Is it a tablet, or an All-in-One PC, or some hybrid of the two? The HP ENVY Rove 20 walks the line in-between, a 20-inch desktop that, thanks to an onboard battery, can make the trip from home office, to kitchen, to bedroom, and back without interrupting what you’re working on or watching. Windows 8 […]
There are a lot of reasons to be paranoid about our devices being perennially connected to the Internet. If you want to enhance your security with style, check out MAKE’s guide for creating an Internet kill switch for wired connections.
Get your toolbox then watch the video below:
The folks at Renholm Industries would go nuts for this.
[via MAKE]
As we store and transport more and more information online, we’ve gradually come to realize how easy it is for others to access that information without our permission. From Facebook’s privacy policies to the ongoing NSA leaks, it seems like the ordinary online user has enough reason to log out. Well, I’ve got more bad news for you: anyone can build a powerful spying tool using off the shelf parts, and for under $60 (USD).
Brendan O’Connor is the founder of security and software consultancy company Malice Afterthought. Last week he made headlines when he shared how he built F-BOMB, a small device that runs a software that he calls CreepyDOL . The DOL stands for Distributed Object Locator and “Creepy” with a capital ‘C’ is the perfect word to describe it. O’Connor built the F-BOMB using the popular Raspberry Pi microcomputer and added a Wi-Fi sensor to the device. The cost? $57 (USD). He built 10 F-BOMBs and hooked them up to Reticle, a “command & control system” that he made. Finally he hooked it up to a “data visualization system,” which you can see in the image above and in O’Connor’s video below:
In case the video wasn’t clear enough, the F-BOMB can gather a disturbing amount of wireless data. As New York Times reported – and as the video above proves – with the F-BOMB you can find out not only information on a wireless device but what the user is currently using or accessing through the device: geolocation, websites, email addresses, programs and more.
In my brief chat with O’Connor, he revealed that the device can snoop on wireless devices within about 160ft. He can add other sensors to the F-BOMB as well as adapt it to snoop on wired connections. Further, O’Connor said the F-BOMB is a passive device, so you have no way of knowing if it’s snooping on you. Finally, I asked O’Connor if the situation really is as hopeless for consumers as the New York Times article seemed to indicate. Here’s what he said:
Yes, it really is that hopeless. There are vulnerabilities in all the relevant layers of the stack. The application developers need to stop leaking so much data outside encryption envelopes (e.g., why does iMessage send hardware make and model, and iOS version, unencrypted?). iOS (I’m picking on it here because I use it, but the same problem is larger) should have OS-level support for blocking all non-VPN traffic until a VPN connection is established (once it’s up, the connection is opaque, but while it’s going up, I’ve usually got all the data I need). And the low-level protocol needs to stop encouraging devices to *beacon out all their known networks constantly*. So since there needs to be culture-level shifts at all the layers of the stack, yes, for end-users, the situation is hopeless at the moment.”
In other words, not only is it possible to make a surveillance tool that is small and cheap, the devices that we use are practically inviting prying eyes to take a look at our data. It falls upon us as end users to nag Apple, Microsoft, Google and other companies who create the hardware and software that we use to step their security game up. It would be foolish to believe that they know nothing about the disaster that they’re courting (with our privacy and security at stake). But for some reason they’re not doing anything about it, nor are they telling us how much danger we’re in.
O’Connor intends to sell F-BOMBs soon. Fellow black hats and tinkerers can sign up at Malice Afterthought’s website to find out more about the F-BOMB and when it will go on sale. Ars Technica also has a thorough technical report on the F-BOMB. As for the rest of us? I guess we’d better start learning how to communicate telepathically.
[via Brendan O’Connor & The New York Times via Infoneer Pulse]
The ability to to make perfect copies is one of the most convenient advantages of working with digital content. That’s why software developers make it easy to copy and paste content between applications. But what about copying and pasting to and from different computers? What if you could drag content from one screen directly to another screen? That’s what the people behind the Tagtal tStylus claims it can do.
The tStylus works with companion desktop and mobile apps to let you copy what’s on the screen of a desktop computer or an iOS device, and then transfer that to another iOS device. All you have to do is press the tStylus on the screen of the source device, wait a couple of seconds, then do the same on the recipient iOS device. The devices don’t need to be connected in any other way; they just both have to have the tStylus app. Once you’ve dropped an image, you can trim it down using the tStylus.
