Given the hype surrounding Apple’s iPhone, we’re actually surprised that we haven’t seen more holes to plug over the years. In fact, the last major iPhone exploit to take the world by storm happened right around this time two years ago, and now — thanks to OS X security expert Charlie Miller — we’re seeing yet another come to light. Over at the SyScan conference in Singapore, Mr. Miller disclosed a hole that would let attackers “run software code on the phone that is sent by SMS over a mobile operator’s network in order to monitor the location of the phone using GPS, turn on the phone’s microphone to eavesdrop on conversations, or make the phone join a distributed denial of service attack or a botnet.” Charlie’s planning to detail the vulnerability in full at the upcoming BlackHat conference, but Apple’s hoping to have it all patched up by then…
Tracy Jones-Harris Uncategorized Apple, BlackHat, Charlie Miller, iphone, SyScan, Vulnerabilitiy
NVIDIA obviously isn’t doing much talking about it itself just yet, but Fudzilla apparently has it on good authority that the company is indeed already hard at work on Ion 2, which promises to bring with it plenty of improvements over the already impressive Ion chipset. Chief among those is a decreased die size, “much faster graphics,” and more than twice the shaders of the original Geforce 9400M /MCP79 chipset that the current Ion is based on (which uses 16 shaders). Not many more details than that, unfortunately, but NVIDIA is supposedly looking to launch Ion 2 by the end of this year — although not before it sells plenty more Ion 1s, of course.
Tracy Jones-Harris Uncategorized chipset, Fudzilla, GeForce, Ion, Ion 1, Ion 2, NVIDIA
AMD has recently cooked up a little something they like to call the Phenom II X4 TWKR Black Edition, a hand-picked, limited edition processor that is designed to be overclocked “to the extreme.” Currently labeled “Not for Sale,” with no serial numbers and only one hundred of these bad boys in existence, just a few lucky folks have got their hands on one. According to the company, one of these guys could be pushed by 100MHz with air cooling, which doubles to about 200MHz with “extreme cooling.” As far as impressions go, the reviewer at Neoseeker quickly decided that the units aren’t meant to be overclocked on air only, and that dry ice isn’t much better. Hot Hardware says pretty much the same thing. Though they weren’t able to test with liquid nitrogen or liquid helium (the only way to get real speed) they did put a Koolance LN2 pot (and about 20lbs of dry ice) to the test for 4.73GHz. For best results, according to Tom’s Hardware Guide, bench the processor at -190°C or cooler. But for the real overclocking experience you simply must check out the video of the “world renowned overclockers” K|ngp|n, *chew, and Gomeler as they run the gamut of “extreme overclocking techniques”
Tracy Jones-Harris Uncategorized *chew, AMD, Black Edition, Gomeler, Klngpln, Phenom II TWKR CPU, Phenon II
After some rather impressive RC builds, Firefox 3.5 is all packaged up and ready for public consumption. Mozilla is saying its new browser is more than two times faster than Firefox 3, but what has us more excited is the support for plugin-free “open codec” video and audio playback using Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora– it’s still in its infancy, but the subtle glimpse we’ve seen so far of a world without Flash video reducing our CPU to jelly is rather compelling.
Tracy Jones-Harris Uncategorized Firefox, Firefox 3, Firefox 3.5, Mozilla, Ogg Theora, Ogg Vorbis
Kodak’s already taken some steps to cut down on counterfeiting of its batteries, and it looks like Panasonic is now taking some fairly drastic measures of it own, which could leave some users of its cameras a tad unhappy. Apparently, the company has determined that some third-party batteries amazingly don’t meet its own rigid safety standards, so it’s now released a new firmware update that can detect said batteries and prevent them from working. At the moment, that only includes cameras that use DMW-BCF10, DMW-BCG10, or DMW-BLB13 battery packs (some sixteen cameras in all), but it seems safe to assume that this’ll soon be standard practice on all Panasonic cameras.
