A number of American security professionals must have quickly switched from lazy Thanksgiving mode to high alert on Monday after receiving a flash warning from the FBI. A five-page document was sent out to US businesses’ IT teams warning them against a highly destructive malware, which a group of hackers recently used to infiltrate several companies’ computers, reports Reuters. In order for the companies to take preventative measures, the report contained the lowdown on the malware’s technical details, such as its ability to override hard drives. The malicious code can apparently shut down and permanently disable computers, as well, making it impossible to retrieve files later on. The FBI issues “flash” warnings to businesses in order to update them about high-risk cyber threats. For this particular one, none of the malware’s victims were named, and the agency also wouldn’t confirm or deny when Reuters asked if Sony was one of them.
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Curious about what the official word regarding the Boeing Dreamliner’s faulty battery is? Of course you are. The National Transportation Safety Board says that the reason for the non-fatal fire was due to “deficiencies in the design and certification process,” and has a few fingers to point. The board says that Boeing itself is at fault, calling its safety assessments of the lithium-ion units insufficient. Yuasa, the battery manufacturer, isn’t free from blame either. As The Wall Street Journal notes, Yuasa’s production process apparently allowed for defects that could cause short-circuiting in the battery’s internal cells, and the final battery design was actually different than the one tested and certified. The NTSB goes on to call out the Federal Aviation Administration for its lack of oversight regarding the outsourcing of components in the Dreamliner as well.
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Putting a map on clothing is nothing new — chances are you’ve seen a famous locale printed onto all manner of items in souvenir stores. However, if you happen to live in a small town or a quiet suburb on the outskirts of a city, it’s unlikely you’ll find your neighborhood adorning a t-shirt. Enter Monochōme, a bespoke clothing service that lets you print your ‘hood onto a t-shirt, tank top or skirt.
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If, after declaring that he was broke, you thought that Kim Dotcom would go quietly into the night, then you really don’t know him. After a successful bail hearing, the Megaupload founder is announcing that he will help launch a version of his Internet Party in the US next year. The political party, which failed to gain a seat in New Zealand’s most recent elections, stands on a platform of internet freedom, free university education and the decriminalization of cannabis. According to Dotcom’s Twitter account, the party will be “well funded and run by American citizens,” with the lad himself just helping out with public relations – interesting, given that he’s previously admitted that his personal brand was “poison” to the movement’s cause.
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Instead of tuning into Twitch online, soon Brits will have a physical venue to watch their favourite eSports competitors duke it out. Gfinity, a league organiser for multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Starcraft II, says it’s gearing up to launch the UK’s first permanent eSports arena in London next year. The new locale will accommodate up to 500 spectators, although the company says it hasn’t decided whether to build a new facility or retrofit an existing one just yet. Once it’s completed, Gfinity says it’ll play host to 30 tournaments between March and September next year, covering competitive games such as Halo and Call of Duty before its end of season “Gfinity Championship Final.”
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Sure, the idea of keeping your phone up-to-date by swapping out parts is nice. But Dave Hakkens didn’t invent Phonebloks (which Motorola eventually turned into Project Ara) so you could have the latest electronics — he was simply trying to reduce waste. He also wants more plastic recycled, and was recently awarded €10,000 ($12,500) to improve his small scale recycling machine, called “Precious Plastic.” With Project Ara, Hakkens doesn’t have the time to make it happen personally, so he’s willing to give that money to someone who does — along with the use of his large workshop, tools and evenlunch.
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Let’s say you’ve been itching for a plug-in hybrid BMW, but the i3 SUV isn’t your style and the i8 is a bit too sporty. Well, maybe your patience will pay off as the automaker’s recently announced that the platform powering the aforementioned rides will make its way to the “core-brand models.” This starts with a 3-series eDrive prototype debuting in Miramas, France. What’s under the hood? a TwinPower Turbo four-cylinder that’s based directly off the power-plants of the i3 and i8, as noticed by Autoblog. BMW says that its plug-in hybrid tech is flexible enough that it can go into basically any of its vehicles and that the implementation can happen pretty quickly, too. If you’re curious as to what it all looks like, we’ve embedded an official mock-up image after the break.
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NORAD’s Santa tracker for 2014 is now up and running, ready to help you count down the days till your kids are wont to start screaming for gifts. The agency has partnered up with Microsoft again this year, so expect to see a lot of Bing maps integration. In addition to the website itself, the duo has also released iOS, Android and Windows Phone apps, so you can monitor Santa’s movements on the go. WP users can even ask their platform’s voice assistant Cortana questions such as “Where is Santa now?”. As usual, on Christmas Eve itself, you’ll be able to follow Santa’s journey through an interactive 3D globe (with a Bing maps overlay, naturally).
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Last week we ran our review of the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro, a 13-inch laptop that weighs a scant 2.6 pounds and measures just half an inch thick. It was impressive, to be sure, but it won’t be the last: Thanks to Intel’s new Core M chips, we’re about to see a ton of impossibly thin notebooks. The latest comes from HP, whose just-announced EliteBook Folio 1020 weighs as little as 2.2 pounds and measures 15.7mm thick. We say “as little as” because when the thing goes on sale early next year, it’ll be available in two flavors: a regular version that weighs 1.2 kg (2.6 pounds) and a special edition that comes in at 1kg (that’s the 2.2-pound one). Both are light, as I found in my brief time with them, but the 1kg model is noticeably lighter, so you might want to wait for that to arrive, if either of these strikes your fancy.
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The device regarded the world’s first computer (analog, of course) could have been used even earlier than researchers thought. Inspection of a dial from the 2,000-year-old Antikythera Mechanism and an examination of Babylonian eclipse records revealed the device’s origin to be 205 BC, 50-100 years before previous findings indicate. The new date offers a clue as to how Greeks predicted eclipses and planetary position, too. Until now, scientists thought the system was based on trigonometry, but that method didn’t exist yet, so instead, the mechanism relied on Babylonian arithmetic. Using a process of elimination, a pair of researchers compared records and recovered pieces of the dial that aided with eclipse prediction in order to arrive at the new calculation. The hunt continues for the rest of the Antikythera Mechanism, as a team is hoping to continue its search of the shipwreck where fragments have been found this spring.
[Photo credit: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images]
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