Sunday, July 24, 2011
Saving Valentina - humpback whale
Michael Fishbach narrates his encounter with a humpback whale entangled in a fishing net. Gershon Cohen and he have founded The Great Whale Conservancy to help and protect whales.
Festo’s SmartBird Robot Flies Through The Air At TED
Elle UK - Fashion Issue from Coco Rocha on Vimeo.
Markus Fischer, the speaker, describes a few finer points and demonstrates the simplicity of their motor and wing system on a skeletal model. It’s really very cool. Unfortunately they are likely limited by the capacity of the batteries they can take on board, which, being heavy, increase the power required to stay aloft, which means more battery capacity is needed… and so on. The bird flies for around 50 seconds in the demonstration, but much longer in these other videos (outside, with curious real birds).
I’m curious as to whether they’ve considered alternative energy sources; they seem to be well-provided with space inside the bird chassis, and a strong but lightweight coil or spring might provide a better power to weight ratio. Batteries are optimized for volume, not weight, so if there’s room to expand, they can take a hit on joules per cm3 but shave a few grams off the total.
LYTRO - Behind The Scenes
LYTRO - Behind The Scenes from Coco Rocha on Vimeo.
About a revolutionary new camera called the LYTRO that requires no focusing whatsoever
Elle UK - Fashion Issue from Coco Rocha on Vimeo.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
iPad 2 receives 4 out of 10 in repairability, 512MB RAM confirmed, 25% slimmer display package
iFixit took apart Apple's iPad 2, and revealed a way thinner LCD display package, making it incredibly hard to separate the front panel without breaking it.
512MB of RAM were confirmed via software, and a few Broadcom, Texas Instruments and ST Micro chips have been used for various duties. The A5 dual-core chipset seemed to be marked by Samsung, but that is to be confirmed at a later time. Recently we wrote Apple might have gone with TSMC Foundries for the manufacturing.
The low repairability score of 4 on a 10 scale the iPad 2 got since now the glass is just glued with adhesives, instead of using tabs as in Apple's first tablet, and almost impossible to separate easily. Add to that a thinner overall package - both the LCD panel, and the glass on top, are about 25% thinner than those in the 9.7" display package of the first iPad - and trying to disassemble the iPad 2 without shattering the glass seems to be a mission impossible. Watch all the teardown findings in the video below.
Oh, the rear camera is confirmed to be less than a megapixel, so it's most likely the fixed-focus one we have on the iPod touch. The battery pack has almost the same capacity as on the first iPad, though - here we have about 6570mAh (25Wh and 3.8 volts) - which is a tribute to the efficiency of the dual-core chipset, since the iPad 2 lasts roughly the same as the original iPad.
Friday, July 22, 2011
How phone hacking works (and other lessons from the News Corp. scandal)
Anyone who’s paid attention to the news lately has likely been bombarded with round-the-clock-updates on the phone hacking scandal that has ensnared Ruport Murdoch’s News Corp empire.
But if you looked past the melodrama being played out before the entire world, or even beyond the often-discussed concerns over press ethics and journalists’ unsavory ties to government officials, the unfolding scandal brings to light, in my opinion, an equally disturbing (if not worse) threat to the public at large: phone hacking.
How did the reporters do it? And since just about everyone these days has a voicemail enabled cell phone, how vulnerable are we?
Before we get to these questions, here’s a brief rundown in case anyone needs to get up to speed:
The crisis, which erupted earlier this month, has revealed that employees at the company’s British tabloid News of the World illegally accessed and tampered with the voicemail accounts of terrorist victims, deceased British soldiers and Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl who was murdered in 2002. There also has been allegations suggesting that the illegal activity was not just an isolated case of a few rogue staffers misbehaving, but an elaborate and covert operation involving senior executives at News Corp., Scotland Yard and even the Prime Minister David Cameron.
The investigation is still ongoing so a more comprehensive picture of what transpired will take shape as more details come to light. But what we do know, at least in a technological sense, is that there are essentially three main tactics the intruders likely used to access private voicemail accounts, according to an in-depth report published by the popular tech blog Gizmodo. And to give you a well-informed idea of how this whole shady business of phone hacking works, here are the quick and dirty blueprints of these methods:
Tactic #1
1. The phone company provides an external number customers can use to access their inbox.
2. The service gives access to the caller dailing in if it recognizes that the customer is calling in from an approved phone number, like their cell phone.
3. The loophole in this system is that the service makes this determination by reading the incoming caller ID.
4. Crooks can easily spoof a user’s Caller ID using Voice Over IP and some software.
Tactic #2
1. Most of the time, the service offers an additional barrier of protection by requiring that the person calling in enter a four digit password.
2. The problem is that users are initially given a default password, which they can change once they access the system.
3. Typically, the default password is the last four digits of the person’s phone number.
4. Customers often don’t take the extra step to create a personalized password. Hackers know this and are more than happy to take advantage what can amount to be a serious lapse in judgement.
Tactic #3
1. For the sake of convenience, another way users can often access their voice mailbox is by dialing their own number and entering a secure password.
