Month: November 2012

The Facebook Cheat Sheet Shows All the Keyboard Shortcuts to Use Facebook Faster

Save some time (while wasting time) on Facebook with handy keyboard shortcuts for quickly getting around the social networking site, finding conversations, and composing messages. This Facebook Cheat Sheet offers up all the shortcuts plus a guide to emoticons. More »

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The Facebook Cheat Sheet Shows All the Keyboard Shortcuts to Use Facebook Faster

Hack a Universal Remote to Control Your Lights

Do you have one of those universal remotes laying around that you can’t use with all your equipment? Over on the hacking blog Handya, Andy shows off how to hack a light switch so you can control it with the remote you already have sitting around. More »

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Hack a Universal Remote to Control Your Lights

Microsoft Just Messed Up and Gave Out a Free Windows 8 Activation Key

If you’ve been wanting to upgrade to Windows 8 but baulk at paying then, firstly, you’re a bad person but, secondly, now your opportunity’s here. Microsoft just screwed up and handed out a free activation key for the OS. More »

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Microsoft Just Messed Up and Gave Out a Free Windows 8 Activation Key

Flotspotting: Bike Bad-assery, Part 3: Saline Airstream

It’s been a minute since we saw the last badass compressed air-powered motorcycle , so seeing as digital designer / 3D modeler Pierrick Huart finally got around to uploading the Saline Airstream to his Coroflot portfolio this past September, it’s worth revisiting even a year and a half after its debut. Back in March 2011, Technologic Vehicles reported that Huart was a member of one of seven teams of students from the International School of Design (ISD) in Valciennes, France, who submitted projects to a speedy brief from “Les Triplettes de Bonneville.” (As such, we’d be remiss not to credit fellow team members Vincent Montreuil, Julien Clément, Thomas Duhamel and Benedict Ponton.) Described as “crazy French DIYers,” the triplets selected the Saline Airstream design, when features an Alu-Magnesium chassis by Daniel Heurton and weighs in at only 102kg (224 lbs). Meanwhile, Wes Siler of Hell for Leather explains the technology behind the engine far better than I could ever hope to: Pneumatic engines using compressed air as their power source aren’t new. If you’ve used an impact wrench or other pneumatic workshop tool, then you’ve used a compressed air engine. The technology enjoys particular interest in France, where Victor Tatin conceived an airplane powered by it all the way back in 1879. That’s where Les Triplettes des Bonneville, the team that will run the Airstream and the makers of its engine come from. The company making the engine is MDI, which is pushing the technology in low-speed, urban vehicles. Like electricity, compressed air is zero emissions (well, technically it’s emitting air…), but unlike electricity, fill ups don’t take hours. You can fill a compressed air tank from a compressor or storage unit in the same time it takes to fill up with gasoline. The downside is that power output and therefore performance are so far somewhat limited, something Les Triplettes are trying to address. The function of a pneumatic piston engine of the kind employed here is incredibly simple. Air is stored in the Airstream’s three tanks at 3,626psi and fed into the engine at 363psi, where it expands, pushing the piston down. That pistons’s return path exhausts the air through a valve, just like in your gasoline-powered motorcycle. (more…)

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Flotspotting: Bike Bad-assery, Part 3: Saline Airstream

Recon updates its HUD tech, adds new view modes to MOD Live

Heads-up MOD Live lovers: Recon’s ready to update that ski slope tech with a fresher look. Available now on the company’s dedicated Engage site, is a software package that enhances the goggle’s current feature set with the addition of three view modes. Leveraging the unit’s inbuilt GPS, the new Radar setting allows users to gain more accurate positioning info, keep close tabs on fellow skiers, as well as access interactive resort maps. Users keen on a more up-close look at the surrounding slopes can shift into Perspective mode, which handily tracks head orientation. And lastly, for a pared-down experience, there’s a compass overlay that provides users with a more “traditional” means of navigation. If you haven’t already jump started your HUD-infused mask with this latest OS, you can head to the source below to get started. Continue reading Recon updates its HUD tech, adds new view modes to MOD Live Filed under: Wearables , Software Comments

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Recon updates its HUD tech, adds new view modes to MOD Live

Israeli Infrastructure Proves Too Strong For Anonymous

Mephistophocles writes “Ever since the beginning of Operation Pillar of Defense, hackers have been working overtime to strike a blow against the Israeli government’s computer systems, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Sunday. No fewer than 44 million attacks have been recorded since the operation began five days ago — with nearly all of them failing, thanks to the recent strengthening of computer defense systems in Israel. Speaking at a special press conference at the Government Computing Center in Jerusalem about the cyber war against Israel that has accompanied Hamas’s rocket attacks, Steinitz said that hackers ‘are trying to disable the symbols of Israeli sovereignty, to enter web sites and install anti-Israel content, thus compromising information and data and damaging the government’s ability to serve the public.’ Most of the attacks, he said, were against government sites, like the Prime Minister’s Office site, and security-related sites, such as that of the Home Front Command, the body charged with informing Israelis on how to protect themselves in the event of an attack. Out of those 44 million-plus attacks on government and defense related sites, said Steinitz, only one succeeded – partially. One site, which he did not name, was ‘wobbly for a few minutes,’ but quickly recovered. Even though the government has been successful in warding off hack attacks, Steinitz said that government sites were fully backed up and mirrored, meaning that they could be replaced by a duplicate site instantly if the original site were compromised.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Israeli Infrastructure Proves Too Strong For Anonymous

The Senate Is About to Let More Than 22 Agencies Spy on Your Email and Documents Without a Warrant (Update: Not Any More)

What began as a bill designed to protect the privacy of your digital life has been mangled at the behest of law enforcement agencies. CNET reports that if the revised Senate bill isn’t stopped before it goes to vote next week, 22 federal agencies will have warrantless access to troves of your private information. Let’s stop them. Updated below More »

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The Senate Is About to Let More Than 22 Agencies Spy on Your Email and Documents Without a Warrant (Update: Not Any More)

Harwell Dekatron revived as the world’s oldest working, original digital computer

Over 60 years since the first digital computers switched on, the chances of seeing one of these pioneers in action have grown incredibly slim as time (and recycling) takes its toll. Take a visit to Britain’s National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park as of today, however, and you’ll see one working. A finished 3-year restoration effort lets the Harwell Dekatron — at one point renamed the Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computation from Harwell, or WITCH — claim the title of the world’s oldest functional digital computer still using its original design. Aside from its room-filling dimensions, the 1951-era mainframe may be worth the trip just for recalling a time when there were no hard and fast rules in computing: the Dekatron operates in its namesake decimal system, not binary, and puts most of its components on full display. The computer is part of the regular exhibit lineup and should be easy to see; the daunting part may be realizing that virtually any chip in a 2012 smartphone could outmuscle the Dekatron without breaking a sweat. Filed under: Desktops , Misc , Alt Comments Via: Slashdot Source: National Museum of Computing

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Harwell Dekatron revived as the world’s oldest working, original digital computer