Dubstep doesn’t get much love these days, but that hasn’t stopped it from dominating the top 40 charts. Here’s the story of where dubstep came from and why there’s more to it than meets the ear. Read more…
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Why Dubstep Comes From the Future
The chipmaker says a USB bug in the chipset that accompanies the “Haswell” processor exists and will be fixed. [Read more]
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Intel confirms USB bug in ‘Haswell’ chipset
Trailrunner7 writes “Source code and a private signing key for firmware manufactured by a popular PC hardware maker American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) have been found on an open FTP server hosted in Taiwan. Researcher Brandan Wilson found the company’s data hosted on an unnamed vendor’s FTP server. Among the vendor’s internal emails, system images, high-resolution PCB images and private Excel spreadsheets was the source code for different versions of AMI firmware, code that was current as of February 2012, along with the private signing key for the Ivy Bridge firmware architecture. AMI builds the AMIBIOS BIOS firmware based on the UEFI specification for PC and server motherboards built by AMI and other manufacturers. The company started out as a motherboard maker, and also built storage controllers and remote management cards found in many Dell and HP computers. ‘The worst case is the creation of a persistent, Trojanized update that would allow remote access to the system at the lowest possible level,’ researcher Adam Caudill said. ‘Another possibility would be the creation of an update that would render the system unbootable, requiring replacement of the mainboard.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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AMI Firmware Source Code, Private Key Leaked
A ring-tailed cat, a type of raccoon and inspiration for Ubuntu Raring Ringtail. Wikimedia Commons Ubuntu 13.04, scheduled for release on April 25, is now available for testing in its second and final beta release. Nicknamed “Raring Ringtail,” Ubuntu 13.04 is one of the final releases that’s just for desktops and servers. By this time next year, Canonical intends to release a single version of Ubuntu targeting all form factors, including smartphones and tablets. Ubuntu developers decided to disable a tool that allows easy installation of Ubuntu alongside an existing Windows instance. Wubi, short for Windows-based Ubuntu Installer, lets users install Ubuntu on the same disk partition as a Windows instance. “Due to various bugs in Wubi that have not been addressed in time for this Final Beta, the Ubuntu team will not be releasing the Wubi installer with 13.04,” a Raring Ringtail technical overview states . “Combined with the fact that Wubi has not been updated to work with Windows 8, and the focus on mobile client over desktop, the Foundations team does not expect Wubi to be in a releasable state for 13.04.” This doesn’t mean users can’t dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu. Without Wubi, dual-booting is slightly more complicated to set up and requires separate disk partitions. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Ubuntu “Raring Ringtail” hits beta, disables Windows dual-boot tool
Apple has been forced to change how iOS devices use VPN following a $368.2 million patent verdict in favor of patent and research firm VirnetX. The company wrote about the changes in a support document posted to its website on Thursday (hat tip to AppleInsider ), saying the behavior of VPN On Demand would be different from expected starting with iOS 6.1, and the changes would come in an update that will be released this April. “Due to a lawsuit by VirnetX, Apple will be changing the behavior of VPN On Demand for iOS devices using iOS 6.1 and later,” Apple wrote. “This change will be distributed in an update later this month.” The changes are relatively minor—devices with VPN On Demand configured to “always” will instead behave as if they’re set up to “establish [a connection] if needed.” Apple says the device in question will then only establish a new VPN On Demand connection if it’s not able to resolve the DNS of the host it wants to reach (these settings can currently be found within Settings > General > VPN). Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Apple says VPN changes coming in iOS thanks to VirnetX verdict
If you regularly find yourself perplexed at ATMs, help is at hand. Bank of America has announced that it’s launching a new system that will allow you to hold a live video chat with bank staff to help guide you through your ineptitude. More »
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Bank of America Is Adding Teller Video Chat to Its ATMs
3D printing isn’t all about making guns and toys —some researchers are using it to make real medical advances . Now, a team of researchers from the University of Oxford has managed to create a 3D printer that can produce synthetic tissue using just water and oil. More »
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Scientists Can Print Synthetic Tissue Using Just Water and Oil
Greg Costikyan sez, inBloom , a Gates-funded non-profit to harness data to improve grade school education, has partnered with New York and eight other states to encourage the development of apps to “further education” by using intimate data about students, without parental consent and with no ability for parents to opt out. Among the data shared are name, address, phone numbers, test scores, grades, economic status, test scores, disciplinary records, picture, email, race, developmental delay… just about everything conceivable , and all specific, none of it anonymized. inBloom has arrangements with nine states (New York, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Georgia, Delaware and Kentucky) to do this. The XML schema used are downloadable here . Anyone can register as a developer and start using “sample” data, but “real” data is supposedly only available to developers with contracts with a school board. But this includes for-profit, third party developers, such as, say, Amplify, a News Corp subsidiary with a contract with New York. And it doesn’t appear there are any constraints on their use of this data. Who is Stockpiling and Sharing Private Information About New York Students? ( Thanks, Greg! )
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American public schools in 9 states sharing every conceivable personal detail of their students with third parties
Though we know in theoretical terms that North Korea has missiles that could hit Los Angeles , where else could North Korea’s missiles actually hit? With all the hub bub about North Korea and its redeployment of missiles on North Korea’s eastern coast, the Washington Post created a map showing the range of North Korea’s various missiles. More »
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How Far Can North Korea’s Missiles Actually Reach?