An upcoming DARPA robot challenge is focused on developing robots to use tools, climb stairs, and drive cars.
Subscribers to organizations that sell exploits for vulnerabilities not yet known to software developers gain daily access to in the world’s most popular technology, a study shows. NSS Labs, which is in the business of testing security products for corporate subscribers, found that over the last three years, subscribers of two major vulnerability programs had access on any given day to at least 58 in Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, or Adobe products. In addition, NSS labs found that an average of 151 days passed from the time when the programs purchased a vulnerability from a researcher and the affected vendor released a patch. Some vendors buy in The findings, released earlier this month, were based on an analysis of ten years of data from TippingPoint, a network security maker Hewlett-Packard acquired in 2010, and iDefense, a security intelligence service owned by VeriSign. Both organizations buy vulnerabilities, inform subscribers, and work with vendors in producing patches.
Next year will see demonstrable evidence of the with killer applications for them. So says Cisco, which recently offered its own predictions on technology trends for 2014. They understandably include markets Cisco is focusing on and looking to drive in order to grow revenue. Maciej Kranz The first is a market that includes IP-enabled sensors embedded in machines to allow them to connect and share information with people and other machines across the Internet. This market will see 50 billion devices connected by 2020 and a value of $14.4 trillion, Cisco has said.
Microsoft may revert to separate release schedules for consumer and business versions of Windows, the company’s top operating system executive hinted recently. At a technology symposium hosted by financial services giant Credit Suisse, Tony Myerson acknowledged the operating system adoption chasm between consumers and more conservative corporations. Myerson, who formerly led the Windows Phone team, was to head all client-based OS development, including smartphones, tablets, PCs, and the Xbox game console. ”The world has shown that these two different customers really have divergent needs,” Myerson said, according to a of his time on stage. “And there may be different cadences, or different ways in which we talk to those two customers. And so [while Windows] 8.1 and [Windows] 8.1 Pro both came at the same time, it’s not clear to me that’s the right way to serve the consumer market. [But] it may be the right way to continue serving the enterprise market.” Previous policy Myerson’s comment hinted at a return to a practice of about ten years ago, when Microsoft delivered new operating systems to the company’s consumer and commercial customers on different schedules.
The ubiquitous warnings about online shopping risks are well founded. As numerous experts are reminding consumers and businesses, the high season for shopping is also the high season for cybercrime. To paraphrase the song playing in the mall, “It’s the mo-o-o-ost dangerous time of the year.” But tech crime is not limited to the cyber world. There are real-world risks as well, largely from sophisticated hardware that can steal your personal information just as effectively as any online scam. That doesn’t mean the major focus on cyber risks is misplaced they are more varied and abundant than real-world threats.
Cloud adopters face serious risk in the next two years because of the strong possibility that their provider will be acquired or forced out of business, according to analysts at Gartner. The research firm is predicting a major consolidation in cloud services and estimates that about 25 percent of the top 100 IT service providers in the infrastructure space won’t be around by 2015. “One in four vendors will be gone for whatever reason—acquisition, bankruptcy,” said William Maurer, a Gartner analyst. Most of the time, the changes will come through acquisition. ”There is real risk,” said Maurer to a packed room for his presentation at the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas last week. ”We’re in the phase of buyer beware with cloud,” said Michael Salvador, who attended the presentation. He is a technical solutions manager at Belden, which makes cable, connectivity, and networking products. “You better do your research—there’s no safety net out there,” he said.
The first photograph shows a slightly overweight young man standing in front of a white Porsche Cayenne, cigarette in hand, expression uneasy. In a second he appears to be reading a charge sheet as a masked military policeman in black stands guard in the background. Could this confused-looking individual really be the creator of one of the most successful and feared cybercrime tools of all time? As , the still-unnamed 27-year old man is said to be ‘Paunch’ (his nickname), arrested on 4 October with a dozen others in the city of Togliatti, accused of programming the hugely successful Blackhole Exploit Kit used in attacks on countless millions of Internet users since 2010.
Traditional PCs are continuing to give up ground to smartphones and tablets.
Google has acquired Boston Dynamics, a company that builds robots that mimic the movements of humans and animals with stunning dexterity and speed. ”We are looking forward to this next chapter in robotics and in what we can accomplish as part of the Google team,” Boston Dynamics co-founder Marc Raibert said via email. Boston Dynamics is the eighth robotics company that Google has acquired in the past six months, according to The New York Times, which first that Google has named former Android chief Andy Rubin as the company’s lead for its robotics projects. On its YouTube as he walks, squats and does calisthenics, and simulates human physiology by controlling its temperature, humidity and sweating, according to the company.
