Category: Story

Story

Student expelled after exposing security flaw in college computers

By admin | by admin

As reported on The Verge. By Aaron Souppouris Last fall, Ahmed Al-Khabaz and a fellow student discovered “sloppy coding” in their college’s computer system that jeopardized the security of over 250,000 students’ personal information. After testing to confirm the issue was real, Al-Khabaz was congratulated for raising the issue with the relevant authorities, but has since been expelled from Montreal’s Dawson College with failing grades.   MINUTES AFTER TESTING THE FLAW, AL-KHABAZ WAS ACCUSED OF LAUNCHING…

Continue reading

Culture Story

Eric Schmidt’s daughter reports on creepy North Korea trip, says the country is like ‘The Truman Show’

By admin | by admin

As reported on The Verge. By T.C. Sottek After returning from a private mission to North Korea, Eric Schmidt says he sternlywarned North Korean officials that their country risks falling further behind economically without a connection to the global internet, but didn’t elaborate much further on the trip. Schmidt’s daughter Sophie was also with the delegation, and in a lengthy Google Sites post titled “It might not get weirder than this,” she describes a trip full of “highly staged…

Continue reading

Business Culture Story Tech Trends

The World’s First 3D-Printed Building Will Arrive In 2014 (And It Looks Awesome)

By admin | by admin

As reported on TechCrunch. by JORDAN CROOK Sure, 3D printing is fun and cute. And products like the Makerbot and Form 1 will most certainly disrupt manufacturing, even if it’s only on a small scale. But the possibilities of 3D printing stretch far beyond DIY at-home projects. In fact, it could entirely replace the construction industry. We’ve already seen folks at MIT’s Research Labs working on ways to 3D print the frame of a home in a day, as opposed…

Continue reading

Mobile Story

HTC M7 purportedly spied brandishing Sense 5.0 Mobile

By admin | by admin

As reported on Engadget. By Jon Fingas It’s that special time again — that time when Mobile World Congress looms, and HTC fans wonder what design philosophy they’ll live with for the next year. We might have just been given a peek at their future. Android Police claims to have a photo and screenshots for the M7, a prototype HTC smartphone that previously only existed in a slightly sketchy 3D render. The design appears to take a handful…

Continue reading

Space Story

Track Curiosity Rover’s Entire Mission With This Incredible Image From Space

By admin | by admin

As reported on Wired. BY ADAM MANN The entire story of the Curiosity rover’s travels are on spectacular display in this new picture from Martian orbit by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.   Curiosity’s Best Images Tracking Mars: Curiosity Makes Its Mark on the Red Planet Curiosity Rover’s Self-Portraits Transport You to Mars Since it landed in August, NASA’s awesome rover has traversed about half a kilometer from its landing site. Along the way, it has scooped…

Continue reading

Application Story

Study: Learning Spanish With Duolingo Can Be More Effective Than College Classes Or Rosetta Stone

By admin | by admin

As reported on TechCrunch. by FREDERIC LARDINOIS Education is quickly moving online, but we haven’t seen all that many studies that actually look into the effectiveness of these new forms of online learning. To see how its program performed, the language learning serviceDuolingo, founded by CAPTCHA inventor Luis von Ahn, commissioned a study (PDF)into the effectiveness of its program. The result, which even surprised von Ahn: it only takes a Duolingo user 34 hours to learn the equivalent…

Continue reading

Application Entertainment Story

Mobile Video App Montaj Makes Editing As Easy As Shaking Your Phone

By admin | by admin

As reported on TechCrunch. by RYAN LAWLER The latest entrant into the mobile video segment is Montaj, a new app launching next week which seeks to be a kind of “Instagram for Video.” Montaj was founded by Demir Gjokaj and Dan Long, a couple of New York-based entrepreneurs who had originally been focused on making a more engaging travel site. Key to that experience would be video, but they had to tackle the video problem first. The…

Continue reading

Story Tech

Sony selling NY headquarters for $1.1 billion, will rent space from new owners

By admin | by admin

As reported on Engadget. By Sean Buckley Despite losing a little less each quarter since Kazuo Hirai took over as CEO, Sony still appears to be looking for ways to cut the fat. Its latest move? Sell the house. Taking a page from Nokia’s book, Sony has announced that it has agreed to sell its New York headquarters building to a consortium led by The Chetrit Group. After settling its debts on the building, the $1.1 billion sale will net Sony about $685…

Continue reading

Government Story

DOJ declines to reveal policy memos on GPS tracking

By admin | by admin

As reported on Engadget. By Jon Fingas The US Supreme Court might have ruled last year that GPS tracking is equivalent to a search, but that doesn’t mean the government’s practices are transparent. If anything, they may be more opaque than ever. The Department of Justice has responded to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act request for a pair of GPS tracking policy memos by providing almost completely redacted versions that, effectively, say nothing. Not surprisingly, the ACLU isn’t…

Continue reading

Story

3D Printers Can Now Pump Out 30-Round Magazines

By admin | by admin

As reported on Businessinsider.com by Geoffrey Ingersoll DXLiberty via YouTube A video from Defense Distributed popped up just in time for Barack Obama’s momentous address to the nation about, among other things, banning the sale of 30-round magazines. The video shows a test fire of an assault rifle using a 3D-printed 30-round clip. The capability adds another layer to the loopholes and problems that exist in a ‘high-capacity magazine’ ban. The implication is that, as technology becomes more available, it won’t…

Continue reading