Microsoft will now tell users of its email services when their accounts are being attacked by government hackers. The change in policy comes as Reuters reported that the company chose not to tell thousands of Hotmail users that their email accounts had been hacked by Chinese government officials.
Security experts for the company reportedly found evidence in 2011 of attacks on Hotmail accounts used by Japanese and African diplomats, human rights lawyers, and Tibetan and Uighur leaders, but rather than inform them of the covert activity, Microsoft elected to ask affected users simply to change their passwords.
Windows/Mac: Most popular apps allow you to cast audio and video to your Chromecast directly from the app itself, but it’s not supported by everything. Instead of just streaming from one specific app, you can stream all your computer’s audio through your Chromecast for maximum support.
On Windows, you need Chromecast Audio Stream. Once it’s installed, just select your Chromecast from the tray icon and your audio will start streaming.
On Mac, you can use Soundcast. Here, you’ll first need to install Soundflower, then install Soundcast (you might need to reboot after installing Soundflower). Then, select Soundcast from the menu bar, select your Chromecast, and you’re all set.
That’s it, now all your computer’s audio should be routed through the Chromecast. This should work for everything from iTunes to video games to random MP3s you’re playing from a folder.
Rep Pete Hoekstra [R-MI] calls spying "a matter of fact," he attacked a bill that would impose oversight on the NSA, and he "laughs at foreign governments who are shocked they’ve been spied on because they, too, gather information" -- except when the targets of the NSA's surveillance are Congress and Israel's leaders.
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When it comes to phones, the word “flagship” was tossed around a lot in 2015. We saw it get attached to devices that are priced at the midrange, as well as certain top-performing devices that were priced far lower than the usual “flagship” phones. Read More
The 19 Greatest Movies Of 2015: This year wasn’t a year for consensus in anything, movies included. The Oscar race is up in the air, no one knows what a lead role is anymore, and most of the entries below could be moved around and swapped out for multiple runners-up. Some that almost made the cut: The Hateful Eight, Inside Out, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Room, Magic Mike XXL, Steve Jobs, Amour Fou, Clouds of Sils Maria, The Look of Silence, Bridge of Spies, and About Elly.
Android's rapid rise to the top of the mobile market was accompanied by a number of legal battles, and perhaps none of them was so central and so contentious as Oracle versus Google. The fight over the legality of patents and copyrights in some of the portions of Android that used allegedly proprietary Oracle-owned Java software has been raging since 2010, eventually being considered for review by the US Supreme Court before being bounced back to the lower appeals court.
If there's one thing that J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been great at — aside from reminding everyone how much they liked the original movie — it's been breaking box office records. Lotsofthem. So it shouldn't come as a shock that there's another one rolling in just a few days before the end of the year: Star Wars has helped 2015 become the highest grossing year in US box office history. Deadline reports that North American box office totals for the year have topped $11 billion, with the tally estimated to hit $11.1 billion by the end of the year.
The previous record came in 2013, with movies like The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and the Frozen juggernaut helping drive over $10.9 billion in business. Along with Star...
Amazon's Echo was one of the stars of the retail giant's record-breaking holiday period, and it was only a matter of time before competitors started making their own smart speakers. LG's new SmartThinQ hub appears to be one such copycat. The hub, announced today ahead of a demonstration at CES next week, is visually similar to Amazon's Echo, and like that device, features a large built-in speaker that can stream music. But where the Echo is only gradually moving from cool curio to useful gadget, LG is pitching the SmartThinQ as the "gateway" to your automated home, connecting to smart refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioners, and displaying their information on a 3.5-inch color LCD display.
A great thank you note is a lot more than a piece of paper with “thank you” written on it, however. This primer will have you writing thank you notes so good, people will want to give you presents just to receive one.
Thank you notes are a terrific way to show your gratitude, and this video from the Art of Manliness YouTube channel covers all the ins and outs of writing the best thank you note possible. You’ll learn things like:
When it’s appropriate to write a thank you note.
What stationery is best to use.
You should always use a euphemism when referring to a gift of money (like generosity, kindness, or gift).
Ways to show your appreciation for gifts and hosted events by describing what you liked about the event, or how you plan to use an item.
If your note is for someone you don’t see very often, adding a little news about your life can make your thank you note even more appreciated. With the holidays coming to a close, don’t delay, and get those thank you notes sent out as soon as possible.
In an attempt to reduce smog, Milan, Italy has ordered private cars off the city's streets between 10 AM and 4 PM for the first three days of this week. The AP said that motorists largely respected the ban, which was enforced with heavy fines.
To go along with turning the whole city into one giant bike lane for six hours a day, Milan has heavily discounted its public transit system. Riders can now get an entire day of unlimited transit for what used to be the cost of a single ride.
