Darth Vader’s meditation chamber is where the Sith Lord goes to relax and chill for a while. Being a Sith is pretty stressful, you see. Your son didn’t follow in your footsteps and become evil like you, your boss the Emperor is always on your case via hologram, you recently lost the plans for the Death Star. He’s got 99 problems, but Admiral Motti isn’t one. Not anymore.
This conceptual Darth Vader meditation chamber fireplace could be a good way for you to unwind too. It was designed by Dave Delisle and can be opened and closed to adjust the room temperature or kept closed when not in use.
Not only is it geeky, it is actually a really great design. It is the perfect way for Dark Lords to meditate. Just don’t try and sit down inside of this one, Lord Vader. You already got burned once on Mustafar.
This week, ubiquitous middle-shelf bourbon Maker’s Mark announced that it would be watering down its whiskey from 90 proof to 84 proof in order to meet demand. Not surprisingly, everybody freaked out. That’s dumb. Here’s why. More »
Apple’s iOS 6.1 passcode bypass exploit has been receiving a lot of attention since it was stumbled upon earlier this week with a fix planned for early next week.
According to a new research published yesterday by Germany’s Erlangen University, passcodes may not be a match for freezing temperatures as researchers were able to bypass a Galaxy Nexus’ security settings to read the phone’s memory simply by sticking it in the freezer for a while. The method is called a “cold boot” attack and was first demonstrated on PCs in 2008.
The cold boot attack was performed, but through an approach that differs from how it’s done to PCs. The Galaxy Nexus retains information after a shutdown for up to two seconds, which researchers were able to extend it to a five or six second retention window. Once researchers were able to have the phone reach that length of time, they were able to successfully pull data from the device with the help of a computer.
It looks like you can add another big name to the recent string of high-profile hacking attempts. Facebook announced in a blog post today that it discovered last month that it had been targeted in what’s being described as a “sophisticated attack,” which it says “occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised.” Facebook further pinpoints the attack to a previously unseen zero-day exploit that bypassed the Java sandbox and installed malware on the computers in question. The company goes on to note that it immediately notified Oracle of the exploit, which issued a patch on February 1st.
Facebook is also quick to point out that it has “found no evidence that Facebook user data was compromised,” and adds that it was not alone in the attack, noting that it began to share information about the hack with other companies and entities as soon as it discovered it, and that it continues to work with law enforcement and others affected by the attack. You can find its full explanation of the matter at the source link.
Facebook just announced that it was hacked last month in a short statement on its website. Apparently, an unknown number employees visited a compromised developer site and were infected with malware. Facebook’s being very cagey about all this, but we’ve been able to scrounge up some details. More »
It’s time for the mother of all casting calls in the next Star Wars movie: Han Solo – and wouldn’t you know it? It appears that none other than Harrison Ford will be reprising the roll. That is, according to Latino Review – a source that (later in this post) you’ll find has been a surprisingly well-informed source in the past! It’s not every day that we get to report on a new Star Wars movie (even though that may change in a few years time) so it’s all excitement from our end!
The details are not known at the moment on what Harrison Ford will be doing as Han Solo at this point. The amount of movies he will be in is not known. What is known is that Harrison Ford has signed a contract to reprise his role as Han Solo in an upcoming Star Wars film – so says El Mayimbe. This writer has made it clear that he only knows that Ford has signed on to do a film or films in the future, all that’s left is for the studio – Disney or Lucasfilm – to do a formal announcement.
Sound like an awesome deal to you? It’s now possible that they’ll either be doing flash-forwards to when Han Solo was the age Ford is now, or that they’ll have the first (or subsequent) films set in an amount of time relative to our actual timeline. There’s also been rumors of break-away films with character-centric storylines, Han Solo being one of the possibilities too. How about some Tron: Legacy action with The Dude’s face being retro-ized with many virtual markers for a much younger Han?
The possibilities are endless in this extremely advanced virtual effects-driven universe of ours. And we know good and well that the Star Wars franchise is no stranger with the VFX universe – a universe right here and now, up close and personal!
