Archive for the ‘Hack’ Category

The US military has shut down Wi-Fi access at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, after receiving threats from the hacktivist collective Anonymous. Army Lt. Col. Samuel House confirmed the move Monday, telling the Associated Press that wireless internet service was shuttered as a precautionary move, and that access to Facebook and Twitter through military networks has also been cut off. Continue reading…

Follow this link:
US shuts down Guantanamo Wi-Fi in response to Anonymous threats

Nigel Warren, the New York tenant who ended up in trouble with the city after renting his room out on Airbnb , just got some bad news. A judge on the city’s Environmental Control Board (ECB), which arbitrates these matters, has found Warren’s landlord guilty of the violation and fined him $2,400. Although the fine was issued to the landlord, Warren officially accepted responsibility.

Original post:
New York City issues $2,400 fine for renting on Airbnb, but the law is still unclear

After launching an all-new app for iOS last December, Flickr is finally giving its Android offering a similar overhaul. Announced moments ago on stage at Yahoo’s New York City event , the revamped Flickr for Android is available today for both phones and tablets. “The new Flickr for Android maintains your photos’ original quality, so every image you take, edit, share, or view on your phone or tablet looks spectacular,” wrote CEO Marissa Mayer in a Tumblr post announcing the update.

See more here:
Flickr launches redesigned Android app for smartphones and tablets

Yahoo has just announced a complete redesign of Flickr at its New York City event — the new site is live now and it comes with one terabyte of free photo space. Yahoo SVP Adam Cahan just made the announcement and said that “Flickr had become about words, little images, blue links. It was not about the photo anymore.” But the new photostream changes that, will full-resolution images and a clean homepage with all the emphasis on images — it looks a lot like the Instagram web profile header. Other new features include iPhoto-style slideshows (complete with music), full-bleed photos with significantly-reduced UI elements, and extensive sharing options — you can push photos out to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or Pinterest. However, the..

View original post here:
Yahoo unveils the new Flickr with one terabyte of free space

At today’s press event, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer announced that Yahoo will be opening a brand-new corporate office space in Manhattan to serve as a hub for the company’s local employees. “We’re going to gather all of our 500 New York employees here,” Mayer said. Yahoo will be setting up in the old New York Times building in Times Square. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was on hand to ring in the announcement, offering particularly kind words for Tumblr — which has long operated out of Manhattan.

Excerpt from:
Yahoo to open office in New York City’s Times Square

Trevor Timm at a Freedom of the Press Foundation writes: “Last night, the Washington Post reported on a little known leak case involving former State Department official Stephen Kim. In an alarming new extreme, the Justice Department and FBI finger argue there’s “probable cause to believe” Fox News reporter James Rosen “has committed or is        

Excerpt from:
A Conspiracy To Commit Journalism: The Justice Dept. vs. Fox News reporter James Rosen

When Chinese hackers attacked Google in 2009, they may have gained access to years’ worth of government surveillance records, The Washington Post reports . Google reported the hack publicly years ago, saying that the “sophisticated” attack resulted in the theft of Google intellectual property and the partial compromise of some human rights activists’ email accounts. But according to anonymous government officials, hackers also compromised a database holding “thousands” of court orders requesting information about or access to specific Gmail accounts as part of law enforcement activities. Many of these orders came from police departments, which routinely request email data for cases. But some were also issued under the Foreign..

Read More:
Chinese hackers gained access to ‘thousands’ of surveillance orders, says Washington Post

Google+ received some significant updates at Google I/O last week, many of which focused on a new and improved photo experience for users, and now the company is bringing that experience to its Android app. Just like the desktop version, Google+ for Android now includes auto highlight (for a selection of “top shots” from each gallery you upload), auto enhance, and auto awesome (which searches through your images to automatically build new creations like animations or panoramas). Given the major emphasis Google placed on these features last week, we’re not at all surprised to see them show up in the Android app. Google+ continues to push photos as its killer feature Further photo enhancements come in the form of Snapseed integration —… Continue reading…

View post:
Google+ update for Android 4.2 includes improved photo experience and Snapseed integration

Sony has teased the hardware design for its upcoming PlayStation 4 for the first time, after a February reveal that kept the device completely under wraps and left fans guessing about how Sony’s next-generation console would look. In a new video, shown below, the company teases the PS4′s hardware with a blurry black rectangle and flashes of design details. The timing of the tease is no surprise, with Microsoft set to reveal its own next-generation Xbox tomorrow at its campus in Redmond, Washington. Based on the video’s title, we should expect to see the PlayStation 4 unveiled on June 10th at the company’s E3 presentation.