It's not the first time cities have tried to reduce cars and, in turn, pollution. Oslo, Norway has plans to eliminate cars from its city center, and Beijing has sometimes restricted vehicles to driving every other day. Other cities, like London, focus more...
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
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This post appears courtesy of the Ferenstein Wire, a syndicated news service. Publishing partners may edit posts. For inquiries, please email author and publisher Gregory Ferenstein.
The Chinese government has just passed a security law that reportedly could require technology companies to hand over encryption keys to private data. The law is so controversial that President Obama personally raised concerns about it to President Xi Jinping.
Despite lobbying by the highest levels of the US government and Silicon Valley, Chinese officials say that there is plenty of legal precedent in Western nations for such a law (see transcript).
For instance, Britain is moving forward on a law that could ban certain kinds of difficult-to-crack encryption, such as the security on the Iphone's messenger application, which not even Apple can read (so-called "end-to-end" encryption). High-level members of the British government are part of growing movement of officials that want to ban communication that the government can't read.
So, knowing that Western nations have a long history of spying and encryption cracking, China confidently moved ahead with the law, which could require tech companies to give access to private files and assist in digging through data that the government deems a national security threat.
More details are to come, but this is something that tech companies—and consumers—should be watching carefully.
*For more stories like this, subscribe to the Ferenstein Wire newsletter here.
Spotted by Car and Driver, I give you Barrett-Jackson Lot 793, a heavily decorated 1995 Volkswagen Jetta that will be going up for auction at the firm's Scottsdale, Arizona event toward the end of January.
Don't know what's so special about it? I don't fault you for not recognizing it immediately, because it was driven by one of the one-and-done characters from the original The Fast and The Furious from 2001 — Jesse, a kid in Dom's crew who met an untimely end and was never mentioned again.
None of that really matters, though: the important thing you need to know is that this Jetta is being offered by Frankie Muniz of Agent Cody Banks and Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! fame. There's no word on why Muniz is selling it, but it seems he's...
The division of Google responsible for wearable technology, Project Aura, has been hard at work on numerous iterations based on the original Glass headset. Now we've got a glimpse at what one of those devices may look like. In FCC filings published today, a version of Glass designed for the workplace shows a familiar-looking device with a glass prism, but equipped with a hinge so that it can be folded and placed in pockets like a standard pair of glasses.
Only one image in the filings shows a device with the original Glass' nose bridge, so it's unclear whether the finished "enterprise version" of Glass, as it's called, will attach to a headband-like piece of metal and sit perched on the wearer's nose. The new Glass will reportedly...
Methane gas has been leaking from a storage facility in California’s Aliso Canyon since October 2015 at a rate of 110,000 pounds per hour. You can see the plume in this infrared video shot on December 17, 2015. So far, 1,700 homes have been evacuated. The Southern California Gas Company thinks it will be able to stop the leak "by late February or late March."
Part of the problem in stopping the leak lies in the base of the well, which sits 8,000 feet underground. Pumping fluids down into the well, usually the normal recourse, just isn’t working, said Silva. Workers have been "unable to establish a stable enough column of fluid to keep the force of gas coming up from the reservoir." The company is now constructing a relief well that will connect to the leaking well, and hopefully provide a way to reduce pressure so the leak can be plugged.
Last May the Stockholm District Court ordered the Pirate Bay’s .SE domains to be handed over to the Swedish state, a decision which is currently being appealed.
In a response The Pirate Bay decided to quickly redirect its visitors to a ‘Hydra’ of six new domain names in case the .SE domains were lost for good.
The notorious torrent site decided to use more than one domain name, anticipating that not all would survive pressure from copyright holders.
This was no unnecessary precaution as the first domain name was quickly suspended following an intervention from the associated registry, which soon chopped off the first head.
Today, the Hydra lost its remaining heads after TPB’s domain registrar took over all remaining domain names.
This morning ThePirateBay.la, ThePirateBay.gd, ThePirateBay.mn and ThePirateBay.vg were all listed as “clienthold” by the registry and the same is true for several other official TPB domains including those using the .FM, .SH, .MU and .TW extensions. This means they are no longer accessible, once all DNS entries are updates.
All affected domain names are linked to the same service and registered to Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij. According to ICANN the clienthold status is uncommon and “usually enacted during legal disputes, non-payment, or when your domain is subject to deletion.”
Pirate Bay’s .LA Whois
As a result of the domain troubles The Pirate Bay is currently not reachable (cached DNS entries aside, but these will expire soon) through the usual ThePirateBay.se domain, which redirects to the domains listed above. However, the .org domain remains operational and the same is true for the .onion address.
At this point there is no official statement on the reason for the seizures/suspensions. The responsible registrar appears to be Idotz.net, which is a U.S. based 1api/Hexonet reseller.
TorrentFreak has asked Idotz for a comment but we were informed that they are unable to respond to third-party queries regarding domain names due to customer privacy reasons.
