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Thieves nab 40,000 Samsung devices through a daring Brazilian heist

When you think of gadget thefts, odds are that you picture muggings or smash-and-grabs at stores. Apparently, one group of thieves in Brazil had far more ambitious plans — it raided Samsung’s factory in Campinas (shown here) and stole more than 40, 000 laptops, phones and tablets that police estimate are worth $36 million. Reportedly, the heist played out much like a movie. The bandits both hijacked a company shuttle to get inside and took some of the workers hostage, going so far as to confiscate phone batteries so that no one could alert the police. None of the culprits have been identified, and Samsung contends that the actual value of the stolen goods is lower. However, authorities suspect that the crooks had inside help; they knew not just how to get in, but also where they would find certain valuables. Samsung will try to prevent a “repeat incident, ” but a lot of damage has already been done. Those devices likely aren’t coming back, and future production runs might not be safe if the robbers really did get assistance from corrupt workers. [Image credit: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images] Filed under: Cellphones , Laptops , Tablets , Mobile , Samsung Comments Via: Reuters , ZDNet Source: MSN (translated)

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Thieves nab 40,000 Samsung devices through a daring Brazilian heist

Free WiFi provider admits to making up 90 percent of its revenues

If you live in San Francisco or New York , you likely know you can connect to free WiFi in certain locations. Your cities’ governments partnered with Madrid-based provider Gowex to make that happen — the same company that has recently admitted to doctoring its accounts for the past four years. Gowex might be an unknown to most of us, but it was considered a success story in Spain and performed really well at Madrid’s Alternative Equity Market, a stock exchange for small companies. A few days ago, though, a short seller named Gotham City Research published a report that claims 90 percent of the company’s revenues are falsified and that it actually earns only 10 percent of what it says it does. While Gowex initially denied the accusation and even announced that it earned 182.6 million Euros ($248 million) in 2013, company president Jenaro Garcia ultimately admitted the allegations and resigned from his position. On his Twitter page, Garcia wrote: I made the deposition and confession. I want to collaborate with the justice. I face the consecuencies. – Jenaro Garcia (@jero_net) July 6, 2014 The company used to claim that it makes its money from partnerships with local governments that want to use its free WiFi services, carriers that use its hotpots to offload data and from premium fees, among other things. It’s unclear what will happen to its hotspots in NYC and San Francisco, but the cities will likely have to look for another provider now that Gowex has filed for bankruptcy. Filed under: Wireless Comments Via: Fierce Wireless , Bloomberg Source: AFP , Fierce Wireless , Bloomberg , Euronext

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Free WiFi provider admits to making up 90 percent of its revenues

Study Shows that 10,000 Hours of Practice Isn’t the Magic Number

The 10, 000 hours of practice rule suggests that it takes about 10, 000 hours of practice to master any skill. It’s often cited as a guideline for the purpose of deliberate practice, but according to a study from Princeton, that number’s probably not right. Read more…

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Study Shows that 10,000 Hours of Practice Isn’t the Magic Number

Crypto weakness in smart LED lightbulbs exposes Wi-Fi passwords

Context In the latest cautionary tale involving the so-called Internet of things, white-hat hackers have devised an attack against network-connected lightbulbs that exposes Wi-Fi passwords to anyone in proximity to one of the LED devices. The attack works against LIFX smart lightbulbs , which can be turned on and off and adjusted using iOS- and Android-based devices. Ars Senior Reviews Editor Lee Hutchinson gave a good overview here of the Philips Hue lights, which are programmable, controllable LED-powered bulbs that compete with LIFX. The bulbs are part of a growing trend in which manufacturers add computing and networking capabilities to appliances so people can manipulate them remotely using smartphones, computers, and other network-connected devices. A 2012 Kickstarter campaign raised more than $1.3 million for LIFX, more than 13 times the original goal of $100,000. According to a blog post published over the weekend , LIFX has updated the firmware used to control the bulbs after researchers discovered a weakness that allowed hackers within about 30 meters to obtain the passwords used to secure the connected Wi-Fi network. The credentials are passed from one networked bulb to another over a mesh network powered by 6LoWPAN , a wireless specification built on top of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard . While the bulbs used the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to encrypt the passwords, the underlying pre-shared key never changed, making it easy for the attacker to decipher the payload. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Crypto weakness in smart LED lightbulbs exposes Wi-Fi passwords

Uber Is Now Cheaper Than a New York City Taxi

redletterdave writes Uber announced in a blog post on Monday it would cut the prices of its UberX service in New York City by 20% — but it’s only for a limited time. Uber says this makes it cheaper to use UberX than taking a taxi. Consumers like Uber’s aggressive pricing strategy but competitors — and some of its own drivers — are not as happy. UberX, Uber’s cheaper service usually hosted by regular people driving basic sedans rather than fancy black cars, also cut its rates by 25% last week in the Bay Area, including San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. As a result of that announcement, Uber said its service was effectively “45% cheaper than a taxi.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Uber Is Now Cheaper Than a New York City Taxi

This Tiny Apartment Is Built Inside a 30-Year-Old Storage Unit

When most of us think of housing shortages, we think of the micro-apartments of Hong Kong or New York. But Stockholm is in the midst of its own shortage, and with it, incredibly resourceful solutions. Take, for example, this 387-square-foot apartment in an old storage unit. Read more…

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This Tiny Apartment Is Built Inside a 30-Year-Old Storage Unit

The Latest Super-Thin ATM Skimmers Are Virtually Unspottable

Just like consumer tech, criminal tech advances in leaps and bounds—and none more so than the ATM skimmer. Now, the kinds of skimmers being used are so slim and small that you’ll never see them—and their battery life means they last an age, too. Read more…

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The Latest Super-Thin ATM Skimmers Are Virtually Unspottable

The AI Boss That Deploys Hong Kong’s Subway Engineers

Taco Cowboy writes The subway system in Hong Kong has one of the best uptime, 99.9%, which beats London’s tube or NYC’s sub hands down. In an average week as many as 10, 000 people would be carrying out 2, 600 engineering works across the system — from grinding down rough rails to replacing tracks to checking for damages. While human workers might be the one carrying out the work, the one deciding which task is to be worked on, however, isn’t a human being at all. Each and every engineering task to be worked on and the scheduling of all those tasks is being handled by an algorithm. Andy Chan of Hong Kong’s City University, who designed the AI system, says, “Before AI, they would have a planning session with experts from five or six different areas. It was pretty chaotic. Now they just reveal the plan on a huge screen.” Chan’s AI program works with a simulated model of the entire system to find the best schedule for necessary engineering works. From its omniscient view it can see chances to combine work and share resources that no human could. However, in order to provide an added layer of security, the schedule generated by the AI is still subject to human approval — Urgent, unexpected repairs can be added manually, and the system would reschedules less important tasks. It also checks the maintenance it plans for compliance with local regulations. Chan’s team encoded into machine readable language 200 rules that the engineers must follow when working at night, such as keeping noise below a certain level in residential areas. The main difference between normal software and Hong Kong’s AI is that it contains human knowledge that takes years to acquire through experience, says Chan. “We asked the experts what they consider when making a decision, then formulated that into rules – we basically extracted expertise from different areas about engineering works, ” he says. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The AI Boss That Deploys Hong Kong’s Subway Engineers