Tag: security

Typingpool: Human Audio Transcription Parallelism

theodp writes “Silly rabbit, parallel processing is not just for Big Data! Building on techniques outlined by Andy Baio back in 2008, Wired writer and 20% Doctrine evangelist Ryan Tate has released Ruby-based software called Typingpool to make audio transcriptions easier and cheaper. ‘Typingpool chops your audio into small bits and routes them to the labor marketplace Mechanical Turk,’ Tate explains to his reporter pals, ‘where workers transcribe the bits in parallel. This produces transcripts much faster than any lone transcriber for as little one-eighth what you pay a transcription service. Better still, workers keep 91 percent of the money you spend.’ Remember to Use the Force for Good, Tate adds.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Typingpool: Human Audio Transcription Parallelism

Add a RAM Disk to Your Computer for Faster-than-SSD Performance

Feel the need for more computer speed? Even if you’re already rocking a fast SSD ( one of the best upgrades you can make), you can still improve your computer’s performance by adding more memory and turning it into a RAM disk, which can be as much as 70 times faster than a regular hard drive or 20 times faster than an SSD. More »

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Add a RAM Disk to Your Computer for Faster-than-SSD Performance

Possible Habitable Planet Just 12 Light Years Away

sciencehabit writes “Astronomers have discovered what may be five planets orbiting Tau Ceti, the closest single star beyond our solar system whose temperature and luminosity nearly match the sun’s. If the planets are there, one of them is about the right distance from the star to sport mild temperatures, oceans of liquid water, and even life (paper).” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Possible Habitable Planet Just 12 Light Years Away

Gmail Drops Support for Connecting To Pop3 Servers With Self -Signed Certs

DECula writes “In a move not communicated to its users before hand, Google’s Gmail servers were reconfigured to not connect to remote pop3 servers that have self-signed certificates, leaving folks with unencrypted connections, or no service when getting email from other services. Not good for the small folks. One suggestion was to allow placing the public keys on Google’s side in the user configuration. That would be a heck of a lot better than just dropping users into never never land.” Apparently, “valid” now means “paid someone Google approves to sign the certificate.” It’s not like commercial CAs have the best security track record either. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Gmail Drops Support for Connecting To Pop3 Servers With Self -Signed Certs

Virus Rebuilds Heart’s Own Pacemaker In Animal Tests

hugheseyau writes “A new pacemaker has been built inside a heart by converting beating muscle into cells which can organise the organ’s rhythm, U.S. researchers report. Scientists injected a genetically-modified virus into guinea pigs to turn part of their heart into a new, working pacemaker.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Virus Rebuilds Heart’s Own Pacemaker In Animal Tests

Huge Security Hole In Recent Samsung Devices

An anonymous reader writes “A huge security hole has been discovered in recent Samsung devices including phones like the Galaxy S2 and S3. It is possible for every user to obtain root due to a custom faulty memory device created by Samsung.” The problem affects phones with the Exynos System-on-Chip. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Huge Security Hole In Recent Samsung Devices

Frame Latency Spikes Plague Radeon Graphics Cards

crookedvulture writes “AMD is bundling a stack of the latest games with graphics cards like its Radeon HD 7950. One might expect the Radeon to perform well in those games, and it does. Sort of. The Radeon posts high FPS numbers, the metric commonly used to measure graphics performance. However, it doesn’t feel quite as smooth as the competing Nvidia solution, which actually scores lower on the FPS scale. This comparison of the Radeon HD 7950 and GeForce 660 Ti takes a closer look at individual frame latencies to explain why. Turns out the Radeon suffers from frequent, measurable latency spikes that noticeably disrupt the smoothness of animation without lowering the FPS average substantially. This trait spans multiple games, cards, and operating systems, and it’s ‘raised some alarms’ internally at AMD. Looks like Radeons may have problems with smooth frame delivery in new games despite boasting competitive FPS averages.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Frame Latency Spikes Plague Radeon Graphics Cards

New Mac trojan tricks users into paying pricey cell phone fees

Doctor Web Researchers have discovered new Mac-based malware that’s designed to trick users into paying pricey subscription fees. Dubbed Trojan.SMSSend.3666, the trojan masquerades as “VKMusic 4 for Mac,” a name that closely resembles an app used to listen to music on a popular Russian social networking site, according to a report published on Wednesday by Russia-based antivirus provider Doctor Web. An installer prompts users for a cell phone number, purportedly as part of the registration process. Users who respond to a subsequent text message then receive a bill charged to their mobile account. “Trojans of this family used to plague Windows users, but Trojan.SMSSend.3666 targets owners of Apple computers,” Wednesday’s advisory stated. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New Mac trojan tricks users into paying pricey cell phone fees

How Websites Know Your Email Address the First Time You Visit

An anonymous reader writes “Darren Nix works for 42Floors, a business that uses its website to help people find office space. He recently received a marketing email for a service that offered to identify visitors to his website. After squeezing some information out of the marketer and playing around with a demo account, he now explains exactly how sketchy companies track your presence across multiple websites. The marketer offered to provide Nix with ‘tracking code that would sit in your web site’ which would ‘grab a few key pieces of data from each visitor.’ This includes IP addresses and search engine data. The marketer’s company would then automatically analyze the data to try to identify the user and send back whatever personal information they’ve collected on that user from different websites. Thus, it’s entirely possible for a site to know your name, email address, and company on your very first visit, and without any interaction on your part. Nix writes, ‘A real-world analogue would be this scenario: You drive to Home Depot and walk in. Closed-circuit cameras match your face against a database of every shopper that has used a credit card at Walmart or Target and identifies you by name, address, and phone. If you happen to walk out the front door without buying anything your phone buzzes with a text message from Home Depot offering you a 10% discount good for the next hour. Farfetched? I don’t think so. … All the necessary pieces already exist, they just haven’t been combined yet.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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How Websites Know Your Email Address the First Time You Visit