Researchers say any USB peripheral could steal your data, even a coffee-cup warmer

USB cup warmerSo you’ve got a nice secure thumbdrive, but did you ever think to lock its port? Engineers at the Royal Military College of Canada say the plug and play functionality built into most computers automatically trusts whatever’s plugged into the USB slot. That doesn’t just go for flash drives left out on the street, but all manner of other peripherals as well, as the trio of triumphant researchers demonstrated when they (presumably) infiltrated colleagues’ offices with a totally sweet spy keyboard. That particular device flashed an LED or made the mark’s sound card warble to covertly transmit stolen data, but such exotic methods are reportedly not required — so you’ve yet another reason to cringe when your coworker trots out his Humping Dog.

Researchers say any USB peripheral could steal your data, even a coffee-cup warmer originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Jul 2010 05:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Switched  |  sourceNew Scientist  | Email this | Comments

Inexplicable rise in iPhone dev’s App Store sales connected to iTunes account hacks? (update)

We’ve received a handful of tips this morning claiming something’s rotten in the state of the iTunes App Store, namely via the Book category. As of this writing, 42 of the top 50 books by revenue are from the seller Thuat Nguyen, whose company website (“mycompany”) leads to parked site www.home.com. A vast majority of these book apps were released in April, have little to no customer ratings or reviews, appear to be in Vietnamese (despite claims in the side bar that the supported languages are English and Japanese), and may or may not be infringing on copyrighted work — we’re noticing a lot of Dragon Ball art here. To give sales a sense of scope, Twilight series conclusion Breaking Dawn is hovering only at 34 right now.

So, how did these books hit the top of the charts? The other half of this story has to do with a claimed rise in iTunes account hacking, with a number of people reporting up to hundreds of dollars being spent unwillingly from their account to these specific books. Coincidence? Let’s not mince words here, something is definitely amiss, and it’s not looking good. Just to be safe, might wanna check your purchase history under Apple Account information. We’ve reached out to Apple and will let you know as soon as we hear back.

Update: We’ve yet to hear from Apple proper, but we do have an update of sorts — 9 to 5 Mac reports all the “mycompany” titles have completely vanished from the App Store. We’re not sure whether Apple decided to shut down the operation or the seller pulled them himself, so continue to keep an eye on your digital pocketbook until we know for sure.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Inexplicable rise in iPhone dev’s App Store sales connected to iTunes account hacks? (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink In Depth with Tech, Mac Stories, Twitter  |  sourceiTunes  | Email this | Comments

Flash 10.1 ported to iPad, burninates the countryside (video)

Take it with a grain of salt, but it’s looking like some prayers have been answered on this Fourth of July — Flash (or is that “Frash”?) is running on this man’s iPad, cleverly ported from Android. The YouTube video claims that by using a compatibility layer, the Android runtime can play Flash content natively in Safari, but only on iPad so far — iPhone 3GS support is planned soon, as is iOS 4, and there’s a call for developers to move the project forward at GitHub. We’ve no way of determining its legitimacy at this moment, but it sure seems like Comex (he of the iPad “Spirit” jailbreak) has outdone himself this time, and hey, where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right? See Strongbad answer emails on iOS, right after the break.

Update: It appears Comex has indeed been working on this project for some time; a second blurry video after the break (running on iPhone) shows us what it used to look like.

Continue reading Flash 10.1 ported to iPad, burninates the countryside (video)

Flash 10.1 ported to iPad, burninates the countryside (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 04 Jul 2010 11:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Redmond Pie  |  sourceGitHub, YouTube  | Email this | Comments

Nexus One sees red, nearly doubles battery life? (video)

These five Nexus One smartphones may seem to have defects, but there’s actually nothing wrong with their AMOLED screens — the funky colors are an attempt to improve battery life by turning off unnecessary sub-pixel LEDs. Hooking up his handset to an industrial power meter, Android engineer Jeff Sharkey discovered a blood-red screen drew 42 percent less current than full color — the least of any combination by far — purportedly doubling the effective battery life of the phone. While you’re probably not going to be able to test the requisite software patch for yourself unless you’re mildly familiar with Google code, you’ll find a video of the crimson wonder after the break to fuel your dreams of a eyestrain-free astronomy cheat sheet… and Android bullfighting, of course.

