Tech Today w/ Ken May

Sea urchins may use their entire bodies—from the ends of their “feet” to the tips of their spines—as one huge eye, a new study says.

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Sea Urchin Body Is One Big Eye

So this is what those zombies need our brains for: to turn on the lights! This prototype system allows the severely disabled to perform simple tasks like making a phone call and turn on the lights simply by thinking about commands. This is a proof of concept and uses the Emotiv EPOC headset to control a set of telekinetic applications that can perform various tasks.

Why is this better than, say, a suck-blow straw interface or an eye-tracking system? Well, for one it’s much cheaper than any of those well-established technologies and most of the processing is performed on the computer, thereby making the actual electronics a bit less complex.

There is a much longer and deeper interview over at Singularity Hub but this project seems to be progressing impressively and could soon give the severely disabled a second chance at controlling their physical environment.

Product Page via SingularityHub

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NUOS System Allows Disabled Users To Perform Simple Tasks… With Their Brains!

Security firm Intego announced Monday that a fake antivirus program for Mac OS X has been discovered in the wild. While the threat potential remains low, inexperienced users could be fooled into paying to remove fake viruses “detected” by the software, and in the process, could end up giving credit card information to scammers.

The fake antivirus software calls itself “MAC Defender,” perhaps the first hint that it should not be trusted (Apple makes “Macs,” not “MACs”). Those behind the malware used SEO poisoning to make links to the software show up at the top of search results in Google and other search engines. Clicking the links that show up in search results brings up a fake Windows screen that tells the user a virus has been “detected,” another clue that something is fishy. JavaScript code then automatically downloads a zipped installer for MAC Defender.

If the “Open ‘safe’ files after downloading” option is turned on in Safari, the installer will be unzipped and run. Since the installer requires a user password, it won’t install without user interaction. However, inexperienced users may be fooled into thinking the software is legitimate.

Intego notes that the application is well designed and doesn’t have misspellings or other errors common to such malware on Windows. The software will periodically display Growl alerts that various fake malware has been detected, and also periodically opens porn websites in the default browser, perhaps leading a user to believe the detected malware “threats” are real. Users are then directed to an insecure website to pay for a license and “clean” the malware infections. However, the buying the license merely stops the fake alerts from popping up, but your money and credit card info is now in the hands of hackers.

While MAC Defender wouldn’t likely fool an experienced user, Intego notes that its appearance in the wild is yet another opportunity to detail some useful security precautions. Don’t let your browser automatically open downloads. If your browser asks if you want to run an installer even though you didn’t try to download one, click “cancel.” And never give your password to run installers you aren’t 100 percent sure about.

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Fake “MAC Defender” antivirus app scams users for money, CC numbers

So this is something: according to one of Business Insider’s sources, Barack Obama watched the entire raid of Osama Bin Laden’s compound live via a helmet cam feed. Badass. More

Continue reading EnOcean’s home automation sensors communicate over TCP/IP, play nice with smartphone apps

EnOcean’s home automation sensors communicate over TCP/IP, play nice with smartphone apps originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 14:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Osama bin Laden’s dead. But before we offed him, he was camped out in a Pakistani mansion—and in typical internet fashion, it's already pinpointed on Google. The mapper's anonymous, but they reveal strange things—police station neighbors? More

snydeq writes “InfoWorld’s Peter Wayner offers a look at 13 promising features unique to one browser. From Chrome’s support for SPDY, to IE9’s emphasis on energy efficiency, to Firefox Sync, browser vendors are working hard to establish any edge that might attract more users to their stack of code. And while speed and HTML5 compatibility remain key in the battle of the Web browsers, unique features often point the way forward. ‘Given the pace of browser updates these days, don’t be surprised to find the best of the bunch being copied by competitors soon,’ Wayner writes. ‘After all, yesterday’s browser bells and whistles are today’s must-have features.'”

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The Features That Make Each Web Browser Unique

So we finally got our dirty little hands on RIM’s new BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone here at BlackBerry World 2011. It’s basically the old Bold but with a capacitive touchscreen and updated innards including a 1.2 GHz CPU, 768 MB of RAM, a GPU , HSPA+, and NFC support. From a design perspective it mixes BlackBerry’s traditional formula with iPhone 4-like materials (that familiar stainless steel rim). It certainly looks premium and feels lovely in the hand, and the keyboard is typical BlackBerry — which is to say fantastic. The screen is beautiful too, perfect to showcase that new BlackBerry 7 OS. Still, we can’t help but think that we’re looking at the device RIM should have shipped last summer instead of the Torch. We’ll have a hands on video up soon but for now take a peek at our gallery below.

Continue reading BlackBerry Bold 9900 hands-on (update: video)

BlackBerry Bold 9900 hands-on (update: video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 11:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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An anonymous reader writes “Semyon Dukach is at it again. Thumbing his nose at the establishment, that is. Dukach, a former leader of the MIT blackjack team, has taken his small company, SMTP, public today in the hopes of overturning the field of e-mail delivery and management. SMTP might sound boring, but it’s the latest vehicle in Dukach’s quest to ‘make a couple billion and then try to help the world’ (without the aid of venture capitalists or investment bankers). Given his track record, people might not want to bet against him.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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MIT Blackjack King Takes SMTP Public

So we finally got our dirty little hands on RIM’s new BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone here at BlackBerry World 2011. It’s basically the old Bold but with a capacitive touchscreen and updated innards including a 1.2 GHz CPU, 768 MB of RAM, a GPU , HSPA+, and NFC support. From a design perspective it mixes BlackBerry’s traditional formula with iPhone 4-like materials (that familiar stainless steel rim). It certainly looks premium and feels lovely in the hand, and the keyboard is typical BlackBerry — which is to say fantastic. The screen is beautiful too, perfect to showcase that new BlackBerry 7 OS. Still, we can’t help but think that we’re looking at the device RIM should have shipped last summer instead of the Torch. We’ll have a hands on video up soon but for now take a peek at our gallery below.

BlackBerry Bold 9900 hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 11:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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