Behold: the drop-dead simple exploit that nukes Google’s Password Alert

Less than 24 hours after Google unveiled a Chrome extension that warns when user account passwords get phished , a security researcher has devised a drop-dead simple exploit that bypasses it. This benign proof-of-concept exploit looks almost identical to a Google login page, and is typical of a malicious phishing page that attempts to trick people into entering their user name and password. If Google’s freely available Password Alert extension was better designed, it would provide a warning as soon as someone tried to log into the page with their Google password. Instead, the warning is completely suppressed. (Note: although Ars fully trusts the researcher, readers are strongly advised not to enter passwords for Google accounts they use for anything other than testing purposes.) A video of the bypass exploit is here Bypassing Google’s Password Alert “Protection” “It beggars belief,” Paul Moore, an information security consultant at UK-based Urity Group who wrote the exploit, told Ars. “The suggestion that it offers any real level of protection is laughable.” He went on to say Google would do better devoting its resources to supporting the use of password managers, since most of them provide much more effective protections against phishing attacks. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Behold: the drop-dead simple exploit that nukes Google’s Password Alert

Grooveshark, bowing to RIAA, shuts down and apologizes for “serious mistakes”

Grooveshark, the free online music streaming service that allowed users to upload their own songs, announced on Thursday that it was shutting down. Josh Greenberg and Sam Tarantino founded the streaming service in 2006, and the site attracted tens of millions of users. Grooveshark called itself “the world’s largest on-demand and music discovery service.” But the service not only allowed users to upload any song; the founders also apparently demanded that employees upload popular songs  in an effort to expand the site’s music library. The service came under fire in recent years for allowing copyrighted material on the site. Several record companies, including Warner Bros., Sony, and Universal Music Group, sued Grooveshark in 2011 . Now the record companies have come to an agreement with Grooveshark under which it shut down the site and remove all copyrighted songs. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Grooveshark, bowing to RIAA, shuts down and apologizes for “serious mistakes”

Tesla’s new “Powerwall” home battery will cost $3,500 for 10kWh units [Updated]

HAWTHORNE, Calif.—In the sleek warehouse of Tesla’s Design Studio, CEO and co-founder Elon Musk announced the company’s latest products—a line of stationary batteries for households and utilities meant to store energy so that it can be used when energy is scarce and/or expensive. The home stationary battery will be called the Powerwall and it will cost $3,500 for a 10kWh unit. That unit is optimized to deal with serving a house if the traditional power grid goes down. A cheaper, $3,000 version will have a 7kWh capacity, and it will be able to help a house with solar panels deal with the fluctuations in energy supply. The prices don’t include installation, and Tesla said it would be working with certified installers including SolarCity and others. In a Q&A before the event, Musk said that the batteries will have thermal management systems to allow them to power houses in hot and cold climates too—the batteries have an operating temperature range of -20C (-4F) to 43C (110F). Read 18 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Tesla’s new “Powerwall” home battery will cost $3,500 for 10kWh units [Updated]

This Mean Predatory Cockroach Was Caught in Amber 100 Million Years Ago

This might look unlike most cockroaches you’ve ever seen—but that’s because it was probably quite a lot more aggressive than any you’ve seen, too. It had to be, because, it likely survived by hunting (admittedly quite small) prey, some 100 million years ago. Read more…

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This Mean Predatory Cockroach Was Caught in Amber 100 Million Years Ago

GPS eReader Lets the Book Take Place Wherever the Reader Is Located

An eReader lets travelers bring thousands of books with them on their journeys, but what if each of those stories was customized to wherever they happened to be at the moment? Read more…

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GPS eReader Lets the Book Take Place Wherever the Reader Is Located

DJ community can make and watch live-streamed videos of their sets

Add / Remove Visual content has been a key component of musical performance ever since video famously killed the radio star back in the late 1970s, and now a new platform is looking to cater to the visual aspects of DJ performance in particular. Chew is a live-streaming video service which enables DJs to share their mixes with fans and peers, creating an educational archive which Chew’s founders liken to Twitch.tv — the site where video gamers share video streams of their gaming sessions, used by millions of gaming enthusiasts. As with gaming, DJs are often consumers and creators, and Chew aims to become a centralized online community combining discussion, education, discovery and entertainment. There are already countless streaming platforms for DJs wanting to share their creations, such as Boiler Room TV, which broadcast and archive live performances, but Chew sets itself apart by turning its attention away from the crowd and onto the decks, enabling online audiences — whether amateur DJ or dance music enthusiast — to watch and learn. Chew is free to use and free to view and copyright is currently protected by a low revenue blanket license. The start-up plans to generate revenue through sponsorships, product tie-ins and ‘pro’ accounts, but is currently concentrating on expanding their user-base — which already boasts 4,000 members and 7,000 broadcasts. Are there other user-led forms of entertainment which could benefit from a similar community platform? Website: www.chew.tv Contact: support@chew.tv

