It’s incredibly noisy in the cockpit of a helicopter, and you’d assume the sounds you hear in any YouTube police chase video were just the deafening whine of the chopper’s engine. But as one hacker discovered , that monotonous drone can actually hide some useful data, like the helicopter’s GPS coordinates. Read more…
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A Hacker Found GPS Data in the Audio of This Police Chase Video
An anonymous reader writes “The Canadian Royal Mounted Police report: An offset printing press used to manufacture counterfeit $20 banknotes was seized by the RCMP and US Secret Service. This significant seizure was made earlier today in the Trois-Rivières area. The authorities had been looking for this offset press for several years. A large quantity of paper was also seized by police, that could have been used by the counterfeiters to manufacture from $40-$200 million. The very high quality counterfeit notes were virtually undetectable to the naked eye. Some of the features they had were uncommon, including the type of paper used, which was especially made with a Jackson watermark and a dark vertical stripe imitating the security thread found in authentic notes.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Press Used To Print Millions of US Banknotes Seized In Quebec
It took more than 2, 000 pounds of explosives to bring down this 32-story tower in Frankfurt yesterday—roughly the same amount as a Mark 84 bomb. Thankfully, since we live in the age of YouTube, there are plenty of astounding videos of the demo. Read more…
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Behold One of the Biggest Controlled Skyscraper Implosions Ever
This monochrome image of living tissue has some extremely unwelcome visitors lurking within it. Taken from some of the first ever 3D images of HIV at work , those little blue circles show the virus infecting the surrounding cells. Read more…
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This Is What HIV Looks Like When It Infects Living Cells
While we found the S7 a “near perfect” machine , one of our gripes was that Acer didn’t offer any versions with a 2, 560 x 1, 440 high-res display in the US. Now the company is dropping off Wide Quad High-definition (WQHD) S7 laptops in the states, and has already specced out two samples packing a 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM. The S7-392-6425 will be $1499 and use Intel’s i5-4200U processor, while the S7-392-9439 is priced at $1, 799.99 with an i7-4500U. You can snag both next week at a variety of online and retail outlets including Frys and Amazon. Filed under: Laptops , Acer Comments
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Acer’s WQHD S7 Ultrabook finally hits the US next week
An anonymous reader sends word that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has given the go-ahead for telecommunications companies to start experimenting with an IP-based telephone protocol. From the article: “The experiments approved by the FCC would not test the new technology – it is already being used – and would not determine law and policy regulating it, FCC staff said. The trials would seek to establish, among other things, how consumers welcome the change and how new technology performs in emergency situations, including in remote locations. ‘What we’re doing here is a big deal. This is an important moment, ‘ FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said. ‘We today invite service providers to propose voluntary experiments for all-IP networks.’ The move in part grants the application by AT&T to conduct IP transition tests as companies that offer landline phone services seek to ultimately replace their old copper wires with newer technology like fiber or wireless.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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FCC Wants To Trial Shift From Analog Phone Networks To Digital
chicksdaddy writes “MIT Tech Review has an interesting piece that asks an obvious, but intriguing question: if we’re living in an age of cyber warfare, where are all the cyber weapons? Like the dawn of the nuclear age that started with the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the use of the Stuxnet worm reportedly launched a global cyber arms race involving everyone from Syria to Iran and North Korea. But almost four years after it was first publicly identified, Stuxnet is an anomaly: the first and only cyber weapon known to have been deployed. Experts in securing critical infrastructure including industrial control systems are wondering why. If Stuxnet was the world’s cyber ‘Little Boy, ‘ where is the ‘Fat Man’? Speaking at the recent S4 Conference, Ralph Langner, perhaps the world’s top authority on the Stuxnet worm, argues that the mere hacking of critical systems is just a kind of ‘hooliganism’ that doesn’t count as cyber warfare. True cyber weapons capable of inflicting cyber-physical damage require extraordinary expertise. Stuxnet, he notes, made headlines for using four exploits for “zero day” (or previously undiscovered) holes in the Windows operating system. Far more impressive was the metallurgic expertise needed to understand the construction of Iran’s centrifuges. Those who created and programmed Stuxnet needed to know the exact amount of pressure or torque needed to damage aluminum rotors within them, sabotaging the country’s uranium enrichment operation.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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In an Age of Cyber War, Where Are the Cyber Weapons?
Martin Vargic has produced a gorgeous mashup of XKCD’s Map of Online Communities and the classic National Geographic Maps, producing a work of art that is a wonder to behold. It’s for sale on Zazzle , as a $37, 34″x22″ poster. I was originally inspired by map of the internet created by xkcd, showing most popular social networks as countries and regions, back in 2010. It was not my original idea, but I extended it to such a scale for the first time. I used photoshop for the majority of drawing. The base style of the map was inspired by the National Geographic Maps, I also used Winkel Tripel Projection and similar border coloring fashion. I created the map in quite a short time, three weeks to be exact. I often worked early in the morning, and I can say I really enjoyed it. I got the data about website sizes mainly from Alexa and similar online services. Currently, I am working on the next versions of the map, which will be even more ridiculously detailed than the previous one, and will encompass all major websites without any significant exceptions, it will be coming in mid-february. The map is divided into 2 distinctive parts; the eastern continent, “the old world” showcases software companies, gaming companies and some of the more real-life oriented websites. Western part, “the new world” is composed from two major continent, northern one showcasing social networks, search websites, video websites, blogs, forums and art websites. All major adult-oriented websites, in addition to varioius warez and torrent sites, are located on the southwestern continent of the map. In the very south of the map, there is located “Great Southern Land” of obsolete websites and online services. Outside the main map, there are also 4 minimaps showing NSA monitoring by country, most used browser, most used social network, and internet penetration by country. Map of the Internet 1.0. ( via IO9 )
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Gorgeous Map of the Internet: XKCD meets National Geographic
The Super Bowl is still a little over a week away, but that doesn’t mean it’s too early to start planning your day. Thankfully, if you can’t watch the game on TV, you’ll be able to stream it for free. Read more…
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Reminder: Here’s Where You Can Watch Super Bowl XLVIII Online
We still don’t know exactly what Apple’s long-rumored smart watch is, or what it’s called — yes, iWatch is probably right — but a report today from 9to5Mac posits a whole heap of new information. First, the wearable works in concert with “Healthbook, ” a new internal app intended to track various fitness (steps, distance, etc.) and health metrics (blood pressure, heart rate, etc.). Second, it looks like Healthbook — at least currently — is a crucial part of iOS 8, and when paired with iWatch (or whatever it’s called) the two are “able to monitor several other pieces of health and fitness data.” It’s unclear exactly what that means. Like it’s name, Healthbook is apparently pretty similar to Passbook, and you’ll be able to swipe through various “cards” with health information. Of course, none of this should come as a tremendous shock (though it’s all still firmly in the rumor bin) — word of Apple working on a wearable has been floating for quite some time, and it’s past the point of coincidence. Between Apple hiring wearable electronics engineers ( notable ones !), meeting with FDA regulators about ” mobile medical applications , ” and the competition already staking a firm claim in the nascent smart watch market, no one following the tech news beast should be shocked. That’s to say nothing of the dedicated chip inside Apple’s latest iPhone (seen above). Regardless, with nothing officially announced just yet, we’ve reached out to Apple for more. Filed under: Mobile , Apple Comments Source: 9to5Mac
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Apple’s iWatch and iOS 8 are reportedly fitness-focused