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Robotics

Robots To Clear the Baltic Seafloor of WW-II Mines 286

Posted by kdawson from the booming-business dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A Russian company is building a massive natural gas pipeline that will run across the Baltic Sea floor. But first, they must clear some of the 150,000 unexploded bombs sitting at the bottom of the sea, left there by the Russian and German armies in the 1940s. About 70 of these mines, each filled with 300 kg of explosive charge, sit in the pipeline's path, mostly in its northern section just south of Finland. And so the company contracted to remove the mines is bringing in robots to do the dirty work. Here's how it will work: A research ship deploys the robot to the seabed, where it identifies the exact location of the explosive. After sounding a warning to surrounding ship traffic, scaring fish away using a small explosive, and then emitting a 'seal screamer' of high intensity noises designed to make the area around the blast quite uncomfortable for marine mammals, Bactec's engineers erupt a 5 kg blast, forcing the mine to detonate. This process ensures the safety of humans plus any animals living in the surrounding environment. The operation concludes with the robot being redeployed to clear up the scrap of the now-destroyed bomb."
Security

Submission + - Microsoft plugs 15 holes, including drive-by bug (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Microsoft today patched 15 vulnerabilities in Windows, Windows Server, Excel and Word, including one that will probably be exploited quickly by hackers. None affect Windows 7, the company's newest operating system. Of today's 15 bugs, three were tagged "critical" by Microsoft, while the remaining 12 were labeled as "important," the next-lowest rating in the company's four-step severity scoring system. Experts agreed that users should focus on MS09-065 first and foremost. That update, which was ranked critical, affects all still-supported editions of Windows with the exception of Windows 7 and its server sibling, Windows Server 2008 R2. "The Windows kernel vulnerability is going to take the cake," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security. "The attack vector can be driven through Internet Explorer, and this is one of those instances where the user won't be notified or prompted. This is absolutely a drive-by attack scenario." Richie Lai, the director of vulnerability research at security company Qualys, agreed. "Anyone running IE [Internet Explorer] is at risk here, even though the flaw is not in the browser, but in the Win32k kernel mode driver."
Intel

Submission + - OS X Update Officially Kills Intel Atom Support (osxdaily.com)

Submitted by bonch
bonch writes: After apparently disabling and then re-enabling support for the Atom chipset in test builds of their 10.6.2 update, Apple has officially disabled support for the chipset in the final update released yesterday. This makes it impossible for OSX86 users to run 10.6.2 on their Atom-based netbooks until a modified kernel shows up. One important issue fixed in the update is a data deletion bug.
Security

Submission + - $9 million ATM hacking ring busted (threatpost.com) 1

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: U.S. and international prosecutors have taken down a criminal ring that they allege was responsible for an ATM scam last year that stole about $9 million from RBS WorldPay. The criminals were able to evade the company's encryption system used on payroll debit cards and withdraw money from ATMs in 280 cities around the world. A federal grand jury in Atlanta has indicted eight men in connection with the scheme, including five Estonians, one Russian, one Moldovan and one unidentified man. Prosecutors allege that the men "used sophisticated hacking techniques" to defeat the company's encryption system. The scam, which hit RBS WorldPay last November, involved an elaborate plan in which the attackers first bypassed the encryption on the debit cards, which RBS WorldPay issues to customers for employee payroll purposes. They then raised the limits on the accounts attached to the cards.
Google

Submission + - SPAM: A Gift From Google: Free Airport Wi-Fi

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Google is giving you something to be thankful for as you travel over the river and through the woods this holiday season. The company announced today that it is offering free Wi-Fi at 47 airports across the U.S. between today and January 15. If you haven't booked your flights yet, you want to factor this into your plans. The 47 airports include Las Vegas, San Jose, Boston, Baltimore, Burbank, Houston, Indianapolis, Seattle, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, St. Louis and Charlotte.
Link to Original Source
Mozilla

Submission + - Firefox Most Vulnerable Browser, Safari Close (net-security.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Cenzic released its report revealing the most prominent types of Web application vulnerabilities for the first half of 2009. The report identified over 3,100 total vulnerabilities, which is a 10 percent increase in Web application vulnerabilities compared to the second half of 2008. Among Web browsers, Mozilla Firefox had the largest percentage of Web vulnerabilities, followed by Apple Safari, whose browser showed a vast increase in exploits, due to vulnerabilities reported in the Safari iPhone browser.
Games

Submission + - Mafia Wars CEO Brags About Scamming Users (consumerist.com)

Submitted by
jamie
jamie writes: "Mark Pincus, CEO of the company that brought us Mafia Wars, says: 'I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar which was like, I don't know, I downloaded it once and couldn't get rid of it.'"
Data Storage

Submission + - Engineers make Fingernail-size chip that holds 1TB (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Engineers from North Carolina State University have created a new fingernail-size chip that can hold 1 trillion bytes (a terabyte) of data. They said their nanostructured Ni-MgO system can store up to 20 high-definition DVDs or 250 million pages of text, "far exceeding the storage capacities of today's computer memory systems." Using the process of selective doping, in which an impurity is added to a material whose properties consequently change, the engineers worked at nanoscale and added metal nickel to magnesium oxide, a ceramic. The resulting material contained clusters of nickel atoms no bigger than 10 square nanometers — a pinhead has a diameter of 1 million nanometers. The discovery represents a 90% size reduction compared with today's techniques, and an advancement that could boost computer storage capacity."Instead of making a chip that stores 20 gigabytes, you have one that can handle one terabyte, or 50 times more data," said the team's leader, Jagdish "Jay" Narayan, director of the National Science Foundation Center for Advanced Materials and Smart Structures at the university.The process also shows promise for boosting vehicles' fuel economy and reducing heat produced by semiconductors, a potentially important development for more efficient energy production.

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