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DJ community can make and watch live-streamed videos of their sets

New Square Enix real-time DirectX 12 demo crosses the uncanny valley

Final Fantasy maker and tech-demo master Square Enix unveiled a doozie of a demo at Microsoft’s 2015 Build conference. Titled Witch Chapter 0 [cry] , the demo showcased a range of DirectX 12 technical and processing wizardries to create a real-time animation on par with pre-rendered cut scenes and movies. During the demo (which you can view below), Microsoft’s Steve Guggenheimer explained each scene contained around 63 million polygons, which is supposedly up to 12-times more than Square Enix managed to render in its Agni’s Philosophy DirectX 11 demo back in 2012. Running 63 million polygons with high-resolution textures—8K by 8K in this case—is no small feat. By comparison, Star Citizen’s biggest carrier ships run up to around seven million polygons , while Ryse’s protagonist Marius was made up of 85K polygons on the Xbox One. One of the most impressive moments in the demo is when Guggenheimer zooms into the character model, revealing an immense amount of detail right up to the individual pores on her skin. The character’s hair was also revealed to be made up of individual polygons rendered with over 50 shaders, and not the less expensive surface mapping technique that’s commonly used to create features such as hair. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New Square Enix real-time DirectX 12 demo crosses the uncanny valley

Art Lebedev Studio’s Valikus Patterned Paint Roller

Leave it up to Art Lebedev Studio to recast something as basic as the paint roller in an entirely new light. Their Valikus roller is made from silicon and embossed with a floral pattern. Behind it sits a second roller, which applies paint to the first roller. (Frankly speaking, I can’t work out how that second roller is loaded in the first place.) A steady-handed user can then apply a pattern to a wall thusly: The tricky part was getting the pattern dense enough to read as a whole, but sparse enough to deal with the eyeballed edge-to-edge alignments. “It has to be both simple and complex at the same time, ” the team writes. “[The pattern must] align with different [passes] which [are] unavoidable in real life.” They experimented with different patterns, which you can see below and read about  here . I think the real challenge would the limitations of the user’s height, and keeping the pressure of the stroke even from high to low. If I tried to continue a stroke upwards by dragging a ladder over, I have no faith I’d be able to line the pattern up again. In any case, it’s a cool concept. Oh wait a sec—not a concept; it’s actually in production! The Valikus goes for 33 Euros, or about US $36.

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Art Lebedev Studio’s Valikus Patterned Paint Roller

Micro Tug Robots Can Pull Objects 2,000 Times Their Own Weight

 Like the noble ant or the sassy-yet-lovable tugboat, Micro Tugs can pull more than their own weight. The robots, which come from Stanford’s Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab, use a “controllable adhesive” plate that sticks to surfaces only when shear pressure is applied. In one case a 12 gram robot was able to pull objects 2, 000 times its own weight. Read More

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Micro Tug Robots Can Pull Objects 2,000 Times Their Own Weight

Raspberry Pi gets a remote Windows desktop client from Parallels

Parallels today is unveiling an RDP (remote desktop protocol) client for the Raspberry Pi, allowing the tiny computer to remotely access Windows desktops and applications. Although the Pi has appealed to hobbyists and developers, this product is for businesses, turning the Pi into a thin client for virtual desktop deployments. The pricing isn’t aimed at individuals. The Pi client works with the Parallels 2X Remote Application Server , which costs $75 per concurrent user, requiring a minimum of 15 users, making the minimum price $1,125. But there does seem to be an exception that allows free use for small groups and individuals. There’s a 30-day free trial that supports 50 concurrent users, and “After 30 days, you can continue using 2X Remote Application Server for three concurrent users with the FREE license key that you will receive via email after registration,” the 2X download page says . Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Raspberry Pi gets a remote Windows desktop client from Parallels