2013-The year in review

2013 been a heck of a year.
 - http://bit.ly/2013-TheYearInReview

Bring on 2014 !

Watching the watchers who are watching you watching

I'm curious....am I the only one who WONT be purchasing a tv with a camera.......


While Samsung isn’t going into too much detail, it says its new gesture system will let users change the channel, adjust the volume, and even stop playback via an “intuitive” counterclockwise twirl of the finger.  (Let’s just hope Samsung’s gesture recognition system is precise enough to actually pick up that sort of granularity on a consistent basis.)

- http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/23/samsungs-2014-smart-tvs-will-feature-single-finger-gesture-controls-that-many-people-wont-ever-bother-with/

Its not like in these days of Snowden/NSA/RSA debacles I have anything to base my fears on....oh yeh that's right I do - http://www.pcworld.com/article/2066400/lg-smart-tvs-share-data-about-users-files-and-viewing-habits-with-the-company.html

So i'm curious, if you own an xbox one did you spring for the camera and do you leave the camera permanently watching you and your family and or if you are in the market for a new tv in 2014.......would you prefer it comes without a camera......? Or am I the only luddite in the group.

125 slip marina to go into Brooklyn Bridge Park

Brooklyn Bridge Park just announced the management company for the new 125 slip marina to go in between pier 4 and 5......finally i'll have somewhere close to my apartment to park my 60 ft Sunreef catamaran...........did you hear that santa??
- http://www.brooklynbridgepark.org/news/press-releases/brooklyn-bridge-park-announces-developer

Old school crack by audio

I remember reading about how secure rooms couldn't have telephones in them because there was an old school hack where you could use the copper cables at the exchange to pick up the sound from the telephone handset microphone even though it was sitting in the receiver......old school meet new school.


http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/173108-researchers-crack-the-worlds-toughest-encryption-by-listening-to-the-tiny-sounds-made-by-your-computers-cpu



This is insane on so many levels, so basically if you put your cell phone near your laptop and then "open" your files while someone is performing an open mic listen......they can reverse engineering your passcode by listening to the sounds your cpu makes while processing the code.
Basically its "listening" to the electronic signals as it passes through the circuits.

Are we truly in a time where anything and everything is open and does this change how we "do things". Is it "all out there" and we just need to know how to "listen to the ether Mal".


Cheers,
Dean

MS Tags are dead

MsTags  are dead...

- http://dock29i.com/wp/important-notice-to-our-microsoft-tag-customers-microsoft-tags-discontinued/#comment-830
An email coming from “Tag Info” may have hit your inbox entitled “Important Notice to our Microsoft Tag Customers.”  Yes – Microsoft Tags are being Discontinued!


lol...no kidding, who didn't see that one coming.
I wonder where Nick Martin is now..... http://blog.collins.net.pr/search?q=mstags


Cheers,
Dean

Win key + task bar number ........ding ding ding we have a winner

ok slide number 4 is a winner and I think i'll be using for sure (Win + number on task bar)
http://mashable.com/2013/08/07/windows-secrets-tricks/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link#gallery/11-windows-tips-and-tricks/520c54cc5198403cb60003a6

Be responsible for the actions of your employers

Great…..i hated Boston Dynamics before so now they work for Google I can hate them twice as much


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/technology/google-adds-to-its-menagerie-of-robots.html?_r=0

Google confirmed on Friday that it had completed the acquisition of Boston Dynamics,




The scientists and developers that work for Boston Dynamics have no soul.

Essentially paraphrasing the argument something like this…….wake up snapperheads when your boss tells you to develop something think about what its going to be used for and can your soul really put up with the outcomes.
Eg I don’t blame the politicians….they’re brainless, and until a Big Dog runs onto the floor of congress laden with explosives they wont understand what they funded was wrong.

But the developers and scientists working for Boston Dynamics have a brain and they should be really thinking more than 3 steps ahead is this where I really want to be spending my lifes work on.