Microsoft introduced Windows XP in 2001, and it became an instant success. It combined the well-received consumer user interface from Windows 98 with the stability of Windows NT, was out-of-the-box Internet capable with an excellent browser—Internet Explorer (IE)—and quickly took over the market. In terms of security, XP was immediately the target of attacks. In 2004, Microsoft hit a milestone in this area, when it unveiled Windows XP SP2, which featured a built-in, always-on firewall that effectively ended the era of the large-scale Internet worms, such as Blaster, Sasser, and Slammer. As a result, Windows XP became a huge hit with over 600 million installations worldwide. But in April of next year, 2014, Microsoft will execute on its long published maintenance plan and for Windows XP. Starting in May, Windows XP will stop receiving security updates, even for highly critical security flaws such as September’s and November’s IE zero-day that targeted Windows 7 and, you guessed it, Windows XP. By mid-2014, new and (by then) unfixable security flaws for XP will be well-known and freely traded in the cybercriminal underground. To illustrate this certainty, let’s take a look at this year’s IE security bulletins. There have been fourteen updates so far, one each month through November, plus additional updates in February, May and November to cover zero-days, addressing a total of 117 vulnerabilities. Windows XP was affected by 75 of the vulnerabilities, including 68 rated critical, which accounts for 64 percent of total vulnerabilities and 90 percent of critical vulnerabilities this year alone.
Mozilla last week released Firefox 26, which kicked off a limited form of click-to-play function and patched 15 security vulnerabilities, six of which were marked “critical.” Click-to-play—a security feature that requires users to authorize the use of a plug-in when a website or page element requires it— by other browsers as protection against a rising tide of exploits that leverage bugs in plug-ins, particularly Adobe’s Flash Player and Oracle’s Java. Google’s Chrome, for example, has long offered click-to-play, although it has been turned off by default. In January 2013, Mozilla announced it would for all installed plug-ins except for Flash, then later added the feature to developer and beta builds of Firefox 26.
A 64-bit version of the notorious Zeus family of banking malware has been found, an indication that cybercriminals are preparing for the software industry’s move away from older 32-bit architectures. Kaspersky Lab discovered the 64-bit version of Zeus within a 32-bit sample. A code analysis indicates the malware has been circulating the Internet at least since June. The discovery is considered a milestone because the and its variants indicates that 64-bit development in the underground has become mainstream, Kurt Baumgartner, principal security researcher for Kaspersky, said. This means the security industry now has a “certain and real 64-bit problem.” ”Researchers and the security community have long anticipated that more and more 64-bit malware would arrive on the scene, and here is one of the most used, most problematic pieces of spyware taking on that challenge,” Baumgartner told CSOonline.
A slightly-smaller percentage of American families plan to during the holiday sales season than last year, a market research company reported today. According to Dallas-based Parks Associates, 29 percent of 2500 U.S. households surveyed said that a tablet was on their to-get gift lists, down from 32 percent in the same period of 2012. But tablets remain the hot-ticket item in consumer electronics, said John Barrett, director consumer analytics at Parks—and Apple’s iPad is still the top preferred brand, repeating its position of 2012 and 2011. Amazon, which sells the Kindle, and Samsung were again in second and third place, choice-wise, while Microsoft products made their debut this year in the fourth spot. Microsoft sells its own line of tablets, dubbed Surface, in several configurations, including the lower-priced Surface 2 that runs Windows RT and the more expensive
If you have a 3D printer, you can make a lot of really great gifts yourself, and there are plenty of services that will print them for you as well.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said Friday saying she was “very sorry” for this week’s which she implied has affected roughly one million users. ”This has been a very frustrating week for our users and we are very sorry,” she said in a on Tumblr, adding that, “we really let you down this week.” Reports surfaced late Monday that Yahoo was having some with Yahoo Mail, one of the company’s most important services with about 100 million daily users. Yahoo confirmed the outage at the time but details were sketchy about what caused it or how many people were affected. Mayer’s post Friday sheds a little bit more light on the fiasco.
From single digits to trillions, the tech industry loves numbers, and it generated plenty of them in 2013. Here’s a look at some of the figures that stand out from the year: won by Netflix in 2013. “House of Cards” won for best director, marking the first major Emmy win for Internet content. The show also won awards for best casting and best cinematography for a single-camera series. Number of lines of code behind the beleaguered Healthcare.gov website. Programmers spent most of October and November debugging and rewriting the code to get the site up to speed. Number of tweets sent in the single second after the phrase “balus” was uttered during the Japanese TV screening of Hayao Miyazaki’s animated movie “Castle in the Sky.” Fans arranged to mass-tweet the phrase for no particular reason, leading to the creation of the new Twitter record at 11:21.50 p.m. local time on August 3.
Just make sure that the PIN numbers don't match the ones to your bank account.
