Day: May 4, 2017

Good vibrations no longer needed for speakers as research encourages graphene to talk

Posted on by Robin Edgar

A pioneering new technique that encourages the wonder material graphene to “talk” could revolutionise the global audio and telecommunications industries. Researchers from the University of Exeter have devised a ground-breaking method to use graphene to generate complex and controllable sound signals. In essence, it combines speaker, amplifier and graphic equaliser into a chip the size Read more about Good vibrations no longer needed for speakers as research encourages graphene to talk[…]

234 Android Applications Are Currently Using Ultrasonic Beacons to Track Users

Posted on by Robin Edgar

uXDT is the practice of advertisers hiding ultrasounds in their ads. When the ad plays on a TV or radio, or some ad code runs on a mobile or computer, it emits ultrasounds that are picked up by the microphone of nearby laptops, desktops, tablets or smartphones. SDKs embedded in apps installed on those devices Read more about 234 Android Applications Are Currently Using Ultrasonic Beacons to Track Users[…]

China makes much fastest quantum computer

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China created a quantum device, called a boson sampling machine, that can now carry out calculations for five photons, but at a speed 24,000 times faster than previous experiments. Pan Jianwei, the lead scientist on the project, said that though their device was already (only) 10 Read more about China makes much fastest quantum computer[…]

MS Win10S locks you in to windows store, Edge browser and Bing searches

Posted on by Robin Edgar

If developers do start leveraging the Windows Store, the Windows 10 S experiment could take off, as users won’t find a need to install legacy programs. This will largely depend on web browsers being available there, as many users dislike Edge. Thankfully, Microsoft is allowing third-party browser installs from the Windows Store. Unfortunately, there is Read more about MS Win10S locks you in to windows store, Edge browser and Bing searches[…]

NSA collected Americans’ phone records (151 million of them!) despite law change

Posted on by Robin Edgar

The U.S. National Security Agency collected more than 151 million records of Americans’ phone calls last year, even after Congress limited its ability to collect bulk phone records, according to an annual report issued on Tuesday by the top U.S. intelligence officer. The report from the office of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was Read more about NSA collected Americans’ phone records (151 million of them!) despite law change[…]

After years of warnings, mobile network hackers exploit SS7 flaws to drain bank accounts via MitM attacks

Posted on by Robin Edgar

Experts have been warning for years about security blunders in the Signaling System 7 protocol – the magic glue used by cellphone networks to communicate with each other. These shortcomings can be potentially abused to, for example, redirect people’s calls and text messages to miscreants’ devices. Now we’ve seen the first case of crooks exploiting Read more about After years of warnings, mobile network hackers exploit SS7 flaws to drain bank accounts via MitM attacks[…]

Endurance in a pill

Posted on by Robin Edgar

“It’s well known that people can improve their aerobic endurance through training,” says senior author Ronald Evans, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and holder of Salk’s March of Dimes Chair in Molecular and Developmental Biology. “The question for us was: how does endurance work? And if we really understand the science, can we replace training Read more about Endurance in a pill[…]

rpcbomb: remote rpcbind denial-of-service + patches

Posted on by Robin Edgar

This vulnerability allows an attacker to allocate any amount of bytes (up to 4 gigabytes per attack) on a remote rpcbind host, and the memory is never freed unless the process crashes or the administrator halts or restarts the rpcbind service. Attacking a system is trivial; a single attack consists of sending a specially crafted Read more about rpcbomb: remote rpcbind denial-of-service + patches[…]