Continue reading here:
Sony teases PlayStation 4 hardware ahead of Xbox event, says you’ll ‘see it first at E3′

Jolla has just unveiled its first smartphone, called “The Movement,” which will go on sale this year for €399 (roughly $510). Running the company’s MeeGo-derived Sailfish OS , The Movement features a 4.5-inch display, a dual-core processor, an 8-megapixel camera, removable back covers, 16GB of onboard storage, and a microSD slot. According to Jolla, the handset will be “compliant” with Android apps, although it’s not sure how many apps will be supported, nor is it clear where users will download the apps from. At present, the launch is limited to a select few European countries, but Jolla says it’ll expand availability in the future

Continue reading here:
Jolla prices first Sailfish OS smartphone at €399 for a 2013 launch

The Pirate Cinema is a cinematic collage or sorts. Its creators took torrent database The Pirate Bay’s Top 100 video files and monitored each, creating small, fragmented clips based on traffic (torrents are transfered block-by-block in a somewhat random order). The resulting installation, which runs through to May 29th in Montreal’s Eastern Bloc gallery , is a mash of sights and sounds, revealing the extent of global file sharing.

Read the article:
‘The Pirate Cinema’ monitors popular torrents to create a video wall of piracy

After a relative lull in activity, it looks as though the Chinese hacking group uncovered in a February security report has resumed its attacks on US targets. According to new information that security firm Mandiant submitted to The New York Times , attacks against identical, but unspecified, targets have been gradually increasing over the past two months, now sitting at 60 to 70 percent of their previous strength. Obama administration officials say that the issue will continue to be revisited until it can convince the Chinese leadership that “there is a real cost to this kind of activity.” In recent months, President Obama’s national security advisor Tom Donilon has talked tough about Chinese cyberattacks on US businesses and… Continue reading…

See original article:
Chinese hackers renew cyberattacks on US targets after brief lull

Samsung appears to be making good on its promise to port Galaxy S4 features to the Galaxy S III . A test Android 4.2.2 update, discovered by SamMobile , includes the lockscreen effects and widgets, enhanced screen modes, updated settings, and new S Voice control features found in Samsung’s new flagship. Samsung previously said it would include updates that were “not dependent on hardware,” ruling out gestures like Air View and the smart TV remote app. Continue reading…

Continued here:
Galaxy S III software leak reveals potential S4-class upgrades

Since the 1960s and PanAm’s ill-fated Moon Flights Club, commercial passenger flights to space have been a tantalizing dream, one that’s expected to finally come to fruition within the next year. For its cover story this week, New York Magazine takes an in-depth look at the industry, including interviews with Buzz Aldrin, Richard Branson, and several others. In it, Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides discusses Branson’s plans to bring his entire family, including his 88-year-old mother to space with him, which will likely happen “by the end of the year,” says Branson. Aldrin also discusses his criticism of fellow Apollo generation astronauts eager for the US to return to the moon while staunchly supporting plans to establish a… Continue reading…

View the original here:
Inside the private push for consumer space travel

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it’s easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don’t escape without notice, we’ve gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup .

More here:
Refresh Roundup: week of May 13th, 2013

Barnes & Noble’s E Ink e-readers are getting an update next month that will add a web browser and email client, reports TechCrunch . Citing an unnamed source, it writes that the Nook Simple Touch and Simple Touch with GlowLight will start receiving the updates on June 1st. The Nook Simple Touch shipped with a limited, hidden web browser when it was first released in 2011, but Barnes & Noble removed the function in a software update a few months later. The ability to check news headlines and do some light email work should give the $79 Nook platform some extra value, although slow-refreshing E Ink doesn’t really provide the best browsing experience. The low-priced Nooks aren’t the only ones to be getting extra attention from home…

Read More:
Nook Simple Touch e-readers reportedly adding web browser and email client next week

Laurene Powell Jobs’ first interview after the death of her husband Steve Jobs was an interview on NBC’s Rock Center with Brian Williams , where she pledged her support for the DREAM act and immigration reform. Now, an in-depth profile in the Wall Street Journal explains why this particular issue caused Powell Jobs to break her silence and step out into the public eye. It seems that it all began in 1995, when she started tutoring low-income students, only to find that those who were in the US illegally were unable to secure financial aid to go to college.

