Author: kenmay

Google acquires Nest for $3.2 billion

We’ll be honest: if you told us a big company was going to buy Nest , we wouldn’t have guessed Google. After all, the home automation company was founded by Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, both ex-members of the original iPod team at Apple. But whaddya know? Google just scooped up the outfit for a cool $3.2 billion. That bit of inside baseball aside, Google is being quick to assure users that Nest will run fairly independently within Google — not unlike Motorola, it would seem. Quoth Mr. Fadell: ” Google will help us fully realize our vision of the conscious home and allow us to change the world faster than we ever could if we continued to go it alone. We’ve had great momentum, but this is a rocket ship.” Also, to answer the obvious question you’re all asking, Nest will continue to offer apps for both iOS and Android, meaning Apple fans will still be able to tinker around with their Nest Thermostats and Nest Protect smoke detectors even after the acquisition goes through. Developing… Filed under: Household , Google Comments Via: Nest (Twitter)

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Google acquires Nest for $3.2 billion

New DoS attacks taking down game sites deliver crippling 100Gbps floods

Online gamers such as these ones often stream their play in real time. Twitch Recent denial-of-service attacks taking down League of Legends and other popular gaming services are doing more than just wielding a never-before-seen technique to vastly amplify the amount of junk traffic directed at targets. In at least some cases, their devastating effects can deprive celebrity game players of huge amounts of money. As Ars reported last week, the attacks are abusing the Internet’s Network Time Protocol (NTP), which is used to synchronize computers to within a few milliseconds of Coordinated Universal Time . A command of just 234 bytes is enough to cause some NTP servers to return a list of up to 600 machines that have previously used its time-syncing service. The dynamic creates an ideal condition for DoS attacks. Attackers send a modest-sized request to NTP servers and manipulate the commands to make them appear as if they came from one of the targeted gaming services. The NTP servers, which may be located in dozens or even hundreds of locations all over the world, in turn send the targets responses that could be tens or hundreds of times bigger than the spoofed request. The technique floods gaming servers with as much as 100Gbps, all but guaranteeing that they’ll be taken down unless operators take specific precautions ahead of time. Among the targets of this new type of attack are game servers used by celebrity players who broadcast live video streams of their gaming prowess that are viewed as many as 50,000 times. In some cases, the massive audiences translate into tens of thousands of dollars per month, as ads are displayed beside video feeds of the players blowing away opponents in Dota 2 and other games. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New DoS attacks taking down game sites deliver crippling 100Gbps floods

A Beginner’s Introduction to Overclocking Your Intel Processor

If you want to squeeze every last ounce of processing power out of your new computer or aging system, overclocking is a great—if slightly nerve-racking—option. Here are some simple guidelines for safely overclocking your processor. Read more…        

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A Beginner’s Introduction to Overclocking Your Intel Processor

These Beautiful Solar Orbs Are So Efficient They Even Harvest Moonlight

Photovoltaic panels aren’t the most glamorous technology: They’re usually tucked away on a roof, and when you can see them, they’re ugly . And inefficient. But what if they made architecture more beautiful? And what if they were more than 50 percent more efficient, working even at night? Say hi to Rawlemon , a solar ball lens that is quickly making its way to market. Read more…        

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These Beautiful Solar Orbs Are So Efficient They Even Harvest Moonlight

Wearable planters: 3D printed translucent jewelry, with plants!

Etsy seller Wearableplanter has a wide range of 3D printed planters: rings, jewelry — even bicycle vases! They’re intended for use with succulents, small flowers, and sprouts. They’re watertight and translucent, and you can see the roots through the material. A Wearable Planter ( via Wil Wheaton )        

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Wearable planters: 3D printed translucent jewelry, with plants!

SolarCooler Keeps Your Brews Icy With The Power Of The Sun, But It’ll Cost You $1K

Every year at CES, the Eureka Park outpost where they stick the scrappy startups is the best damn part of the whole shindig. This is where all the people with a screw loose or a decided lack of good common sense come to peddle their spaghetti-cooking robot or aroma-powered computer – or, as happened this year, their solar-powered beer cooler . SolarCooler is a “world first,” which is a common epithet at Eureka Park, and it’s currently undergoing crowdfunding on Indiegogo. The startup is looking for $150,000 to make their portable refrigerator (it even makes ice!) a reality, but it’s currently looking like it’ll need a real groundswell of support to get there. Here’s the big issue: the entry-level model costs just under $1,000, and that’s a special backer-only price. Retail for the SolarCooler is $1,200, which is bound to be a bitter pill to swallow even for the most ardent of tailgaters. Still, this is essentially a solar-powered 12V battery backup for everything combined with a cooler that offers true, continuous refrigeration, so that price tag starts to look at lot more reasonable when you consider its other potential uses. It also has a lot of potential to help out in commercial and medical settings as a transport for goods that need to be kept cool when direct power is in scarce supply and loading up a device with a significant number of batteries would make it cumbersome to use. SolarCooler is pursuing a flex funding goal, meaning it walks away with whatever it raises, and the founder seems keen on building it whatever the outcome, but there are still over 40 days left in the campaign, so it could still turn into a Cinderella story. All I know is I like beer, and I like it cold (that ‘best served at room temperature stuff’ is BS) so SolarCooler makes sense to me.

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SolarCooler Keeps Your Brews Icy With The Power Of The Sun, But It’ll Cost You $1K

Orbital Becomes Second Private Firm To Send Cargo Craft To ISS

An anonymous reader writes “Orbital Sciences Corp.’s unmanned Cygnus spacecraft delivered 3, 000 pounds of equipment, fresh fruit, and Christmas presents from the families of all six ISS spacemen today. ‘From the men and women involved in the design, integration and test, to those who launched the Antares (rocket) and operated the Cygnus, our whole team has performed at a very high level for our NASA customer, and I am very proud of their extraordinary efforts, ‘ said David W. Thompson, president and chief executive officer of Orbital, in a written statement from the company.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Orbital Becomes Second Private Firm To Send Cargo Craft To ISS

British Spies To Be Allowed To Break Speed Limit

An anonymous reader writes “The Telegraph reports, ‘Britain’s spies are to be given a “licence to speed” for the first time, under changes to motoring laws. While James Bond would no doubt have scorned such niceties, officers in MI5 and MI6 are currently required to obey the rules of the road, even when national security is under threat. Now Robert Goodwill, the transport minister, intends to add the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service to the group of agencies with permission to break the speed limit.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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British Spies To Be Allowed To Break Speed Limit

This Amazing, Light-Bending Metamaterial Can Do Calculus

When we last saw metamaterials, they were helping us create real-life invisibility cloaks . But, in even more exciting news for true nerds, light-bending metamaterial can also do math. Not just simple math, but calculus. Read more…        

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This Amazing, Light-Bending Metamaterial Can Do Calculus