newsletters – Page 23 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Popcorn Time reinvents the seedy process of torrenting

We are used to illegal activities looking and feeling far more illegal than this. A new BitTorrent-powered video app has been released that beautifies the torrenting process to the point that TorrentFreak describes it as “Netflix for pirates.” The app, which is available for OS X, Windows, and Linux, shows a catalog of movies and loads them up on a computer in an interface as seamless as that of most legit streaming services, but using means that are generally less than legal. Typically, torrenting a movie (illegally, if it’s copyrighted property) involves seeking out a sketchy torrent website littered with porn ads to download a .torrent file that users hope will actually result in a movie and not, say, a virus. The process’s pitfalls and risks are many, not to mention the potential for getting called out by one’s ISP and, in rare instances, being fined or sued. Popcorn Time eliminates the seedier aspects of torrent location in a slick app that doesn’t involve dealing with files, download speeds, or seeding—at least on the front end. The app began as a Github project that now has over 50 contributors. It is free, open-source, and has no ads or other money-making schemes. The app works by using an API provided by torrent service YTS to stream the file, which is then shared from the user’s computer after the download is completed. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Follow this link:
Popcorn Time reinvents the seedy process of torrenting

Review: Mophie’s Space Pack doubles your iPhone’s battery, storage, and size

The Mophie Space Pack is an iPhone case with an integrated battery and 16 or 32GB of internal storage. Andrew Cunningham Specs at a glance: Mophie Space Pack Storage 16 or 32GB integrated NAND Ports MicroUSB 2.0 for charging Size 5.66″ 2.57″ x 0.63″ (143.76 x 65.28 x 16mm) Weight 2.80 oz (79.38g) Battery 1700mAh Warranty 1 year Starting Price $149.95 for 16GB, $179.95 for 32GB Compatibility iPhone 5 and 5S only. Not compatible with fifth-gen iPod touch or iPhone 5C. I bought one of Mophie’s external battery packs not long after we reviewed one in mid-2012 , and since then it’s become one of my favorite travel companions. My phone is in near-constant use while I’m traveling for work, whether I’m transmitting communications to the Ars Orbiting HQ , tethering my computer to my phone, or shooting some quick on-the-fly video or pictures without digging out my DSLR. The upside to an external battery pack is that I can plug pretty much anything into it, from an iPhone to an Android tablet to a Chromebook 11 . The bad thing is that you have to remember to have it on you, and you also need to carry around the necessary cables at all times. That’s where Mophie’s Space Pack comes in—it’s a revised version of the company’s Juice Pack battery cases with a twist. In addition to a 1,700mAh battery, it includes either 16GB or 32GB of storage that you can use to augment your iPhone’s internal storage. It’s not for everyone, but for some iPhone 5 and 5S users among you, it just might be able to kill three birds with one stone. The case The case slides on to your iPhone 5 or 5S. Pull the two parts back apart to get the phone out of the case. Andrew Cunningham The case itself is very similar to Mophie’s existing Juice Pack Plus or Juice Pack Air, the largest and second-largest battery cases the company sells. Its 1,700mAh battery is identical to the Air, and they share roughly equal physical dimensions and weight (the Space Pack is very slightly larger and heavier, but it’s hard to tell the difference). It comes apart in two pieces that slide onto the phone and interlock. The bottom of the case has a male Lightning connector that goes into the phone, but you charge the case itself with the same micro USB port that you might find in an Android or Windows phone or tablet. Read 15 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read the article:
Review: Mophie’s Space Pack doubles your iPhone’s battery, storage, and size

Teens get banned from an app after vicious attacks and threats

simon_bramwell The developers of Yik Yak , an app that works as an anonymous message board for up to 500 people in close proximity to one another, have selectively disabled the app’s use in Chicago following vicious sniping and rumor mongering by children using it at school. WLS-TV in Chicago reports that people in the city won’t be able to use Yik Yak until the developers figure out a way to get youth usage under control. Apps for sharing information anonymously like Wut and Secret have seen a recent surge in popularity. In the case of Wut and Secret, users are connected to people they actually know—Secret uses the mobile device’s contact list, and Wut’s (anonymous) contacts are powered by Facebook. Yik Yak, by contrast, connects a large swath of people—friends, enemies, and strangers—based entirely on their location. Among middle and high schoolers, this becomes many lockers’- and bathroom walls’-worth of pain and drama. WLS-TV reports students in Chicago have used it to spread rumors about rape, and in other locales, schools have been evacuated because of bomb threats on the service. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Original post:
Teens get banned from an app after vicious attacks and threats

