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Tanium exposed hospital’s IT while using its network in sales demos

Enlarge / Orion Hindawi, co-founder and chief technology officer of Tanium Inc. Information security company Tanium is a relatively well-established “next-generation” cybersecurity vendor that was founded 10 years ago—far ahead of the wave of the venture capital-funded newcomers, like Cylance, who have changed the security software space. (Tanium has reached a market valuation of more than $3 billion, though there are no indications of when it will make an initial public offering.) Starting in 2012, Tanium apparently had a secret weapon to help it compete with the wave of newcomers, which the company’s executives used in sales demonstrations: a live customer network they could tap into for product demonstrations.There was just one problem: the customer didn’t know that Tanium was using its network. And since the customer was a hospital, the Tanium demos—which numbered in the hundreds between 2012 and 2015, according to a Wall Street Journal report —exposed live, sensitive information about the hospital’s IT systems. Until recently, some of that data was shown in publicly posted videos. In 2010, Tanium’s software was installed at Allscripts Healthcare Solutions’ El Camino Hospital  (which markets itself as “the hospital of Silicon Valley”) in Santa Clara County, California. The hospital no longer has a relationship with Tanium. While Tanium did not have access to patient data, the demos showed desktop and server management details that were not anonymized. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Tanium exposed hospital’s IT while using its network in sales demos

Toyota Unveils Plan For Hydrogen Powered Semi Truck

New submitter omaha393 quotes a report from R&D Magazine: Toyota announced a new initiative on Wednesday aimed at advancing its work in vehicles powered by alternative energy sources. The automaker unveiled Project Portal, which is a novel hydrogen fuel cell system designed for heavy duty truck use at the Port of Los Angeles. A proof-of-concept truck powered by this fuel cell will be part of a feasibility study held at the Port this summer, with the goal of examining the potential of this technology in heavy-duty applications. The test vehicle will produce more than 670 horsepower and 1, 325 pound feet of torque from two of these novel fuel cell stacks along with a 12kWh battery. Overall, the combined weight capacity is 80, 000 pounds that will be carried over 200 miles. omaha393 adds: “While hydrogen fuel has been criticized due to high cost of production and safety concerns, recent advances in catalysis and solid storage systems have made the prospect of hydrogen fuel an attractive commercial prospect for the future.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Toyota Unveils Plan For Hydrogen Powered Semi Truck

MasterCard adds fingerprint sensors to payment cards

Our fingerprints are quickly replacing PINs and passwords as our primary means of unlocking our phones, doors and safes. They’re convenient, unique, and ultimately more secure than easily guessed or forged passwords and signatures. So it makes sense that fingerprint sensors are coming to protect our credit and debit cards. MasterCard is testing out new fingerprint sensor-enabled payment cards that, combined with the onboard chips, offer a new, convenient way to authorize your in-person transactions. Instead of signing a paper receipt or entering your PIN while struggling to cover up the number pad, you simply place your thumb on your card to prove your identity. The new cards are currently being tested in South Africa, and MasterCard hopes to roll them out to the rest of the world by the end of 2017. Even if that happens, though, you’ll still have to wait for your bank or financial institution to get on board. Once the technology is ready for the public, here’s how it should work. Your bank will inform you that the biometric card is available, and if you’re interested, you’ll have to go to an enrollment center (most likely a bank) to get your fingers scanned. An encrypted digital template of your fingerprint is stored on the card’s EMV chip . You can save up to two prints, but they would both have to be yours — you can’t authorize someone else to use your card with their fingers. After your templates are saved, your card is ready to be used at compatible terminals worldwide — merchants don’t have to get new equipment to accept your fingerprint-enabled plastic. The card itself is surprisingly no thicker than a regular credit card. The fingerprint sensor is a small, thumbnail-sized rectangle that sits at the top right corner, and is easily accessible when you stick the card into a payment terminal. During a recent demo, I tried to use a MasterCard rep’s biometric card with my finger, and received a “Transaction denied” message from the test payment terminal. When she carried out the faux-purchase, the payment went through, and the machine began printing a receipt. What really surprised me was the speed at which it happened. When the terminal asks you to insert the card, it’s communicating to the bank information like your identity and the amount of the transaction. Then, it verifies your identity by asking for your fingerprint. The sensor reads your finger, and sends the information to the card’s chip, which determines if you’re the owner. If you are, it sends a “Yes” or “Authorized” message to the bank, which then allows the payment to pass. At my demo, the authorization process happened almost instantly, which is reasonable given it’s all happening on the card instead of going through the bank. When it was me using the card, however, it took a slight pause to register that I wasn’t certified. I didn’t have trouble learning the new process at all, either — it’s intuitive and straightforward to simply leave your finger on the card as you slide it into a payment dock. Of course, this method is only compatible with chip-and-pin cards, so it won’t work with stores that only accept the older magnetic stripe models. But embedded chip technology has become increasingly popular in the US, thanks largely to regulations making financial institutions and merchants liable for breaches resulting from a lack of support for chip-and-pin cards. Getting a new biometric card is troublesome, since it would require a trip to the bank and a potentially long wait. But the convenience and the joy you’ll get from waving that fancy new plastic in your friends’ faces may make that agony worthwhile.

