Saran999

The National Security Agency reportedly bugged the United Nations’ New York headquarters, according to Germany’s weekly news magazine Der Spiegel. This latest development in the ongoing NSA eavesdropping scandal could put a bigger strain on relations between the U.S. government and its allies, Reuters said. Der Spiegel cited secret U.S. documents that were obtained by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, a fugitive from the U.S. who was recently granted asylum in Russia. Snowden’s leaks have been a major embarrassment to the NSA, which has claimed in the past it does not spy on Americans without legal cause. Der Spiegel said the European Union and the U.N.’s Vienna-based nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), were spying targets. In the summer of 2012, the NSA cracked the UN’s video conferencing system. Within three weeks of that hack, the number of decoded communications rose to 458 from 12. Files also show that the NSA spied on the EU’s operation in New York in the fall of 2012. Among the documents copied by Snowden are plans of the EU mission and its technology and servers.

A New Zealand company funded by the U.S. intelligence community’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, has built a smartphone technology called Spike that lets anyone take precise measurements of — and make 3D models of — anything in the outside world. Spike lets you take a smartphone snapshot of something at up to 200 yards away, and then measure, map and 3D model it — and then share it — all within its app. Spike includes a laser-based hardware device that attaches to your phone. It also includes compass, camera and GPS technology. The product is targeted at architects, engineers, interior designers, film set locators, insurance appraiser, underwriter/valuers, commercial painters, arborists, among others. The company, Ike, has raised $8.5 million so far, including from In-Q-tel, the Congress-backed venture arm that invests in technology companies on behalf of the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. New Zealand venture capital firm No 8 Ventures has also invested. Until now, the company has specialized in augmented reality technology — offering both hardware and software — for the intelligence, defense and emergency management industries. But two days ago, the company launched Spike to open up its augmented reality and 3D technology to any smartphone user. While the company said it has built a working prototype of Spike and already offers an Android app, it launched a Kickstarter campaign to complete its development work. This will include an iOS app, as well as the offering of an API for developers. Developers will be able to embed the company’s tools into their applications, or build applications over the data stream from the calibrated laser camera, to offer long range accuracy and depth perception. The company has already raised close to half of the $100,000 it says it needs to be able to move forward with the Spike API project. Competitors tend to either be hardware or software players, including Trimble, Autodesk, ESRI, Motorola Solutions. Ike says it wants to offer developers an API drawing on best of its hardware and software offerings.