First OS X 10.9.3 beta improves support for 4K displays

An OS X 10.9.3 beta running in Retina mode on what appears to be a 39-inch Seiki 4K display. 9to5Mac OS X 10.9.2 was just released last week, but Apple has already begun testing for version 10.9.3, and the update will apparently come with some goodies for users of 4K displays. According to a report by 9to5Mac , the new update enables HiDPI “Retina” scaling on 4K displays that didn’t offer the option in previous OS X versions. It’s possible to enable HiDPI display modes on any monitor in OS X with some tweaking, but Apple is apparently interested in supporting Retina-style output on high-resolution monitors by default. Apple made a big 4K push with its new Mac Pro, which can support up to three 4K displays at once thanks to its twin GPUs and six Thunderbolt 2.0 ports. However, the company doesn’t yet make its own 4K Thunderbolt Display—current Mac Pro buyers can add $3,600 32-inch Sharp 4K displays to their orders, or they can bring their own monitors. 9to5Mac’s testing was conducted with what appears to be a 39-inch Seiki Digital display , which as of this writing can be had on Amazon for $500 (though it doesn’t support a 60Hz refresh rate at 4K). According to others who have installed the new beta , 10.9.3 also apparently enables 60Hz 4K output on the 2013 Retina MacBook Pros. The Intel and Nvidia GPUs that power these MacBooks were previously capable of 60Hz 4K output when running Windows, but were limited to lower refresh rates in OS X. Higher refresh rates make for a smoother, more pleasant viewing experience, and are especially useful when editing movies, playing games, or in any other activities where response time is important. Those with older Macs likely won’t see 60Hz 4K support even after installing the update—the 2013 Retina MacBook Pros and 2013 Mac Pro are the only systems that support the requisite DisplayPort 1.2 spec. iMacs, MacBook Airs, and the Mac Mini will need to wait for a Thunderbolt 2 upgrade before they can drive high-resolution displays at the higher refresh rate. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read the original:
First OS X 10.9.3 beta improves support for 4K displays

Microsoft is a “2.5-trick pony” according to Steve Ballmer

In Conversation with Steve Ballmer at Saïd Business School Most companies fail, successful companies are often one-trick ponies, but Microsoft is a two-and-a-half trick pony, according to former CEO Steve Ballmer, speaking at Oxford’s Said Business School . He was responding to a question about why Microsoft had failed to innovate in the mobile space, particularly given that it had invented the tablet computer way before it was popularized by Apple. “Most tech companies fail,” Ballmer replied. “They are zero-trick ponies. They never do anything well and they go away. You are a genius in the industry if you are a one-trick pony. You get some innovation right and then spin it. I am very proud of the fact that [Microsoft] has done at least two tricks. Tricks are worth billions and billions and billions of dollars.” Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View original post here:
Microsoft is a “2.5-trick pony” according to Steve Ballmer

Critical crypto bug leaves Linux, hundreds of apps open to eavesdropping

A. Strakey Hundreds of open source packages, including the Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Debian distributions of Linux, are susceptible to attacks that circumvent the most widely used technology to prevent eavesdropping on the Internet, thanks to an extremely critical vulnerability in a widely used cryptographic code library. The bug in the GnuTLS library makes it trivial for attackers to bypass secure sockets layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protections available on websites that depend on the open source package. Initial estimates included in Internet discussions such as this one indicate that more than 200 different operating systems or applications rely on GnuTLS to implement crucial SSL and TLS operations, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the actual number is much higher. Web applications, e-mail programs, and other code that use the library are vulnerable to exploits that allow attackers monitoring connections to silently decode encrypted traffic passing between end users and servers. The bug is the result of commands in a section of the GnuTLS code that verify the authenticity of TLS certificates, which are often known simply as X509 certificates . The coding error, which may have been present in the code since 2005 , causes critical verification checks to be terminated, drawing ironic parallels to the extremely critical “goto fail” flaw that for months put users of Apple’s iOS and OS X operating systems at risk of surreptitious eavesdropping attacks. Apple developers have since patched the bug . Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Link:
Critical crypto bug leaves Linux, hundreds of apps open to eavesdropping