2. Hackers, too, have a way of mimicking this sequence, but it requires that they first have somebody occupy the user’s phone line.
3. While the line is being held up, a call to that number — with the correct spoofed caller ID – goes directly to voice mail .
4. To get past the security password barrier, hackers would sometimes reset the code by calling the provider’s customer service department and successfully impersonating the user.
The report also highlights one of the major reasons why voicemail in particular has become such an easy target for hackers. It’s a scheme that can be pulled off repeatedly without rousing any sort of suspicion; no one knows if a message has been accessed if the hacker remembers to categorize the accessed recordings as new, a feature that’s also used with email.
Although there isn’t a 100 percent foolproof way to protect against such transgressions, most instances of phone hacking can be prevented simply by activating a personal security code that no one else knows. Steven Rambam, an investigator and director of Pallorium, Inc., told Gizmodo that “90 percent voicemail-specific problems can be prevented if strong passwords are put into place.”
To fortify security measures, companies can also require more stringent criteria to verify the identity of customers requesting sensitive information, says SPP Blue security expert Hemanshu Nigam, in an interview with the Washington Post.
If as a society we learn anything from this, it’s that the more barriers put in the place, the more we can deter the bad guys from making us targets.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Quma: 3D Motion-Capture Figure For 3D CG Production (Video)
The device, in its current form, is designed to resemble a human, but SoftEther says that their technology could be used for motion-capturing any other shape or form.
The company says Quma is ready for production but is yet to fix a release date and price (an SDK for application providers is available, too).
This video shows the figure in action:
GMAT Wordplay: Playing to Win
Chris Farley’s character here makes the classic error of missing an ever-important word: “I thought the concierge meant to go SEE a game show, not BE ON a game show. Big mistake!” This is a game show pitfall that Los Angeles GMAT instructor (and Jeopardy! champion) George Yates knew well to avoid; that Los Angeles GMAT tutor Travis Morgan…well, you will see this fall on NBC; and that New York City GMAT Instructor Dave Halliday, well, learned the hard way in the waning minutes of his would-be-champion Jeopardy! run, missing a key word on Final Jeopardy! and incorrectly answering a question to which he KNEW the correct answer, losing his lead and the game in the process.
Accountability in the U.K.
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Accountability in the U.K.
The bus to Piccadilly Circus is a rough ride as the freshly-strewn News Corp. employees hastily jettisoned by Rupert Murdoch line the streets of London. (03:36)
http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/wed-july-20-2011-steve-carell
Accountability in the U.K - Rupert Murdoch's Crime-Fighting Wife
Rupert Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng, captivates the U.K. with her Ultimate Fighting skills and her clear displeasure with those who question her husband. (02:11)
Accountability in the U.K - David Cameron Kills it
America's government should start drinking motherf**king tea and eating motherf**king finger sandwiches to be as awesome England's government. (05:16)
Humanized by Pie
After Rupert Murdoch gets hit with a pie, News Corp.'s stocks spike, the English Parliament apologizes, and even the media sharks celebrating his downfall feel bad. (03:43)
Murdochs Express 'Great Regret' Over Phone Hacking
Murdochs Express 'Great Regret' Over Phone Hacking ???
Channel 4: Rupert Murdoch and his son James have apologized for the phone-hacking scandal while giving evidence to MPs
David Cameron on phone-hacking scandal Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/david-cameron-on-phone-hacking-scandal/205647&cp
British Prime Minister David Cameron defended his former communications chief Andy Coulson before an emergency session of Parliament on Wednesday, saying he believes that people are innocent until proven guilty. Coulson is one of 10 people arrested in the phone hacking and police bribery scandal that has ensnared some of Britain's top police, politicians and journalists.
Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/david-cameron-on-phone-hacking-scandal/205647&cp
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
New Robot Touch Sensor Paves The Way To More Lifelike Humanoids (Video)
Robots these days, especially humanoids, have one problem: it doesn’t feel nice or lifelike when you touch them. This is where an invention by Japanese robot startup Touchence comes in. Their so-called ShokacCube, made of polyurethane, is the world’s first soft touch sensor specifically designed for robots.
The sensor detects touches in three dimensions and is pressure-sensitive: if used in a humanoid’s cheek, for example, the robot in question can distinguish if that body part is being just lightly touched or pinched. And as the ShokacCube is covered in soft foam and soft and flexible itself, it does away with the usual metallic feeling humans get when touching a robot.
The ShokacCube would particularly make sense when used in therapeutic robots, for example.
Touchence plans to roll out the first samples for ShokacCube type B (type A was released in December last year) next month. The company expects to have a more advanced type C model ready by April 2012.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
iPhone Camera + Classical Guitar = Wild Rolling Shutter Effects
The effect is caused by the iPhone’s rolling shutter image acquisition system and, in reality, the entire string is vibrating back and forth. However, with a little ingenuity, the guitarist has created a haunting way to represent a short snippet of Tears in Heaven along with a few other excellent musical renditions.
If you’re curious, here’s how guitar strings really vibrate.
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