Continue reading Nexus One sees red, nearly doubles battery life? (video)

Nexus One sees red, nearly doubles battery life? (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Jul 2010 20:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Android and Me  |  sourceJeff Sharkey  | Email this | Comments

EVO 4G gets 802.11n WiFi by changing two lines of code

The EVO 4G has a lot of weight in the smartphone arena thanks to WiMAX and that 4.3-inch screen, but though its Broadcom BCM4329 silicon also technically supports 802.11n WiFi over 2.4GHz, the protocol was disabled for some reason. Thankfully it’s just a matter of ten characters to enable greater throughput, as the fine folks at xda-developers recently discovered. Better yet, you don’t even have to edit those characters yourself — if your EVO’s nice and rooted and the word “brick” doesn’t inspire fear, you’ll find instructions and flash-ready ZIP files at our source link.

EVO 4G gets 802.11n WiFi by changing two lines of code originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink xda-developers  |  sourceObject Unoriented  | Email this | Comments

IPad Keyboard Dock Works with iOS4

IOS4 will let you use a Bluetooth keyboard to type on your iPhone or iPod Touch and control various other functions. I’m writing this post on a latest-gen iPod Touch with an Apple Wireless Keyboard and it works great: The brightness buttons, volume and iTunes keys all do what you’d expect. This is a headline feature of the new iOS, shown off by Apple right there on the about pages.

What you may be surprised to learn is that the iPhone will also work when forced into the iPad Keyboard Dock, as tested by internationally-beloved technology pundit Andy Ihnatko. Once squeezed onto the dock connector, you get all the same functionality as you would with a Bluetooth keyboard, with the added danger of busting your iPhone due to the tight fit (the slimmer iPod Touch should work a lot better).

You might remember that you can also hook up a keyboard to the iPad via the USB camera connection kit. I can’t test this as mine is still on back-order, but Ihnatko tried it out an the answer is a big “no”. The iPhone flashes up its non-compatible accessory warning. Ah well.

I can’t say typing long-form text on the tiny screen is any fun, but it would certainly be better than typing long-form text on the iPhone’s screen. Even so, Apple’s minuscule Bluetooth keyboard is still large when compared to the iPhone. Perhaps this will kick-start the market in foldable, rollable keyboard accessories?

The iPad Keyboard Dock works with the iPhone 3GS! [CWOB]

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New Xbox 360 shows up in the wild, gets unboxed, torn asunder and modded

Hey, look at what we have here — it’s the new Xbox 360 that was just debuted a few days back — and there’s a lot going down with this one which has somehow made its way into the wild. We get the full unboxing treatment, a detailed teardown, and finish up with some delicious, light-paneled modding. While we can’t really gather much beyond what we already know, the drive appears to be a Philips Lite-On DG-16D4S — just in case you were wondering about that one. There’s a video below showing off this one’s new, modded exterior.

[Thanks, Thomas C]

Continue reading New Xbox 360 shows up in the wild, gets unboxed, torn asunder and modded

New Xbox 360 shows up in the wild, gets unboxed, torn asunder and modded originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceSolomods  | Email this | Comments

Dreamcast boombox: why not?

Just admit it: you want this portable boombox modded Sega Dreamcast, don’t you? If the answer is “no,” you blew it. Hit up the source link for way more images and a video.

Dreamcast boombox: why not? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Jun 2010 03:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceNowhere Else  | Email this | Comments

CyberNotes: CyberNet’s Updated Guide On Firefox 2 Tweaks

This article was written on November 01, 2006 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

Firefox 2 Banner Firefox 2 has received millions and millions of downloads in the first week which is absolutely amazing. Even though the browser is really great the best part of using it is being able to tweak it until your heart is content.

It was back in July that I put together a nice tweak guide for Firefox 2 Beta 1 and most of the things still work fine in the released version. I have decided to update the guide, however, because there are a few things that I think could be added. I figured it is always nice to have one central place that you can turn to when you are configuring Firefox.