Comcast subscriber spinoff could create a new cable company

Comcast’s plan to divest itself of 3 million subscribers, which it hopes will help it win approval of a merger with Time Warner Cable, could result in the creation of a new cable company. Rather than selling off territories to existing cable companies, Comcast is considering an option to “[spin] them off in a new publicly traded company,” Bloomberg reported , citing anonymous sources.”Regulators may push for the spin-out because it would create a new competitor,” Bloomberg wrote. “A new company formed in such a way would be the fourth-largest US cable company by subscribers, trailing the merged Comcast-Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications Inc,. and Charter Communications Inc.” Creating a new company with those customers wouldn’t result in more choices for consumers in individual markets. Despite being the two largest cable companies in the US, Comcast and Time Warner Cable don’t compete against each other in any regional territory. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

More:
Comcast subscriber spinoff could create a new cable company

MtGox code posted by hackers as company files for bankruptcy protection

Cross Office Shibuya Medio, the office building in Tokyo that is home to MtGox and Mark Karpeles’ other companies. Tokyo Apartments As MtGox CEO Mark Karpeles and his lawyers officially filed for court-supervised restructuring of the Bitcoin exchange, someone posted a chunk of code to Pastebin that would appear to lend credence to Karpeles’ contention that his company was hacked. The block of PHP code appears to be part of the backend for MtGox’s Bitcoin exchange site, and it includes references to IP addresses registered to Karpeles’ Web hosting and consulting company, Tibanne . In an update to the MtGox website late Monday, the company reasserted its claim that it had been hacked through an exploit of a weakness in its exchange website code. “Although the complete extent is not yet known, we found that approximately 750,000 bitcoins deposited by users and approximately 100,000 bitcoins belonging to us had disappeared,” the company’s spokesperson said in the latest update at the MtGox website. “We believe that there is a high probability that these bitcoins were stolen as a result of an abuse of this bug and we have asked an expert to look at the possibility of a criminal complaint and undertake proper procedures.” That loss was discovered on February 24. On the same day, the company found “large discrepancies between the amount of cash held in financial institutions and the amount deposited from our users. The amounts are still under investigation and may vary, but they approximate JPY 2.8 billion [$27 million US].” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Originally posted here:
MtGox code posted by hackers as company files for bankruptcy protection

Black holes cheat on the Eddington limit to export extra energy

The shocked gasses of the micro quasar are structured in the same way as those of this actual quasar. NASA, ESA, S. Baum and C. O’Dea (RIT), R. Perley and W. Cotton (NRAO/AUI/NSF), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Black holes got their name because they have such intense gravity that, once inside their event horizons, not even light can escape. Somewhat ironically, they’re also some of the brightest objects in the Universe. That’s entirely because of things that happen outside of the event horizon. There, the hole’s intense gravity draws matter into a disk and raises it to very high energies. The disk emits lots of light on its own and sends out jets of high energy particles that emit even more as they interact with the surrounding interstellar material. But this process has a limit—literally called the Eddington limit. At some point, the radiation emitted by the black hole starts driving off the surrounding matter, effectively cutting off its own food supply. You can view the Eddington limit as the point where matter intake is optimal; below it, the hole can swallow more than the environment’s feeding it, while above, matter is being driven off before it can be eaten. Now, thanks to new observations of a black hole in the Southern Pinwheel galaxy (Messier 83), researchers have found that the Eddington limit isn’t an absolute cap on the amount of energy a black hole can emit out into its surroundings. Their observations suggest that this particular black hole sends out almost as much energy in the form of accelerated particles. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

The day the Mario Kart died: Nintendo’s kill switch and the future of online consoles

flickr user: Andrew Huff Nintendo fans, mark your calendars for May 20, 2014. As Nintendo announced yesterday , that’s the last day you’ll be able to use the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to play hundreds of online games on the Wii and Nintendo DS. Single-player modes for those games will still work, of course, but any parts of the games that require an Internet connection will be completely non-functional in a matter of months. The shutdown will affect some of both systems’ most popular games, some of the best-selling games of all time. Suddenly, over 34 million copies of Mario Kart Wii and 23 million copies of Mario Kart DS will be severely diminished. The tens of millions of people who own the DS Pokemon games will no longer be able to trade their beasts or battle online. Animal Crossing: Wild World and Super Smash Bros. Brawl will be less functional for over 11 million players each. Sure, as a practical matter, relatively few of these tens of millions of players are still making regular use of online servers for games that are sometimes pushing nine years old. If they were, Nintendo would probably have more interest in continuing to maintain those servers on the theory that it would lead to some more very-long-tail sales for its online-enabled games. On the other hand, Nintendo could be more interested in trying to force more players off its “legacy systems” and on to the Wii U and 3DS, which of course still have active online support. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments