Light up your stride! Mod a pair of high-tops with NeoPixel strip and FLORA, Adafruit’s wearable electronics platform. Becky Stern and Phillip Burgess show you how to use a velostat step sensor in the heel to trigger firey animations as you walk! Build your own — via Youtube
Toastie Socks, originally uploaded by Red Wolf
Nokia’s fate would have been a lot different today if it had taken the Android route, and this is what freshly minted company — aptly named Newkia — plans to do by acquiring as much of Nokia’s know-how as possible.
Speaking to ZDNet in an interview Thursday, Thomas Zilliacus, executive chairman and founder of Mobile FutureWorks, did not mince his words when asked about his views on Microsoft’s US$7.2 billion deal to buy out Nokia’s devices and services unit. The deal reflects the complete failure of the Windows strategy Stephen Elop chose when he was appointed Nokia CEO some two years ago.
Nokia, which only three years ago was the world’s runaway market leader in mobile phones, is today a small and insignificant brand,
he said, noting that the purchase price announced yesterday represented just 2 percent of Nokia’s market cap over 10 years ago — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The National Security Agency is winning its long-running secret war on encryption, using supercomputers, technical trickery, court orders and behind-the-scenes persuasion to undermine the major tools protecting the privacy of everyday communications in the Internet age, according to newly disclosed documents.
The agency has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling, that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world, the documents show.
Many users assume — or have been assured by Internet companies — that their data is safe from prying eyes, including those of the government, and the NSA wants to keep it that way. The agency treats its recent successes in deciphering protected information as among its most closely guarded secrets, restricted to those cleared for a highly classified program code-named Bullrun, according to the documents, provided by Edward J Snowden, the former NSA contractor.
Beginning in 2000, as encryption tools were gradually blanketing the Web, the NSA invested billions of dollars in a clandestine campaign to preserve its ability to eavesdrop. Having lost a public battle in the 1990s to insert its own back door
in all encryption, it set out to accomplish the same goal by stealth.
The agency, according to the documents and interviews with industry officials, deployed custom-built, super-fast computers to break codes, and began collaborating with technology companies in the United States and abroad to build entry points into their products. The documents do not identify which companies have participated.
The NSA hacked into target computers to snare messages before they were encrypted. In some cases, companies say they were coerced by the government into handing over their master encryption keys or building in a back door. And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world.
For the past decade, NSA has led an aggressive, multi-pronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies,
said a 2010 memo describing a briefing about NSA accomplishments for employees of its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Cryptanalytic capabilities are now coming online. Vast amounts of encrypted Internet data which have up till now been discarded are now exploitable.
When the British analysts, who often work side by side with NSA officers, were first told about the program, another memo said, those not already briefed were gobsmacked
!
An intelligence budget document makes clear that the effort is still going strong. We are investing in ground-breaking cryptanalytic capabilities to defeat adversarial cryptography and exploit Internet traffic,
the director of national intelligence, James R Clapper Jr, wrote in his budget request for the current year — via redwolf.newsvine.com
— via Recyclart
Made with Brian May of Queen fame (He’s pretty good on guitar you know) and the very loud, Brian Blessed of Flash Gordon and shouting fame. This is probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever been involved in and it’s for a great cause too — via Youtube
Peter Root’s Ephemicropolis
, a city of staples — via Wil Wheaton
The elusive rock rat, last seen trying to get into a stockman’s lunchbox in 1960, has been rediscovered in central Australia.
One of Australia’s rarest creatures, the critically endangered rat, which was not seen in the area for more than half a century, was found during a survey using remote sensor cameras on the Haasts Bluff Aboriginal land trust west of Alice Springs.
Evidence was also found of the rare black-footed wallaby, which has not been seen in the area since 1991.
The rock rat was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in the west MacDonnell ranges in 2002, but finding it in another area that isn’t protected is huge news,
Richard Brittingham, regional land management officer with the Central Land Council said.
This species is obviously persisting in other areas outside of national parks, which is an important consideration in long-term conservation
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
A volcano the size of New Mexico or the British Isles has been identified under the Pacific Ocean, about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) east of Japan, making it the biggest volcano on Earth and one of the biggest in the solar system.
Called Tamu Massif, the giant shield volcano had been thought to be a composite of smaller structures, but now scientists say they must rethink long-held beliefs about marine geology.
