Posts

Posted on

TECH BITS: Check you this transparent car!

Hi,

Created by Susumu Tachi and Masahiko Inami of the Graduate School of Media Design at Keio University, the project is designed to help drivers stay aware of their surroundings. The technology isn’t new – this sort of video camouflage has been around for a while – but by shrinking it down and sticking it into a car you can do a sort of reverse camouflage. Instead of hiding objects with light, the projector renders the Toyota Prius in the video “transparent.”

Check it out:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/03/check-out-this-amazing-transparent-car/?ncid=rss

 

Posted on

TECH BITS: Zuckerberg sees “50 to 100 million” Oculus units sold in next decade

As a rule, you don’t spend $2 billion on a company like Oculus without expecting the technology to eventually reach some kind of world-changing scale. In an earnings call earlier this week, though, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it could take a little bit of time before virtual reality becomes a market force that could represent the kind of “new major computing platform” that only comes around once every ten or 15 years.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/10/zuckerberg-sees-50-to-100-million-oculus-units-sold-in-next-decade/

Posted on

TECH BITS: Flight cancelled when “Al-Quida” Wi-Fi network became available.

Hi,

Someone had too much fun making a wireless network available on a flight. It’s interesting how relatively innocent jokes doesn’t stay innocent when you pick an airplane or airport for them. In this case it took three hours to get the plane off the ground because of the name of one of the wi-fi networks. Whoever did it should not get their free complimentary beverage (if they still offer anything that is free):

 

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/10/flight-cancelled-when-al-quida-wi-fi-network-became-available/#p3

 

 

Posted on

PRIVACY BITS: Is Apple Pay secure?

 

Apple has launched their PayPal/Google Wallet killer Apple Pay. Or so they like to believe. Should the Google and PayPal worry? I think they should since Apple Pay has taken the whole concept of online payments a step further. But is this a step forward? Yes, I think it may be. In this piece it’s being explained why Apple Pay is more secure than other methods of payments but not the final totally secure solution:

 

http://www.gottabemobile.com/2014/10/21/is-apple-pay-safe-and-secure/

Posted on

TECH BITS: Don’t print your own gun in Japan!

A 28-year-old employee at Shonan Institute of Technology in Japan, Yoshitomo Imura decided to print a few guns. I mean, he works at a technology institute and had access to the hardware needed to print the guns. So he did it. And then he got arrested and you think he would get his guns  (and maybe printer?) taken away and then a fine. Not so. He just got a 2 -two- year prison sentence for his 3-D printing adventures. Japan has strict gun laws and this shows just how strict they really are!

http://3dprint.com/20019/sentence-imura-3d-printed-gun/

Posted on

WEB BITS: Ebola.com is for sale.

Hi,

Most of us know that purchasing domains with future appreciation potential can be a business in itself. I’ve been a ‘victim’ of that myself working with acquiring a domain name for a business owned by domain speculators. You end up having to deal with people who have no other interest in the domain than being able to squeeze as much money out of it as possible. It’s their business and they will claim they are taking on a risk purchasing Internet real estate that may not appreciate and should be rewarded accordingly if they hit jackpot.

I do not really know how I feel about this, but when I found out that ‘Ebola.com’ is for sale by people who purchased it hoping it would appreciate over time I got this bad taste in my mouth since what they are betting on is what we are seeing now: Ebola hitting the news because people are suffering and dying from it. The owners of the domain my claim that the appreciation of the domain could also be based on someone finding a cure, but I think they know that what has happened now through this outbreak may be very good for their bottom line.

Again, I am ambivalent in this regard and think that people should be able to deal in domain names. The question is if there should be some limitations attached to this trade so that we do not see a couple of people getting rich by an outbreak of something as horrific as Ebola.

Come to think of it, is ‘pandemic.com’ taken or offered for sale at a reasonable price? 🙂 

Posted on

TECH BITS: Lollipop anyone?

Hi,

The phone heads were so ready for the latest and greatest Android called Lollipop just launched. I hope it doesn’t suck since we would see an endless series of puns focused on sucking and lollipops. And now hope I didn’t start something! 🙂

Anyhow, Google is preparing updates some of theirs important apps like Gmail to have them look ‘lollipoppy” which means more colorful forcing as many as possible to ditch their 8 month old Kit-Kat phone for one with Lollipop. Is it worth it though?  Here is everything you need to know about Lollipop and then some:

Everything you need to know about Android Lollipop

 

 

Posted on

PRIVACY BITS: The EU says you have the right to be forgotten. The BBC says “no, not really”.

The BBC said today that it will soon begin publishing a public log of articles whose links have been removed from Google and other search engine results under the EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’ ruling. So now they will start publishing a list of forgotten articles. 

Each time Google removes a link, it notifies the publisher that it has been removed. It’s this list of notifications that the BBC will use to build a list of removed search URLs. 46 BBC articles had already been removed from search results under the highly controversial rule.

More here:

BBC to publish ‘right to be forgotten’ removals list.

Posted on

SECURITY BITS: The “Poodle” attack and the end of SSLv3

Finally a good piece on the Poodle attack and the end of SSLv3 from on Mozilla Blog. The short version:

In late September, a team at Google discovered a serious vulnerability in SSL 3.0 that can be exploited to steal certain confidential information, such as cookies. This vulnerability, known as “POODLE”, is similar to the BEAST attack. By exploiting this vulnerability, an attacker can gain access to things like passwords and cookies, enabling him to access a user’s private account data on a website.

Any website that supports SSLv3 is vulnerable to POODLE, even if it also supports more recent versions of TLS. In particular, these servers are subject to a downgrade attack, in which the attacker tricks the browser into connecting with SSLv3. This relies on a behavior of browsers called insecure fallback, where browsers attempt to negotiate lower versions of TLS or SSL when connections fail.

 

Today, Firefox uses SSLv3 for only about 0.3% of HTTPS connections. That’s a small percentage, but due to the size of the Web, it still amounts to millions of transactions per day.

You can find all the information you need from a Mozilla perspective here:

The Mozilla Blog

Posted on

TECH BITS: So now we’re supposed to want a “PadPhone” according to ASUS. Really? (This is not a review!)

Hi,

How they are struggling to find devices we didn’t know we wanted! One useless idea after the other while the only design concept that have seemed to work is to make the phone screen bigger and brighter and making really small or really big tablets. And then ASUS decides to combine the tablet and the phone. The phone is, yes, a phone. A decent phone even it looks like. But it comes with a dock which is actually a tablet. You hook your phone up on the back of the dock which is also a tablet and voila you have a, yes you guessed it, a tablet! All your stuff on a bigger tablet screen while your phone screen is hidden and unreachable.

Normally I blow of new design concepts like this immediately, but with this one I can’t decided whether it’s a good idea or not, or even if I think it will work reliably. But I have to say that there’s something here that appeals to me: I have one device with all my data on it which is a phone, and when I need a bigger screen I have one available and do not need to store and keep track of data on two devices. Yes, I kinda like it! But this is a concept that has to prove itself though daily use. If the phone isn’t good or the tablet screen is dull it all falls apart. On the other hand, if they have pulled this off making it a good phone and a decent tablet I might be willing to spend some time on finding out whether this is a design concept we will see more of and be happy to see more of.

Take a look here: The ASUS PadPhone

 

The PadPhone