Tag: fitness

Android Marshmallow begins rolling out to Nexus devices today

As expected , Nexus owners are in for a treat this week as Google’s latest OS revisions begins rolling out to select devices. According to a post on the Official Android Blog , the Nexus 5, 6, 7 (the 2013 model), 9 and Player are all in line to receive the over-the-air software update starting today. The newly released Nexus 5x and 6P handsets, of course, come with Marshmallow already installed. [Image Credit: Shutterstock] Source: Android Blog

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Android Marshmallow begins rolling out to Nexus devices today

Adobe’s ‘core’ design apps are now all touch-friendly on Windows

When the Surface Pro 3 was announced last spring, Adobe revealed that it was working on touch-friendly versions of its design apps for Windows. At today’s Max event , the company announced that its collection “core” apps are ready to accept your swipes and taps on compatible devices, like Microsoft’s slate, with new Touch Workspaces. Photoshop and Illustrator already had some touch-based features, but now there’s an expanded software lineup that’ll let you get hands-on with your work across audio, video, motion graphics and graphic design projects. This means that Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, After Effects and Audition all accept input with your fingers, in addition the regular ol’ keyboard, trackpad or stylus. And Photoshop’s finger-friendly tools have been revamped to improve performance. Adobe’s timing couldn’t be better either, as Microsoft is poised to announce some new devices in a matter of hours. Source: Adobe

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Adobe’s ‘core’ design apps are now all touch-friendly on Windows

Apple already blocked the first malware for non-jailbroken iPhones

With certain exceptions , most iOS-focused malware targets jailbroken devices whose compromised security makes them easy prey. However, there’s been concerns that a recent strain of malware, YiSpecter , can attack even ‘pure’ devices running stock iOS. Do you have to worry about catching a bug online and losing control over your device? Probably not, if you ask Apple. In a statement to The Loop , the company notes that it not only fixed the vulnerability with iOS 8.4 , but blocked the apps handing out the offending code. The victims downloaded apps from “untrusted sources” (that is, outside of the App Store) Cupertino adds. In short, Apple believes this is a non-issue as long as you install updates and stay cautious — and given that more than half of its users are already running iOS 9, it might be right. Via: AppleInsider Source: The Loop

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Apple already blocked the first malware for non-jailbroken iPhones

Scientists can watch HIV spread through a mouse in real time

Scientists have long been perplexed by HIV’s ability to spread through the body – until now, that is. A team of medical researchers from Yale University have for the first time recorded the retrovirus’ movement through a mouse host. The team did so by marking the virus with a fluorescent dye and then injecting it into a mouse’s lymph node (as seen in the video below). The lymphatic system is the seat of the body’s immune system. “It’s all very different than what people thought, ” Walther Mothes, associate professor of microbial pathogenesis and co-senior author the paper, said in a statement. Once there, the HIV went about binding itself to macrophages, immune cells tasked with consuming foreign particles and dead cells. But that’s only a temporary viral vehicle. The HIV particle will then jump ship and attach itself to a rare type of B-cell responsible for generating antibodies, as you can see below. What’s more, these cells can move between the lymphatic system and surrounding tissues. These B-cells basically act as invisibility cloaks for the virus, shielding them from the rest of the body’s defenses. And with it, HIV particles can quickly spread through the rest of the organism. This discovery could yield clues in slowing the virus’ movements or, potentially, a way to prevent it from infecting macrophages in the first place. The Yale team’s study has been published in the journal, Science . [Image Credit: UIG via Getty Images] Via: Yale University Source: Science

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Scientists can watch HIV spread through a mouse in real time

