kenmay

How Self-Balancing Electric Skateboard Onewheel Goes From Assembly Line To Users’ Homes

Last year at CES we were introduced to Onewheel, a crazy new self-balancing skateboard built by electromechanical engineer and board sports enthusiast Kyle Doerksen. Less than a year after the project went up on Kickstarter, Onewheel is shipping to early backers and those who pre-ordered the device. A few weeks ago, we got a tour of the Onewheel assembly line to see how it gets put together and… Read More

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How Self-Balancing Electric Skateboard Onewheel Goes From Assembly Line To Users’ Homes

Comcast just upped its cable modem rental fee from $8 to $10 per month

Comcast users in various parts of the country have already gotten (or may soon get) a lovely holiday present from their ISP—a seemingly inexplicable increase in the cable modem rental fee, from $8 to $10 per month. Eric Studley, of Boston, who posts on reddit as Slayer0606, first pointed out the increase on Tuesday. After reading Studley’s post, Ars encouraged readers who rent Comcast modems to check their bills and found that the increases seem to have taken place as far back as October 2014, while others took effect as of December 20, 2014 and January 1, 2015. The company did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment. Read 18 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Comcast just upped its cable modem rental fee from $8 to $10 per month

HP sells Palm trademarks; brand could be resurrected with new smartphones

Palm, the legendary smartphone and PDA company, might seem dead and gone, but it’s now looking like the name “Palm” will rise again as a zombie brand. For a quick refresher: HP bought Palm for $1.2 billion in 2010. HP killed the Palm brand after about a year of ownership and stopped making WebOS devices entirely about a year-and-a-half after the acquisition. Since then, Palm has been pretty dead. Lately, though, the brand has started to stir. The diehards over at WebOS Nation have been keeping a close eye on Palm.com , which recently stopped redirecting nostalgic visitors to hpwebos.com and started sending people to mynewpalm.com . The page shows a looping video of a Palm logo along with the text “Coming Soon” and “Smart Move.” No one was sure who was behind the site resuscitation until this document was found, which shows the transfer of the Palm trademark from Palm, Inc (still a subsidiary of HP) to a company called Wide Progress Global Limited. Wide Progress Global Limited doesn’t seem to be a company with any kind of real purpose—it’s just a shell meant to hide the true buyer. The person signing the paperwork for Wide Progress Global Limited is Nicolas Zibell, who also just happens to hold the title “President Americas and Pacific” at Alcatel One Touch. Couple that with the fact that the “Smart Move”—the text that appears on the new Palm site—is Alcatel One Touch’s slogan, and it’s pretty clear that Alcatel One Touch bought the Palm brand. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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HP sells Palm trademarks; brand could be resurrected with new smartphones

US Supreme Court moving to digital filing system in 2016

The Supreme Court of the US has stuck stubbornly to its ways. No cameras in the court room, a paper filing system, those robes… which are so last century. That may begin to change over the next couple of years however. In a year-end report released Wednesday night, Chief Justice John Roberts said that the court would begin accepting electronic filings as early as 2016. The court will have to first develop the system, then it will be rolled out in stages. At first paper documents will be used as the default, but those represented by attorneys in the court will also have to file the same documents electronically. Once that trial proves successful, digital documents will become the default for everyone. Though, paper filings will still be required. As Justice Roberts explained in the report, “Unlike commercial enterprises, the courts cannot decide to serve only the most technically-capable or well-equipped segments of the public… the courts must remain open for those who do not have access to personal computers.” Obviously, one of the biggest concerns for the new system will be security. The privacy concerns of the plaintiffs, defendants and those testifying before the court is of the utmost importance. This is one of the many reasons that Roberts gives for the seemingly tortoise-like pace at which the Supreme Court adopts new technologies. (It took 37 years for the institution to even consider pneumatic tubes for sending documents between offices.) But, while he admits that a guarded approach to new technology is often a necessity for the federal court system, he acknowledges that its ways can seem archaic and inefficient. And even admits that some are… you know, like this reliance on flattened dead tree pulp. Filed under: Misc Comments Via: New York Times Source: The United States Supreme Court

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US Supreme Court moving to digital filing system in 2016

How to Uninstall a Windows Update that Broke Something

Ever update your computer only to find that one of your apps doesn’t work properly, or something’s broken? It doesn’t happen often, but if you want to uninstall a recent Windows update, you can do so with this slightly hidden menu. Read more…

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How to Uninstall a Windows Update that Broke Something

