Tag: vanity-fair

Borked Belkin routers leave many unable to get online

Owners of Belkin routers around the world are finding themselves unable to get online today. Outages appear to be affecting many different models of Belkin router, and they’re hitting customers on any ISP, with Time Warner Cable and Comcast among those affected. ISPs, inundated with support calls by unhappy users, are directing complaints to Belkin’s support line, which appears to have gone into meltdown in response. The reason for the massive outages is currently unknown. Initial speculation was that Belkin pushed a buggy firmware update overnight, but on a reddit thread about the problem, even users who claim to have disabled automatic updates have found their Internet connectivity disrupted. Others suggest that there is some kind of DNS problem at work. Although the routers are correctly picking up their DNS settings from DHCP, they’re apparently unable to resolve domain names correctly. Connecting to the Internet using IP addresses alone does, in fact, appear to work, but with most of us dependent on DNS, this is of little value. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Borked Belkin routers leave many unable to get online

Soylent gets a version bump to 1.1—new flavor, new gut flora help

A single week of Soylent contains seven meal pouches and seven oil containers. Total weight is just about 10 lbs (4.5 kg). Lee Hutchinson Soylent, the slushy slightly sweet meal supplement/replacement from California engineer Rob Rhinehart and his company Rosa Labs, has by most accounts been a smashing success story. We tried it and liked it a year ago. While we wrote more about why folks might (or might not) want to drink it once it hit its official release , the Rosa Labs development team has continued work even as shipments of the powder leave the factory by the truckload. In an update e-mail yesterday morning, Rosa Labs announced two major milestones: first, that shipments have (finally) been completed to everyone who backed the Soylent crowdfunding project prior to its closure, and secondly, that Soylent is getting its first major update to version 1.1. It seems a little weird that food (or “food”) has a version number, but Rhinehart always intended Soylent to be a product that changed over time based on feedback and market forces. In a quick post on the official Soylent blog, Rhinehart explains that the bump to 1.1 brings with it a decrease in the product’s sucralose level, dialing down the release version’s vague sweetness to a more truly neutral taste. The logic here, explains the post, is that it’s easier to add sweetness than to take it away, and many Soylent 1.0 users have expressed a desire to flavor the product with add-ons (peanut butter is a popular one, as is blended fruit). The second change deals with my biggest issue with Soylent—what can be politely termed as “a bit of gas.” Regular Soylent use eliminates the gas, but using Soylent as an occasional substitute for a missed meal—which is my preferred usage of the stuff—can introduce some thunderous gut activity (which I referred to in my original Soylent review as ” horse-killing farts “). Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Soylent gets a version bump to 1.1—new flavor, new gut flora help

At 650% interest, that online payday loan is a steal

Fraud and Abuse Online: Harmful Practices of Inernet Payday Lending Online payday loan operators threaten their customers, promote loans designed for long-term indebtedness, and charge exorbitant interest rates, according to a study by the Pew Charitable Trusts. “Lump-sum loans online typically cost $25 per $100 borrowed per pay period—an approximately 650 percent annual percentage rate,” Pew said . The report, ” Fraud and Abuse Online: Harmful Practices in Internet Payday Lending ,” (PDF) comes a month after the Federal Trade Commission halted an only payday scheme that the government said “allegedly bilked consumers out of tens of millions of dollars by trapping them into loans they never authorized and then using the supposed ‘loans’ as a pretext to take money from their bank accounts .” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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At 650% interest, that online payday loan is a steal

FBI director says Chinese hackers are like a “drunk burglar”

Ivan David Gomez Arce James Comey, the Federal Bureau of Investigation director, says Chinese hackers are daily targeting US companies’ intellectual property. “I liken them a bit to a drunk burglar. They’re kickin’ in the front door, knocking over the vase, while they’re walking out with your television set,” Comey said Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes . “They’re just prolific. Their strategy seems to be: `We’ll just be everywhere all the time. And there’s no way they can stop us.”‘ 60 Minutes Comey’s remarks on the news magazine comes two weeks after a Senate Armed Services Committee report concluded that China’s military broke into Pentagon contractors’ computer networks at least 50 times—hacks that threaten ” to erode US military technical superiority .” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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FBI director says Chinese hackers are like a “drunk burglar”

Fans raise cash to help phone phreaker John Draper, aka Cap‘n Crunch

Aaron Getting An online fundraiser for legendary phone phreaker John Draper , better known as Cap’n Crunch, has passed its target $5,000 in just three days .  Draper himself doesn’t even know who started the fundraiser, but the money is intended to help with his medical bills. According to a recent blog post , he suffers from both degenerative spine disease and C. Diff, an inflammation of the colon . I want to thank with the bottom of my heart for an anonymous person for setting me up with qikfunder…. http://t.co/mwzDLLRpHH — John Draper (@jdcrunchman) September 25, 2014 In conjunction with others in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Draper figured out that a toy whistle given out in boxes of Cap’n Crunch cereal emitted a tone at 2600 Hertz. By pure coincidence, that happened to be the tone AT&T used to reset its trunk lines. As a result, Draper became a legend in the nascent world of phone phreaking, a predecessor to early personal computer hacking. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Fans raise cash to help phone phreaker John Draper, aka Cap‘n Crunch

