Google Glass is still a rare sight in the UK, but it’s proving popular amongst brands and businesses, especially when customer service is involved. Virgin Atlantic previously used the headset to welcome passengers to Heathrow, but only now is it…
Despite spending most of 2014 arguing the opposite, eBay has today decided it will divide its popular payment and auction properties in two. Next year, the company will split PayPal away from its embattled auction site, and as a result of the…
One of the interesting things that developers have managed to do with the Oculus Rift is make normal games playable in virtual reality mode. It definitely adds a different dimension and creates a more immersive experience. Well if you’ve always wondered what Mario Kart would be like in virtual reality, it seems that someone has decided to try and make that happen.
Developer Wilsonator has created a demo for the game that currently comprises of one basic level. It is the Mario Circuit level from the SNES version, although the developer has promised that additional levels should be made available soon. Basically Mario Kart VR puts players into the kart itself, thus giving you a somewhat first-person perspective of the game, which is typically played from a third-person point of view.
Mario Kart VR is not new as it made a brief appearance on the first developer kit of the Oculus Rift, but it has since been ported to the Oculus DK2. While we suppose there could be more racing games developed for the Oculus Rift in the future, creating a Mario Kart version is actually a pretty awesome idea.
Imagine if you could use gestures to unleash your weapons at other players, how fun would that be? It is unclear how long it will take for Wilsonator to finish developing the game, but so far we are liking what we see. The consumer version of the Oculus Rift has been pegged for a 2015 release, so hopefully Wilsonator will have made more progress by then.
Mario Kart VR For The Oculus Rift Puts Gamers In The Driver’s Seat
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Most of us are aware that hackers can steal our financial information. But few people realize that hackers can also go after other valuable property online, like web addresses. Short, catchy URLs can be worth millions of dollars, making them prime targets for thieves. On Monday, The Huffington Post reported on domain theft, a scheme in which hackers steal valuable Internet addresses and sell them in online forums or extort their rightful owners.
If a hacker steals your domain name, there’s often little you can do to get it back. But how do you protect your website from getting hijacked in the first place?
BE SKEPTICAL OF EMAILS
Start by questioning emails that claim to come from a domain registrar like GoDaddy. Hackers often steal website addresses by sending fake emails to their owners. The bogus emails include malicious software that allows thieves to gain control of their victims’ email accounts and approve the transfer of their domain names.
The bogus email might say: “Urgent attention! We believe your account has been compromised and payment method is no longer valid. Please log in and correct information,” according to Dave Piscitello, a senior security technologist for ICANN, a California-based nonprofit responsible for managing the Internet address system.
Once a hacker has control of your email account, the criminal can transfer your website into his or her control, and you might not be able to get it back.
TAKE EXTRA SECURITY MEASURES
Choose a domain registrar that offers added security features, like GoDaddy’s two-step authentication, that make it harder for hackers to break into your domain account. You should also request your domain be placed on “Registrar Lock,” which requires you to “unlock” the domain before you transfer it by logging in to the registrar’s website. With the lock in place, a hacker would need access to both your email account and your registrar account.
For an extra $8 a year, GoDaddy will also hide your contact information — including your email address — from a public list of domain owners known as the “Whois” database. This prevents thieves from knowing how to contact you to send a bogus email, according to the company.
For even more security, Web.com offers an extra feature that prevents anyone from transferring a domain name to another account until a company representative has called the account owner on the phone and that person has provided a nine-digit PIN code to prove their identity. However, the added security comes with a hefty price tag — $1,850 for the first year, and $1,350 for each additional year.
KEEP YOUR RECORDS
If your domain name is stolen, you’re more likely to recover it quickly if you’ve kept documents related to the website, such as billing and registration records. Such documents can help in a lawsuit or when the domain registrar investigates the theft.
To get your domain back, “you have to demonstrate you’ve been a victim,” Piscitello said. “Without documentation, your recourse is very limited.”
We’ve already gotten a few glimpses of the supposed Verizon DROID Turbo, but now it seems that Big Red might have an even more formidable gun in its arsenal. The GFXBench benchmarking site has an entry for the said Motorola smartphone and it reveals hardware that curiously outperforms the flagship. Verizon has had a blossoming relationship with Motorola, so word … Continue reading
There’s a startling moment in the recently released audio recordings of Goldman Sachs bankers talking to their regulators at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. But it’s not shocking for the reasons you might assume.
The tapes — secretly recorded by then-bank examiner Carmen Segarra, whom the New York Fed employed for seven months in late 2011 and early 2012 to keep tabs on Goldman — don’t capture any craven wrongdoing by the bank. (Goldman Sachs responded with a short, dismissive statement last week when the tapes were made public.) Instead, it’s the New York Fed that comes off looking terrible — deferential and ineffectual, and apparently concerned above all with accommodating the banks it was supposed to regulate. It’s a perfect picture of a culture structured by regulatory capture.
For instance: ProPublica reporter Jake Bernstein describes a meeting where a senior Goldman compliance executive “mentioned that Goldman’s view was that once clients were wealthy enough, certain consumer laws didn’t apply to them.”
That sounds cavalier, and Segarra was “shocked” to hear it. She wanted to ask the executive what he had meant. Her colleagues at the New York Fed, however, told Segarra she didn’t hear what she heard — and even if she had, the executive didn’t really mean it. Asking for a follow-up explanation was never raised as a possibility.
This immediate instinct to shut down any questions about Goldman’s behavior is not the reaction you want from a regulator. And it’s made all the worse because Segarra’s question in this case was actually quite benign. There’s a very easy explanation for that executive’s comment: It’s true.
Wealthy individuals can qualify with the Securities and Exchange Commission as accredited investors. This means they can invest in more things and have fewer protections afforded to them. That’s a slightly more precise version of what the Goldman executive said, but people practicing in an expert and jargon-filled field often talk in shorthand. Both the New York Fed and Goldman are familiar with accredited investor rules (or they certainly should be, at any rate). So if there was the possibility of an innocent explanation like this, why were Segarra’s colleagues so loath to ask questions about what that executive said?
If the Fed is too afraid to ask Goldman Sachs questions when the bank could well be in the right, how can it be expected to ask questions when the answer might point to even a hint of wrongdoing? That would be awkward. And the avoidance of awkwardness — no matter the consequence for regulation — seems to be a very high priority for the New York Fed.
(For much more about Goldman Sachs, the New York Fed and Segarra’s secret tapes, check out the excellent story by ProPublica and “This American Life.”)
Microsoft’s Cortana assistant for Windows Phone users has just gotten a bit smarter, scoring a feature called Concert Watch. As the name suggests, this feature dishes up information about concerts near you that you might find of interest. Those using the Music interest in Cortana can use the new feature to find out when bands they are interested in are … Continue reading
As a concept device, the Galaxy Note Edge is definitely a curiousity, but it may just be more practical, not to mention less insane, than Samsung’s previous concept smartphone, the Galaxy Round. But just what is the concept that Samsung is trying to sell? It’s nothing more than a second yet almost minuscule screen that gives you important information or … Continue reading
Today Basis is taking the lid off of the Peak, its followup to its Basis B1 fitness tracker. Like its predecessor, it’s a device focused on tracking your health, fitness, and sleep, but with this time the company has spent some time on their watch’s looks, packing its motion and heart rate sensors into a thinner body made of aluminum and glass. Read More
An almost invisible, wearable medical device that monitors your cardiovascular health, and lets you know when you need to moisturize your skin, has been
invented. This ‘epidermal’ photonic sensor is also a potentially cheap
alternative to the expensive infrared technology currently used in
hospitals.
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