guides – Page 3 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Yahoo restricting Mail accounts if it detects ad-blockers

Yahoo is reportedly preventing some of its users with ad blockers installed on their computers from accessing their email accounts. Digiday has spotted a thread on the Adblock Plus forums with complaints from a couple of people who couldn’t access Yahoo Mail on both Chrome and Firefox. One of them posted a screenshot of the message he got asking him to “disable Ad Blocker to continue using” the service, which you can see below the fold. If you take a close look at the URL, you’ll see that it says “reason=ADBLK_TRAP.” Via: Digiday Source: Adblock Plus

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Yahoo restricting Mail accounts if it detects ad-blockers

Doctors can now grow human vocal cords in a lab

Used to be that if you damaged your vocal cords and needed a new set, doctors would have to shoot you full of immunosuppressants to keep your body from rejecting the cadaver-sourced replacements. Not anymore. Researchers at University of Wisconsin Medical School have published a preliminary study in the journal Science Translational Medicine wherein they successfully cultured 170 sets of vocal cords in the lab. These organs do not require the course of immunosuppressants that conventional transplants require. “We never imagined that we would see the impressive level of function that we did, ” study senior author Nathan Welham told Buzzfeed . Via: Buzzfeed Source: Science Translational Medicine

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Doctors can now grow human vocal cords in a lab

Air Force torch cuts through locks like a hot knife through butter

Firefighters, police and soldiers don’t have many good options when they want to breach a door: blowtorches and lock picks are usually slow, while battering rams, explosives and guns aren’t exactly subtle. The US Air Force and EMPI recently crafted a far better solution, though. Their TEC Torch creates a brief but super-hot (5, 000F) metal vapor jet that cuts through steel in less than a second, making short work of virtually any lock. In some ways, it’s like Star Wars ‘ Qui-Gon Jinn cutting through doors with a lightsaber — it’s just faster and less dramatic. Via: We Are the Mighty , Business Insider Source: US Air Force (PDF) , EMPI

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Air Force torch cuts through locks like a hot knife through butter

One Google Glass follow-up reportedly ditches the screen

Google Glass (aka Project Aura ) might not include so much actual glass the next time around. Sources for The Information understand that there are three next-generation headsets in development, and that one of them doesn’t have a screen at all — it’s an audio-focused model meant for the “sport” crowd. That sounds like an amped-up Bluetooth headset to us, but we’ll reserve judgment until there’s something to see… or rather, hear. Don’t worry if you still want that signature eyepiece, though — there’s talk of at least an enterprise-focused model with a display, Things are reportedly still up in the air (Google may cut its three models to two), but this could give you an idea of what to expect when Project Aura arrives sometime next year. [Image credit: AP Photo] Source: The Information

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One Google Glass follow-up reportedly ditches the screen

Pop-up sensor would give robot surgeons a sense of touch

Robotic surgery is no longer the stuff of science fiction. However, these robots can’t really feel their way around — the need for super-small mechanisms rules out existing approaches to touch. That’s where Harvard researchers might come to save the day. They’ve developed a pop-up sensor whose four layers collapse to a tiny footprint (just a tenth of an inch) when necessary, but expand into a 3D sensor thanks to a built-in spring. The design is extremely sensitive, too, with a light intensity sensor that can detected mere millinewtons of force. Source: Harvard University , IEEE Sensors Journal

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Pop-up sensor would give robot surgeons a sense of touch

MetroPCS site flaw exposed the data of 10 million subscribers

It’s not just hacks that put your personal data out in the open — sometimes, it’s just poor coding. Security researchers Eric Taylor and Blake Welsh have shown Motherboard a MetroPCS website bug that, until it was fixed this month, made it easy to get sensitive info for over 10 million subscribers. All you needed was a phone number to get a person’s home address, phone serial number and more. And if you weren’t picky, you could have whipped up a script to harvest all of the data within two days. Source: Motherboard

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MetroPCS site flaw exposed the data of 10 million subscribers

A startup is growing faux shrimp meat in the lab using algae

Someday, you might be able to throw a lab-grown meat party with not only burgers , but also tempura on the menu. A startup called New Wave Foods is developing artificial shrimp meat in the laboratory, urged by environmental destruction and the other troubles brought about by commercial fishing. According to Motherboard , the team is currently testing different ways of extracting proteins from algae that the crustaceans eat, mixing and mashing them together with protein gels to create the meat. So far, they’ve already nailed the taste, but mimicking the seafood’s texture is proving to a bit more difficult. Source: Motherboard , New Wave Foods

New Android exploit can hack any handset in one shot

Hackers have discovered a critical exploit in Chrome for Android reportedly capable of compromising virtually every version of Android running the latest Chrome. Quihoo 360 researcher Guang Gong demonstrated the vulnerability to the PSN2OWN panel at the PacSec conference in Tokyo yesterday. While the inner workings of the exploit are still largely under wraps, we do know that it leverages JavaScript v8 to gain full administrative access to the victim’s phone. Source: The Register

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New Android exploit can hack any handset in one shot

Facebook brings 360-degree videos to iOS as content creation ramps up

360-degree videos made their way into Facebook’s News Feed back in September, but it was only available for web and Android users. Now, however, iOS users can join in on the fun as well thanks to a new Facebook update that is being rolled out today. There’s also good news for Gear VR owners: you’ll now be able to play back those videos from News Feed without ever taking your headset off, making it that much easier to delve into new immersive experiences. At the same time, plenty of publishers have jumped on the 360 video bandwagon — ABC News, BuzzFeed, FrontLine, Nickelodeon and many more will be publishing new 360-degree clips onto Facebook starting today. Source: Facebook

In-N-Out Burger sues food delivery service DoorDash

In-N-Out Burger has sued on-demand food delivery service DoorDash due to food handling and safety concerns, according to TMZ . A part of the filing obtained by TechCrunch explains that the food chain isn’t happy that DoorDash is using its trademarks, when it has no control over how its food is handled and how much time passes between the purchase and the delivery. Further, the delivery service’s website is using In-N-Out’s logo without permission, even if the restaurant previously asked for it to be pulled down more than once. Source: TechCrunch , TMZ

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In-N-Out Burger sues food delivery service DoorDash