Tag: advertising

Scientists Produce Graphene 100 Times Cheaper Than Ever Before

Zothecula writes that researchers at the University of Glasgow have found a way to produce large sheets of graphene 100 times more cheaply than previous methods. Gizmag reports: “Since first being synthesized by Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov at the University of Manchester in 2004, there has been an extensive effort to exploit the extraordinary properties of graphene. However the cost of graphene in comparison to more traditional electronic materials has meant that its uptake in electronic manufacturing has been slow. Now researchers at the University of Glasgow have discovered a way to create large sheets of graphene using the same type of cheap copper used to manufacture lithium-ion batteries.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Scientists Produce Graphene 100 Times Cheaper Than Ever Before

A Skeptic’s Guide to Buying (or Not Buying) a 4K TV

I bought my beloved television half a decade ago, a (then) impressively thin 32-inch Samsung for around $500 . Today, you can buy a 50-inch 4K TV for $500 . The real question is: Should you buy a 4K TV at all? Read more…

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A Skeptic’s Guide to Buying (or Not Buying) a 4K TV

Even the Dumbest Ransomware Is Almost Unremovable On Smart TVs

An anonymous reader writes: Apparently even the easiest-to-remove ransomware is painfully hard to uninstall from smart TVs, if they’re running on the Android TV platform, and many are. This didn’t happen in a real-world scenario (yet), and was only a PoC test by Symantec. The researcher managed to remove the ransomware only because he enabled the Android ADB tool beforehand, knowing he would infect the TV with the ransomware. “Without this option enabled, and if I was less experienced user, I’d probably still be locked out of my smart TV, making it a large and expensive paper weight, ” said the researcher. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Even the Dumbest Ransomware Is Almost Unremovable On Smart TVs

FBI Links a Single Hacker to the Theft of 1.2 Billion Stolen Log-Ins 

The FBI has managed to link the theft of a frankly staggering 1.2 billion log-in credentials to a single hacker, after finding a Russian email address within reams of data obtained by security researchers. Read more…

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FBI Links a Single Hacker to the Theft of 1.2 Billion Stolen Log-Ins 

Why "Secure Empty Trash" Is Gone in El Capitan (and What To Do Instead)

If you’ve been using OS X El Capitan for a while, you might have noticed that the old option to “Secure Empty Trash” is gone from the trash can’s right-click menu. There’s a pretty good reason why, but it’s still possible to do it you don’t mind digging into the command line. Read more…

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Why "Secure Empty Trash" Is Gone in El Capitan (and What To Do Instead)

This High-Def Footage Of Colored Water On The ISS Is Mesmerizing 

This is really cool: astronauts onboard the International Space Station have long shown off what it’s like to play with water in microgravity. Now, they’ve taken some ultra high-def footage with color and effervescent tablets. Read more…

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This High-Def Footage Of Colored Water On The ISS Is Mesmerizing 

Sued Freelancer Allegedly Turns Over Contractee Source Code In Settlement

FriendlySolipsist writes: Blizzard Entertainment has been fighting World of Warcraft bots for years. TorrentFreak reports that Bossland, a German company that operates “buddy” bots, alleges Blizzard sued one of its freelancers and forced a settlement. As part of that settlement, the freelancer allegedly turned over Bossland’s source code to Blizzard. In Bossland’s view, their code was “stolen” by Blizzard because it was not the freelancer’s to disclose. This is a dangerous precedent for freelance developers in the face of legal threats: damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Sued Freelancer Allegedly Turns Over Contractee Source Code In Settlement

Researchers Create Plant-Circuit Hybrid

sciencehabit writes: Researchers have crafted flexible electronic circuits inside a rose. Eventually such circuitry may help farmers eavesdrop on their crops and even control when they ripen. The advance may even allow people to harness energy from trees and shrubs not by cutting them down and using them for fuel, but by plugging directly into their photosynthesis machinery. The researchers used “an organic electronic building block called PEDOT-S:H. Each of these building blocks consists of a short, repeating chain of a conductive organic molecule with short arms coming off each link of the chain. Each of the arms sports a sulfur-containing group linked to a hydrogen atom. Berggren’s group found that when they placed them in the water, the rose stems readily pulled the short polymer chains up the xylem channels (abstract). … The upshot was that the myriad short polymer chains quickly linked themselves together into continuous strings as long as 10 centimeters. The researchers then added electronic probes to opposite ends of these strings, and found that they were, in fact, wires, conducting electricity all down the line.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Researchers Create Plant-Circuit Hybrid