There has been an interesting discussion about Google and search quality this week thanks to comments made by a Googler who suggested that a site with higher quality, better information is not always more useful. Wait, what? Hasn’t Google been pounding the message of “high quality content is how you rank well in Google” in everybody’s heads for years? Well, sometimes dumbed down is better. Apparently. Web developer Kris Walker has started a site called The HTML and CSS Tutorial (pictured), which he aims to make a super high quality resource for beginner developers to learn the tricks of the trade. The goal is to get its content to rank well in search engines – specifically to rank better than content from W3Schools, which he finds to be lackluster. “The search results for anything related to beginner level web development flat out suck,” he writes. “So the plan is to create a site, which I’m calling The HTML and CSS Tutorial, with the goal of winning the search engine battle for beginner level web development material,” he says. “To do this it needs to have the best learning material on the web (or close to it), along with comprehensive HTML, CSS, and JavaScript reference material. It needs to provide high quality content coupled with an information architecture that will get a beginner up to speed, meeting their immediate needs, while allowing them to go through a comprehensive course of material when they are ready.” Okay, so it sounds like he’s got the right attitude and strategy in mind for getting good search rankings. You know, creating high quality content. This is what Google wants. It has said so over and over (and over and over) again. The Panda update completely disrupted the search rankings for many websites based on this notion that high quality, informative content is king when it comes to search visibility. It makes sense. Above all else, people searching for content want to land on something informative, authoritative and trustworthy, right? Well, not always, according to one Googler. Walker’s post appeared on Hacker News, and generated a fair amount of comments. One user suggests that higher quality sites are often further down in the search results because they’re not as popular as the sites that are ranked higher. Google’s Ryan Moulton comments, “There’s a balance between popularity and quality that we try to be very careful with. Ranking isn’t entirely one or the other. It doesn’t help to give people a better page if they aren’t going to click on it anyways.” In a later comment, Moulton elaborates: Wow, so as far as I can tell, he’s pretty much saying that Google should be showing dumber results for some queries based on the notion that people won’t be smart enough to know what the higher quality results are talking about, or even capable enough to research further and learn more about the info they find in the higher quality result. If you’re interpreting this a different way, please feel free to weigh in. Note: For me, at least, the Mayo Clinic result is actually ranking higher than the Yahoo Answers result for the “pinched nerve ibuprofen” query example Moulton gave. I guess literacy prevailed after all on that one. If Google is actually actively dumbing down search results, this seems somewhat detrimental for society, considering the enormous share of the search market Google holds. Meanwhile, Google itself is only getting smarter. On Thursday, Google revealed that it has launched its biggest algorithm change in twelve years, dubbed Hummingbird. It’s designed to enable Google to better understand all of the content on the web, as it does the information in its own Knowledge Graph. I hope they’re not dumbing down Knowledge Graph results too, especially considering that it is only growing to cover a wider range of data. Well, Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” There’s nothing about quality, accuracy, or better informing people in there. Do you believe there are times when Google should not be providing the most high-quality search results at the top of the rankings?

ROFLMAO

I've finished my 'like' quota for today, but you have for sure earned one! ROFLMAO

Very nice and inspiring! Keep it up with that! Cheers

Awesome! We always need good GFX ppls. Welcome back and E N J O Y ! ! ! Cheers

Love

There are a lot of threads on the net about that, the most hilarious is one on a Texas campus site https://wikis.utexas.edu/display/ISO/Breaking+ATA+password+security Then, a bit more serious http://hackaday.com/2011/02/18/hard-drive-password-recovery/ Last I will help you and for free to get rid of that password !!!! First just to grab a copy of MHDD prior to the latest version. Download MHDD 4.5 from here : http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/You will need it because it contain the ATA terminal that you will need for our little experience. Also use the floppy version, if you use the CD ISO you will end up with a "virtual ram drive" when you boot the MHDD and not the real a: assigned to the floppy. Then open your notepad and past the following script : ; rm modul id 42 reset waitnbsy regs = $57 $44 $43 $00 $00 $a0 $8a waitnbsy regs = $00 $02 $00 $00 $0F $E0 $21 waitnbsy checkdrq sectorsto = 42.bin ; End. save the file with a simple name, like "wdpwd" and remove the .txt extension to the file. You should end up with a filename without extension. Save that file to the "Scripts" folder of your MHDD 4.5 Now boot your MHDD copy and detect the locked drive. Mhdd will tell you the drive is locked. Don't worry and issue a .wdpwd or whatever you named the file. You should end up with a file named 42.bin on the disk you used to boot MHDD. If you have booted from cd you will have to copy the file out of it to a floppy, etc ... Post the content here, if you can't figure out where the password is Happy unlocking for free ! Without expensive tools. That experience will also give you an idea about the true importance of vendor-specific ata commands, and in any case will teach you a bit about HDD Have fun! Cheers

IMHO Kaspersky is way better than anything else. I've always used it on all my machines, and even if I'm sitting on a mac right now, I still have vmware and parallels to play with. Online reviews don't give enough credit to Kaspersky, but for detection, resource wiseness and updates, nothing beat it. It's pricey... but this must not concern you Leave AVG alone and try it, you'll never look back! Advice, get a firewall and disable all the whistle and blows, and you'll be happier http://www.cyberphoenix.org/forum/topic/194919-kaspersky-internet-security-anti-virus-v14004651/?hl=kaspersky I recommend you WindowsPrivate Firewall that's free, small and smart! http://www.privacyware.com/personal_firewall.html

