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Suite CRM Upload stream is blocked by Suhosin...

2021-02-09T11:11:00.004-08:00

Upload stream is blocked by Suhosin, please add "upload" to suhosin.executor.include.whitelist (See suitecrm.log for more information)

Ever come across such an error while uploading Suite CRM modules or themes

Follow the following steps:

Go to /include/upload_file.php, public static function getSuhosinStatus(), change $configuration = ini_get_all(‘suhosin’ , false);

$configuration = ini_get_all(‘suhosin’);

In /modules/upgradewizard/uw_utils.php, in the condition if (UploadStream::getSuhosinStatus() == true) change $ret[‘error_found’] = true;

$ret[‘error_found’] = false;

For Newer Version

This has been changed.

The old upload_file.php had 828 rows

The current upload_file have 45 rows, and only requires the UploadFile.php

The function getSuhosinStatus() has been transferred to the include\UploadStream.php file at row 62

If this was helpful kindly follow and comment.

A 16-year-old hacked Apple and stole 90GB of secure files

2018-08-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

Apple’s servers are widely believed to be unhackable, and to date the company hasn’t suffered any massive breach that would have exposed user data to hackers. Well, it turns out that while most hackers might not be able to get into Apple’s servers, a sixteen-year-old Australian with a passion for Apple managed to do it, stealing some 90GB of secure files and accessing customer accounts in the process. The best part is that he stored it all in a folder called “hacky hack hack.”

The teen’s defense lawyer said the kid was a huge fan of the company and wanted to work for Apple, according to The Age. His name can’t be shared because he’s still a minor, but also because he’s a well-known individual in the international hacking community. Apple, meanwhile, is “very sensitive about publicity” on the matter, and it’s quite understandable why.

The kid apparently used VPNs and other systems to hide his identity and hacked Apple’s servers for about a year. He also had access to authorized keys, the kind that grant log-in access to users and should be extremely secure. The hack apparently “worked flawlessly” until Apple caught wind of it. It’s unclear what kind of data the hacker stole, or how it all happened.

While the attacker tried to hide his identity, Apple was able to identify the serial numbers of the laptops used to perform the attacks, and that’s how the investigation led to Australia. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) seized two laptops, a mobile phone, and a hard drive, discovering proof of the hack in the process, including the “hacky hack hack” folder.

The teen apparently used WhatsApp to brag about his achievements to other parties. He pleaded guilty in court and now awaits sentencing… and Apple should probably follow up with a job offer.

The 3 Most Popular Content Management Systems

2017-09-11T04:37:00.000-07:00

The number of websites that are launched every year is growing and the figures are staggering. A recent study by the Daily Mail showed that 70 new domains and 571 websites are launched every minute. Another survey showed that in the beginning of 2016 alone, around 866 million websites were launched. This is because when it comes to satisfying a need or getting a solution, the whole world is turning to the internet.

While many businesses opt to hire a web designer for building their websites, they fail to consider the many options that they can use to set up a decent website on their own. This can be pretty economical for small and medium businesses and also for professional freelancers.

The most popular way of setting up websites is to use Content Management Systems (CMS). CMS software allows you to set up your website without having to commit a single pixel or line of code. If you have the time and energy, then CMS is the perfect option for you.

Globally, the most popular CMS providers are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.

1. WordPress

Released by Matt Mullenwegg in 2003, WordPress has become the most popular CMS provider in the world and is widely used by small-to-medium businesses as well as major corporations, including Forbes, Sony and CNN. More than 12 million websites are powered by WordPress and the software has had more than 140 million downloads.

"WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website, blog, or app. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time."

WordPress is open source software and can be downloaded for free. It is extremely customizable with 2000+ themes and 27000+ plugins. Installation is easy and does not take more than ten minutes for the average user. It is also quite user-friendly - users with limited computer knowledge can operate the software without any hassles. All these features combined to make WordPress one of the most popular content management systems in the world.

