The shimmering wall of windows that makes up Manhattan is breathtaking, and seems almost infinite. But Michael Pollak—the wizard behind The New York Times‘ "F.Y.I" series, which plumbs deep and weird questions about New York—got down to brass tacks this week, estimating how many windows are on the island.
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It has been over a week since Target was hit by a severe security breach which, according to the retailer’s estimate, ended up in compromising over 40 million credit and debit card numbers. This is actually the second largest breach ever reported by a U.S. retailer, according to Target the breach lasted 19 days, starting before Thanksgiving. A senior payments executive “familiar with the situation” told Reuters that encrypted bank PINs were also compromised, but Target says that no PINs were accessed.
According to the executive, a major U.S. bank fears that consumer bank accounts might be at risk of fraudulent withdrawals if thieves are able to crack the encryption code. Target hasn’t revealed exactly how the security breach went down, only describing it as “sophisticated.” It is now being investigated by the Justice Department and the U.S. Secret Service. The retailer is adamant that PINs weren’t accessed, however spokeswoman Molly Snyder did say that some encrypted data was stolen but didn’t specify if it included PINs as well. So if you have shopped at Target during this time period and have paid by a credit or debit card, you might want to be extra vigilant with regards to your bank account activity. The smart thing to do would be to change PINs and cancel possibly affected cards, even though that might inconvenience you a bit.
Target Denies That Bank PINs Were Compromised In Hack original content from Ubergizmo. 
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So you’ve just gotten an Xbox One as a gift this holiday season: there are a few things you’ll want to do before you star going hog-wild with it. The … Continue reading
The 1980s ushered in more than a few aeronautical revolutions thanks to the emergence of both composite manufacturing techniques and rapidly advancing digital technology. This uniquely designed experimental aircraft integrated all of them into a single system.
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Earlier this year BlackBerry put up the “for sale” sign and started actively seeking buyers. There was little interest in the company, which reportedly even courted companies like Facebook. It did receive a $9 per share buyout bid from its largest shareholder, Fairfax Financial Holdings, however that deal didn’t go through. BlackBerry co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin, who had a combined 8 percent stake, made their intention to pursue a buyout bid of their own public. They have formally dropped their buyout efforts, and Lazaridis has even reduced his stake, selling off a block of his shares. As it stands, Lazaridis’ share in BlackBerry is now under 4.99 percent.
On the other hand, BlackBerry has stopped actively seeking a buyer. The company remains public, though it has received a $1 billion investment from its largest shareholder as well as a number of other institutional investors. Major changes have been made as well, there’s now a new CEO who has the reputation of a turnaround expert. Once he had the reins, BlackBerry CEO John Chen showed top executives from the previous regime the door and brought on his own team. During its third fiscal quarter earnings report, the company revealed that it has now partnered with Foxconn for the production of low end devices geared towards emerging markets, while it will now increase its focus on enterprise consumers and software solutions.
BlackBerry Co-Founder Lazaridis Drops Bid To Take Company Private original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Last week, out of the blue, the evad3rs developers team released the iOS 7 untethered jailbreak for all supported devices. It was an unexpected release because the community wasn’t made aware of the progress for quite some time, which is usually the case with planned jailbreak releases. Some believe that evad3rs might have rushed to get it out the door when rumors started circulating that the iOS 7 untethered jailbreak exploit had been stolen and sold to a private buyer. After the release, users who had language set to Chinese found that they got the Taig app store instead of Cydia and it was then revealed that evad3rs had teamed up with the Chinese company to load its storefront on those jailbroken devices that had language set to Chinese. Almost a week later, they have updated the evasi0n iOS 7 untethered jailbreak to remove Taig.
The community had voiced its concern about the fact that Taig was hosting a plethora of cracked applications and tweaks, which can’t be found by default on Cydia. Given that the jailbreak developers have always been against piracy, the team vowed to work with Taig to remove pirated applications. However once they figured that ”the depth of the transgression against the software developers and jailbreak community” couldn’t be overlooked, they decided to remove Taig from iOS 7 untethered jailbreak altogether. It was rumored that perhaps the company had paid $1 million to the team so that Taig could be bundled, however evad3rs have denied this allegation.
Taig App Store Removed From iOS 7 Untethered Jailbreak After Piracy Concerns original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Quantcast shows that the number of unique visitors to Rap Genius has dropped 60 percent since Google punished the startup
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It has been rumored that Sprint is interested in acquiring T-Mobile, the “uncarrier” that made a number of bold decisions this past year. There’s no doubt in the fact that T-Mobile’s popularity has increased in 2013, and as it looks towards the new year and its upcoming uncarrier 4.0 announcement, the possibility exists that it might be acquired by Sprint, effectively turning the latter into the third largest U.S. carrier. According to the latest from Nikkei, talks between both carriers have reportedly entered the final stages.
So far no official confirmation or comments have been made regarding this rumored merger. AT&T pursued a similar bid for T-Mobile in the past, offering $39 billion for it only to be turned down by regulators. That deal fell through a couple of years back and it was only earlier this year when rumors about Sprint’s interest in T-Mobile started circulating. It is believed that Softbank CEO is already courting five financial institutions to obtain financing to the tune of $20 billion for the T-Mobile acquisition. Softbank has already acquired Sprint, which right now is trailing behind AT&T. Having T-Mobile’s infrastructure and subscriber base on board would allow it to effectively compete against the behemoths in this industry. Rumor has it that if the acquisition goes through, we can expect it to close by the end of the first half of 2014.
Sprint And T-Mobile Acquisition Talks Reportedly In Final Stages original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Attempts to edit Edward Snowden out of cyber security history have prompted fierce debate about the role played by the NSA whistleblower, after famed spy museum Bletchley Park opted not … Continue reading
A fancy timepiece is something that everyone would like to have, although at the end of the day, you will not go wrong with the like of Tissot or a Rolex. Of course, such watches will definitely cost a bomb, but you know for sure that they are basically watches that will be able to last you for an entire lifetime. Well, how about taking the road less traveled with the $199.99 TokyoFlash Kisai On Air? This particular timepiece sports a minimalist design without compromising on the insides which actually boasts of a highly-technical package.
In a nutshell, the TokyoFlash Kisai On Air will most of the time feature a blank, round LCD display that has a number written on where you would normally find the hour hand reside on an analog watch. The number itself will be able to tell you just how many minutes it is past the hour, while the angle it’s pointing to will indicate the hour itself. Minimalist and smart at the same time, making it a firm favorite with us geeks here. Not only that, the dial itself is touch-sensitive, as it boasts of a quartet of hot-zones (top, bottom, left, right). These hot-zones would allow you to change the mode with but a touch of a finger, now how about that?
[ TokyoFlash Kisai On Air lets you tell the time with flair copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
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