And as far as this leak goes from Latino Review: If you’ll have a look back at the post Marvel Reporting from the writer named Da7e on their website, you’ll see that they’ve literally been contacted by Marvel Comics in an attempt to bribe them out of their inside sources in the film industry. And this isn’t the first time they’ve had a major scoop either. The scoop we’re having a look at here was so important that writer El Mayimbe went to Fox News Latino to let it be known. Have a peek at this video to see him make it public:
Be sure to stick with SlashGear in our Star Wars tag hub for all the information leading up to, during, over, and past the release of Star Wars VII. We’ll be pumped up and jumping in every single day with the biggest tips, leaks, and final news releases all the way!
The Samsung Galaxy S4 is expected to be released this spring, although there have been many reports as to what the company will be squeezing into their next Android smartphone. Just a few days ago, a rumor popped up that showed the S4 would have a 1.9GHz Qualcomm processor, but today, a new spec sheet has leaked which has left many confused as to what the truth is.
The new leak comes from Italian website Android Caotic and it highlights a number of the Galaxy S4′s specs which is said to include an Exynos 5440 CPU clocked at 1.4GHz, a 5″ Full HD display, Android 4.2 and 2GB of RAM.
The leaked smartphone lineup image also says the Galaxy S4 will be introduced in March 2013, which we previously heard the exact date would be March 15 with an April release date expected. At least that area of the leak seems to line up with previous rumors, although the hardware specs are still up in the air at this point.
We’ve already had a meteorite shower to remind us that Earth is just a small part of a much, much larger universe. If that wasn’t enough perspective for you, PBS is offering a follow-up through NOVA‘s newly streaming “Earth From Space” documentary. The two-hour show illustrates how our planet’s individual climates and ecosystems are really part of one larger unit, with ripple effects that we didn’t always anticipate until an abundance of earth observation satellites made them clear. You’ll have to be an American to watch before the documentary, at least before it arrives in disc form on April 2nd. Every Earth citizen can still watch the trailer after the break.
A few days ago, we saw a possible leak of a new Nokia tablet at an event the company held in Pakistan which we expected would be revealed at MWC, if such a device even exists. According to market research firm Strategy Anallytics, we could be wrong in thinking MWC would be the place for Nokia to debut their tablet.
In a blog post published earlier today, Strategy Analytics believes Nokia will only focus on its line of Lumia smartphones at this year’s MWC as channel checks made by its Tablet & Touchscreen Strategies service believes Nokia’s strategy at the show will be “smartphone first.”
Considering there are only eight Nokia Lumia devices currently available globally, Strategy Analytics makes a fair point Nokia may be choosing to focus on its smartphones this year. But if the previous tablet leak is any indication, maybe we’ll hear more about Nokia’s possible upcoming tablet some time after MWC.
Last November, a group of scientists claimed that they had discovered DNA evidence of the existence of the fabled Bigfoot. The scientists promised that they would be publishing a paper outlining their findings and if you’ve been wondering where exactly that paper is, that mystery is now solved. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the scientists had a difficult time finding a publication that would actually publish their findings.
According to Ars Technica, the researchers ended up having to purchase their own online journal to be able to publish their findings. You can download the research paper yourself if you feel like coughing up $30 for what apparently are rather questionable results. While the researchers claim that their DNA evidence proves the existence of Bigfoot, the results seemed off to Ars Technica.
Ars’ John Timmer has a background in biological research and looked over the results and came away feeling like the results have significant issues. He says that where the nuclear genome is concerned “the results are a mess.” He points out that sometimes the tests picked up human DNA and other times human DNA wasn’t found. He also notes that sometimes the tests failed altogether. He also points out test results that show patches of double and single stranded DNA intermixed. Timmer says all this suggests is that the researchers have are samples of modern human DNA intermingled with some other contaminant.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
![Samsung Galaxy S4 Leaked Spec Sheet Confirms CPU, March Arrival [Rumor]](https://i0.wp.com/cdnrss.ubergizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/galaxy-s4-leaked-spec-sheet-640x216.jpeg?resize=640%2C216 "Samsung Galaxy S4 Leaked Spec Sheet Confirms CPU, March Arrival [Rumor]")