Apple made the iPhone 6s nearly waterproof and didn’t tell anyone

Leave it up to Apple to downplay a surprisingly useful engineering feat: A water-resistant iPhone. It turns out the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus sport a combination of new technology that makes them far more resistant to liquid damage than past iPhones, iFixit reports . Apple packed in a new gasket around the sides of the phone, and it incased every cable connector on the phone’s logic board with a waterproofing material. Given that the logic board that includes most of the iPhone’s sensitive electronics and is the most prone to water damage, Apple’s solution is particularly clever. Most other water-resistant phones focus on protecting external ports, rather than internal electronics. While it’s far from being truly waterproof, there are plenty of videos online showing iPhone 6s models surviving water dunks. The truly strange thing is Apple has never mentioned the feature — unlike Samsung and Sony, both of which championed water resistance as key features of some recent phones (though Samsung gave up on it for the Galaxy S6, and Sony is backtracking on its claims). From a consumer psychology perspective, it makes sense for Apple to keep quiet. Once you tell people your phone is water resistant, they will inevitably send their phones flying into glasses to test out that claim (at least, that’s what I did with the Galaxy S5). Now, people who accidentally drop their iPhones into the toilet might be pleasantly surprised to discover their phone didn’t die. Additionally, the increased water resistance means used iPhone 6s models will last a lot long longer and have fewer costly repairs, which will be particularly useful for Apple and its new iPhone upgrade plan. [Photo credits: iFixit ] Via: Wired Source: iFixit

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Apple made the iPhone 6s nearly waterproof and didn’t tell anyone

TrueCrypt Windows encryption app has critical security flaws

If you’re still using TrueCrypt to protect your Windows disks, even though its developers abandoned it and said it was “not secure” last year, you may want to stop that. Google Project Zero researcher James Forshaw found two “privilege elevation” holes in the popular software that would give attackers full access to your data. Worse yet, TrueCrypt was audited earlier this by a crowdfunded team of iSec security researchers and found to be error-free. Google’s James Forshaw said on Twitter that the miss was understandable, though: “iSec phase 1 audit reviewed this specific code but Windows drivers are complex beasts (and) easy to miss.” Forshaw hasn’t disclosed the bugs yet, saying he usually waits seven days after a patch is released. He and other researchers agree that the vulnerabilities — which can reportedly be exploited by “abusive drive letter handling” — weren’t deliberately installed. And they won’t, of course, be fixed in the original program’s code. @v998n @VeraCrypt_IDRIX I don’t tend to open up security bug reports until 7 days or so after the release of the patch, just in case 🙂 — James Forshaw (@tiraniddo) September 27, 2015 However, if you’re using TrueCrypt because “free” is a good price, there are other options –VeraCrypt and CipherShed are open source forks of TrueCrypt, and VeraCrypt has already patched the bugs. Suffice to say, you should stop using TrueCrypt within the seven day window before Forshow releases the exploitable code. Even if you do, however, we likely haven’t heard the end of this type of Windows vulnerability. VeraCrypt’s Mounir Idrassi gold Threatpost that “These are the kind of vulnerabilities that exist in (lots of) software on Windows, ” and that will be (and have been) used by hackers for years. Via: PC World Source: James Forshaw (Twitter)

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TrueCrypt Windows encryption app has critical security flaws

Mealworms convert Styrofoam waste into usable soil

Researchers have found a scourge for the 33 million tons of plastic dumped each year in the US: mealworms. A team from Stanford and China’s Beihang University found that the beetle larvae stay perfectly healthy eating just Styrofoam, which is normally considered non-biodegradable. Better still, the worms convert the plastic to CO2 and waste that’s safe to use as soil for crops. The scientists were as surprised by the discovery as you might be. “There’s a possibility of really important research coming out of bizarre places, ” said Stanford professor Craig Criddle. “This is a shock.” Mealworms don’t have some kind of magic digestive system, of course. Earlier research has showed that microorganisms in the stomachs of Indian mealmoths can digest the polyethylene plastic used in garbage bags. The scientists now plan to study such bacteria to see whether they can biodegrade plastics used in automotive components and microbeads that pollute water supplies. The goal is to eventually cut out the middleman (“middleworm”?) and isolate the bioenzymes used by microorganisms to break down the plastics. That could result in new methods of reducing plastic waste that’s already in the environment, and new types of bio-plastics that won’t accumulate on land or at sea. Source: Stanford University