Greatness - that's what I think when I see such behavior as your Tech!

sorrow

Hey guys, this is not the same as the other game. You may write whatever word come in your mind after reading the previous one. That's it! Is easier and simpler. No need to choose word starting letters or any other rules: simple whatever arise in your mind! So, supposing that the chosen word is "man" I'll play with woman

handkerchief

Thanks for the explanation kathy025. I've tried to find out a solution, but without success. I was still thinking about it but then I've found your same answer, that is far better than what I was thinking. So, mystery solved and thank you again for curing my headache. Cheers

seagull

Kephalonomancy divination using a baked ass's head

Kainotophobia fear of change

Gad to wander about idly or in pursuit of pleasure After eating your omelette, you gad searching for more... while I'm preparing another one, sipping at my glass of Amarone 1995 red wine. Wanna taste it?

lin0x WELCOME BACK!!!! E N J O Y ! ! ! !

HEY! Youngster to whom? ROFLMAO (Internet slang) rolling on the floor laughing my arse off, an extended form of ROFL (Rolling On the Floor, Laughing) formed by the combining with LMAO (Laughing my arse off); used to indicate great amusement. Welcome to the family oobydooby, enjoy your stay and be part of it! Cheers

The very mention of the word “drone” often conjures up images of autonomous machines cruising over battlefields, but that’s far from the future 3D Robotics has in store for its own aerial machines. And thanks a recent infusion of capital, that future may be closer than you think. 3D Robotics announced earlier today that it locked up a $30 million Series B round, with a list of participants that includes Foundry Group, True Ventures, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and SK Ventures. The company previously closed a $5 million round last December that featured many of those same names, and at the time CEO (and former Wired EiC) Chris Anderson said the infusion of funds would be used to open and staff a then-new San Francisco office. Another crucial component of the 3DR growth story was to launch a new website, flesh out the community experience, and developer and a new slew of products meant to make “drones and other aerial robotics technology easier, more powerful and cheaper”. There’s been plenty of progress made on that final front too as the 3D Robotics portfolio is now comprised of a single plane-style drone and four copter drones. The newest of addition to the lineup? The Iris, a $720 drone that can be controlled with ease from a PC or an Android device (as long as you have the corresponding app) that can also follow paths “drawn” on an on-screen map thanks its built-in GPS. While Anderson and the rest of the team have spent the past year trying to more effectively court hobbyists and DIY drone buffs, the company’s ambitions hinge on proving that drone’s have plenty of commercial value as well. Anderson gave the Financial Times a clearer view of the wildly varying fields that he thinks 3D Robotics’ drones can disrupt, and all of the usual suspects are accounted for. Remotely controlled drones can make for cheaper, more effective search and rescue operations, as well as hyperlocal deliveries (I personally can’t wait for someone to put together a fleet of tacocopters, and deliver pizza and groceries with it ) Perhaps the most curious application is in agriculture, in which farmers and ranchers could remotely keep tabs on the all their land and livestock without having to trudge into the fields themselves.

While rivals are just starting to roll out their 4G LTE service, the UK's first LTE carrier, EE, continues to add cities and towns at breakneck speed. The company today announced the arrival of 4G LTE coverage in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Beaconsfield, Blackburn, Burton upon Trent, Coalville, Chester-le-Street, Fleet, Gerrards Cross, Halifax, Hinckley, Houghton-le-Spring and Reigate. The addition of these new towns brings EE up to 117 towns. That's up from its milestone of 100 towns at the end of August. "The whole country is excited about 4G, and today we're making the UK's fastest 4G network available to people and businesses in even more towns around the UK," said EE CEO Olaf Swantee. "The latest mobile devices are best on 4G, and we're switching on that superfast experience in more places before the end of the year, making it accessible to even more people." Everything Everywhere launched its 4G network just last October. In late August, it announced that it was now live in 100 towns in the United Kingdom. In early September, the company announced that it had already amassed one million customers since it launched. The company was allowed to launch well ahead of the competition after it received special permission to repurpose some of its existing 3G spectrum for 4G LTE. Rival carriers were forced to wait until they could acquire more spectrum.