2. Joomla

Joomla was first released in 2005 as a fork of Mambo, an open source CMS development project. Like WordPress, Joomla is written in PHP. It is the most preferred CMS for e-commerce and social networking sites. In 2016, more than 2 million websites are managed using Joomla.

"Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular website software available."

Like its parent, Joomla is open source and freely downloadable. It has been downloaded more than 30 million times, second only to WordPress, and is used by companies like The Hill and Harvard University.

Joomla has about 900+ free themes and 7000+ plugins to choose from. Similar to WordPress, Joomla can be installed with a single click and the installation procedure will not take more than 10 minutes. However, it is not as user friendly as WordPress and requires a bit of technical know-how to operate.

3. Drupal

Released in 2001 by Dries Buytaert, Drupal is less popular than WordPress and Joomla. Like its competitors, Drupal is also written in PHP. The Drupal CMS follows the "one size fits all" principal and can be used by all kinds of businesses, whatever their requirements may be. More than 600,000 websites in 2016 are managed using Drupal.

"Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It's built, used and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world."

Like its competitors, Drupal can be downloaded for free. It has been downloaded more than 15 million times and is used by Linux, The White House and The Warner Brothers for their websites. There over 1800 themes to choose from as well as 24000+ plugins. Although Drupal is user friendly, it is harder to install and customize compared to WordPress.

Depending on your requirements, any of these content management systems will serve their purpose: powering a decent website that communicates with your audience.

If you want to set up a CMS provider for your business and require some assistance for the same, contact us at info@ideas2web.com.ng

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Aminah_Afra/2335396

8 REASONS YOU NEED A WEBSITE FOR YOUR BUSINESS

2017-09-07T19:54:00.000-07:00

YOUR SMALL BUSINESS WILL GAIN CREDIBILITY

A WEBSITE SAVES YOU MONEY

IT WILL ENABLE YOU TO KEEP YOUR CUSTOMERS INFORMED

IT IS ALWAYS ACCESSIBLE

A WEBSITE MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO TARGET A WIDER MARKET

IT PROVIDES A MEDIUM ON WHICH TO SHOWCASE YOUR WORK

A WEBSITE SAVES YOU TIME

IT IMPROVES CUSTOMER SERVICE

Move or Copy Mail From One Gmail Account to Another

2017-06-17T18:13:00.003-07:00

Name change? Need a new Gmail account plus keep the old? Here's what to do

by Heinz Tschabitscher

Updated June 14, 2017

Has your name changed, or that of your business? Just want a new Gmail account but don't want to miss emails? No problem. You can move all your mail from one Gmail account to another. While your Gmail address is set in stone, you can set up a new Gmail account, though—and take your mail with you.

Change Gmail Addresses, and Take Your Mail with You

There are two ways to lead your old mail to a new account.

You can do the moving manually in an email program, preserving your setup of labels, or let Gmail copy the messages for you without labels but also without hassle.

Move or Copy Mail from One Gmail Account to Another (Using Only Gmail)

First, make sure all email programs or services you have configured to download mail from your old Gmail account using POP are closed or set not to check mail automatically. Then, to move (or copy) all received and sent emails from one Gmail account to another Gmail account by having the new Gmail account fetch the messages:

Login to the account from which you want to import (bring over) mail.
Click the Settings gear icon (⚙️) in the Gmail account's toolbar.
Select Settings from the menu that comes up.
Go to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
Select Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded) under POP Download: regardless of the current POP download status (under Status:).

Note: You do not have to move messages to the old account's inbox for the new account to pick them up. Archived mail will be fetched and copied to the new account automatically.

Select archive Gmail's copy under When messages are accessed with POP to have your old account's inbox cleared; select delete Gmail's copy instead to move mail instead of copying it.

Tips: If you do want to retain some messages at the old account, they will be available in the Trash label for 30 days.
You can also select keep Gmail's copy in the Inbox (unread) or mark Gmail's copy as read, of course.