Table of Contents:

 

–How To Use About:Config–

Almost all of the tweaks use the about:config screen in order to change the options. By now I’m sure most of you are familiar with using it but in case you aren’t I’ll give you a quick run through.

  1. Start Firefox.
  2. Type about:config into the address bar and press Enter. You should be presented with a screen similar to this:
    Firefox about:config
  3. If I tell you that the key already exists then you can type the name of the preference in the Filter box. Once you find the preference you just need to double-click on it to change the value.
  4. If I tell you that the key does not exist then you you will need to create a new value. The value may be a string, boolean, or an integer and can easily be created by right-clicking anywhere in the screen:
    Firefox about:config Menu
  5. You may need to restart your browser for some of the options to take effect. All preferences can be reset to their default value by simply right-clicking on the option in about:config and selecting Reset.

    Alright…it’s tweak time!

 

–Configuring The Scrolling Tabs–

Scrolling Tab Bar Firefox 2 is now designed to create a scrolling tab bar when there are an abundance of tabs open. It is hard to define “abundance” because some people prefer to have really small and nearly unreadable tabs instead of having them scroll.

  • Name: browser.tabs.tabMinWidth
  • The preference name already exists and does not need to be created.
  • Default Value: 100 (pixels)
  • Possible values:
    • Value greater than 100 will initiate scrolling sooner.
    • Value less than 100 will initiate scrolling later.
    • Value of 0 disables scrolling.

 

–Configuring The Red X (Close Button)–

Firefox Close Buttons The placement of the Close Button has been a very controversial subject for many people. I have run into several individuals who hate that there is now a button on every tab while others say “it’s about time.” I like the feature but if you’re one of the people that don’t then you can easily change it:

  • Name: browser.tabs.closeButtons
  • The preference name already exists and does not need to be created.
  • Default Value: 1
  • Possible values:
    • 0 – display a close button on the active tab only
    • 1 – display close buttons on all tabs
    • 2 – don’t display any close buttons
    • 3 – display a single close button at the end of the tab strip (Firefox 1.x behavior)

If you decide that you want to leave the Close Button on all of the tabs then there is another configuration option that you may be interested in. This option is considered the clipping width and refers to how small a tab can be and still display a close button. It only applies to the tabs other than the one that is currently selected.

  • Name:browser.tabs.tabClipWidth
  • The preference name already exists and does not need to be created.
  • Default Value: 140 (pixels)
  • Possible values:
    • Value greater than 140 will hide the Close Button sooner.
    • Value less than 140 will hide the Close Button later.
    • Value of 0 disables the hiding of the Close Button.

–Change Address Bar Search To “I’m Feeling Lucky”–

Google I'm Feeling Lucky Boxers Firefox no longer uses the “I’m Feeling Lucky” search by Google. Now it uses the “Browse By Name” which is very similar. In fact, you may not even notice a difference but there definitely is.

I put together a search box that will demonstrate the difference between the two types of searches. Just type a word in the box and press the respective button for the search type that you would like to perform:




Basically the “Browse By Name” will only take you directly to a site if Google is sure that the first result is what you’re looking for. Otherwise it will take you to the Google Search Results page. If you type “Microsoft” into the box both searches will give you the same result but if you type “Stanford” into the box they will be different.

If you want to keep the “Browse By Name” then you don’t have to do anything, but those of you that want to switch back to “I’m Feeling Lucky” can use this information:

  • Name: keyword.URL
  • The preference name already exists and does not need to be created.
  • Default Value: Browse By Name (right-click and copy the URL)
  • Possible values:
    • I’m Feeling Lucky (right-click and copy the URL)
    • You can also change it to any other search strings

 

–Adding Other Default Feed Readers–

Firefox Feed Selector In my last article on tweaking Firefox I walked through the 11-step process to adding another feed reader to the existing list that Firefox has. There is a much easier way that Mozilla Links pointed out and it is as simple as clicking on a few things. Just click on any of the feed reader links below to add them to the list in Firefox (you’ll be prompted to confirm the addition):

 

 –Unresponsive Scripts–

Firefox Unresponsive Scripts Sick of getting the unresponsive script error messages? In Firefox 2 a script will be given 20 seconds to execute, and anything beyond that it will display the script warning. If you are constantly getting these warnings (common on some slower computers) then you should consider increasing the duration.

