Plug-ins based on the NPAPI architecture will be blocked by default in Chrome starting early next year as Google moves toward completely removing support for them in the browser.
Nintendo fans in Japan have just been offered the motherload of Wii U bundles: two packages that include as many as three games, an extra controller and a subscription to a karaoke service. Both bundles come with either a white or black 32GB console, a matching Wii Remote Plus, 30 days of Nintendo x Joysound Wii Karaoke U service and digital copies of New Super Mario Bros U and Wii Party U. The lower-end package snags all of the above for a cool 32,800 yen (about $332), but an extra 2,000 yen (roughly $20) adds a copy of Wii Fit U and a Fit Meter — although it looks like the requisite balance board will be sold separately. Considering that a standard Wii U Deluxe system now sells for $300, these bundles seem like solid deals. There’s no word if a similar compilation is being prepared for international markets, but at least we have the limited-edition Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HDbundle to comfort us.
@Horse_ebooks, the Twitter account that was until now largely thought to be a spambot, is in fact controlled by a real person. And in an even more surprising twist, its random bits of text and phrases are meant to be performance art. The New Yorker today has the full story on one of the web's most bizarre mysteries. @Horse_ebooks, along with the popular YouTube channel Pronunciation Book, are the work of Jacob Bakkila and Thomas Bender. The creators, who have for years maintained the projects in total secrecy, will appear today at Manhattan's Fitzroy Gallery to launch the "next installment" of their collaboration. Bear Stearns Bravo is described by The New Yorker as a "choose-your-own-adventure interactive-video piece."
If you had problems receiving emails or opening attachments with Gmail yesterday, you weren't the only one. Google says that yesterday's Gmail outage delayed 29 percent of all emails sent from 8:54AM to roughly 7:00PM ET, with an average delay time of 2.6 seconds. But one and a half percent of emails saw a much greater backup yesterday, with delays of longer than two hours. It's hard to know how many messages were actually delayed, as Google doesn't provide data on its daily email volume, and even if estimates are available, traffic fluctuates widely hour by hour. Gmail does have over 425 million active users.
Google says that the delays were due to a dual network error, in which two separate failures knocked out some of Gmail's...
Een bolvormig type antenne moet gps-signalen vooral in steden en binnen gebouwen betrouwbaarder maken. Met de bolvormige antennes zou locatiebepaling nauwkeuriger worden, omdat rondketsende signalen weggefilterd worden.
This colorful scene is situated in the Noctis Labyrinthus region of Mars, perched high on the Tharsis rise in the upper reaches of the Valles Marineris canyon system.
Targeting the bright rimmed bedrock knobs, the image also captures the interaction of two distinct types of windblown sediments. Surrounding the bedrock knobs is a network of pale reddish ridges with a complex interlinked morphology. These pale ridges resemble the simpler “transverse aeolian ridges” (called TARs) that are common in the equatorial regions of Mars.
The TARs are still poorly understood, and are variously ascribed to dunes produced by reversing winds, coarse grained ripples, or indurated dust deposits. HiRISE observations of TARs have so far shown that these bedforms are stable over time, suggesting either that they form slowly over much longer time scales than the duration of MRO's mission, or that they formed in the past during periods of very different atmospheric conditions than the present.
Dark sand dunes comprise the second type of windblown sediment visible in this image. The dark sand dune seen just below the center of the cutout displays features that are common to active sand dunes observed by HiRISE elsewhere on Mars, including sets of small ripples crisscrossing the top of the dune. In many cases, it is the motion of these smaller ripples that drives the advance of Martian sand dunes. The dark dunes are made up of grains composed of iron-rich minerals derived from volcanic rocks on Mars, unlike the pale quartz-rich dunes typical of Earth.
This image clearly shows the dark sand situated on top of the pale TAR network, indicating that the sand dunes are younger than the TARs. Moreover, the fresh appearance of the sand dunes suggest that they are currently active, and may help shape the unusual TAR morphology by sandblasting the TARs in the present day environment.