Aside from transferring screenshots between devices, there’s also a specialized tSylus app called Tagtal Album, which you can see in the image above. With Tagtal Album you can copy and paste images to and from Instagram, Facebook, Picasa or Flickr using the tStylus.
Finally, the tStylus app also has a color picker feature:
Pledge at least $29 (USD) on Indiegogo to receive a tStylus as a reward. Tagtal claims that the stylus will eventually be sold for $80, so you’re getting $51 off. If they add the ability to copy text from one device to another, I’m sold.
[via Mashable]
Canadian telecommunications company WeWi will soon be launching a solar-powered notebook called the SOL Laptop. While it’s not the first of its kind, it has at least one impressive feature that makes it one to watch: WeWi claims that the built-in solar panels can charge the laptop in just 2 hours.
I got in touch with WeWi Founder & CEO David Snir to find out more about the SOL Laptop. David said that they were motivated to make their own solar-powered laptop partly because of their projects in Ghana, where weekly outages frequently left them with no access to electricity.
David is still keeping his cards close to his chest with regards to the laptop’s solar panels, but he did say that they’re currently getting about 16.08% efficiency. Pair that with the laptop’s entry level guts – an Intel Atom D2500 1.86GHz dual-core CPU and Intel GMA 3600 integrated graphics – and you get a 2-hour charge time. The laptop’s battery can store enough energy to power the laptop for up to 10 hours, but David said that the laptop can run “directly by sunlight”: as long as its solar panels are exposed to sunlight, you can use the laptop even if the battery is nearly empty. It’s like plugging into the sun.
The SOL Laptop’s solar panels will also be detachable; you’ll be able to work in the shade while the panels soak up the sun. WeWi is also working on an accessory that will let you charge other devices using the laptop’s solar panels.
Like its power-sipping CPU and integrated graphics, the rest of the SOL Laptop will only excite people stuck in 2010. It has a 13.3″ 1366 x 768 LCD screen, a 320GB HDD, 2-4GB DDR3 RAM, a 3MP webcam, 3 USB ports and a card reader. But it does have Ethernet and HDMI ports, as well as support for modern wireless standards: GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0. It even has a cellular modem that supports 3G & LTE.
David also said that the laptop’s case is made of a “special polymer with unique treatment for strength.” Finally, the laptop will come with an unspecified version of Ubuntu installed. I guess by now you can see what all of those bullet points are describing: an affordable netbook that’s at home outdoors.
The SOL Laptop will be released at the end of 2013 in African and Middle Eastern countries, with U.S. and Canada soon to follow. It will have two variants, a $350 (USD) standard model and a $400 Marine model that’s water-resistant.
Assuming that the 2-hour charge time claim holds up in real world usage, what’s most disappointing about the SOL Laptop is that it’s actually a SOL Netbook. But David also said they’re working on other solar-powered devices; perhaps a high-end version of the laptop is in the works as well.
It’s not that often when you see a hero product cut down to size, so to speak, less than a year into its lifespan in the wild. What we’ve got here is a reaction to Microsoft’s low sales numbers in both the Surface Pro and Surface (with Windows RT) sales in the first segment of […]
Last year we heard about Monitor2Go, a portable external monitor. It seems very well made and has lots of convenient features, but it’s also expensive. The Able-HD is on the other end of the spectrum. It’s a portable monitor at nearly a third of the price of Monitor2Go. There’s a reason it’s cheap though.
The Able-HD is basically a 17″ or 18″ LED laptop monitor. It just has a custom circuit board that makes it work without the rest of the laptop. Otherwise, it’s a standard LED monitor. It’s a 1080p display, it accepts HDMI, DVI, VGA and audio ports and it has a socket for a charger. With all of the unnecessary parts stripped away, the Able-HD weighs just 570g (approx. 1.26lb). In other words, it’s an 17″ or 18″ 1080p monitor that weighs less than an iPad.
Actually it is missing one necessary part: an external case. Its anonymous inventor said that future versions may have an aluminum case, but the first version of Able-HD – the one he’s offering as a reward on Kickstarter – will look exactly like the one you saw in the video. At least you can get or make a case with the money you save. Pledge at least $110 (USD) on Kickstarter to get an Able-HD as a reward. If you have a spare laptop screen, you can just pledge $35 to get the Able-HD conversion kit.