Sprint is considering an acquisition of T-Mobile US that would reduce the U.S. mobile industry to three large carriers if approved by regulators. The country’s third-largest mobile operator, which itself was acquired by Japan’s SoftBank only months ago, is studying regulatory concerns and might make a bid in the first half of next year, according to a Wall Street Journal on Friday that cited unnamed sources. A merger of Sprint and T-Mobile would eliminate one major national competitor from the market, so it could draw fire from antitrust regulators. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission a proposed merger of T-Mobile and AT&T. If regulators react badly to Sprint’s hints at buying T-Mobile, the bid may never happen, the Journal said. Consumer activist groups wasted no time attacking the reported merger plan.
The latest twist in the debate over in-flight calling might allow users of some Internet-based services to do voice and video chats immediately on some airliners. JetBlue has launched in-flight Wi-Fi designed to carry streaming video, which is now live on three aircraft, the airline announced Thursday. JetBlue is blocking some ports used by Internet voice and video chat services, but it isn’t stopping passengers from using voice. ”We’re not currently policing it,” spokesman Morgan Johnston said. “If we hear from our customers that there’s an overwhelming desire to police it, we’ll certainly take that into consideration.” JetBlue will handle complaints about individual passengers’ voice calls on a case by case basis as part of maintaining harmony in the cabin, Johnston said.
Robotnaut 2, the robot aboard the International Space station, is going to get new robotic apendages specially designed for zero gravity. R2 arrived in space in February 2011 and has been put to use since August of that year, but only with robotic arms. As you’ll see in this video report, the legs that R2 will have added seem to function more like arms, but nonetheless will offer the robot a greater ability to help astronauts with mundane or dangerous tasks. R2 will receive its legs early next year. While the legs can work both inside and outside the space station, R2’s upper body will need some upgrades before it can enter the harsh vacuum of space. The leg attachments have been a long time coming. Back when R2 powered up in August 2011, engineers hoped to have its legs attached by the end of the year. At this point they’re two years behind schedule.
The two groups will band together to form a super hybrid division that makes smartphone cameras, camera smartphones, and everything in between.
Zwei junge Zürcher haben vor knapp einem Jahr eine App für iPhones veröffentlicht, die virtuelle Einkaufslisten einfach teilen lässt. Nun kommt «Bring» auch für Android-Phones.
In Japan können jetzt sehbehinderte Schüler Gegenstände ausdrucken. Das soll den Kindern helfen, ihr Vorstellungsvermögen zu erweitern.
Linux-Gaming für die Stube: Valve will ab sofort sein Betriebssystem SteamOS veröffentlichen. Gleichzeitig werden die ersten 300 Steam-Machine-Prototypen an Tester übergeben.
Die Facebook-Tochter Instragram baut aus: Neu ist das private Versenden von Bildern möglich. Damit greift der Dienst Snapchat an, der zuvor eine Übernahme durch Facebook abgelehnt hatte.
Megaupload-Gründer Kim Dotcom hat heute sein eigenes Musikalbum veröffentlicht. Er beschreibt seine Werke als «poppige Melodien, zu denen man in der Disco tanzen kann».
Eine Abmahnwelle gegen deutsche Nutzer des Porno-Streamingportals Redtube hat international für Schlagzeilen gesorgt. Jetzt haben die Betroffenen eine Gegenklage eingereicht.
Mit einem kostenlosen Angebot für Smartphones und Tablets will der Musik-Streaming-Dienst Spotify neue Abonnenten gewinnen. Die Gratis-Nutzer müssen jedoch mit Einschränkungen leben.
Goth, Hipster oder Biker? Forscher haben ein Programm entwickelt, das erkennen soll, zu welcher Subkultur jemand gehört. Von der Technik profitieren soll einst die Werbeindustrie.
Schon im nächsten Jahr soll das erste Smartphone mit dem offenen Betriebssystem Ubuntu auf den Markt kommen. Ein ähnliches Projekt ist diesen Sommer gescheitert.
Die WLAN-Kamera BSW 100 von Switel überwacht das Zuhause, schlafende Babys oder den Hauseingang. Dabei streamt sie die Bilder jederzeit aufs Smartphone.
Auf Augenhöhe: Nachdem Sony in kurzer Zeit mehr als zwei Millionen PS4-Konsolen verkauft hat, zieht Microsoft mit der Xbox One nun nach und vermeldet auch einen Absatzrekord.
Chinas Grossstädte haben mit Smog-Problemen zu kämpfen. Der Super-Rechner Tianhe-1A soll nun früh vor Verschmutzungen warnen. So soll schneller auf Notfälle reagiert werden können.
Der Nachrichtendienst Twitter hat ein neues prominentes Mitglied. George H. W. Bush zwitscherte anlässlich Nelson Mandelas Beerdigung zum ersten Mal.
Es mangle im Kampf gegen Terror an Alternativen, erklärte NSA-Chef Keith Alexander. Man sei allerdings offen für eine andere Lösung als die flächendeckende Überwachung.