Comcast seeks to fix awful customer service, admits “it may take a few years”

Comcast executive Charlie Herrin is aiming to improve Comcast’s legendarily poor customer service. Comcast After months of getting bashed for treating customers poorly, Comcast today said it’s going to make improving customer service its “number one priority.” But the company admitted that “it may take a few years before we can honestly say that a great customer experience is something we’re known for.” Neil Smit, CEO of Comcast’s cable division,  wrote today  that Comcast’s customer service hasn’t kept up with Comcast’s focus on “product innovation,” technology, and content. “But this is only one half of the customer experience equation. The other half is operational excellence in how we deliver service,” he wrote. “The way we interact with our customers—on the phone, online, in their homes—is as important to our success as the technology we provide. Put simply, customer service should be our best product.” A longtime Comcast executive is being called upon to fulfill that goal. Smit announced the promotion of 15-year Comcast veteran Charlie Herrin to a new role as senior VP of customer experience. Herrin previously was senior VP of product development and led design of X1, Comcast’s new TV user interface. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Comcast seeks to fix awful customer service, admits “it may take a few years”

Using new Corvette’s valet-recording tech could be a felony in 12 states

© General Motors Over the past few months, General Motors and its Chevrolet dealerships have been selling the 2015 Corvette with an interesting feature called Valet Mode. Valet Mode records audio, video, and driving statistics of the person in the driver’s seat when the driver isn’t around, thus keeping low-life valets from being too loose with their filthy mitts while inside a Corvette owner’s fancy car. Trouble is that in at least 12 states, using Valet Mode might be considered a felony. Federal wiretapping laws generally require only one party to consent to a recording of an interaction. But in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington, all parties are required to consent before a recording happens. So if a Corvette owner turns on Valet Mode in California and turns the car over to the unknowing attendant, that Corvette owner could be committing a felony. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Using new Corvette’s valet-recording tech could be a felony in 12 states

Samsung has more employees than Google, Apple, and Microsoft combined

Samsung loves “big.” Its phones are big, its advertising budget is big, and as you’ll see below, its employee headcount is really big, too. Samsung has more employees than Apple, Google, and Microsoft combined . We dug through everyone’s 10-K (or equivalent) SEC filings and came up with this: Samsung Electronics vs the headcounts of other companies. Ron Amadeo At 275,000 employees, Samsung ( just Samsung Electronics) is the size of five Googles! This explains Samsung’s machine-gun-style device output; the company has released around 46 smartphones  and 27 tablets  just in 2014. If we wanted to, we could cut these numbers down some more. Google is going to shed 3,894 employees once it finally gets rid of Motorola. Over half of Apple’s headcount—42,800 employees—is from the retail division, putting the non-retail part of the company at only 37,500 employees. The “Sony” on this chart only means “Sony Electronics,” the part of the company that is most comparable to Samsung Electronics. Sony Group has a massive media arm consisting of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, and Sony Financial Services. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Samsung has more employees than Google, Apple, and Microsoft combined

Update: Bug in Bash shell creates big security hole on anything with *nix in it

Mac OS X Mavericks is also a *nix, and also vulnerable to the Bash bug. Sean Gallagher Update: The Bash vulnerability, now dubbed by some as “Shellshock”, has been reportedly found in use by an active exploit against web servers. See Ars’ latest report for further details. A security vulnerability in the GNU Bourne Again Shell (Bash), the command-line shell used in many Linux and Unix operating systems, could leave systems running those operating systems open to exploitation by specially crafted attacks. “This issue is especially dangerous as there are many possible ways Bash can be called by an application,” a Red Hat security advisory warned. The bug , discovered by Stephane Schazelas , is related to how Bash processes environmental variables passed by the operating system or by a program calling a Bash-based script. If Bash has been configured as the default system shell, it can be used by network–based attackers against servers and other Unix and Linux devices via Web requests, secure shell, telnet sessions, or other programs that use Bash to execute scripts. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Update: Bug in Bash shell creates big security hole on anything with *nix in it

Apple releases iOS 8.0.1 with HealthKit, keyboard, iPhone 6 fixes

iOS 8.0.1 fixes a handful of bugs with the new update. Andrew Cunningham Apple has just released iOS 8.0.1, the first update to the new operating system that reached the public last week . The update is available through iTunes or as an over-the-air update for any device that runs iOS 8—the iPhone 4S or newer, iPad 2 or newer, and the fifth-generation iPod Touch. Though it comes just a week after iOS 8’s release, the 8.0.1 update fixes a wide-ranging list of problems. Apple has fixed the bug that was keeping HealthKit-compatible apps from working, and it corrected a problem where third-party keyboards could be toggled off after entering a passcode. The company also addressed photo library access for third-party apps, “unexpected cellular data usage when receiving SMS/MMS messages,” the Ask To Buy feature of Family Sharing, something keeping ringtones from being restored from iCloud backups, and “a bug that prevented uploading photos and videos from Safari.” Those updates are available for all devices, but the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus get one specific fix that is meant to make the Reachability feature more consistent. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple releases iOS 8.0.1 with HealthKit, keyboard, iPhone 6 fixes