Read the article:
Why Laurene Powell Jobs broke her silence to support immigration reform

Sometimes the simplest games are the most difficult. That’s certainly the case in Rebound , a game in which the only goal is to get a pole as far to the right as possible, but where actually getting very far is incredibly challenging. The trick is that the pole’s only means of propulsion is bouncing off of the ground, and your only way to control it is by rotating it left or right. Grappling with the physics is hard enough, but then the game throws barriers in your way and slowly the ground will literally disappear beneath you. It only takes a few seconds to play, but actually making progress in Rebound will take a whole lot longer — check out the Windows, Mac, and web versions at the source link below.

Continued here:
‘Rebound’ is a maddeningly simple physics game

Last September, Google expanded its Street View service to include locations under the ocean , and if you’re curious about just how the company managed, TechCrunch has a great rundown of what goes into capturing all of those cute little sea turtles. As you’d imagine, it all starts with camera-equipped divers, and an average dive covers around two kilometers and captures up to 4,000 images — so far Google has captured more than 150,000 underwater snapshots. That’s all done using a specialized camera that includes a wider-angle lens compared to the typical Street View camera, and it’s outfitted with a tablet to control all of the underwater photo capturing. Currently the service only covers six locations, but expect that to change over… Continue reading…

More:
Google Street View’s underwater journey

If you’re both a gamer and a self-professed football fan, odds are you’ll be buying Madden this year — just like any other. For those who’ve already committed to purchasing the $99.99 Anniversary Edition of Madden 25 , Amazon is undoubtedly the best spot to place a pre-order. Because in addition to providing bonus in-game content, the online retailer has also partnered up with DirecTV for some exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket offers. Amazon’s edition of Madden will grant new DirecTV customers $10 off their monthly bill for a year, tossing in the NFL Sunday Ticket Max package at no additional cost. Alongside the RedZone channel, Max also gives you full access to live season games on your computer, tablet, or smartphone

See more here:
Amazon-exclusive ‘Madden 25 Anniversary Edition’ includes free NFL Sunday Ticket offer

Sometimes it pays to wait before spending your hard-earned cash on the year’s best games. If you haven’t yet played through BioShock Infinite , for example, Amazon just eliminated “price” as a valid reason for your willful ignorance. The heralded first-person shooter from Irrational Games is Amazon’s Deal of the Day across all platforms — though the cost isn’t uniform. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners can grab the title for $39.99. The asking price for either a physical or digital Windows version is $34.99.

See original article:
Good Deal: ‘BioShock Infinite’ on sale at Amazon for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC

Today is YouTube’s eighth birthday, and to mark the occasion Google is revealing new statistics that underline what a cultural sensation its video site has become. Most staggeringly, over 100 hours of video are now uploaded to YouTube each and every minute. One year ago on this day, that figure stood at 72 hours per minute (it was 48 hours in 2011). So aside from record-breaking viewership — over one billion people now visit YouTube monthly — more and more users are continuing to upload their own clips to the site in hopes of creating the next viral phenomenon

Visit link:
YouTube users now upload 100 hours of video every minute

We all know the feeling. You’re sleepless in the sad hours of the night or stumbling around early on a hazy weekend morning in need of something to read, and that pile of unread books just isn’t cutting it. Why not take a break from the fire hose of Twitter and RSS and check out our weekly roundup of essential writing from around the web about technology, culture, media, and the future?

Originally posted here:
The best writing of the week, May 19

Twice a month in California’s Mojave desert, anyone can spend half a day in a war zone. The Fort Irwin National Training Center is meant to give soldiers a crash course in realistic combat before they deploy. The thousand-square-mile base contains everything from fake towns to caves for “insurgents” drawn from a regiment whose role is to provide an opposing force, no matter who the US is fighting.

Continued here:
Inside Fort Irwin, fake cities provide a training ground for real warfare

Earlier this year, Verizon announced some new 3G prepaid plans for $60 and $70 dollars that offered 500MB and 2GB of data, respectively. Now, it looks like the company has silently bumped those allotments up to 2GB and 4GB without touching the price. Android Central reports that the changes go into effect immediately for those with existing plans, but new customers won’t get hold of the new rates until June 6th. It’s a nice bump, but you can probably find lower prices and higher caps elsewhere , although your best option will depend on the coverage in your area

More:
Verizon extends $60 and $70 prepaid plans to 2GB and 4GB of data