Hasta La Gadget!

Google’s Chrome security team has taken the wraps off its latest Pwnium competition. This time out, the target is Chrome OS on a Samsung Series 5 550, and as ever, the company’s putting its money (and nerd cred) where its mouth is, offering up a $Pi million in rewards (that’s a lofty $3.14159 million) for the third round of the competition. Amongst the payouts are $110,000 for a “browser or system level compromise in guest mode or as a logged-in user, delivered via a web page” and $150,000 for a “compromise with device persistence — guest to guest with interim reboot, delivered via a web page.” The company is also putting some weight behind the upcoming Pwn2Own competition, which goes down at CanSecWest in Vancouver in March. More info on both can be found at the source link below.

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Source: Chromium

We have seen our fair share of documentaries in the past which involves hunting down something or someone – a great treasure perhaps, or clues in a murder case that happened years ago. Well, code hunters could be the premise for a new documentary, as some folks have discovered clues of future and upcoming software being embedded or included in current versions of a software. Case in point, it seems that there are clues pointing to Google Now making a move on the Chrome browser sometime down the road, and even on the ChromeOS itself.

Folks who have given Google Now a run with the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update would realize that this is one interesting system that pulls together everything that Google has a handle concerning you from your search history, GPS location, and even calendar events, pushing out the kind of information that you are looking for intelligently. It seems that the Chromium branch code has added “skeleton for Google Now for Chrome implementation”, which means we could see Google Now cards integrated into the Chrome Notifications system down the road. All it takes now is some patience, and when contacted, Google mentioned, “We’re always experimenting with new features in Chrome, but have nothing to announce at this time.”

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Charlie Bit My Finger Hits 500 Million Views, Western Digital My Book Live Duo Gets 8TB Of Space ,

The Nexus 7 might be suiting up alongside the Amazon Kindle Fire HD in anticipation of the kind of competition that the iPad mini would provide, but you can be sure that this is going to be a tight battle. After all, Android has already secured more than 40% of the world’s tablet market in terms of operating systems. Developer Hexxeh has successfully managed to port Chromium OS over to the Asus-manufactured Nexus 7 tablet. Just in case you were wondering, Chromium OS is the open source version of Chrome OS, which is Google’s operating system that was specially s designed around the Chrome web browser.

Of course, you can always take the regular route of installing the Chrome browser in Android in order to experience a similar number of features, but Chromium does have its fair share of advantages. After all, it supports Chrome extensions and apps, allowing you to make use of Chrome on a mobile device in the same manner as it would on a Windows, Mac, or Linux desktop. Do bear in mind that the Chromium port for the Nexus 7 is still a raw diamond in the rough, and it will take some time to smoothen things up before it is being ready for a public release.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: 32GB Nexus 7 tablet spotted, going for $250 at Office Depot, 3G Nexus 7 spotted at the FCC,

After concentrating on gaming and visual improvements in previous releases of Chrome, the browser’s latest focus appears to be in video engagement. The latest beta includes a PeerConnection API that lets developers create real-time video chat applications without a plug-in. This builds upon existing WebRTC integration with a new getUserMedia API that should result in higher-quality video, audio, and data communications. The Beta also bundles in track support for HTML5 video, letting developers add in subtitles, captions, and other metadata — the above photo, for example, is a screencap of a bike ride video enhanced with Google Map and Street View data. Another nice addition is a MediaSource API which adjusts video quality based on computer and network environments, which should put an end to those agonizing waits while the dancing inmate version of Gangnam Style buffers. Those interested can get their mitts on the new Chrome Beta today.

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Chrome Beta adds video engagement APIs, promises higher-quality video chats sans plugin originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Oct 2012 02:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The folks in Mountain View are starting to make a habit of getting hacked — intentionally, that is. Earlier this year, Google hosted an event at the CanSecWest security conference called Pwnium, a competition that challenged aspiring hackers to poke holes in its Chrome browser. El Goog apparently learned so much from the event that it’s doing it again — hosting Pwnium 2 at the Hack in the Box 10th anniversary conference in Malaysia and offering up to $2 million in rewards. Bugging out the browser by exploiting its own code wins the largest award, a cool $60,000. Enlisting the help of a WebKit or Windows kernel bug makes you eligible for a $50,000 reward, and non-Chrome exploits that rely on a bug in Flash or a driver are worth $40,000. Not confident you can break Chrome? Don’t let that stop you — Google plans to reward incomplete exploits as well, noting that it has plenty to learn from unreliable or incomplete attacks. Check out the Chromium Blog at the source link below for the full details.

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Google teases hackers with $2 million in prizes, announces Pwnium 2 exploit competition originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Aug 2012 11:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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