  • Name: dom.max_script_run_time
  • The preference name already exists and does not need to be created.
  • Default Value: 20 (seconds)
  • Possible values:
    • Value greater than 20 will delay the unresponsive script longer.
    • Value less than 20 will delay the unresponsive script sooner.

 

 –Microsummary Update Interval–

Firefox Microsummaries Microsummaries have the potential to become extremely useful but they need a little push. For CyberNet I came up with three different ways that I could use Microsummaries to keep users more informed of new posts and comments. If you haven’t been using the Microsummaries because they don’t update frequently enough then you can always adjust it:

  • Name: browser.bookmarks.microsummary.updateInterval
  • The preference name does not exist and needs to be created. Use an Integer type when creating the preference.
  • Default Value: N/A
  • Possible values:
    • The number of minutes between updates expressed as an integer.

 

–Changing The User Agent–

Firefox User Agent If you run into a site that says it is not compatible with your browser there may be a good chance that it’s because you are running Firefox 2. If you know it worked fine in Firefox 1.5 then you should try to change your user agent. By doing this Firefox can identify itself as a previous version, such as Firefox 1.5, which may solve the compatibility issue.

  • Name: general.useragent.extra.firefox
  • The preference name already exists and does not need to be created.
  • Default Value: Firefox/2.0
  • Possible values:
    • Firefox 1.5
    • Firefox 1.5.0.7
    • etc…whatever identification string you would like, but the I listed should work fine.

–Hide The Go Button– 

Firefox Go Button If you haven’t noticed that new Go button can’t be removed from the Address Bar. Well, at least not in the typical fashion of removing buttons from toolbars. There is a configuration option that can be used to remove the button though.

  • Name: browser.urlbar.hideGoButton
  • The preference name already exists and does not need to be created.
  • Default Value: false
  • Possible values:
    • false – display the Go button
    • true – hide the Go button

 

–Eliminate JavaScript Popups–

Firefox is setup to let you customize how you want it to handle popup windows. In the Options they can be set to open like normal in a new window or they can be set to open in a tab. However, JavaScript popup windows are a slight exception but can be changed so that they are treated the same way as any other popup.

  • Name: browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction
  • The preference name already exists and does not need to be created.
  • Default Value: 2
  • Possible values:
    • 0 – Open JavaScript windows the same way as you have Firefox handle new windows. This is my recommendation because if you have Firefox set to open new windows in a new tab then it will treat JavaScript windows the same way.
    • 1 – Allow all JavaScript windows to popup if requested.
    • 2 – Open all JavaScript windows the same way as you have Firefox handle new windows unless the JavaScript call specifies how to display the window.  

 

 –Enable Spell Checking In All Text Fields–

Firefox Spell Checker The inline spell checking is probably my favorite feature in Firefox 2 but it doesn’t check the single-line text boxes for spelling mistakes. You can right-click on the field and have it check the spelling or you can permanently turn spell check on by changing a configuration option.

  • Name: layout.spellcheckDefault
  • The preference name already exists and does not need to be created.
  • Default Value: 1
  • Possible values:
    • 0 – Disable the spell checker
    • 1 – Enable the spell checker for multi-line text boxes
    • 2 – Enable the spell checker for all text boxes

 

–Increase Maximum Number Of Connections– 

Vista Connections When you go to download multiple files you may notice that Firefox will only let you download two files at a time. If you want to download more you will have to increase the number of connections Firefox can make.

  • Name: network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server
  • The preference name already exists and does not need to be created.
  • Default Value: 2
  • Possible values:
    • Increase the value to something larger than 2 if you want to have the ability to download more files simultaneously.