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Mealworms convert Styrofoam waste into usable soil

Raytheon signs $1 billion contract to protect government websites

Homeland Security has signed a five-year contract with Raytheon, which could be worth a whopping $1 billion. While the defense contractor is more known for weapons development, DHS hasn’t joined forces with it to create more missiles , lasers, warheads and UAVs . No, the agency has asked the company’s help to secure government websites. According to Raytheon’s announcement , it will aid the government in developing, deploying and supporting technologies that watch out for and mitigate cyberattacks. Reuters says the company will also help around 100 agencies manage their network security within the duration of the partnership as the prime contractor for DHS’ National Cybersecurity Protection System and Network Security Deployment divisions. After that massive Office of Personnel Management hack earlier this year (and the knowledge that other .gov websites are susceptible to attacks), it’s clear that the government believes it could use the cybersecurity upgrade Raytheon promises to bring to the table. And since the White House wants to start being more aggressive in securing its networks, this isn’t the government’s only anti-cyberattack project in the works. The Pentagon, for one, is building an automated system that can detect and prevent security breaches. [Image credit: Getty Images/Caiaimage] Via: Reuters Source: Raytheon

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Raytheon signs $1 billion contract to protect government websites

Tim Cook: Apple won’t merge iOS and OS X

Now that Apple is blurring the lines between its mobile tablets and PCs with the iPad Pro , it’s tempting to imagine iOS and OS X merging into a single operating system ( Windows 10-style ) that works on virtually every device the company makes. You’ll want to put any such ideas on hold, though. In a chat with Box’s Aaron Levie, Apple chief Tim Cook dismissed the prospects of unifying iOS and OS X. It “subtracts from both, ” he said, arguing that you “don’t get the best experience from either.” This isn’t a completely new idea from Apple (it once explained in detail why OS X doesn’t have touch), but it’s clear that Cook doesn’t feel any pressure to follow in Microsoft’s footsteps on this front. Not that Cook and crew are giving Microsoft and its ideas the cold shoulder — just the opposite, in fact. The exec said he doesn’t believe in “holding grudges” against Apple’s frequent rival, and that the two tech giants can “partner on more things” than they compete in. Witness the slew of iOS-friendly Office updates that were unveiled in tandem with the iPad Pro and iOS 9, for example. The enterprise crowd, Cook adds, would rather see Apple and Microsoft collaborating than fighting. On that note, the CEO contended that Apple isn’t nearly as work-phobic as it used to be. The company is big on enterprise deals (it made $25 billion in enterprise revenue in the space of a year), and that there’s no real distinction these days between personal and office-focused devices. You don’t buy enterprise smartphones any more than you buy enterprise cars, he said. We’re sure that BlackBerry won’t be happy with that last statement, but it’s hard to dispute — with occasional exceptions, software is the only thing distinguishing an off-the-shelf smartphone from a locked-down corporate handset. [Image credit: Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images] Source: ZDNet , Recode

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Tim Cook: Apple won’t merge iOS and OS X

Uber starts testing pre-paid service for events in NYC

Uber is launching yet another new product , but this one targets a specific group of people: event organizers, especially those tired of fielding calls from guests who can’t make it due to car troubles. The service called UberEvents allows organizers to buy and secure passes ahead of the occasion to send to guests, clients or whoever needs one to get to the location via email. Guests will only have to enter the code under the Promotions section of the Uber app to hail a ride. Now, nobody will be able to use car issues as an excuse anymore, and party planners won’t have to worry about how to send drunk guests home. Uber is initially making Events available to Business users and select people in New York City, though the service will be accessible by everyone in the metropolis within the coming weeks. Via: TechCrunch Source: Uber

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Uber starts testing pre-paid service for events in NYC