The original image was acquired on Aug. 31, 2013, by the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) instrument aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson.
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Caption Credit: Paul Geissler
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Nissan heeft een naar eigen zeggen exclusieve overeenkomst gesloten met Apple. Hierdoor kan de autofabrikant de onlangs geïntroduceerde iTunes Radio-dienst in de boordsystemen van enkele aankomende automodellen opnemen.
Goh. Verrassend. Autofabrikant Opel maakt woekerwinsten op de elektrische Ampera door misbruik te maken van subsidiemogelijkheden. In Nederland krijg je als consument of zakelijke rijder bákken subsidie als je hybride gaat rijden. Want da's groen en duurzaam en de...
Research from the University of Missouri published recently in the journal Frontiers in Psychology attempted to measure the individual habits and preferences found in "problematic" video game usage in adults.
Researchers distributed literature on message boards aimed at "game enthusiasts" and college undergraduates, with an aim to measure "individual habits and preferences in video game use." Their analysis identified nine factors — story, violent catharsis, violent reward, social interaction, escapism, loss-sensitivity, customization, grinding and autonomy — that were further analyzed to "reliably discriminate between inter-individual game preferences."
"The biggest risk factor for pathological video game use seems to be playing...
Forget the older crowd. LinkedIn now wants to help teenagers get into college and find a good job, in a strategy shift that analysts said could eventually pay off for the company.
We're certainly not in Star Trek's neighborhood when it comes to technological capability, but the car is packed and ready to go.
While it's easy to lose yourself in daydreams of teleportation and interplanetary travel, already we can do amazing things, like turn the ocean into a big glass of drinking water.
A cancer-killing computer chip can run wild in a patient's bloodstream and wreak havoc on cancer cells.
NASA's even putting legitimate effort towards building a Star Trek-like warp drive system. So maybe we're closer to a science fiction universe than initially suspected.
Nanofiber salt filters could be used to harvest ocean water for drinking.
Nanofiber is a fibrous material that's incredibly thin (less than 100 nanometers). It functions very effectively as a salt filter since individual grains of salt is too big to pass through the holes in the nanofiber.
Unfortunately they're cost prohibitive to deploy right now.
A cancer-killing computer chip could live in a patient's bloodstream.
It's called a "microfluidic" chip, covered in long strands of DNA. The DNA absorbs the malicious cancer cells, and if they need to be studied later, the cancer cells can be retrieved from the chip later.
Graphene supercapacitors could lead to the electric car of your dreams.
Imagine an electric car that could drive a couple hundred miles, then fully recharge its battery in one minute.
Graphene supercapacitors are what will make this possible. A supercapacitor can hold as much power as a battery, but they charge far more quickly. Graphene has a high energy density though, which is a fancy way of saying it's can hold more electrons (and therefore electric charge) than a standard battery.
As graphene is no longer cost-prohibitive to manufacture at scale, graphene supercapacitors could easily end up in our phones, laptops, and basically anything that runs on a battery.
Sure, most of the attention has been on Ben Affleck being cast as Batman in Zack Snyder's sequel to Man of Steel, but what about the rest of the Batman universe? Deadline reports that Fox has closed a deal for a television series centered around none other than the Dark Knight's ally Commissioner Gordon. Called Gotham, the show focuses on Gordon's early years as a detective on the Gotham City police force, and while it will include some of Gotham's most famous villains it will reportedly not feature Batman himself.
Bruno Heller, the creator of The Mentalist, will be producing the show in conjunction with Warner Bros. Television, and Fox's deal includes a series commitment — signaling just how bullish the network is on the project....
The games industry is seeing financial growth at too slow a rate when it could feasibly reach $200 billion through microtransactions by 2016, according to Wargaming's Victor Kislyi during today's DICE 2013 conference in London.
