digest – Page 51 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

After sailing the domain name seas, Pirate Bay returns to Sweden

Aurich Lawson After nearly two weeks of bouncing its domain name around the globe, The Pirate Bay has returned to its home port. The notorious BitTorrent site originally went from .se to .sx (Sint Maarten), but it didn’t stop there—in recent days, it has shifted from .ac (Ascension Island) to .pe (Peru) to .gy (Guyana). Now, as of Thursday, it’s back to the comforts of .se (Sweden). Neither The Pirate Bay blog nor its Twitter feed offered any explanation. The move to .sx originally took place back in April 2013 when a Swedish prosecutor filed a motion to seize thepiratebay.se, piratebay.se, and thepiratebay.is. The registrar, the Internet Infrastructure Foundation, has said previously that it would only do so after being served by a Swedish court. “Our actions would largely be determined by the contents of the order and the issuing party,” the agency wrote in June 2012. “Accordingly, we will assess the situation on a case-by-case basis if such an order is issued.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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After sailing the domain name seas, Pirate Bay returns to Sweden

US report predicts CO2 emissions have peaked, energy independence near

Well-sited wind power is cheaper than coal, but the good sites aren’t evenly distributed throughout the US. NREL/DOE Although there are some reasonable questions about the value of making long-term projections about energy use, doing so is one of the duties of the US’ Energy Information Agency. On Monday, the EIA released an overview of a report in which it attempts to track the trends in the energy economy of the US out to 2040. The report contains some eye-popping predictions, including a huge (but brief) boom in domestic oil production, a near balance between energy imports and exports, and a peak in carbon emissions that’s already in our past. Energy predictions are fraught with uncertainty, but this report contains more than most, since it’s predicated on having the entire period out to 2040 covered by legislation and rules that are already on the books. At the moment, that would include the expiration of a tax credit that promotes the installation of renewable power facilities, something that Congress has already renewed several times. Perhaps more significantly, the EPA’s rules governing greenhouse gas emissions from existing facilities are still being formulated but are likely to be in effect for most of the period under consideration. This probably explains why the EIA predicts that the slice of domestic energy production that comes from renewables only increases from 11 to 12 percent over the next 30 years. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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US report predicts CO2 emissions have peaked, energy independence near

Report: Facebook set to finally launch auto-play video ads in news feeds

Caress this chipmunk’s cheeks with your pointer? Facebook wants to know about it. Facebook is due to announce the launch of video advertisements in users’ news feeds on Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal , citing anonymous sources. The newspaper added that the new program, which has been anticipated for some time now, is set to launch on Thursday on mobile applications as well as on the desktop browser. The ads apparently are designed to play automatically—a move that is surely bound to irritate many users of the social network. Ad Age reported in September 2013 that Facebook video ads had been originally slated for October 2013, but were then delayed. The Journal , which added that Facebook would charge $2 million per day to let advertisers reach its data-rich user based, noted that a teaser for the Lions Gate film “Divergent” is expected to be one of the first ads. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Report: Facebook set to finally launch auto-play video ads in news feeds

Exponential algorithm making Windows XP miserable could be fixed

Tom Carden Windows XP is really old, and we would suggest that you don’t use it unless you really have no option. For the most part, however, that age doesn’t really manifest itself. Sure, the operating system is missing the security features, hardware acceleration, and built-in support for things like USB 3 that newer versions of Windows have, but old software doesn’t have the same issues as, say, old cars. Old software generally runs as well today as it did when it was brand new. But Windows XP users have noticed that this isn’t entirely true. A bunch of them have found that the old operating system is working considerably worse than when it was released in 2001. The problem is that—especially among those who are still using Internet Explorer 6 or 7—each time you boot your Windows XP machine, it slows to a crawl. There’s a built-in process, svchost.exe, chewing up the entire processor, sometimes for an hour or more at a time. Wait long enough after booting and the machine will eventually return to normalcy. But an hour can be a long time to wait. Loss of horsepower and trouble starting up are common enough problems in old cars, but we don’t really expect the same things to happen on old PCs. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Botnet forces infected Firefox users to hack the sites they visit

Sites browsed by hacked PCs (left) and SQL injection flaws found by the botnet (masked, right). KrebsonSecurity Investigative journalist Brian Krebs has uncovered an unusual botnet that forces infected PCs to scour websites for security vulnerabilities that can cough up proprietary data or be exploited in drive-by malware attacks. The botnet, dubbed “Advanced Power” by its operators, has discovered at least 1,800 webpages vulnerable to SQL injection attacks since May, Krebs reported in a post published Monday . SQL injection vulnerabilities exploit weaknesses in Web applications that allow attackers to send powerful commands to a website’s backend databases. From there, attackers can download login credentials or other database contents or cause sites to post links that silently redirect visitors to malicious websites. Advanced Power masquerades as a legitimate add-on for Mozilla’s Firefox browser. Once installed, it looks for vulnerabilities on sites visited by the infected machine. Krebs wrote: Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Botnet forces infected Firefox users to hack the sites they visit