Not all domain registrars and registries are equally responsive to copyright complaints. Some suspend a domain name after a single complaint, while others require a local court order before taking action.
The Mongolian registry, which is behind TPB’s .MN domain name, previously informed TF that they will process potential complaints through ICANN’s Dispute Resolution Policy, suggesting that they will not take any voluntary action.
Still, that didn’t prevent the registrar from putting the .MN domain name on hold today.
Considering Pirate Bay’s defiant stance it’s likely that a copyright holder complaint triggered the current actions, but that hasn’t been confirmed. The TPB team has yet to make an official statement on the problems.
We will update this article should more information become available.
Update: The existing .se redirects were removed. TPB is operating exclusively from the .se domain for the time being.
The long-dreaded death of Terry Pratchett finally arrived in 2015, years after his inital prognosis predicted it would come. Pratchett spent his last years on Earth working his guts out, leaving behind a literary legacy of enormous breadth and depth.
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LG has teased a new set of TONE+ headphones ahead of the official announcement which will come at CES 2016. The HBS-910 is promised to deliver top-quality audio in a lightweight and comfortable design. Featuring dual microphones, this new TONE headset will not only cancel out ambient audio but it will also record your voice in higher quality.
Cats and dogs don’t usually know what things make them sick, so their curious nature occasionally gets the best of them. To keep your pets safe, avoid having any of these common plants around your home.
This visual guide, from Pots Planters and More, provides information from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, and Texas A&M regarding toxic plants that will harm or kill your pets. Not only does it list the plants, like castor bean, dumbcane, and oleander, it also lists what parts of the plant are toxic, how much of it is considered to be harmful, and warning signs that may signal your pet being poisoned. It also features photographs of each plant so you know exactly what you’re looking for. The ASPCA’s Poison Control hotline receives around 150,000 calls due to accidental pet poisonings, so it’s very important you keep these plants away from your pets. You can view the entire graphic below.
It's Appday Sunday and that means we're back with more of our favorites to share. Every week we bring a handful of great apps to the table and share them with everyone. Sometimes they are new apps, sometimes old standards, but every time they are apps we love to use.
Give these a look and then take a minute to tell us all about the apps you are using and love so we can give them a try. We all find some of our favorites right in the comments on these posts!
"Cybersecurity": it's the new "terrorism," a word to conjure with, a source of bottomless no-bid procurements for the military-industrial complex, full employment for snake-oil salesmen.
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Simon & Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence is over half a century old now, and in all that time no one had thought to do a nu-metal cover of it. Probably because that sounds like a really terrible idea. But Disturbed, one of the most prominent (and unintentionally hilarious) alternative metal acts from the early 2000s, has done its own version of the song and, well, it's surprisingly good. Hearing this song without any preconceptions about its copiously pierced singer may not be easy, but it's rewarded by a very satisfying little tune. It's at once faithful to the original and to the band's innate predilection for exaggeration.
Getting rid of debt is a math problem. You need to develop a long-term plan that will reduce your debt over time until it’s eliminated. However, it’s also a lifestyle choice, and that’s something you need to anticipate.
As personal finance blog Life and My Finances explains, part of the reason that it’s hard for people to get out of debt is because many don’t want to change their lifestyle. Whether it’s as dramatic as downgrading a house, or as simple as staying home from the bar more often, paying off debt in any meaningful timeframe usually involves a change in lifestyle. If you’re willing to make that change, you’ll do a lot better than someone else who’s stuck in their ways:
I was talking to my friend Laura the other day. She and her husband are 30 years old. They live in a $500,000 house, and she drives and Audi to work. We were talking about her daughter and the fact that she was going to daycare, and Laura looked down at the floor…. “I wish I could stay at home with her, but my husband says I need to go to work to pay the bills.”
She didn’t understand that there was another way. If they would just move to a $150,000 house and downgrade her car to a Honda Civic, she probably could stay home!
Of course, that’s not to say that everyone who is in debt is totally in debt by choice and they just need to suck it up. Sometimes life screws you over and you need to dig your way out. Being in debt doesn’t mean you did something wrong. But getting out of debt almost always involves changing somehow.
When it comes to phones, the word “flagship” was tossed around a lot in 2015. We saw it get attached to devices that are priced at the midrange, as well as certain top-performing devices that were priced far lower than the usual “flagship” phones. Read More
Android's rapid rise to the top of the mobile market was accompanied by a number of legal battles, and perhaps none of them was so central and so contentious as Oracle versus Google. The fight over the legality of patents and copyrights in some of the portions of Android that used allegedly proprietary Oracle-owned Java software has been raging since 2010, eventually being considered for review by the US Supreme Court before being bounced back to the lower appeals court.
Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.
Last May the Stockholm District Court ordered the Pirate Bay’s .SE domains to be handed over to the Swedish state, a decision which is currently being appealed.