The first of two downloadable expansions for the game BioShock Infinite has been unveiled today for download. This download goes by the name Clash in the Clouds and is what the creators of this game call an “action-focused” expansion, it also arriving as the smaller of the two expansions that’ve been planned for this title. This game’s developers at Irrational Games have also announced the second expansion: Burial at Sea.
This first expansion builds on the action-oriented angles in the game whose original chapter was released all the way back in 2007. With BioShock Infinite, users were asked to join a futuristic (yet retro) steampunk-like adventure complete with gadgets & and gizmos, monsters, and magic. And lots of fantasy landscapes and environments to explore.
This upgrade for the game appears for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and the PC today, coming in at $5 USD. Clash in the Clouds brings new abilities – mostly magic – and you back down to Rapture, starting in on “the eve of the underwater city’s fall from grace.”
Explore the city when it was at the height of its beauty, meet some old “friends,” and make some new ones, all through the eyes of Booker DeWitt. Why are Booker and Elizabeth in Rapture? What was the city like before everything fell to pieces? The answers to these questions and more will be found in BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea — Episode 1.
This expansion was build “almost entirely from scratch” using the BioShock Infinite engine and modifies the gameplay format from the base game. This modification tweaks the combat experience to be a mix between the original BioShock and the newer BioShock Infinite – the best of both worlds.
VIA Irrational Games
BioShock Infinite DLC Clash in the Clouds appears today, ready for battle is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Hold both Dell’s Project Ophelia and Google’s Chromecast in one hand and you might think they’re made for the same purpose. Both of them connect with full-sized HDMI, both work with Google’s software inside, and both are being delivered inside 2013. This dell device isn’t just made for video, though, and we’ve seen it before – this week it’s being delivered to product testers on its way to its final hardware iteration.
Like Chromecast, this device requires a USB cord to power it while it outputs visual content to a display via HDMI. This device is made to reach a $100 price point, so it’s not going to be extremely high-powered, but it’ll at least match the abilities of Google’s Chromecast while it does so without the uniqueness of the Chromecast OS. There’ll be no “flinging” here.
You’ll be working with a full-fledged iteration of Android with this stick, complete with Android apps (not necessarily Google Play support, but we’ll see by the time the final device arrives), and Wi-Fi connectivity. This device will connect to control accessories via Bluetooth, and the final product will be delivered with software enhancements from Dell like IT management and Wise’s PocketCloud.
With PocketCloud, users will be able to remotely access files and services on PCs connected to the web, allowing this little device to be extremely versatile in how it can bring your wares anywhere.
IT administrators are said by PC World to be able to manage and secure the device, as complete remote shut down and wipe are available for the user. Tracking abilities within the device are also said to be being developed. A release date for this device – a precise release date, that is – is not yet known.
Dell Project Ophelia aims for Chromecast market with Android HDMI stick is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Back in January, we heard about the mobile variant of the Ubuntu operating system and Canonical’s plan to launch phones that double as Ubuntu desktop PCs when docked. Now the company is launching the most ambitious crowdfunding campaign yet. It hopes to raise $32 million to release the high-end Ubuntu Edge smartphone.
Aside from the mind-boggling target amount, Canonical’s crowdfunding campaign is also unique in that the Ubuntu Edge will be given only to the backers; it won’t be sold to anyone else or released commercially. The Edge is meant to be a testbed for cutting edge technology, and I suppose to convince other smartphone makers that there is a legitimate demand for Ubuntu phones. To that end, Canonical aims to pack the best hardware it can on the Edge. It will have a multi-core CPU, 4GB RAM, 128GB of storage and two LTE antennas (one for US and one for Europe, so you can take advantage of LTE in more countries).
As we found out in January, Ubuntu smartphones will also run Android. This makes it very enticing for Android phone owners to try out the new OS: you still have access to all your apps and media, but you can also peek into the future. And that future comes in the form of a hardware dock and the desktop Ubuntu operating system. Dock the Ubuntu Edge into any monitor with an HDMI port and voila, you’re running Ubuntu. All you need is a keyboard and mouse. You can keep using Android or Ubuntu mobile on the phone while you’re using the Ubuntu desktop OS.
Pledge at least $775 (USD) on Indiegogo to get an Ubuntu Edge smartphone as a reward, and get a chance to see for yourself how far the penguin has come.
[via Acquire]
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