kenmay

Firefox 23 Arrives With New Logo, Mixed Content Blocker, and Network Monitor

An anonymous reader writes “Mozilla today officially launched Firefox 23 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Improvements include the addition of a share button, mixed content blocker, and network monitor on the desktop side (release notes). The new desktop version was available on the organization’s FTP servers last night, but that was just the initial release of the installers. Firefox 23 has now officially been released over on Firefox.com and all existing users should be able to upgrade to it automatically. As always, the Android version is trickling out slowly on Google Play.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See the article here:
Firefox 23 Arrives With New Logo, Mixed Content Blocker, and Network Monitor

Philips grows Hue smartphone-controlled lighting lineup with $80 LivingColors Bloom, $90 LightStrips

There’s no shortage of home automation solutions on the market, but none can touch the cool factor of Philips’ Hue . The Android and iOS-controlled lighting solution consists of a base station that controls up to 50 different lights, including the company’s existing LED Connected Bulb, and two new additions, designed to let you add light without a standard lamp socket. The first product, LivingColors Bloom, is a compact fixture that you can position on the floor, on a shelf or anywhere in a room. It sits on the ground and bounces your pick of 16 million colors off any surface. LightStrips, on the other hand, is a better fit for more permanent (and subtle) installations. The 6.6-foot LED strip can be cut to size, and includes an adhesive backing, so it can be easily mounted under a counter, bed or inside cabinets. Both offerings support the full Hue color spectrum, and are compatible with existing apps and macros, including the IFTTT integration that debuted in May. Hue Bloom is set to retail for $80, while LightStrips will run you 90 bucks. Expect both products in Apple Stores this Thursday. Filed under: Household Comments

Continued here:
Philips grows Hue smartphone-controlled lighting lineup with $80 LivingColors Bloom, $90 LightStrips

All the New Stuff in IFTTT for iOS, and What You Can Do with It

The If This Then That iOS app was released a few weeks ago , and people have had plenty of time to create some clever recipes that integrate the new iOS-specific features. The iOS app extends the experience of IFTTT more than you might think. Here’s everything you can do with it. Read more…

Continue reading here:
All the New Stuff in IFTTT for iOS, and What You Can Do with It

Solar-powered Ubuntu laptop boasts 10-hour battery, 2-hour charge time

A blazing sun and the outdoors don’t exactly make for an ideal computing environment — unless you’re toting a ruggedized laptop that harnesses energy from sunlight like the Ubuntu-running Sol. Created mainly for use in developing countries with intermittent (or non-existent) electricity, it’s equipped with solar panels that soak up the sun when unfolded. According to OMG Ubuntu, its creators from Canadian company WeWi Telecommunications claim Sol’s battery, which can last for up to ten hours, only takes two hours to charge via solar energy. The device’s official website reveals little else, but according to the nuggets of information we’ve stumbled upon, Sol will pack an Intel processor, WiFi connectivity and an HD display, with an optional satellite module for internet connectivity. While full availability details have yet to be announced, a countdown timer on its website hints at more info in just under two days. Ghana will reportedly see the hardware arrive first with an accompanying $300 price tag. Though the notebook isn’t exactly wildly affordable, it’s at least a bit cheaper than Samsung’s 2011 take on a sunbeam-fueled laptop. Filed under: Laptops Comments Via: OMG! Ubuntu Source: Sol

Excerpt from:
Solar-powered Ubuntu laptop boasts 10-hour battery, 2-hour charge time

Crossbar’s RRAM to boast terabytes of storage, faster write speeds than NAND

Hardware makers often sing the praises of their latest and greatest flash memory , but the folks at Crossbar are ready to show them up with resistive RAM (RRAM) that they’ve been quietly working on. Compared to NAND, RRAM comes in at half the size and boasts 20 times faster write speeds (140MB/s), reads data at 17MB per second, guzzles 20 times less power and has 10 times more endurance. Since RRAM is non-volatile memory, it can keep data even when it’s powered off, á la NAND. As if that weren’t enough, 3D stacking construction allows for several terabytes of storage, endowing one 200 x 200mm chip with one terabyte. Unlike many tech breakthroughs however — we’re looking at you, graphene — this one is just about ready to find its way into finished products. Crossbar has manufactured RRAM within a standard chip factory, and claims that it can be churned out easily with existing production infrastructure. According to the firm, it’s in the fine-tuning process and plans to introduce the tech into the world of embedded SoCs. Sure, the outfit is the exclusive holder of some RRAM patents, but it aims to license its know-how to system-on-a-chip creators. Filed under: Storage Comments Via: VentureBeat Source: Crossbar

Continue Reading:
Crossbar’s RRAM to boast terabytes of storage, faster write speeds than NAND