Tracy Jones-Harris Uncategorized Batteries, Conterfeiting, DMW-BCF10, DMW-BCG10, DMW-BLB13, Kodak, Panasonic, thirid-party batteries
Its been an ongoing debate throughout the world lately in terms of government enforced Internet censorship. With thousands of individuals signing online petitions and writing letters has it made a difference?
It has been announced today that The New Zealand Prime Minister announced his Government will throw out the controversial Section 92A of the Copyright Amendment (New Technologies) Act and start again. The proposed law changescontained ‘guilty upon accusation, without appeal’ clauses and heavy compliance costs to ISPs and businesses. The changes were hours away from being signed but a series of online protests, a petition on Government grounds, as well as public rebuttal by a large ISP and by Google contributed to the Government changing course and respecting the wishes of the IT industry. Looks as if voices have been heard! Lets see what the new act will bring.
However in Australia we seem to be one more step forward with ISP iiNet today confirmed it’s exit from the Australian governments Internet filtering trials. iiNet had originally taken part in the plan in order to prove the filter was flawed. Citing a number of concerns, their withdrawal leaves only five Australian ISPs continuing to test the filter. Does this spell the end of Internet censorship in Australia? I think we have a way to go yet.
Tracy Jones-Harris Uncategorized Censorship, Internet Filtering, Section 92A
Need a reminder telling you not to do drugs? Well, not you, since you’re mature enough and intelligent enough to make those kinds of decisions for yourself. But the youth of America (apparently) only really pay attention to social messages they can turn into bling.
The Sound Advice Project wants you to talk to your kids about drugs, and to make it easier on you, they’re offering you a bracelet to bribe them with. The bracelets are custom made, and the arrangement of beads represents a sound wave that you record. The Project wants you to say something positive and about drugs. But you don’t have to, as far as I can tell, and you can use the six seconds to make up a physical, wearable incarnation of whatever phrase you’d like.
At only $18, it’s not a bad little geeky gift idea.
Tracy Jones-Harris Uncategorized anti-drugs, Bracelets, Sound Advice, sound wave bracelets
The Postal service better step up their game with gadget concepts like this one on the loose. The Stopper Postcard measures how long it takes that postcard to get from point A to point B. So, now postal workers have something else to stress out about. It’s a constant reminder of how far behind they are on any given day. Let’s hope it doesn’t push some of them over the edge.
My one question is this: How long does it count? I, like many of you have mailed things and have waited for things that have apparently been swallowed by a black hole. So, if you never receive a package, is it still counting the days up to infinity?
Tracy Jones-Harris Uncategorized Delivery, Measures, Postcard, Time
In a world first for an Air Force and an infra-red guided missile, Air Combat Group (ACG) of the Royal Australian Air Force has successfully carried out the first in-service ‘Lock After Launch’ firing of an ASRAAM (Advanced short-range air-to-air missile) at a target located in excess of 5km behind the wing-line of the “shooter” aircraft. The result was a direct hit on the target.
The engagement simulated a “chase down” situation by an enemy fighter and successfully demonstrated the potential for an all-round self protection capability with the ASRAAM. - Woohoo for the Aussies
Tracy Jones-Harris Uncategorized ASRAAM, Boomerang Missile, RAAF
When it goes on sale during the first quarter of 2010, the Piaggio MP3 Hybrid will become the first plug-in hybrid vehicle of any kind to be sold in the United States. Capable of returning up to 141mpg, it will also be one of the most fuel-efficient (The plug-in hybrid can run off of a standard charge for 40 miles, and has a gas-powered generator for extra power). Combined with those two factors, It’s packed in with some regenerative breaking, a high-performance battery-boosted mode, the MP3’s leaning three-wheel arrangement and low price, somewhere around $8 or $9,000, will make it a uniquely appealing product.
Tracy Jones-Harris Uncategorized gas-powered, Hybrid, Piaggio, plug-in, trike