Click Save Changes.
Click your picture (or the icon) in Gmail's top right corner.
Select Sign out from the menu that appears.

We are done with the account from which to import messages. On with the new Gmail account:

Now log in to the Gmail account to which you want to move the messages.
Click the Settings gear icon (⚙️).
Select Settings from the menu.
Go to the Accounts and Import tab.
Click Add a mail account under Check mail from other accounts:.
Enter the email address of the Gmail account from which you want to import under Email address.
Click Next ».
Make sure Import emails from my other account (POP3) is selected.
Click Next ».
Verify the desired Gmail account's user name is entered correctly under Username:.
Type the password for the Gmail account from which you import under Password:.
Important: If you have enabled 2-step authentication for the old Gmail account, do create and use a Gmail application password instead.
Select pop.gmail.com under POP Server.
Select 995 under Port:.
Verify Leave a copy of retrieved messages on the server is NOT checked.
Verify Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail IS checked.

Options: Select Label incoming messages and pick the label corresponding to the old Gmail account's email address, an existing label or New labe l for a new label.
Select Archive incoming messages (Skip the Inbox) so imported emails do not show up (or clutter) your new Gmail account's inbox.

Click Add Account.

Important: If you see an access error, you have two options:
With 2-step authentication enabled especially, you may have to authorize Gmail to access itself.
If you do not have 2-step authentication turned on, make sure "less secure" applications are allowed to access Gmail.
Select Yes, I want to be able to send mail as ___@gmail.com under Would you also like to be able to send mail as ___@gmail.com?.

Why to say "Yes" here: Having your old address set up as a sending address in the new account lets Gmail recognize your old sent messages and place them in the Sent Mail label.
Can I say "No"? You can choose No, of course; you can always add your old address as a sending address later.
If you do select No, click Finish right away and skip the coming steps that add the old address to the new account.

To make sure your old Gmail address is recognized by the new Gmail account as one of yours—and available for sending:

Continuing from Yes, I want to be able to send mail as ___@gmail.com, click Next Step ».
Enter your name under Name:.
Click Next Step ».
Leave Treat as an alias checked.
Click Next Step ».
Now click Send Verification.
Click Close window.
Click your icon in the top right corner of Gmail.
Select Sign out from the sheet that comes up.
Log in to Gmail using the address from which you import.
Open the message from Gmail Team with the subject Gmail Confirmation - Send Mail as ___@gmail.com.
Highlight and copy the numeral confirmation code under Confirmation code:.

Tip: It is better not to follow the verification link and instead log in with the correct account in your browser first, then use the code there. We will do this in the following steps.
Otherwise, your browser might get the Gmail accounts mixed up.
If you followed the link and everything worked, that is fine, of course.
Option: As an alternative to the somewhat convoluted process that follows, you can wait for your new Gmail account to import the verification message and follow the confirmation link from there.
Click your account's icon in the top right corner.
Select Sign out.
Log in to Gmail again, this time with the account to which you import.
Click the Settings gear icon (⚙️).
Select Settings from the menu that comes up.
Open the Accounts and Import tab.
Click Verify for the old Gmail account's address under Send mail as:.
Paste the verification code under Enter and verify the confirmation code.
Click Verify.

Gmail will not fetch all messages in one go. It will download mail from the old account in batches of approximately 100 - 200 emails at a time instead. Typically, importing will start with the oldest messages.

Gmail will download messages in your old Gmail account's Sent Mail label in addition to messages you have received. If you have set up the address from which you imported as a sending address in the new account, sent mail will appear under the new account's Sent Mail label, too.

After importing, you can use the old address with your new Gmail account, effectively combining the two accounts.