Google Researcher Publishes Unpatched Windows 8.1 Security Vulnerability

An anonymous reader writes “Google’s security research database has after a 90 day timeout automatically undisclosed a Windows 8.1 vulnerability which Microsoft hasn’t yet patched. By design the system call NtApphelpCacheControl() in ahcache.sys allows application compatibility data to be cached for quick reuse when new processes are created. A normal user can query the cache but cannot add new cached entries as the operation is restricted to administrators. This is checked in the function AhcVerifyAdminContext(). Long story short, the aforementioned function has a vulnerability where it doesn’t correctly check the impersonation token of the caller to determine if the user is an administrator. It hasn’t been fully verified if Windows 7 is vulnerable. For a passer-by it is also hard to tell whether Microsoft has even reviewed the issue reported by the Google researcher. The database has already one worried comment saying that automatically revealing a vulnerability just like that might be a bad idea.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Researcher Publishes Unpatched Windows 8.1 Security Vulnerability

US Army Could Waive Combat Training For Hackers

An anonymous reader sends word that the U.S. Army may adjust some of its training practices and rules in order to attract the best “cyber warriors” available. “New U.S. Army cyber warriors could be spared the rigors of combat training to help the Pentagon attract badly needed recruits from the ponytail wearing Google generation, a top American general has suggested. Lt Gen Brown, commander of the US Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, said: ‘We need to give serious consideration to how the US Army could combine the technical expertise of the “Google” generation with its more traditional military skills. In order to gain an intellectual advantage over adversaries in cyberspace, we will need to tap into a talent pool that may not fit the stereotypical soldier profile. Our goal is to recruit the best talent possible.'” This is not the first time there has been talk about loosening requirements to fill these roles. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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US Army Could Waive Combat Training For Hackers

Bitcoin Gets Its First TV Ads

MRothenberg writes Bitcoin’s not just for libertarians and drug dealers any more! Electronic payment service BitPay this week launched a campaign aimed at making Bitcoin transactions more appealing to mainstream business owners — the first time Bitcoin has been featured in a TV spot. Conceived by Felton Interactive Group, the two new ads promote Bitcoin and BitPay as a secure alternative to traditional credit-card transactions. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Bitcoin Gets Its First TV Ads

Vast Nazi Facility Uncovered In Austria; Purported A-Bomb Development Site

schwit1 (797399) writes “Suspiciously high radiation levels around the Austrian town of St. Georgen an der Gusen had long fueled theories that there was a buried bunker nearby where Nazis had tested nuclear weapons during WWII. Those suspicions came one step closer to being confirmed last week after the opening of a 75-acre underground complex was dug out from below the earth and granite used to seal off the entrance, the Times of Israel reports. The excavation team was led by Austrian filmmaker Andreas Sulzer, who says the site was “likely the biggest secret weapons production facility of the Third Reich” — a facility that probably relied on forced labor from the nearby Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp and may have even been the testing location for a nuclear bomb, the Daily Mirror reports. The weapons facility was believed to have been manned by SS General Hans Kammler and situated near the B8 Bergkristall factory, where the first working jet-powered fighter was created, International Business Times reports; Sulzer first got wind of the site after seeing references to it in an Austrian physicist’s diary. The Washington Post cautions that while “the full scope of what occurred inside those reported chambers in the Austrian town of St. Georgen remains unclear and Sulzer’s conclusions are speculative, some analysts are already trumpeting the findings. … The reported findings, if corroborated by further inquiry, could add fresh fodder to an ongoing debate over the Third Reich’s ultimately failed attempt to secure an atomic weapon.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Vast Nazi Facility Uncovered In Austria; Purported A-Bomb Development Site

Apple Faces Class Action Lawsuit For Shrinking Storage Space In iOS 8

An anonymous reader notes that Apple is being sued over claims that iOS 8 uses too much storage space on the company’s devices. “Ever wonder why there never is enough space on your iPhone or iPad? A lawsuit filed this week against Apple Inc. alleges that upgrades to the iOS 8 operating system are to blame, and that the company has misled customers about it. In the legal complaint filed in California, Miami residents Paul Orshan and Christopher Endara accuse Apple of “storage capacity misrepresentations and omissions” relating to Apple’s 8 GB and 16GB iPhones, iPads and iPods. Orshan has two iPhone 5 and two iPads while Endara had purchased an iPhone 6. They contend the upgrades to the operating system end up taking up as much as 23 percent of the storage space on their devices.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ken May

Author: kenmay