guitar, 8 Inch Floppy Disk as Bass, 3.5 inch Hard drive as the gong, HP ScanJet 3C was used for all vocals. Please note I had to record the HP scanner 4 separate times for each voice. I tried to buy 4 HP scanners but for some reason sellers on E-Bay expect you to pay $80-$100, I got mine for $30.'"

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