 

 –Open Search Box Results In New Tab–

Firefox Search The search box in the upper-right corner of Firefox makes it really easy to search your favorite sites. You can get each of those search queries to open in a new tab with this simple tweak:

  • Name: browser.search.openintab
  • The preference name already exists and does not need to be created.
  • Default Value: false
  • Possible values:
    • false – open search box results in current tab
    • true – open search box results in new tab

 

–Disable Session Restore–

The built-in session restore feature is really nice but I use Tab Mix Plus and its session restore is a little nicer (it remembers things like tabs that I have protected). It has some nice features but if you don’t disable the one that Firefox has then you may end up receiving duplicates of all your tabs.

  • Name: browser.sessionstore.enabled
  • The preference name does not exist and needs to be created. Use an Boolean type when creating the preference.
  • Default Value: true
  • Possible values:
    • false – disables the built-in session restore
    • true – enables the built-in session restore

 

–Make The Tabs Take On Your Operating System Theme–

This feature was just added to the list because of the great response it had when I posted it. In Firefox 2 the tabs look the same in almost every operating system but in reality they should take on the properties of the operating system. By that I mean when you hover over a tab it should look the same as when you hover over a button in a normal application. For details on doing this please go here but this is a screenshot of what my new tabs look like in Windows Vista:

Firefox 2 System Tabs

 

 –Lower The Physical Memory Used When Minimized–

Windows Control Panel This last one is a classic for our site. This article was posted back in March of 2006 and has received over 4,300 Diggs. Since that time it has brought in nearly 200,000 unique visitors and many find that it does exactly what they want.

This tweak will send Firefox to your virtual memory when you minimize the browser, therefore freeing your physical memory for other programs to use. Firefox will reduce its physical memory usage, when minimized, to approximately 10MB (give or take some) and when you maximize Firefox it will take back the memory that it needs. Some people argue that this is not a good thing to do but other browsers, like Opera, have are setup to do this by default.

  • Name: config.trim_on_minimize
  • The preference name does not exist and needs to be created. Use an Boolean type when creating the preference.
  • Default Value: N/A
  • Possible values:
    • true – this enables Firefox to be written to the virtual memory when minimized.

 

–Overview–

Firefox 2 is an amazing browser and I hope you’ll find some of the tweaks in this guide to be beneficial. Many of these settings I have presented at one point or another in case you are looking for more details.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Two Brakes, One Hand: How To Stop a Polo Bike

My friend Kiko has a problem. He has an addiction to bike polo. He also choses to ride a freewheel bike, which means that with a mallet in his hand he only has one brake. Luckily, Kiko is also a tinkerer and has his own workshop, so it was an easy job for him to come up with this ingeniously simple solution, which operates two brakes with one lever.

In bike polo, most of the time you are playing one-handed. If you ride a fixed-gear bike like many players then you can brake the rear wheel with your legs and pull the lever for the front brake with your left hand. If you ride freewheel, the usual solution is to keep the back brake so you can skid (important in polo for quick turns and looking cool). The problem is that the back brake isn’t good at actually stopping you quickly.

Kiko’s fix was to hook up two cables to a single lever, activated by the left hand. The design is incredibly simple, but does rely on some workshop skills to do it properly. After all, you really don’t want to mess up your only way of stopping, right? Here’s how to make it:

Find the hole in the brake lever where the brake cable is usually fixed into place. Drill through the opposite side with the same diameter hole and thread through an aluminum rod. This rod should be drilled with small holes for the cables to pass through, and these holes should have rounded seats for the cable-ends fashioned with a file.

The next step is to make a metal plate with three holes. The central hole is for mounting it on the lever assembly, and should be made to fit the already existing nubbin from which the cable used to protrude. The other two should be drilled, threaded and fitted with two barrel-adjusters, as seen in the photos.

Once made, you pass each cable through its own pair of holes. Pulling on the lever pulls both brakes. Best of all, you can tweak them using the barrel-adjusters to balance the brakes, adding a little more power to the back to help skidding, for example.

Does it work? Yes. Very well. If Kiko’s game last night was anything to go by, then it might be better than riding fixed. And it isn’t just for bike polo. Operating two brakes with one hand could be great for somebody with just one arm, or a stroke victim without the use of a hand.

A great DIY project, and one that is totally in the home-made spirit of bike polo.

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