Hacker group rewriting Tumblr pages into a racist, anti-gay screed (update: Tumblr says it’s fixed)

Some Tumblr users are seeing their pages replaced with several dozen duplicate posts from a known hacker group, warning that deleting said message will delete the Tumblr page in question (it’s unclear if this is actually true, but seems to be false in our testing). Tumblr confirmed the ongoing issue to us this morning, and warned users who’ve seen the message to “please log out of all browsers that may be using Tumblr,” as that’s one way the “viral post” is being spread. The message from the group is aimed at the wide world of “bloggers,” and insists Tumblr users should take their own lives. Tumblr says its team is “working to resolve the issue as swiftly as possible,” though there is no timeline for when it’ll be fixed. In the meantime, we suggest changing your Tumblr password (though there’s no indication that passwords were necessarily taken, or any other personal information) and staying away from the site until the all clear is given. Thus far, it doesn’t seem that any previously written posts have been deleted, but simply pushed dramatically far down the timeline by a deluge of duplicate posts. We’ll update this post as we learn more. Update: A Tumblr rep tells us, “Tumblr engineers have resolved the issue of the viral post attack that affected a few thousand Tumblr blogs earlier today.” The sites we were seeing affected earlier seem to have returned to normal. Filed under: Networking , Internet , Software , Mobile Comments Source: GNAA.eu

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Hacker group rewriting Tumblr pages into a racist, anti-gay screed (update: Tumblr says it’s fixed)

Researchers Create New Cheap, Shatterproof, Plastic Light Bulbs

hattig writes “US researchers say they have developed a new type of lighting that could replace fluorescent bulbs. The new light source is called field-induced polymer electroluminescent (Fipel) technology. It is made from three layers of white-emitting polymer that contain a small volume of nanomaterials that glow when electric current is passed through them. The developer is promising cheap, hard-to-break, mercury-free, highly efficient bulbs from 2013.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Researchers Create New Cheap, Shatterproof, Plastic Light Bulbs

DOE Wants 5X Improvement In Batteries In 5 Years

dcblogs writes “The U.S. Dept. of Energy has set a goal to develop battery and energy storage technologies that are five times more powerful and five times cheaper within five years. DOE is creating a new center at Argonne National Laboratory, at a cost of $120 million over five years, that’s intended to reproduce development environments that were successfully used by Bell Laboratories and World War II’s Manhattan Project. ‘When you had to deliver the goods very, very quickly, you needed to put the best scientists next to the best engineers across disciplines to get very focused,’ said U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, on Friday. The Joint Center for Energy Storage Research isn’t designed to seek incremental improvements in existing technologies. This technology hub, according to DOE’s solicitation (PDF), ‘should foster new energy storage designs that begin with a “clean sheet of paper” — overcoming current manufacturing limitations through innovation to reduce complexity and cost.’ Other research labs, universities and private companies are participating in the effort.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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DOE Wants 5X Improvement In Batteries In 5 Years

Self-Updating LCD Grocery Shelf Labels Are Pure Genius

It seems the rumors of e-ink based displays’ imminent death at the hands of tablets were greatly exaggerated. Despite a glut of portable color screen devices now on the market, e-book readers are more popular than ever, and a company called ZBD Solutions now wants to use the e-ink technology as easily updateable store signage. More »

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Self-Updating LCD Grocery Shelf Labels Are Pure Genius

How Syria Turned Off the Internet

November 29, 2012, between 1026 and 1029 (UTC), all traffic from Syria to the rest of the Internet stopped. At CloudFlare, we witnessed the drop off. CloudFlare spent yesterday morning studying the situation to understand what happened. The following graph shows the last several days of traffic coming to CloudFlare’s network from Syria. More »

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How Syria Turned Off the Internet

Researchers Can Make Bread Stay Fresh for 60 Days

Most foods deteriorate over time, but bread’s a major culprit, often going stale after just a couple of days. Now, though, a US research company claims to be able to make your loaf stay fresh for up to 60 whole days . More »

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Researchers Can Make Bread Stay Fresh for 60 Days

Newzbin2 Closes For Good

AlphaWolf_HK writes “Newzbin2, one of the most recognized index sites for usenet, has closed for good. A statement reads: ‘It is with regret that we announce the closure of Newzbin2. A combination of several factors has made this the only option. For a long time we have struggled with poor indexing of Usenet, poor numbers of reports caused by the majority of our editors dropping out & no-one replacing them. Our servers have been unstable and crashing on a regular basis meaning the NZBs & NFOs are unavailable for long periods and we don’t have the money to replace them. To make things worse all our payment providers dropped out or started running scared. The MPA sued Paypal and are going at our innocent payment provider Kthxbai Ltd in the UK. Our other payment provider has understandably lost their nerve. Result? We have no more payment providers to offer & no realistic means of taking money (no, Bitcoin isn’t credible as it’s just too hard for 90% of people).'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Newzbin2 Closes For Good

Staples to get in-store 3D printers

Some Staples stores in Belgium and the Netherlands will have MCOR color 3D printers that will print out model-files uploaded to a store website for in-person pickup. MCOR printers use plain pulp paper as build material, so the resulting models will be essentially cellulose, dye and glue, and should be easy to recycle. Staples’ Easy 3D will offer consumers, product designers, architects, healthcare professionals, educators, students and others low-cost, brilliantly coloured, photo-realistic 3D printed products from Staples stores. Customers will simply upload electronic files to the Staples Office Centre and pick up the models in their nearby Staples stores, or have them shipped to their address. Staples will produce the models with the Mcor IRIS, a 3D printer with the highest colour capability in the industry and lowest operating cost of any commercial-class 3D printer. The press release promises that this technology will be made available in other Staples stores around the world. Mcor Technologies and Staples division launch 3D printing service

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Staples to get in-store 3D printers

Gigapixel images of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine #2

Greg sez, “This project is using a number of computational photography techniques to document Charles Babbage’s ‘Difference Engine No 2’ for the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. There are interactive gigapixel images for the four cardinal views of the device available to view.” Babbage Difference Engine in Gigapixel ( Thanks, Greg ! )

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Gigapixel images of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine #2