Tech Today w/ Ken May

As many as 200 computers belonging to government ministries, a nuclear safety agency and a regional petroleum company are under the control of sophisticated espionage software that has ties to attackers who have previously penetrated RSA , the Dalai Lama’s network, and dozens of high-level government systems, researchers said. The discovery, disclosed by members of Dell SecureWorks at this year’s RSA security conference in San Francisco, underscores the endurance of attacks known as APTs, or advanced persistent threats. One of the malware samples used in the espionage campaign was first detailed in a 2010 report (PDF) that revealed a massive spy network that targeted the government of India, the Dalai Lama and other Chinese dissidents located in Tibet. A later report from antivirus provider Trend Micro said the “Enfal” malware, aka the “Lurid Downloader,” infected at least 1,465 computers in 61 countries. The campaign discovered by SecureWorks also used a second malware family known as “RegSubsDat” that was first identified in 2009. Read the comments on this post

Have you ever had a problem installing the latest and greatest PC game and were forced to scour semi-helpful forum posts for hours looking for a solution? Andrew Tsai certainly has, and he created PCGamingWiki so no one else ever has to. More »

You’re about to watch a test firing of BAE’s experimental railgun demonstrating why the technology isn’t science fiction anymore. Load an aluminum projectile into the 12-meter barrel and one million amps will hypersonically propel it toward the target. The conflagration you’ll witness is due to the metal slug burning off in the charged air. In April, General Atomics will supply its own prototype so the military can identify which one is closer to making its way aboard the battleships of the 2020′s. Anyway, now you can go watch the video fully aware of what’s going on, try not to sit there with your mouth open. Continue reading Navy test-fires weaponized railgun with explosive results (video) Navy test-fires weaponized railgun with explosive results (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 12:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink Wired | | Email this | Comments

New submitter xenn writes “The linked article, titled by TVNZ as ‘Kim Dotcom bail appeal dismissed, funds released,’ somehow doesn’t quite capture the drama the lies within… ‘Meanwhile, it emerged today that U.S. authorities are investigating Dotcom’s pregnant wife, Mona Dotcom, as part of a world-wide sting on Internet piracy. Toohey said she had received a preliminary application from the U.S. indicating that Mona could have been involved in Megaupload.’” Torrentfreak adds that U.S. attempts to put Kim Dotcom back in jail failed, and he’s been granted access to his bank accounts to cover essential expenses (to the tune of $30+k per month). Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Well, this is an exciting bit of news for green drivers. Envia Systems has come up with a new battery technology that could give a $20,000 electric car a range of 300 miles to a charge. Yes, please? More »

If Windows Vista was Microsoft’s folly – a mish-mash of ideas not fully baked and aimed at multiple constituencies – Windows 8 is Microsoft’s rebirth. To get ecstatic about it isn’t quite the direction I’d like to take this mini-review, but let’s just say that Microsoft is on the cusp of getting things right. As we said before, Windows 8 will ruffle a lot of feathers. The first and most obvious comparison is with the new Windows Phone interface. The “Start” menu is gone, replaced by what amounts to the entire Metro UI. This UI – the one with the multiple, animated squares, is the one that matters. Then there’s the Explorer. Every so often – and it will happen more in the beginning of Win8′s life cycle, the OS drops into “original” Windows, the Windows of tiny, uselessly-labeled buttons and overlapping windows and notification screens. Gone are the tiles and gently pulsing images, in comes Windows 95. Woe betide Microsoft for maintaining ties to the original Windows with this odd accretion of functionality – they’re going to be ripped apart by the blogging masses – but this is the second time I’ve seen the interface and I’m accepting of the compromise. Going from Metro to “Windows” is like going from the Museum of Modern Art to a bodega across the street. You’ll get more done, but damned if you don’t miss the cool, calm design and attention to detail. The improvements made in this version include a split keyboard for improved on-screen typing, considerably improved gestures including a cool “left side swipe” that brings up all running applications, and improved PIM apps like Mail and Calendar that are so far from Outlook as to make Outlook look like a steam-powered Rolodex. SkyDrive interactivity allows users to keep their settings, downloaded apps and content, and look and feel from PC to PC, a very interesting concept that bears further examination. As we noted earlier, Windows Live is gone, replaced by Microsoft Account. The distinction is an important one. In short, Microsoft Account allows IT managers to distribute apps, settings, and files to any computer, anywhere, including mobile devices. You could log into a friend’s computer and see all of your SkyDrive files and have access to app downloads. Even your wallpaper will move over. Then, when you log out, all that data is gone. That’s how it works in theory, at least, and it should improve an IT guy’s life immensely. This goes hand-in-hand with improved battery life and performance. Win8, dependent on fairly efficient on-screen animations, reduces the need for heavy duty graphics activity. I asked Microsoft if there are any savings associated with what amounts to a vector-based graphical interface and they said that the OSes energy efficiency is much improved over previous versions. Just stay out of the wild jungle that is the Windows Desktop and you’re good. Developers will be pleased with the cool new Metro UI and, more important, the concept of “contracts,” a sort of pipe-slash-API that allows apps to share pieces of data. Search is the most interesting application of these contracts. For example, when a user performs a search, all of the apps on the device offer up their own contracts. Once you start to drill down into a search, these contracted apps expose what they’ve found during their own searches without exposing anything else. Think of it as a roll call for apps where the OS requests some data and the apps reply in turn. The same goes for sharing. Twitter and email sharing become integral parts in the sharing experience when those apps make their contracts visible. Microsoft is actually playing down the compromises it has made with Windows 8, focusing instead on their road map for future features. Win8 is not an accretion of functionality over an old platform. It is, instead, a rethinking of the Windows experience that will leave many queasy. While it’s fun for us to go swiping along through tiles and writing contracts with daemons, it’s going to be a massive change for “regular” users who are used to the old mouse-and-window way of doing things. The question is whether Microsoft can offer a compelling reason to rewrite apps in Metro (they will) and whether users will take to Win8 as quickly as they did Win7 (I’m not so sure.) A fleet IT buyer will look at Windows 8 and wait things out but the move will be inevitable, especially as users begin expecting Metro and keep getting XP. In the end, Windows 8 is a massive change and an obvious next step. The OS leaves competitors in the relative dust, at least in terms of usability, and paves the way for a world of touchscreens and Kinect-like interaction. A side note: as evidence of the difficulty folks will have at getting used to this new OS, I forced myself to use Win8 for most of last week, hooking it up to a big monitor and connected a keyboard and mouse. Oddly, as much as I loved the concepts, I just couldn’t quit the old icon/window interface of OS X. This isn’t a critique of Win8 in its current form simply because the OS isn’t finished yet. It’s an acknowledgement of the mental models that Microsoft has built up inside us for decades now and an understanding that the road ahead will be a hard one – but the destination will be worth the slog. Click to view slideshow.