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MasterCard adds fingerprint sensors to payment cards

As an "Eff-You" to Anish Kapoor, Artist Stuart Semple Makes Super-Black Paint Available to All

Should any artist possess the exclusive rights to a color? As you may remember, last year Anish Kapoor announced he had done just that with Vantablack, the blackest substance known to man. After Kapoor acquired those rights, however, Vantablack developer Surrey Nanosystems developed an even darker version . Architecture firms and deep-pocketed luxury watch manufacturers were reportedly interested in using the color. For the rest of us on ordinary budgets, British artist Stuart Semple collaborated “with thousands of artists from all over the world” to create Black 2.0 , a super-black paint with similar properties to Vantablack. Semple has been manufacturing it and making it available for £11.99 (USD $15) for a 150mL bottle. What’s amusing is that he’s clearly done this as an eff-you to Kapoor. Here are some of the paint’s listed properties: * Unique acrylic co-polymer binder enables more pigment load than any other acrylic paint * Developed for artists by artists * Non Toxic * Priced at what it costs to make * Shippable worldwide * Not available to Anish Kapoor And some of the descriptive copy: [Black 2.0] has been developed in close collaboration with thousands of artists from all over the world. Their amazing insight, support and inspiration has formed this unique super-black paint for the benefit of all artists* *Except Anish Kapoor IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE: this is not the blackest black in the world. It is however a better black than the blackest black in the world as it is actually usable by artists. *Note: By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this material will not make its way into the hands of Anish Kapoor. Black 2.0 has proven so popular that Semple’s last batch sold out. He’s been producing more and expects to have the next batch ready for sale by today, April 19th.

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As an "Eff-You" to Anish Kapoor, Artist Stuart Semple Makes Super-Black Paint Available to All

Get your free copy of ‘StarCraft’ ahead of its Remastered release

At the tail end of March Blizzard announced plans for StarCraft: Remastered , which is due later this year with updates including 4K graphics and modern online features. Buried within that release, it also mentioned that gamers could expect to see the original game and its Brood War expansion released for free along with the 1.18 update for the game. That day has come , and nostalgic gamers can dive back in as soon as their copy finishes downloading (PC here , OS X version here ) like it’s 1998 again and Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It isn’t just a dated reference. StarCraft is now FREE w/ Patch 1.18!

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Get your free copy of ‘StarCraft’ ahead of its Remastered release

StarCraft Is Now Free, Nearly 20 Years After Its Release

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Nearly two decades after its 1998 release, StarCraft is now free. Legally! Blizzard has just released the original game — plus the Brood War expansion — for free for both PC and Mac. You can find it here. Up until a few weeks ago, getting the game with its expansion would’ve cost $10-15 bucks. The company says they’ve also used this opportunity to improve the game’s anti-cheat system, add “improved compatibility” with Windows 7, 8.1, and 10, and fix a few long lasting bugs. So why now? The company is about to release a remastered version of the game in just a few months, its graphics/audio overhauled for modern systems. Once that version hits, the original will probably look a bit ancient by comparison — so they might as well use it to win over a few new fans, right? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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StarCraft Is Now Free, Nearly 20 Years After Its Release

How Do You Keep a 13,600-Year-Old Woman From Looking Like Wilma Flintstone?