Stop Continued Importing of Mail from the Source Gmail Account (and Prevent Duplicates)

To stop Gmail from continuing to import new messages from the old account (or import everything anew if you ever reset the POP access status for the old account to offering all messages):

Click the Settings gear icon (⚙️) in the new Gmail account.
Select Settings from the menu that comes up.
Go to the Accounts and Import category.
Click delete for the Gmail account from which you imported under Check mail from other accounts (using POP3).
Click OK under Are you sure you want to delete this mail account?

(Importing from one Gmail account into another tested with Gmail in a desktop browser.)

iPhone that won't turn on or charge

2016-11-06T11:54:00.002-08:00

Verify that the Sleep/Wake button functions. If it does not function, inspect it for signs of damage. If the button is damaged or is not functioning when pressed, seek service.
Check if the Liquid Contact Indicator (LCI) in the headset jack or dock connector is activated or there are signs of corrosion or debris. Learn more about LCIs.
Connect the iPhone to the iPhone's USB power adapter and let it charge for at least ten minutes.
After at least 15 minutes, if:
- The home screen appears: The iPhone should be working. Continue charging it until it is completely charged and you see this battery icon in the upper-right corner of the screen . Then unplug the phone from power. If it immediately turns off, seek service.
- The low-battery image appears, even after the phone has charged for at least 20 minutes: See "iPhone displays the low-battery image and is unresponsive" symptom in this article.
- If something other than the Home screen or Low Battery screen appears on the display, continue with this article for further troubleshooting steps.
If the iPhone did not turn on, try resetting it while connected to the iPhone USB power adapter. To reset, press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time for at least ten seconds, until either the Apple logo or the battery symbol appears.
- If the display turns on, go to step 4.
- If the display remains black, go to next step.
Restore the iPhone. Connect the iPhone to a computer and open iTunes. If iTunes recognizes the iPhone and indicates that it is in recovery mode, attempt to restore the iPhone. If the iPhone doesn't appear in iTunes or if you have difficulties in restoring the iPhone, see this article for further assistance.
If restoring the iPhone resolved the issue, go to step 4. If restoring the iPhone did not solve the issue, seek service.

Wordpress Development and migration

2016-10-31T15:32:00.000-07:00

Developing a WordPress site locally can help speed up the development process. In the past, we showed you how to install WordPress on your Windows computer using WAMP and on Mac using MAMP. Once you have finished the development on localhost, the next step is to move the site live. In this article, we will show you how to move WordPress from local server to a live site. By using this process, you would be able to migrate all of your content (posts, pages, images, etc), themes, as well as plugins from local server to a production site.

Before we start, we must let you know that you can make this migration from local server to a live site easier by using one of the two plugins: BackupBuddy orDuplicator. In this article, we will show you how to move WordPress from local server to live site manually, so you can learn the process. However to make the process easy for us, we rely on BackupBuddy when we do this on a day to day basis.

Pre-Steps

In order for you to migrate your locally developed WordPress site to a live server, you need to have two things. First is the local server. We are assuming that you have a WordPress site running on local server, and you have full access to it. Next, you would need to have web hosting that supports WordPress, so you can migrate your content over.

You would need to have a FTP program and know how to use FTP, so you can upload your content to the live site.

Note: the screenshots used in this article are from WordPress hosting providers that have cPanel.

Step 1: Export Local WordPress Database

First thing you need to do is export your local WordPress database. We will be using phpMyAdmin to do that. If you are unfamiliar with it, then you might want to take a look at our guide to WordPress database management using phpMyAdmin. Simply go to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ and click on your WordPress database. Next, click on the Export button from the top menu bar.

In the Export Method option choose custom, which will provide you with more options to export your database. Select all tables to export and gzipped for compression. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and press the Go button to download your database.

Step 2: Uploading WordPress Files to Live Site

Now open an FTP client and connect to your live site. Once you are connected to your live site, make sure you upload the files in the right directory. For example if you want the site to be hosted on yoursite.com, then you would want to upload all files in your public_html directory.

Now select your local WordPress files and upload them to your live server.