The Nook Simple Touch is great for reading ebooks. It’s got plenty of storage, it’s small enough to carry anywhere, can be used with one hand, can hold tons of books, its e-ink display is crisp and easy to read, and most importantly, it runs a skinned and customized version of Android behind Barnes and Noble’s interface. I got my hands on one a couple of weeks ago from a friend, and with about a half-hour, some basic tools, and a little patience, I turned my new Nook into a solid starter Android tablet with complete access to the Android Market, Google apps, your email, and the web. Here’s how. More »

As Microsoft released the Windows 8 Consumer Preview today , it also published a product guide for business users of the operating system . In the guide, it was revealed that the ARM-based version of Windows 8 will lack some of the management features available to the version running on PCs—a limitation that may make the mobile version of the operating system a little less attractive to large enterprises out of the gate. Touting the long battery life of ARM-based devices, the guide tempers expectations: “Although the ARM-based version of Windows does not include the same manageability features that are in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, businesses can use these power-saving devices in unmanaged environments.” That means ARM devices won’t be able to be added to Active Directory domains and have their user access managed by system administrators, or be remotely managed through Microsoft’s System Center environment. The 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 8 for x86 systems will integrate into existing management systems, according to Microsoft, allowing administrators to continue to use the same tools for system configuration, security management, and other tasks. And as an alternative for organizations requiring more secure access from mobile users, Microsoft outlined a “Windows to Go” version of the operating system that can use a USB drive to boot a PC from an approved corporate Windows 8 image, allowing the user to connect to the enterprise network remotely from an untrusted system without giving the locally installed operating system access to the network. While that may be a good solution for employees who work from home or remote shared offices, the lack of management for ARM devices may make it harder for Microsoft to make a dent in Apple’s iPad share in the enterprise. A number of mobile device management tools, including Odyssey Software’s Athena , already integrate iOS, Blackberry, and Android support (as well as the current Windows Mobile) into Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager, and allow the locking down of those devices’ applications and features for more managed environments. Read the comments on this post

Broadcom might have unveiled a bevy of 802.11ac chipsets back at CES , however when it came to availability the chipmaker played more than coy as to when they’d sashay their way out of developmental labs and into the hands of actual consumers. Fast-forward to MWC and the chipmaker’s isn’t nearly as shy, proclaiming its future WiFi solutions were “beyond the sampling phase” and now in preproduction. Also of note, was the estimate that finished products (read: the ones you can buy) containing this tech would go on sale by mid-2012. With competitor, Qualcomm, also previewing its 802.11ac concoction , could this year possibly shape up to golden era of speedy wireless transfers? Bring it on, we say. Broadcom: 802.11ac chipsets already in preproduction, preparing router invasion in summer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 05:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Network World | Email this | Comments

What has Mary Lou Jepsen been up to since 3M’s cash injection ? It’s hard to say, but her sunlight-readable PixelQi panels are still popping up on the odd device — like this Windows 7 slate from little-known Evigroup . The 10-inch PadPro is aimed at graphics types who are willing to bid adieu to €599 ($800) in return for a pressure-sensitive display, a 1.6GHz Atom processor (no mention of Cedar Trail ), 1GB RAM and 160GB hard-drive. They also need to really hate Android . PixelQi has heavy night, wakes up married to French ‘PadPro’ tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 07:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Evigroup (French) | Email this | Comments