Recreations of Paleolithic people at the museum usually look like the typical Geico commercial caveman. Famed Otzi the Iceman , for example, has the face of someone who’d be fun to disembowel a moose with, but whose conversation might be just a little gauche. A new facial reconstruction of a Stone Age woman who lived… Read more…

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How Do You Keep a 13,600-Year-Old Woman From Looking Like Wilma Flintstone?

Trans fat bans link to fewer heart attacks, deaths—and they’re going national

Enlarge (credit: Getty | Scott Olson ) Banishing trans fats from foods is linked to reductions in the number of heart attacks and cardiovascular deaths in the years after the bans are implemented, according to data from cities and counties in New York that have made the cut. After three years, the areas banning trans fats from eateries seemed to have an extra  6.2 percent reduction in heart attacks and strokes compared with those that didn’t, researchers report in JAMA Cardiology . Last year, other researchers reported in the Journal of Health Economics that the New York bans appeared to cut deaths from cardiovascular disease by 4.5 percent —that is, they spared about 13 lives from cardiovascular deaths per 100,000 people each year. While the decade of bans that have gone into effect in the state offer “natural experiments” on how cutting out trans fat may affect health, the results back up a slew of older studies—animal, controlled trial, and observational studies—that found harms of trans fats, plus benefits of ousting them from people’s diets. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Trans fat bans link to fewer heart attacks, deaths—and they’re going national

‘Anniversary’ iPhone reportedly crams big screen into smaller device

Apple is prepping up to three iPhones for a possible fall launch, including a flagship stainless steel and curved glass tenth anniversary model, according to Bloomberg ‘s Apple guru Mark Gurman. That jibes very closely with past rumors from Fast Company and others that believe Apple will release two iPhone 7s models along with a pricey high-end version. Unlike others, however, Gurman thinks the new model will not have a curved OLED display, but merely curved glass on the back and front. Recent supply leaks hinted that the next iPhone design would use a curved OLED display, but apparently Apple abandoned that idea, possibly over supply concerns. Even if it’s not curved, it’ll still have an OLED screen that takes up most of the front of the device, though. It would thus have a screen around the same size as the current iPhone 7 Plus, but crammed into a body the size of the iPhone 7. That said, Apple is apparently testing multiple devices and hasn’t quite settled on a final design. For instance, it developed one prototype that uses a dramatically curved glass back like the original 2007 iPhone, which would be appropriate for a tenth anniversary device. However, suppliers reportedly struggled to build the highly curved glass, so it has also tested a slightly larger version with an aluminum back. The one most likely to ship, however, is a device that uses subtly curved glass on both the back and front, Gurman’s sources believe. Whichever way it goes for the screen, it’s likely that Apple will use stainless steel rather than more expensive aluminum for the frame. Apple has reportedly tapped Samsung for the OLED screens and ordered up to 100 million of them, as other suppliers don’t have enough capacity to meet expected demand. The screen is said to look dramatically better than those on the current iPhone 7 models, according to Fast Co ‘s sources. As for the rest of the device, Apple is supposedly testing a vertical rather than horizontal dual-lens camera for the overhauled iPhone. It’s also trying a dual-lens front camera with a Sony sensor similar to those used on the back of the iPhone 7 Plus (above), along with the previously-reported depth sensor . Apple has been experimenting with a screen-based Touch ID fingerprint reader, but it’s not clear whether that feature will make it into the next-gen iPhone. It has also been testing a 10-nanometer processor that would be more powerful and efficient, giving the device decent battery life without expanding its battery size over past models. Much of this information isn’t new, but Gurman has one of the best track records for predicting new Apple devices, so the report helps further clarify its plans. It seems that Apple still hasn’t settled on an exact design for the iPhone 8 or X, or whatever the next-gen device will be called. Even if the company does unveil it this fall (which seems a stretch if all this is accurate), don’t count on buying one immediately afterwards — it could take several months for Apple to get all the parts it needs, Bloomberg says. Source: Bloomberg

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‘Anniversary’ iPhone reportedly crams big screen into smaller device