Step 3: Creating MySQL Database on Live Site

While your FTP client is uploading your WordPress files, you can spend this time on importing your database to the live server. Most WordPress hosting providers offer cPanel to manage your hosting account, so we will show you how to create a database using cPanel. Log in to your cPanel dashboard and click on the MySQL databases icon which can be found in the databases section.

On the next screen, create a database by entering a name for your database.

After creating a database, scroll down to MySQL users section and create or add an existing user to the database. After adding the user, cPanel will take you to set MySQL privileges for that user. Simply grant all privileges to the user.

Step 4: Importing WordPress Database on Live Site

Next step in the process is to import your WordPress database. Go to your cPanel dashboard, scroll down to the databases section and click on phpMyAdmin. This will take you to phpMyAdmin where you want to click on the database you created earlier. phpMyAdmin will show your new database with no tables. Click on theImport tab in the top menu. On the import page, click on choose file button and then select the gzipped database file you saved in step 1. Lastly, press the Go button at the bottom of the page. phpMyadmin will now import your WordPress database.

Step 5: Changing the Site URL

Now you need to change the site URL, so you can setup your live WordPress site. In your phpMyAdmin, look for the wp_options table in your database that we just imported in step 4. If you changed your database prefix, then instead of wp_options it might be {prefix}_options.

Click on the browse button next to wp_options or the link that you see in the sidebar to open the page with a list of fields within the wp_options table. See screenshot below:

Under the field options_name, you need to look for siteurl. Click the Edit Field icon which can be found at the far left at the beginning of the row.

When you click the edit field, an edit field window will appear. In the input box for option_value, you will see the URL of your local install probably something like:http://localhost/test. Carefully insert your new site url in this field, for example:http://www.wpbeginner.com

Save the field by clicking the Go button.

Next, you need to replicate this step for the option name: home. The wp_options page can be a few pages long, so simply find the home tab. Usually it is on the second page which you can navigate to by clicking on the pagination arrows in phpMyAdmin.

Update the home url to be the same as your siteurl.

Step 6: Setting Up your Live Site

Now that we have imported the database, and all of our content should be uploaded, it is time to configure WordPress. At this time, your site should be showing an Error Establishing Database Connection error. To fix this, connect to your website using an FTP client and edit wp-config.php file. Provide the database name, user and password you created earlier in Step 3. Save the wp-config.php file and upload it back to your server. Visit your website, and it should be live now.

Login to your WordPress admin panel, and go to Settings » General. Click save Options. This will ensure that the site url is corrected anywhere else that needs to be.

Then go to Settings » Permalink and click Save to ensure that all post links are working fine.

Step 7: Fixing Images and Broken Links by updating Paths

Whenever you are moving a WordPress site from one domain to another, or from local server to a live site, you would face broken links and missing images issue. You can either use the SQL query or use the Velvet Blues WordPress plugin.

For those who want to do it via SQL, here is a simple SQL query that should solve this problem:

1	UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE(post_content,'localhost/test/', 'www.yourlivesite.com/');

Simply go to phpMyAdmin, click on your database and then click on SQL from top menu. Write this query but don’t forget to change it with your own local site and live site URLs.

That’s all, hopefully your live site will be up and running by now. Checkout your site to make sure that every thing is working fine as expected. For troubleshooting and questions feel free to leave us a comment below and we will try to help out as much as we can.

Java Program to Implement Gaussian Elimination Algorithm

2016-08-03T12:38:00.002-07:00

This is a Java Program to Implement Gaussian Elimination Algorithm. Gaussian elimination (also known as row reduction) is an algorithm for solving systems of linear equations.