Samsung Begins Mass Production of Industry’s First 3D NAND Flash

Lucas123 writes “Samsung has announced it is mass producing the industry’s first three-dimensional (3D) Vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash memory that breaks through current planar NAND scaling limits, offering gains in both density and non-volatile memory performance. The first iteration of the V-NAND is a 24-layer, 128Gbit chip that will eventually be used in embedded flash and solid-state drive applications, Samsung said. It provides 2 to 10 times higher reliability and twice the write performance of conventional 10nm-class floating gate NAND flash memory. Initial device capacities will range from 128GB to 1TB, ‘depending on customer demand.’ ‘In the future, they could go considerably higher than that, ‘ said Steve Weinger, director of NAND Marketing for Samsung Semiconductor. Samsung’s process uses cell structure based on 3D Charge Trap Flash (CTF) technology and vertical interconnect process technology to link the 3D cell array. By applying the latter technologies, Samsung’s 3D V-NAND can provide over twice the scaling of current 20nm-class planar NAND flash.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Continue Reading:
Samsung Begins Mass Production of Industry’s First 3D NAND Flash

Update: Researchers say Tor-targeted malware phoned home to NSA

A search reveals the address used in an attack on Tor users’ privacy referenced an IP address belonging to the NSA, routed through SAIC. Malware planted on the servers of Freedom Hosting — the “hidden service” hosting provider on the Tor anonymized network brought down late last week—may have de-anonymized visitors to the sites running on that service. This issue could send identifying information about site visitors to an Internet Protocol address that was hard-coded into the script the malware injected into browsers. And it appears the IP address in question belongs to the National Security Agency (NSA). This revelation comes from analysis done collaboratively by Baneki Privacy Labs , a collective of Internet security researchers, and VPN provider Cryptocloud . When the IP address was uncovered in the JavaScript exploit —which specifically targets Firefox Long-Term Support version 17, the version included in Tor Browser Bundle—a source at Baneki told Ars that he and others reached out to the malware and security community to help identify the source. The exploit attacked a vulnerability in the Windows version of the Firefox Extended Support Release 17 browser —the one used previously in the Tor Project’s Tor Browser Bundle (TBB). That vulnerability had been patched by Mozilla in June, and the updated browser is now part of TBB. But the TBB configuration of Firefox doesn’t include automatic security updates, so users of the bundle would not have been protected if they had not recently upgraded. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View post:
Update: Researchers say Tor-targeted malware phoned home to NSA

Indian IT firm accused of discrimination against “stupid Americans”

Sean MacEntee Infosys, an Indian IT software and services company with offices throughout the world, has been accused of discriminating against American job applicants. One Infosys employee who raised concerns about the company’s hiring practices was repeatedly called a “stupid American, ” the lawsuit states. Infosys has about 15, 000 employees in the US “and approximately 90 percent of these employees are of South Asian descent (including individuals of Indian, Nepalese, and Bangladeshi descent), ” the lawsuit states . Infosys allegedly achieved this ratio “by directly discriminating against individuals who are not of South Asian decent in hiring, by abusing the H-1B visa process to bring workers of South Asian descent into the country rather than hiring qualified individuals already in the United States, and by abusing the B-1 visa system to bring workers of South Asian descent into the United States to perform work not allowed by their visa status rather than hiring individuals already in the United States to perform the work.” Infosys “used B-1 visa holders because they could be paid considerably lower wages than other workers including American-born workers, ” the lawsuit states. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View the original here:
Indian IT firm accused of discrimination against “stupid Americans”

Jeff Bezos buys The Washington Post for $250 million in cash

Some big (and surprising) news in the media industry today: The Washington Post has just confirmed that it and its affiliated publications have been acquired by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos for $250 million in cash. The announcement notes that Amazon “will have no role in the purchase, ” and that Bezos himself “will buy the news organization and become its sole owner when the sale is completed, probably within 60 days.” The statement goes on to explain that “The Post Co. will change to a new, still-undecided name and continue as a publicly traded company without The Post thereafter.” In an interview with the paper, the Post Co.’s chief executive, Donald Graham, says that “The Post could have survived under the company’s ownership and been profitable for the foreseeable future. But we wanted to do more than survive, ” adding, “I’m not saying this guarantees success but it gives us a much greater chance of success.” In a letter to Post employees, Bezos says that he “won’t be leading The Washington Post day-to-day, ” but that “there will of course be change at The Post over the coming years, ” and that “we will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment.” Developing… Comments Via: @Romenesko (Twitter) Source: The Washington Post (1) , (2)

The First 3D Printed Rifle Now Fires Multiple Rounds—Without Breaking

The Canadian sucessor to the Liberator’s attempt at bringing plastic firearms to the masses has apparently just gotten one step closer to his goal. After firing one semi-successful, barrel-cracking shot from his newly designed 3D-printed rifle, the Grizzly, a YouTube user going only by “Matthew” was able to fire a full 14 shots before the gun gave way. Read more…

View the original here:
The First 3D Printed Rifle Now Fires Multiple Rounds—Without Breaking

Ken May

Author: kenmay