Despite its success, the video gaming industry sees only six percent yearly growth financially - a fact to which Kislyi asked developers: "Are you ready to sustain that humiliation?"
Kislyi's solution is to break currently untapped markets whose purchases through in-game microtransactions could potentially have a huge financial impact. According to the CEO, there are on average 1.2 billion gamers on earth, each of who could help create a $200 billion industry by making small micro transactional purchases.
Kowloon Walled City was the closest this planet has ever come to having our own, real Mega-City One. Poverty, people packed in like sardines, drugs, prostitution, a vacuum of authority...it was insane. It's been gone for nearly twenty years now, but a series of amazing photos has helped bring the "city" back to life.
Ever read the comments on a popular YouTube video? There is no faster way to strip yourself of faith in humanity. It's a cesspool. And this is coming from someone who writes for the Gawker network. We know a little something about rowdy comments sections. YouTube's is worse, but it's finally about to smarten up.
The names of 24 MacArthur Fellows were revealed at midnight on Wednesday, bestowing recipients with a gift of $625,000, paid over five years, to be spent anyway they choose.
The so-called "genius awards" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation have been handed out to around two dozen creative and talented Americans from all different fields every year since 1981.
The no-strings-attached money is intended to give recipients the freedom to pursue new ideas or move forward with their current work.
No one can apply for the awards. The fellows are chosen by an anonymous panel of experts, who inform the winners through a telephone call just a couple days before the official announcement.
This year, the fellows range in age from 32 to 60. There are several artists including a concert pianist, a playwright, and a choreographer of classical ballet. The other fellows include an organic chemist, a medieval historian, a behavioral economist, and an immigration lawyer.
You can see the full list of fellows at the MacArthur website.
De pogingen van China om een luchtvaartindustrie op te bouwen hebben opnieuw vertraging opgelopen. De oplevering van het eerste commerciële Chinese verkeersvliegtuig, de Comac ARJ21, wordt nu niet eerder dan midden volgend jaar verwacht. Eerder werd uitgegaan van eind dit jaar.
Het project had al eerder met vertraging te kampen. De ontwikkeling van de ARJ21 begon in 2002. Het vliegtuig had in 2007 moeten vliegen, maar dat werd keer op keer uitgesteld. De topman van Comac zegt nu in een toelichting dat het ontwikkelen van een nieuw toestel "niet altijd soepel" verloopt. "Het programma kan niet in een klap worden voltooid."
De ARJ21 is een relatief klein vliegtuig, dat negentig stoelen krijgt. Het wordt gezien als de opmaat voor een groter toestel van Comac, de C919. Dat toestel moet op termijn de concurrentie aangaan met de Boeing 737 en de Airbus A320, zo hopen de Chinezen.
Google heeft aangekondigd dat het reactiesysteem van YouTube gedurende de komende maanden gekoppeld zal worden aan Google+. Daarmee worden onder andere threaded comments toegevoegd en ook hoopt Google dat reacties relevanter worden.
De ontwikkelaars van CyanogenMod hebben, voor ze zich volledig gaan richten op versie 10.2 gebaseerd op Android 4.3, nog een laatste stabiele update voor CyanogenMod versie 10.1 uitgebracht. CyanogenMod is een opensourcebesturingssysteem voor smartphones en tablets. Het is gebaseerd op een kale versie van Android en voegt extra functionaliteit toe, waaronder root-toegang, snelkoppelingen in de notificatiebalk, een uitgebreid lockscreen en verschillende thema's voor de interface. Verder zijn er vaak prestatieverbeteringen waar te nemen ten opzichte van de software die een fabrikant zelf meelevert. Nieuw in de 10.1.3 release is onder meer dat bij de eerste keer opstarten gevraagd wordt om een optioneel CyanogenMod-account aan te maken. Een officiële aankondiging voor deze uitgave ontbreekt vooralsnog op de website van de ontwikkelaars.