Lol its like the Madoff programmers who claim its not their fault this week……seriously dudes you deserve as much time as your bosses as they couldn’t have done it without you.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/madoff-programmers/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-10/ex-madoff-programmers-sought-pay-in-diamonds-jury-told.html

As for the aregument about how I’d prefer robots to do it rather than soldiers……yeh nice retort, Hitler also claimed gas showers were efficient so therefor better than lining them up to be shot one by one……I guess that makes it ok.

How random is random?

Interesting move by BSD - http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/12/we-cannot-trust-intel-and-vias-chip-based-crypto-freebsd-developers-say/

A question raised in the comments was  “would the government really force intel etc to compromise…….security with the shortsighted view that their own computers could be hacked…..using the same tool”, based on previous efforts with stuxnet technology now in the wild I would say…..no this kind of thinking wouldn’t stop them from moving forward.

The naysayers are probably saying now that….no way could you do this as would require too many people to be in the know that the NSA had backdoored all intel chips – my answer to that is 40,000 people had access to the NSA data that Snowden did……and he was the only one who thought to say…..hey this is a bad thing and we need to do something to stop it.

For me personally that’s been the scariest aspect of the entire Snowden revelations.

 

 

Cheers,

Dean

The real boss

Michelle Obama is "the boss" of the leader of the free world :)

Smart Bluetooth - Estimote

http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/10/ibeacon-pioneers-estimote-raise-3-1m-seed-round

Jakub Krzych, founder of Estimote, has announced a $3.1 million seed round raise from Innovation Endeavors, Betaworks, Bessemer Venture Partners, Birchmere Ventures, Valiant Capital Partners and others. The company is already shipping its small Bluetooth products, called Beacons, to retailers and they expect a huge rush in orders as they line up large clients next year.




I haven't looked into the API but apparently your phone will ignore the Smart Bluetooth datagram UNLESS you have the app installed that recognizes that particular message........

.....which begs the next question who is really going to have 10 different smart Bluetooth apps running on their handset eg the Macy's app, the Starbucks app, the Apple Store app. Eg it makes sense for the "turn on as you come into a zone" like the mlb baseball stadium feature but apart from that.....hmmm not sure about this.
- http://cnettv.cnet.com/mlb-tests-apple-ibeacon-citi-field/9742-1_53-50155989.html

Mike Tyson

#NowWatching  MikeTyson on HBO ...amazing effort considering the guy isn't an actor or a comedian, well worth watching!

Technically its not cold in space

Wow this just blew my mind, doing research on space and cooling etc......only to realize that obviously space is a vacuum.... and because it is a vacuum there is nothing to "pass off" heat to (eg you don't have "wind" blowing against you that can allow heat to "escape").

What this means is that although "pure space" is only 3 degrees kelvin (its not zero kelvin because of background radiation so even if something isn't in direct view of the sun (eg dark side of a planet) it will never get to zero - that if a warm body was "thrown into space" doesn't get super cold very fast but instead takes time to lose its heat through "radiant" heat only.

There are very few molecules to "pass off" heat like wind/touch etc does here on earth.

No wonder there is court backlog

In small claims court at the moment (claimant) wow how inefficient is the whole process and worse the defendant (ConEd electricity) is asking for an application (delay) they've only had the facts of the case since May 31st 2013 (damages were made on the 8th of Feb 2013)

Basically case has been held over until May 2014 because ConEd says....I've just been apprised of the case.....even though I registered with the clerk that I was ready to proceed and the lawyer was served with the subpoena in July......

......no wonder the court case load is so backed up.....nothing gets dealt with.

Gravity sucks.....

Awesome idea, using gravity to store renewable energy (or any kind of energy), what an awesome idea.


http://www.bloomberg.com/video/how-ares-uses-gravity-to-store-excess-power-4haaYdXzSFqRpNIvaKVTcA.html



Thoughts? I wonder how the breakdown per gigawatt works against molten salt baths?

good Google

I know I slag off google often because of their monopolistic tendencies....however sometimes they can be a massive power for good.

Check out their power to bring 2 nations together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHGDN9-oFJE


More about what this here- http://zeenews.india.com/news/net-news/google-search-reunion-video-goes-viral-reconnects-india-pakistan_890072.html