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Zero-day Flash bug under active attack in Windows threatens OS X, Linux too

A fragment of the shellcode exploiting a critical vulnerability in Adobe Flash. Kaspersky Lab A day after reports that attackers are exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser , researchers warned of a separate active campaign that was targeting a critical vulnerability in fully patched versions of Adobe’s ubiquitous Flash media player. The attacks were hosted on the Syrian Ministry of Justice website at hxxp://jpic.gov.sy and were detected on seven computers located in Syria, leading to theories that the campaign targeted dissidents complaining about the government of President Bashar al-Assad, according to a blog post published Monday by researchers from antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab. The attacks exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in Flash when people used the Firefox browser to access a booby-trapped page. The attackers appear to be unrelated to those reported on Sunday who exploited a critical security bug in Internet Explorer, a Kaspersky representative told Ars. While the exploit Kaspersky observed attacked only computers running Microsoft Windows, the underlying flaw, which is formally categorized as CVE-2014-1776  and resides in a Flash component known as the Pixel Bender, is present in the Adobe application built for OS X and Linux machines as well. Adobe has updated all three versions to plug the hole. Because security holes frequently become much more widely exploited in the hours or days after they are disclosed, people on all three platforms should update as soon as possible . People using IE 10 and 11 on Windowws 8 will receive the update automatically, as will users of Google’s Chrome browser. It can sometimes take hours for the automatic updates to arrive. Those who are truly cautious should consider manually installing them. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Zero-day Flash bug under active attack in Windows threatens OS X, Linux too

Netflix is paying Verizon for network connection to speed up video

Netflix today confirmed that it reached an interconnection agreement with Verizon, similar to the one it recently struck with Comcast. “We have reached an interconnect arrangement with Verizon that we hope will improve performance for our joint customers over the coming months,” Netflix spokesperson Joris Evers told Ars. “It is a paid interconnect agreement.”Word of the deal first leaked on Twitter when analyst Walter Piecyk wrote , “Verizon CEO [Lowell McAdam] confirms they have signed direct connection deal with Netflix like Comcast’s.” When contacted by Ars, Piecyk said that “McAdam confirmed a deal with Netflix in answer to our question at a group investor meeting [today]. No further details were provided on the financial terms.” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Netflix is paying Verizon for network connection to speed up video

Man uses Raspberry Pi to build actual working cell phone for $158

David Hunt Raspberry Pi-using tinkerer David Hunt—who previously built a bark-activated door opener for dogs—is at it again with a real, working cell phone powered by the tiny computer and a few other items. “PiPhone” cost Hunt $158 to build with these components, all held together with cable ties: Raspberry Pi Model B – $40 PiTFT Touchscreen 320×240 – $35 2500mAh LiPo battery – $15 SIM900 GSM/GPRS module – $48 DC-DC boost converter 3.3V – 5V 1A – $10 Cables, connectors, switch, etc. – $10 “As you can see from the cost of the components, you’d be FAR better off going into your local phone store and picking up a normal smartphone, but hey, where’s the fun in that?” Hunt wrote on his blog today . “I got a great kick out of the first phone call I made with this thing. And it won’t stay in one piece for long, I’ll be using those parts for other projects very soon!” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Man uses Raspberry Pi to build actual working cell phone for $158

Lucasfilm makes it official: New Star Wars films ignore Expanded Universe

Fan favorite Mara Jade is now consigned to the Star Wars Legends non-canonical label. Derek Herring / Sony A post on Starwars.com officially confirms what fans have been hearing for the past three months: the complex and detailed future history of the Star Wars universe that has been slowly accreting since the 1990s will be completely ignored by the new trilogy of films. Per the post, ” Star Wars Episodes VII-IX will not tell the same story told in the post- Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe.” The confirmation is being met with a mixed reaction from fans over on Star Wars uber-site TheForce.net . “Thank you for wasting 20 years of my life,” said one poster . “I honestly may be done with Star Wars at this point.” “The simple truth is that canon is whatever the license holder says it is. Fans need to wrap their heads around that,” responded another . Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Lucasfilm makes it official: New Star Wars films ignore Expanded Universe

Covert Bitcoin miner found stashed in malicious Google Play apps

Lookout Researchers scouring the official Google Play market have unearthed more Android apps that surreptitiously abuse end-user devices to carry out the computationally intensive process of mining Bitcoins. The malware, dubbed “BadLepricon” by its creators, was stowed away inside six separate wallpaper apps that had from 100 to 500 downloads each, according to a blog post published Thursday by researchers from Lookout, an anti-malware provider for smartphones. Google employees promptly removed the offending apps once Lookout reported them. It’s at least the second time in a month that third-party researchers have discovered cryptocurrency-mining apps available for download on Google servers. Four weeks ago, researchers from Trend Micro reported they found two apps downloaded from one million to five million times that mined the Litecoin and Dogecoin cryptocurrencies without explicitly informing end users. “These apps did fulfill their advertised purpose in that they provided live wallpaper apps, which vary in theme from anime girls to ‘epic smoke’ to attractive men,” Meghan Kelly, a Lookout security communications manager, wrote in Thursday’s blog post. “However, without alerting you in the terms of service, BadLepricon enters into an infinite loop where—every five seconds—it checks the battery level, connectivity, and whether the phone’s display was on.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Covert Bitcoin miner found stashed in malicious Google Play apps