An inflatable purple concert hall is set to embark on a tour of Japan, beginning with one of the country's most devastated areas. The mobile structure, known as Ark Nova, was designed by British sculptor Anish Kapoor and Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, and will host its inaugural event on October 12th in Matsushima — a coastal town in northeast Japan that was ravaged by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Ark Nova was created with support from the Switzerland-based Lucerne Festival, and will host musical performances from international orchestras, as well as traditional Japanese concerts. Widely referred to as the world's first inflatable concert hall, the structure consists of a large purple membrane that can be quickly inflated and...
The Tokyo Game Show may be over, but this week's Famitsu still has an exclusive scoop on a title that wasn't on the show floor. Titled, Bakumatsu Rock, the game is a PlayStation Portable release coming out 2014 in Japan.
Bakumatsu Rock takes place in the mid-19th century, a time when real-life Japan was facing revolution and chaos. In the game world, this is all caused by the shogunate-driven "Heaven's Song," a tune so pernicious and evil that it's all you're allowed to sing; any other tune is punishable by death.
Sakamoto Ryoma, Hijikata Toshizo and other reform-minded samurai must step up to stop this mess, and to do this, they'll become "rockers" who hold live shows. The game's divided into adventure and rhythm-game sections, with...
Ars expressed surprise on Monday that a hacker was able to bypass fingerprint protection less than 48 hours after its debut in Apple's newest iPhone, but not everyone felt the same way. The hack, carried out by well-known German hacker Starbug, required too much expertise and pricey equipment to make it practical, according to critics.
Marc Rogers, a security expert at smartphone security firm Lookout, was among the skeptics. After independently devising his own bypass of Apple's Touch ID, he concluded that it was anything but easy. "Hacking Touch ID relies upon a combination of skills, existing academic research, and the patience of a Crime Scene Technician," he wrote. Rogers went on to say that no one would know just how feasible Starbug's hack was until he released a step-by-step video and we learned more technical details.
We now have both. Heise Online has posted the video here, and it was enough to satisfy Rob Graham, a security expert who donated $500 to the first person to hack Touch ID. Ars has also heard directly from Starbug, who (like us and several security experts) was surprised by how little time and effort his bypass required.
This update is recommended for iMac (late 2013) models. This update addresses an issue which may cause a black screen to appear when installing Windows 7 or Windows 8 using Boot Camp Assistant if both an external optical drive and USB thumb drive are connected to the system. This update also ensures that the system will boot by default into OS X after installation of Windows 8.
The 8.7 MB update requires OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.4 (12E4022) or later, suggesting that at least some new iMacs may need to be updated with the current OS X 10.8.5 upon delivery.
Apple’s new iMacs include Intel’s latest Haswell processors, improved graphics, faster PCI Express-based flash storage options, and the support for the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard making its way into the company’s Mac products. The 21.5-inch model begins at $1299, with the 27-inch model starting at $1799.
New data shows entry level Windows Phones doing very well, while the Lumia 1020 remains niche; Nokia near 90% of the Windows Phone market
AdDuplex have released Windows Phone ecosystem data for the month of September. The company powers the ads that are found in Windows Phone apps worldwide and have become a solid metric for platform statistics.
This month’s data continues a few trends, including steady growth of Nokia’s dominance and the rise of low-cost Lumias. However, the high-end market, including the Lumia 1020, have so far not sold nearly as much. Expectation due to niche device or market failure?
German hacker collective the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) grabbed headlines after showing a method to fool the iPhone 5s’s Touch ID fingerprint scanner, but it’s nothing that ordinary people need to worry about too much, according to a security expert.
CCC hacker Starbug created a fake fingerprint by scanning a real one, printing it and ultimately creating a fake print by transferring it to latex rubber or wood glue. The group claims that this is proof that biometric security isn’t effective and shouldn’t be used. Starbug calls his method “very straightforward and trivial.”
