Firefox’s long-awaited redesign is finally available to all, along with a few improvements to customization and Firefox Sync. Read more…
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Firefox Gets a Brand New, Even More Customizable Design
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes “Sean Gallagher writes that the government built facilities for the Minuteman missiles in the 1960s and 1970s and although the missiles have been upgraded numerous times to make them safer and more reliable, the bases themselves haven’t changed much and there isn’t a lot of incentive to upgrade them. ICBM forces commander Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein told Leslie Stahl from “60 Minutes” that the bases have extremely tight IT and cyber security, because they’re not Internet-connected and they use such old hardware and software. “A few years ago we did a complete analysis of our entire network, ” says Weinstein. “Cyber engineers found out that the system is extremely safe and extremely secure in the way it’s developed.” While on the base, missileers showed Stahl the 8-inch floppy disks, marked “Top Secret, ” which is used with the computer that handles what was once called the Strategic Air Command Digital Network (SACDIN), a communication system that delivers launch commands to US missile forces. Later, in an interview with Weinstein, Stahl described the disk she was shown as “gigantic, ” and said she had never seen one that big. Weinstein explained, “Those older systems provide us some, I will say, huge safety, when it comes to some cyber issues that we currently have in the world.”” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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US Nuclear Missile Silos Use Safe, Secure 8" Floppy Disks
MojoKid (1002251) writes “AMD has just announced their upcoming mainstream, low-power APUs (Accelerated Processing Units), codenames Beema and Mullins. These APUs are the successors to last year’s Temash and Kabini APUs, which powered an array of small form factor and mobile platforms. Beema and Mullins are based on the same piece of silicon, but will target different market segments. Beema is the mainstream part that will find its way into affordable notebook, small form factor systems, and mobile devices. Mullins, however, is a much lower-power derivative, designed for tablets and convertible systems. They are full SoCs with on-die memory controllers, PCI Express, SATA, and USB connectivity, and a host of other IO blocks. AMD is announcing four Beema-based mainstream APUs today, with TDPs ranging from 10W – 15W. There are three Mullins-based products being announced, two quad-cores and a dual-core. The top of the line-up is the A10 Micro-6700T. It’s a quad-core chip, with a max clock speed of 2.2GHz, 2MB of L2, and a TDP of only 4.5W. In the benchmarks, the A10-6700T quad core is actually able to surpass Intel’s Bay Trail Atom platform pretty easily across a number of tests, especially gaming and graphics.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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AMD Beema and Mullins Low Power 2014 APUs Tested, Faster Than Bay Trail
Microsoft isn’t just supporting White House’s ConnectED education program by lowering the cost of Windows — it’s also giving schools the cash they’ll need to buy Windows PCs. The company is donating $1 billion to make sure that students have the tech they’ll need for both getting online and learning technology skills. The funding comes alongside a new device pricing program that should make the PCs more affordable — to start with, it’s offering sub-$300 systems from Acer, ASUS, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, Panasonic and Toshiba. The company isn’t shy about having a commercial incentive behind its generosity; its Education CTO, Cameron Evans, tells CNET that there’s a hope that kids will become loyal Windows fans down the road. However, he adds that any eventual sales are secondary to the more immediate focus on improving education. The influx of cash should reduce the technology gap for less fortunate students, many of whom could miss out on digital learning without a little help. [Image credit: Getty Images] Filed under: Microsoft , ASUS , Dell , Acer , Lenovo Comments Source: CNET , Microsoft
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Microsoft donates $1 billion to help US schools buy PCs
To date, FreedomPop’s no-cost phone service has been attached to older Android phones . That’s fine for many, but not exactly diverse. Your choices are a little better now that carrier has added iPhone support to its lineup, though. You can get 200 voice minutes, 500 messages and 500MB of data per month on Apple’s handset without paying a dime; it costs the equivalent of $5 per month if you need unlimited calls and texting. It sounds great, so what’s the catch? As you might suspect, device selection is the big gotcha. Much like Ting , FreedomPop isn’t carrying the latest Apple technology. You’ll have to be happy with either buying a refurbished iPhone 5 for $349 or bringing over a Sprint-ready iPhone 4, 4S or 5 you already own. This isn’t the choice for those who want to live on the bleeding edge , then. Still, it does give you free LTE phone data — a major advantage when the only alternative on FreedomPop with similar speeds is a hotspot . Filed under: Cellphones , Wireless , Mobile , Sprint Comments Via: Recode Source: FreedomPop