Sprint wants to buy T-Mobile and leave US with just three major carriers

Masayoshi Son (left), poses with a Storm Trooper at Sprint owner SoftBank’s launch of the iPhone 3GS in 2009. Danny Choo Sprint is “working toward a possible bid for rival T-Mobile” but is first examining regulatory concerns that could prevent such a merger, the Wall Street Journal reported today . A merger would leave the US cellular market with only three major carriers, although a combined Sprint/T-Mobile would perhaps be a more formidable opponent to market leaders AT&T and Verizon Wireless. AT&T attempted to buy T-Mobile, but it dropped those plans in December 2011 after opposition from the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Sprint hasn’t made a final decision on a bid, but it could happen in the first half of 2014 and be worth more than $20 billion “depending on the size of any stake in T-Mobile that Sprint tries to buy,” the Journal reported. “But it would likely face tough opposition from antitrust authorities, who worry consumers could suffer without a fourth national competitor to keep a check on prices,” the report said. AT&T’s takeover bid for T-Mobile would have been $39 billion.The Journal ‘s sources indicate that Sprint is wary of wasting time on a deal that might not come to fruition, but the company’s owner is leading the charge. “Driving the current effort is SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son, an aggressive acquirer who bought control of Sprint earlier this year and has made no secret of his desire to grow in the US via further deals,” the Journal wrote. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Everything you need to know to install SteamOS on your very own computer

SteamOS in all its blue glory. Lee Hutchinson True to its word, Valve has released a beta version of SteamOS, the Linux-based operating system that it will use to power its living room Steam Machine consoles. The release coincides with a lucky group of 300 public beta testers being selected to actually receive Steam Machines to test on—the rest of us can still use the OS, but we’ll have to bring our own hardware. Valve had previously recommended that users who aren’t “intrepid Linux hackers” should wait a few more months before trying out SteamOS, but that’s not going to stop Ars from barreling head first into the midst of things! We downloaded the OS as quickly as we could after it went live and spent some time getting it whipped into shape on fresh hardware. Contrary to Valve’s warning, the install wasn’t complex or scary at all—though if you’ve never installed Linux before, it might take you a bit out of your comfort zone. The hardware Specs at a glance:The Ars Technica Steam Machine CPU Intel Pentium G3220 (Haswell), dual-core, 3.0 GHz GPU Zotac Geforce GTX660 (2GB) RAM 8 GB DDR3-1600 Motherboard MSI H81I (mini-ITX) Storage Western Digital WD Blue 7200 rpm 500GB HD Sound Onboard Network Onboard (wired gigabit Ethernet) PSU Antec VP-450, 450W Case BitFenix Prodigy, arctic white We didn’t receive a Steam Machine to test, so we set out to build our own. Our goals were to stick to known-good SteamOS hardware, and to keep the price between $5-600. Andrew Cunningham, Kyle Orland, and I all stuck our heads together and came up with the configuration at right. All items were purchased from NewEgg, and the total prior to shipping was $562.93. Read 35 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Valve: First version of SteamOS to be released to the masses on Friday

Valve PC gamers who are champing at the bit to build their very own ” Steam Machines ” won’t have to wait long to start tinkering, as Valve has revealed that its recently announced SteamOS will be available this Friday. The announcement comes alongside word from Valve that its prototype Steam Machines , along with the companion Steam Controller , will be shipped out to 300 randomly selected US beta testers on Friday. Valve plans to notify the lucky testers via e-mail at 2 pm Pacific today, and beta participants will get a special badge on their Steam accounts so journalists and fellow players can start bugging them for their impressions incessantly. If you’re not part of that lucky group of 300, though, you’re probably more interested in the fact that “SteamOS will be made available when the prototype hardware ships… downloadable by individual users and commercial OEMs.” More information about that release is coming soon, the company says, but Valve is already warning that “unless you’re an intrepid Linux hacker already, we’re going to recommend that you wait until later in 2014 to try it out.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Valve: First version of SteamOS to be released to the masses on Friday

AT&T offers gigabit Internet discount in exchange for your Web history

AT&T is watching you browse. Seth Anderson AT&T’s “GigaPower” all-fiber network has launched in parts of Austin, Texas, with a price of $70 per month for download speeds of 300Mbps (which will be upgraded to a gigabit at no extra cost in 2014). The $70 price is only available if you agree to see targeted ads from AT&T and its partners, however. Interestingly, AT&T labels the Internet service with targeted ads as its “premier” service while calling the service without targeted ads “standard.” Not only is the price of the premier service (with ads) only $70 a month, but it comes with a waiver of equipment, installation, and activation fees. The standard service without ads is $99 a month, and there’s no mention of a waiver in AT&T’s announcement . “The waiver is part of the Premier package, so is not available with the standard service at this time,” AT&T told Ars. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T offers gigabit Internet discount in exchange for your Web history

New US spy satellite features world-devouring octopus

United Launch Alliance via ODNI President Obama is out to put the public’s mind at ease about new revelations on intelligence-gathering, but the Office for the Director of National Intelligence can’t quite seem to get with the program of calming everyone down. Over the weekend, the ODNI was pumping up the launch of a new surveillance satellite launched by the National Reconnaissance Office. The satellite was launched late Thursday night, and ODNI’s Twitter feed posted photos and video of the launch over the following days. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New US spy satellite features world-devouring octopus