Pretty much every tech company makes its own tablet now, so why not Oracle, too? The enterprise software and hardware company has unveiled the "DukePad," a tablet powered by a Raspberry Pi and JavaSE Embedded 8. It's not actually for sale, but Oracle described it a few days ago in a technical keynote at its JavaOne conference and posted all the details on the OpenJDKWiki. In addition to providing instructions, open source software, and pointers to the necessary hardware, Oracle said it is "working with suppliers to make available pre-made kits that can be more easily assembled." The tablet itself is bulky and doesn't look like much fun to use, but that's not really the point. Dukepad might appeal to do-it-yourselfers who view it as a learning experience or a fun project. Oracle shows off the Dukepad. DukePad builders will need to get a screen and display board for $135, the Raspberry Pi and camera add-on, a memory card, a battery pack, a case, and various other components. The total price adds up to $367.55, plus however many hours it takes to assemble the tablet and configure the software. DukePad uses the Raspbian operating system under the hood, but its user interface is powered by JavaFX. "Applications for the DukePad are built and exposed as JavaFX OSGi modules, running on Eclipse Equinox," a story on InfoQ notes.

Mobile apps linked to messaging services are taking over the two most important Asian app markets, Japan and Korea. Today, nine out of the ten biggest revenue generators on South Korea’s Google Play app chart are Kakao apps. It is effectively becoming impossible to launch a major hit in the Korean app market unless you use Kakao’s messaging app as your platform. This in turn means that everyone interested in mobile apps is using Kakao. The messaging app has turned into the dominant platform for game distribution. LINE’s role in Japan is not quite as strong, but games for this messaging app regularly hold about half of the positions in Japan’s top-10 iPhone and Android app revenue charts. According to several industry sources interviewed in Tokyo during the Japan Game Show last week, “LINE Pokopang” is widely expected to become the top revenue generator in Japan sometime in the new year when the “Puzzle and Dragons” juggernaut finally fades. This is the first reason messaging is the most important trend in mobile right now — here are three more: First, time spent on messaging apps is exploding even in markets where games linked to these platforms have not yet taken off. According to The Hindu, people in India now spend 27 minutes per day on chat apps, up from 7 minutes just two years earlier. Many of the most populous countries in the world — China, India, Japan, Korea — have now fallen in thrall of the messaging apps. Their share of the daily leisure time of consumers is rapidly expanding. This will inevitably give messaging app vendors a golden chance to turn into content delivery companies. And to stage a serious offensive against Facebook, Twitter and Google. Second, revenue growth generated by games linked to messaging apps is unearthly. LINE is now generating 67% revenue growth — between quarters, not annually. China’s WeChat is already on a big, global marketing binge, which has helped it boost its presence dramatically from Italy to Nigeria over the past summer. Asia’s titanic trio of WeChat, LINE and Kakao can now afford to use television, newspaper and billboard campaigns to spread their gospel of messaging apps and associated games to billions of people across the globe. This is a battle that America’s tech giants have basically slept through. Google, Facebook and Twitter did not grasp the importance of messaging apps as content platforms and WhatsApp basically rejected this concept as too tacky. As a result, the Asian chat apps are now circling the globe like a herd of Godzillas, gobbling up chunks of consumer leisure time. Finally, one of the hottest app industry topics in Tokyo last week was the expansion of content services that we are about to witness. Over the next year, a rapidly expanding selection of comics, videos and music will start flowing to users of WeChat, LINE and Kakao. Making content consumption more social has largely eluded Netflix, HBO and their ilk. This is something that may be made a mass market reality by Asia’s chat app behemoths.