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You can now use the iPhone for free, as long as you don’t mind old gear
Now that T-Mobile has upped its game , Sprint is left as the only major US carrier still struggling with financial losses. That didn’t get much better this quarter , as the company lost 364, 000 pre-paid and 231, 000 valuable postpaid customers. It says the losses were anticipated, and were largely due to “service disruption” caused by the ongoing overhaul of its network infrastructure. Whatever the reason, the end result was the same old story: It finished with a net loss of $151 million for the quarter. The good news, however, is that Sprint’s losses seem to be getting smaller as time ticks on — it actually lost four times as much money in the same period last year . Filed under: Cellphones , Wireless , Sprint Comments
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Sprint loses hundreds of thousands of customers due to ‘service disruption’
A fragment of the shellcode exploiting a critical vulnerability in Adobe Flash. Kaspersky Lab A day after reports that attackers are exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser , researchers warned of a separate active campaign that was targeting a critical vulnerability in fully patched versions of Adobe’s ubiquitous Flash media player. The attacks were hosted on the Syrian Ministry of Justice website at hxxp://jpic.gov.sy and were detected on seven computers located in Syria, leading to theories that the campaign targeted dissidents complaining about the government of President Bashar al-Assad, according to a blog post published Monday by researchers from antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab. The attacks exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Flash when people used the Firefox browser to access a booby-trapped page. The attackers appear to be unrelated to those reported on Sunday who exploited a critical security bug in Internet Explorer, a Kaspersky representative told Ars. While the exploit Kaspersky observed attacked only computers running Microsoft Windows, the underlying flaw, which is formally categorized as CVE-2014-1776 and resides in a Flash component known as the Pixel Bender, is present in the Adobe application built for OS X and Linux machines as well. Adobe has updated all three versions to plug the hole. Because security holes frequently become much more widely exploited in the hours or days after they are disclosed, people on all three platforms should update as soon as possible . People using IE 10 and 11 on Windowws 8 will receive the update automatically, as will users of Google’s Chrome browser. It can sometimes take hours for the automatic updates to arrive. Those who are truly cautious should consider manually installing them. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Zero-day Flash bug under active attack in Windows threatens OS X, Linux too
When it comes to military special operations, getting there can be more than half the battle. America’s elite commandos insert deep into enemy territory often undermanned and outgunned, so getting in and out without getting caught is key. Enter DARPA’s hybrid-electric AWD stealthy motorcycle. Read more…
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U.S. Commandos To Get This Stealthy Hybrid All-Wheel Drive Motorcycle
Earlier today, AOL posted an update on last week’s spoofing incident with its email service. In case you hadn’t heard, AOL Mail was hacked a few days ago and accounts were spoofed, sending out spam messages to the affected users’ contact list. In a blog post , the company says that the breach only hit “roughly 2 percent” of its 20+ million accounts . The bad news? AOL says that the unauthorized access allowed the hackers to peek at mailing addresses, contact lists, encrypted passwords, encrypted answers to security questions and “certain employee information.” While that’s pretty awful, the outfit claims that “there is no indication” that the encryption had been broken or that any financial info was nabbed. As you might expect, AOL recomments all users and employed reset their passwords and security queries for any of its services while it continues the investigation. Disclosure: Engadget is owned by AOL. [Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images] Filed under: Internet Comments Source: AOL
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AOL Mail breach includes mailing addresses, employee info and more
Netflix today confirmed that it reached an interconnection agreement with Verizon, similar to the one it recently struck with Comcast. “We have reached an interconnect arrangement with Verizon that we hope will improve performance for our joint customers over the coming months,” Netflix spokesperson Joris Evers told Ars. “It is a paid interconnect agreement.”Word of the deal first leaked on Twitter when analyst Walter Piecyk wrote , “Verizon CEO [Lowell McAdam] confirms they have signed direct connection deal with Netflix like Comcast’s.” When contacted by Ars, Piecyk said that “McAdam confirmed a deal with Netflix in answer to our question at a group investor meeting [today]. No further details were provided on the financial terms.” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Netflix is paying Verizon for network connection to speed up video