In just one year, Zynga has lost nearly half of its daily active users

It’s been a rough year for Zynga, which has relegated founder Mark Pincus to being chairman of the board. Fortune Live Media Zynga needs some good news, and fast: in its Tuesday quarterly earnings filling, the company reported that its daily active users rose from 27 million in the last quarter of 2013 to 28 million this quarter. But when compared to the first quarter of 2013 , Zynga had 53 million daily active users—which means the company has lost about half of its most active players in a year. Just months after Zynga spent $527 million on NaturalMotion , maker of Clumsy Ninja , the embattled social gaming firm also announced that it ended its first quarter by losing over $61 million. At this time last year, the company had profited $4.1 million during the first three months of 2013. Still, the company’s chief executive tried to play the loss down. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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In just one year, Zynga has lost nearly half of its daily active users

Rolling in it: Comcast profited $1.9 billion in first 3 months of 2014

Alyson Hurt Earlier this month, Comcast told the Federal Communications Commission that it needs the green light to purchase Time Warner Cable as a way to stay competitive with Google, Netflix, and others. Nevertheless, in its latest quarterly earnings report published on Tuesday, Comcast reported that it made $1.9 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2014—an 18 percent increase year-over-year. “Our operating momentum is continuing as we enter 2014 and is highlighted by our second consecutive quarter of video customer growth, as well as strength in high-speed Internet and business services,” Comcast CEO Brian L. Roberts said in a statement. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Rolling in it: Comcast profited $1.9 billion in first 3 months of 2014

“Russian Facebook” founder flees country after being forced out as CEO

Pavel Durov, founder and former CEO of Vkontakte. Pavel Durov/VK Pavel Durov, the founder of Vkontakte (VK)—the largest social network in Russia—said on Tuesday that he fled the country one day after being forced out of the company, claiming that he felt threatened by Kremlin officials. In a  post on his profile page on Monday, Durov explained that he was fired from his position as CEO of VK and that the so-called “Russian Facebook” is now “under the complete control” of two oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin. Durov explained that after seven years of relative social media freedom in Russia, his refusal to share user data with Russian law enforcement has set him at odds with the Kremlin, which has recently been trying to tighten its grip on the Internet, according to The Moscow Times . Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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“Russian Facebook” founder flees country after being forced out as CEO

Next-gen Thunderbolt doubles speeds but changes the connector

The leaked slide that purports to out the next-generation Thunderbolt controller. VR-Zone Thunderbolt 2 just started showing up in devices late last year, but a new slide leaked by VR-Zone is giving us our first glimpse at what the next version is going to look like. Dubbed “Alpine Ridge,” the new Thunderbolt controllers will double Thunderbolt 2’s bandwidth from 20Gbps to 40Gbps, will reportedly support PCI Express 3.0, and will reduce power usage by 50 percent compared to current controllers. The downside is that the new version will require the use of a new connector—it supports charging for devices that use up to 100W of power and it’s 3 mm shorter than current connectors, but adapters will be required to maintain compatibility with older Thunderbolt accessories. Doubling the available bandwidth will enable next-generation Thunderbolt controllers to drive two 4K displays simultaneously, where current controllers can only drive one. The new controllers will allegedly be compatible with a variety of other protocols as well, including DisplayPort 1.2, USB 3.0, and HDMI 2.0. Intel will offer two different versions of the controller—a version that uses four PCI Express lanes to drive two Thunderbolt ports and an “LP” (presumably “Low Power”) version that uses two PCI Express lanes to drive one port. This is consistent with the current controllers. High-end devices like the Mac Pro and Retina MacBook Pro use two-port controllers, while lower-end, lower-power devices like the Mac Mini and MacBook Air use the one-port version. Thunderbolt 2 gave the specification a performance boost but didn’t change all that much about the protocol. It combined the original Thunderbolt’s two 10Gbps channels to allow for higher maximum speeds, but it didn’t increase the total amount of bandwidth available or introduce any new protocols. The upside is that it maintained full compatibility with all of the original Thunderbolt cables and accessories, something that this next-generation Thunderbolt controller won’t be able to do without adapters (though to be fair, USB 3.1 and the new Type-C USB connector have the same problem). Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Next-gen Thunderbolt doubles speeds but changes the connector

Using bugs—aphids, specifically—to spy on plants’ electrical communications

I’m catching some signals, fellow aphid. Are you? benimoto Internal communications in plants share striking similarities with those in animals, new research reveals . With the help of tiny insects, scientists were able to tap into this communication system. Their results reveal the importance of these communications in enabling plants to protect themselves from attack by insect pests. Like any organism, plants need to transport essential nutrients from one part to another. This is achieved by two parts of the plant: the xylem and the phloem. Xylem, which is largely made of dead cells, transports water and dissolved nutrients obtained by roots up to the aerial tissues of the plants. By contrast, the phloem is made up of living cells—active tubes that transport a syrupy sap, rich in sugars made by photosynthesis in the leaves. In the 1980s, scientists discovered that phloem cells also function as a communication system through which electrical signals travel, similar to the electrical signals transmitted through the neurons in your nervous system. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Using bugs—aphids, specifically—to spy on plants’ electrical communications