This finding goes against what we thought, because we found that it’s one huge volcano,
said William Sager, a geology professor at the University of Houston in Texas. Sager is lead author in a study about the find that was published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience.
It is in the same league as Olympus Mons on Mars, which had been considered to be the largest volcano in the solar system,
Sager told National Geographic — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Prague Zoo is celebrating a quadruple success in their 10-year efforts to breed Bush Dogs. The litter of 4 is made up of 3 females and 1 male. The puppies have already started leaving the breeding box to explore their exhibit — via ZooBorns
Everyone needs a Little Fat Tentacle to hang out on their desk while they work right? You can love it, and hug it, and call it georgesothothoth. Little Fat Dragons cannot be held responsible for any errant cat-consumption that might occur if you leave your Little Fat Tentacle in the same room as your kitty — they get hungry — via Etsy
The NSA is in dire need of customer service training — at least in the case of Bahram Sadeghi, a Dutch-Iranian filmmaker who decided to call the surveillance agency for help
after one of his e-mails was accidentally deleted. In a three-minute exchange with NSA spokespeople, Sadeghi manages to confound one with his request (you can almost hear the relief in her voice when Sadeghi asks to speak to someone else) and gets a curt reply from another — via The Washington Post
Less than five hours after releasing the policy (now deleted but original PDF here), the Coalition is seeking to deny that a policy around opt-out internet filtering is the current Coalition policy, despite Liberal MP, and author of the policy, Paul Fletcher speaking to ZDNet confirming the policy.
Fletcher confirmed to ZDNet tonight that the reason the Coalition had decided to go down this path was to take out the confusion for parents who are unsure who or where to get filtering products from.
What we intend to do is work with the industry to arrive at an arrangement where the default is that there is a filter in the home device, the home network, that is very similar to the filters that are available today. This is very much about protecting children from inappropriate content, particularly pornography,
he said.
The key thing is it is an opt-out, so it will be open to the customer to call up and say ‘look I don’t want this’ and indeed we will work with the industry to make this a streamlined and efficient process,
he said.
Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said tonight that opt-out internet filtering is not the policy of the Coalition
The Coalition has never supported mandatory internet filtering. Indeed, we have a long record of opposing it,
he said — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A Liberal National government in Australia would adopt the abandoned its plans for mandatory internet filtering, and three years after the Coalition announced that it would not support a policy for mandatory internet filtering.
The announcement, buried in an AU$10 million online safety policy published online today (PDF) announces that under a Tony Abbott government, Australians would have adult content
filters installed on their phone services and fixed internet services unless they opt out — via redwolf.newsvine.com
We hope you enjoy our fun take on the joy of adopting a kitty — via Youtube
The United States and allies are preparing for a possibly imminent series of limited military strikes against Syria, the first direct US intervention in the two-year civil war, in retaliation for President Bashar al-Assad’s suspected use of chemical weapons against civilians.
If you found the above sentence kind of confusing, or aren’t exactly sure why Syria is fighting a civil war, or even where Syria is located, then this is the article for you. What’s happening in Syria is really important, but it can also be confusing and difficult to follow even for those of us glued to it.
Here, then, are the most basic answers to your most basic questions. First, a disclaimer: Syria and its history are really complicated; this is not an exhaustive or definitive account of that entire story, just some background, written so that anyone can understand it — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The dog days of summer may be coming to a close, but the cat days seem to be just starting: Exmoor Zoo in England welcomed a Caracal kitten in mid-August — via ZooBorns
Cyanide & Happiness #3111 – — via Explosm.net
Microsoft announced on Monday it will acquire Nokia’s devices and services unit in a bid to accelerate the software giant’s Windows ecosystem.
The deal is set to go ahead for about $5 billion (€3.79bn), with an additional $2.17 billion (€1.65bn) to be spent on licensing Nokia’s patents.
Boards of both companies agreed the transaction, which will see the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant purchase the Espoo, Finland-based company’s phone making unit, patents, and license and use its mapping services — via redwolf.newsvine.com
For rescue dogs like Mojo, the right nutrition is the first step to a Brighter Future.
This year we at Pedigree are aiming to feed as many Brighter Futures as possible, which is why we are promising to donate One Million Meals to rescue dogs nationwide as part of our Pedigree Feeding Project — via Youtube
RSS – Posts