Security expert Marc Rogers – director of security operations at the DEF CON hacking conference and principal security researcher for mobile security software developer Lookout – posted an entry to the Lookout blog entitled Why I Hacked Apple’s TouchID, And Still Think It Is Awesome. Rogers explains:
Hacking TouchID relies upon a combination of skills, existing academic research and the patience of a Crime Scene Technician.
He talks about some of the issues involved in acquiring an unsmudged print and transferring it. Contrary to Starbug’s claims of triviality, Rogers says:
It is a lengthy process that takes several hours and uses over a thousand dollars worth of equipment including a high resolution camera and laser printer.
Rogers underscores that Touch ID is useful as a convenience factor, not as an improved method of security.
Today just over 50 percent of users have a PIN on their smartphones at all, and the number one reason people give for not using the PIN is that it’s inconvenient. TouchID is strong enough to protect users from casual or opportunistic attackers (with one concern I will cover later on) and it is substantially better than nothing.
Rogers also says that Touch ID would be improved if it were a two-factor authentication system – something you have (in this case, your fingerprint) and something you know – a PIN number or passcode. You can’t install Touch ID without putting a passcode on your iPhone 5s as well, so the parts are there, if Apple’s willing and able.
Over the years a number of studies have been done on smartphone security. And while the number of smartphones in use, and the variety of operating systems in use has increased, the number of users who protect their devices with a lock code or passcode has stayed within a few digits of 50 percent.
As Rogers points out, the number one reason why smartphone users don’t use a passcode is because they’re inconvenient. Touch ID handily addresses the convenience problem. While biometric security isn’t perfect, no security is perfect.
If Touch ID’s lasting contribution will be to provide that other 50 percent with a viable method of locking and unlocking their phone, Apple will have made a really positive contribution to the smartphone market.
What do you think? Is Rogers understating the risk to Touch ID users? Has Chaos Computer Club overstated how easy Touch ID is to override? I want to hear from you, so share your thoughts in the comments.
A massive earthquake struck near the southern coast of Pakistan today, killing upwards of 100 people, injuring dozens more, and leading to the formation of a small rocky island, according to multiple reports. The epicenter of the 7.7-magnitude quake was in the district of Awaran, a remote and mountainous area where at least 45 people were killed, the BBC said. Another 150 died in the nearby Balochistan province, according to Pakistan's Express Tribune newspaper. The island, which is reportedly about 30 feet high and nearly 100 feet in diameter, is located in the Arabian Sea nearly a mile off the nation's shoreline.
We’ve seen 3D printers produce some pretty amazing things, but nothing quite like this. Tim Zaman, a Dutch researcher, has reportedly developed a 3D duplication technique capable of capturing incredible detail, such as brush strokes and other textures on a painting. With a captured image on hand, it’s then possible to print a reproduction matching every detail, including raised brush strokes. Reproductions are created using an Oce printer that can reproduce large-format paintings at 600 ppi; the process resembles that of a dye-sub printer, with the printing head moving back and forth many times, adding a new textured layer with each pass. It’s a very cool idea, but don’t expect to fill your home with flawless duplicates — you’ll first need to get your hands on a priceless piece of art.
...this wasn’t a jet pulled out of service just to be shot down. It’s been mothballed in the Arizona desert for 15 years. All the planes that will be converted into pilotless fighter targets will come from the Air Force’s long-term storage.
The blog does not say how much it costs to convert the aircraft into drones, but it's notable that the platform itself was rescued from the scrap yard, and would not otherwise be used for anything.
Repurposed as a training aircraft, the QF-16 drones give American fighter pilots a previously unattained ability to train the way they fight. With this technology, pilots can engage actual fighter aircraft that have the look, capabilities, and behavior of enemy aircraft.
The names of 24 MacArthur Fellows were revealed at midnight on Wednesday, bestowing recipients with a gift of $625,000, paid over five years, to be spent anyway they choose. 
Following today’s launch of updated iMacs, Apple has released an iMac (late 2013) EFI Update 2.1 for the new machines.
