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Security

Using XSS & Google To Find Physical Location 77

Posted by kdawson from the how-i-met-your-girlfriend dept.
wiredmikey sends along a brief (and quite poorly written) report from Security Week on Samy Kamkar's talk at Black Hat last week. In the video, which is amusing, he demonstrates how to obtain location information (within 30 feet, in the example he shows) of a user who does no more than visit a malicious website. The technique involves sniffing out the local router, breaking into it to obtain its MAC address, and sending that to Google to extract the router's location from Google's Street View database.

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 2, Interesting) 190

by MrNonchalant (#32472314) Attached to: The Apple Broadcast Network

Right, because RCA TVs and Apple iPhones are absolutely comparable. They both display moving images. They both play sound. And they are both internet-connected devices running software written and updated by a single party. That party maintains a persistent connection to them, and has an avowed interest in becoming a media distribution power. Oh, wait.

I am not suggesting that Apple will literally play streaming video over all these devices. However, it's an interesting way to think about the vested power here. They have 90 million devices that they essentially own in everyone's pockets, backpacks and living rooms. They are one update, one App Store app, away from becoming bigger than all four broadcast networks at their peak.
Space

Making Babies In Space May Not Be Easy 262

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the just-try-harder dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Studies of reproduction in space have previously been carried out with sea urchins, fish, amphibians and birds, but Brandon Keim writes in Wired that Japanese biologists have discovered that although mammalian fertilization may take place normally in space, as mouse embryos develop in microgravity their cells have trouble dividing and maturing. The researchers artificially fertilized mouse eggs with sperm that had been stored inside a three-dimensional clinostat, a machine that mimics weightlessness by rotating objects in such a way that the effects of gravity are spread in every direction. Some embryos were ultimately implanted in female mice and survived to a healthy birth, but at lower numbers than a regular-gravity control group. Part of the difference could be the result of performing tricky procedures on sensitive cells, but the researchers suspect they also reflect the effect of a low-gravity environment on cellular processes that evolved for Earth-specific physics. '"These results suggest for the first time that fertilization can occur normally under G environment in a mammal, but normal preimplantation embryo development might require 1G," concludes the report. "Sustaining life beyond Earth either on space stations or on other planets will require a clear understanding of how the space environment affects key phases of mammalian reproduction."'"
Input Devices

Lenovo Tinkers With Larger Delete and Escape Keys 586

Posted by timothy from the boffins-are-everywhere dept.
Slatterz writes "After a year's research, Lenovo boffins have decided the time is right to install larger Delete and Escape keys on their updated ThinkPad laptop T400s range. While it is a small change, it is fairly radical to tinker with an area of hardware which has been largely unchanged since the 19th century. What convinced them to make the size-change was doing some tests on users to see which keys they use the most. They found that on average, people used the Escape and Delete keys 700 times per week, yet those were the only non-letter keys that Lenovo hasn't made any bigger." The article says Caps Lock may be next on the agenda; death is too good for Caps Lock.
Internet Explorer

IE 8.1 Supports Firefox Plugins, Rendering Engine 283

Posted by kdawson from the fruits-of-competition dept.
KermodeBear writes in to note that according to Smashing Magazine, the newest version of Internet Explorer, codenamed "Eagle Eyes," supports Firefox plugins, the Gecko and Webkit rendering engines, and has scored a 71 / 100 on the Acid3 test. The article is pretty gee-whiz, and I don't entirely believe the claims that IE's JavaScript performance will trounce the others. (And note that the current Firefox, 3.0.8, scores 71 on Acid3, and Safari 3.1.2 hits 75.) No definitive date from Microsoft, but "sources" say that an IE 8.1 beta will be released in the summer.

Comment Re:Trendsourcing (Score 1) 41

by MrNonchalant (#27324385) Attached to: Crowdsourcing JavaScript Testing

It's only buzz if you use it that way.

I can develop an app to crowdsource movie recommendations using Agile methodologies and heavy automation with SOAP communication between layers.

If I wrote a few paragraphs concerning this project these words would have far more meaning within the context of the description. This is a valid use of the word "crowdsourcing," because it's within the context of a real project and it communicates a real concept.

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