kenmay

Single Developer Responsible For Over 47k Apps In BlackBerry World

hypnosec writes “If you are a BlackBerry owner, navigate to BlackBerry World (or just visit the website) and you will find that developer S4BB has developed over 47k apps for the BB platform. Unsurprisingly, most of them are just spammy apps that don’t add any value. Apps like ‘Restart Me Free, ‘ ‘Daily Quote, ‘ ‘Lock for SMS, ‘ ‘Search for Amazon, ‘ ‘Silent Foto Free’ are just a few among the thousands of apps on BlackBerry World that actually have no utility whatsoever. BlackBerry announced back in May that developers were increasingly interested in making apps for the platform, and that BlackBerry World had more than 120, 000 apps. This raises questions about the authenticity of the claims, and about the approval process that’s been accepting these apps. S4BB may have a few useful apps for the platform, but that doesn’t mean all of their apps are of ‘A’ quality. A statement from BlackBerry said, ‘Developers in all app stores employ a number of different monetization tactics. BlackBerry World is an open market for developers and we let market forces dictate the success or failure of these tactics.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Single Developer Responsible For Over 47k Apps In BlackBerry World

New research suggests women can make sperm, and men can make eggs

What started as an investigation into developmental mouse biology has become a lot more than that. Biologist Katsuhiko Hayashi discovered a way to turn mouse skin cells into sperm and egg cells — and actually used these modified cells to create a living baby mouse. The question is, can it work in humans? Read more…

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New research suggests women can make sperm, and men can make eggs

Zuckerberg’s Internet.org plan includes more efficient apps, starting with Facebook

Facebook and several other companies announced the Internet.org initiative tonight to bring connectivity to 5 billion people, but how are they going to do it? As laid out in the Facebook founder’s “Is Connectivity A Human Right?” plan, it includes some technological changes. One main issue is delivering data more efficiently, and making sure apps use less of it. First on the chopping block is Facebook’s own app, which used an average of 12MB of data earlier this year but the company thinks it can cut to 1MB per day “simply by improving data usage.” Beyond that, more savings are possible if Facebook offers a variant with fewer photos in developing countries. Other methods for using less data include caching and data compression, with the former already in use on its featurephone app , and the latter something partners like Opera have a lot of experience in. In the future, Zuckerberg speculates users could even download stories or photos from nearby friends using technology like WiFi Direct. All of this is done with the aim of reducing the bandwidth needed for basic internet services, thereby making access “affordable and available” to more people. Hit the source link for more details on the hows and whys, we’ll be expecting our more efficient social network any day now. Filed under: Internet , Mobile , Facebook Comments Source: Is Connectivity A Human Right? (PDF) , Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

Florida Town Stores License Plate Camera Images For Ten Years

An anonymous reader writes “Yet another privacy concern story, this time from Florida. The Longboat Key police have their new license plate camera up and running, but according to the police chief, this one stores all images as ‘evidence’ for up to ten years. When questioned about the possibility for abuses of this camera’s historical record, the chief said, ‘There are regulations, policies and laws in place that prohibit that kind of abuse. And if abuse is discovered, it’s punished.’ What could possibly go wrong?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Florida Town Stores License Plate Camera Images For Ten Years

Three Banks Lose Millions After Wire Transfer Switches Hacked

mask.of.sanity writes “Criminals have stolen millions from three unnamed U.S. banks by launching slow and stealthy denial of service attacks as a distraction before attacking wire payment switches. The switches manage and execute wire transfers and could have coughed up much more cash should the attackers have pressed on. RSA researcher Limor Kessem said, ‘The service portal is down, the bank is losing money and reliability, and the security team is juggling the priorities of what to fix first. That’s when the switch attack – which is very rare because those systems are not easily compromised [and require] high-privilege level in a more advanced persistent threat style case – takes place.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What’s Causing the Rise In Obesity? Everything.

Mr_Blank writes “We all know — because we are being constantly reminded — that we are getting fat. Americans are at the forefront of the trend, but it is a transnational one. Apparently, it is also trans-species: Over the past 20 years, as the American people were getting fatter, so were America’s laboratory macaques, chimpanzees, vervet monkeys and mice, as well as domestic dogs, domestic cats, and domestic and feral rats from both rural and urban areas. Researchers examined records on those eight species and found that average weight for every one had increased. The marmosets gained an average of 9% per decade. Lab mice gained about 11% per decade. Chimps are doing especially badly: their average body weight had risen 35% per decade. What is causing the obesity era? Everything.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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What’s Causing the Rise In Obesity? Everything.

A Super-Accurate Gravity Map Shows You Where You Can Weigh Less

Gravity’s often assumed to be constant across the entire planet, but because the Earth varies in shape and density, that’s not really the case. Now, this super-accurate gravity map reveals that the fluctuations are even more extreme than scientists previously thought. Read more…

Netflix’s new ‘My List’ replaces queues, lets users worldwide bookmark their favorites

Netflix’s Watch Instantly streaming service in the US started with the same queue-based experience users were familiar with from its disc-by-mail rentals for bookmarking titles to watch later, but internationally the option has never existed. Now the experience is changing everywhere, as Netflix replaces the old queues with “My List.” Outside the US subscribers will notice the biggest change, as they’re able to curate their own viewing lists instead of relying solely on search or the service’s automatically generated genre lists. Otherwise the selection process is mostly the same as we’ve come to expect, with a “+ My List” button single click adding it to the list of up to 500 items in each user’s profile. My List should pop up on individual accounts over the next couple of weeks, check after the break for a breakdown of all the incoming changes. Filed under: Home Entertainment , HD Comments Source: Netflix Blog

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Netflix’s new ‘My List’ replaces queues, lets users worldwide bookmark their favorites

LG Made a 5.5-inch 2560 x 1440 Smartphone Display with 538 PPI

Hot diggity. LG just announced an insane 5.5-inch smartphone screen that has pixels that must be made from some sort of mixture between dense diamond sparkles and unicorn blood paint. More seriously, the 5.5-inch AH-IPS LCD display’s resolution is 2, 560 x 1, 440 (Quad HD) and packs 538 pixels per inch. That makes it the highest resolution and ppi for a smartphone panel. Read more…

Germany Produces Record-Breaking 5.1 Terawatt Hours of Solar Energy In One Month

oritonic1 writes “Germany is rapidly developing a tradition of shattering its own renewable energy goals and leaving the rest of the world in the dust. This past July was no exception, as the nation produced 5.1 TWh of solar power (PDF), beating not only its own solar production record, but also eclipsing the record 5TWh of wind power produced by German turbines in January. Renewables are doing so well, in fact, that one of Germany’s biggest utilities is threatening to migrate to Turkey.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Germany Produces Record-Breaking 5.1 Terawatt Hours of Solar Energy In One Month

Ken May

Author: kenmay