Here is the source code of the Java Program to Implement Gaussian Elimination Algorithm. The Java program is successfully compiled and run on a Windows system.

```
/**
```

 ** Java Program to Implement Gaussian Elimination Algorithm

```
 **/
```
```
 
```
```
import java.util.Scanner;
```
```
 
```
```
/** Class GaussianElimination **/
```
```
public class GaussianElimination
```
```
{
```

    public void solve(double[][] A, double[] B)

```
    {
```
```
        int N = B.length;
```
```
        for (int k = 0; k < N; k++) 
```
```
        {
```
```
            /** find pivot row **/
```
```
            int max = k;
```

            for (int i = k + 1; i < N; i++)

                if (Math.abs(A[i][k]) > Math.abs(A[max][k]))

```
                    max = i;
```
```
 
```

            /** swap row in A matrix **/

```
            double[] temp = A[k]; 
```
```
            A[k] = A[max]; 
```
```
            A[max] = temp;
```
```
 
```

            /** swap corresponding values in constants matrix **/

```
            double t = B[k]; 
```
```
            B[k] = B[max]; 
```
```
            B[max] = t;
```
```
 
```

            /** pivot within A and B **/

            for (int i = k + 1; i < N; i++)

```
            {
```

                double factor = A[i][k] / A[k][k];

```
                B[i] -= factor * B[k];
```

                for (int j = k; j < N; j++)

                    A[i][j] -= factor * A[k][j];

```
            }
```
```
        }
```
```
 
```
```
        /** Print row echelon form **/
```
```
        printRowEchelonForm(A, B);
```
```
 
```
```
        /** back substitution **/
```

        double[] solution = new double[N];

        for (int i = N - 1; i >= 0; i--)

```
        {
```
```
            double sum = 0.0;
```

            for (int j = i + 1; j < N; j++)

                sum += A[i][j] * solution[j];

            solution[i] = (B[i] - sum) / A[i][i];

```
        }        
```
```
        /** Print solution **/
```
```
        printSolution(solution);
```
```
    }
```

    /** function to print in row    echleon form **/

    public void printRowEchelonForm(double[][] A, double[] B)

```
    {
```
```
        int N = B.length;
```

        System.out.println("\nRow Echelon form : ");

```
        for (int i = 0; i < N; i++)
```
```
           {
```

               for (int j = 0; j < N; j++)

                   System.out.printf("%.3f ", A[i][j]);

               System.out.printf("| %.3f\n", B[i]);

```
           }
```
```
           System.out.println();
```
```
    }
```
```
    /** function to print solution **/
```

    public void printSolution(double[] sol)

```
    {
```
```
        int N = sol.length;
```

        System.out.println("\nSolution : ");

```
        for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) 
```

            System.out.printf("%.3f ", sol[i]);

```
        System.out.println();     
```
```
    }    
```
```
    /** Main function **/
```

    public static void main (String[] args)

```
    {
```

        Scanner scan = new Scanner(System.in);

        System.out.println("Gaussian Elimination Algorithm Test\n");

        /** Make an object of GaussianElimination class **/

        GaussianElimination ge = new GaussianElimination();

```
 
```

        System.out.println("\nEnter number of variables");

```
        int N = scan.nextInt();
```
```
 
```
```
        double[] B = new double[N];
```

        double[][] A = new double[N][N];

```
 
```

        System.out.println("\nEnter "+ N +" equations coefficients ");

```
        for (int i = 0; i < N; i++)
```
```
            for (int j = 0; j < N; j++)
```

                A[i][j] = scan.nextDouble();

```
 
```

        System.out.println("\nEnter "+ N +" solutions");

```
        for (int i = 0; i < N; i++)
```
```
            B[i] = scan.nextDouble();
```
```
 
```
```
        ge.solve(A,B);
```
```
    }
```
```
}
```

Multiple Select HTML Form Fields PHP Parse Tutorial

2015-10-24T10:07:00.003-07:00

Here we instruct how to use PHP to parse multiple selection form fields in your HTML or HTML5 forms. The resulting variable is an array if you instruct the select field to handle multiple options. We have to break this array down to split the selections for our data processing needs, or you can choose to save the serialized complete array into one MySQL database field.

 $value) { 
        $i++;
        echo "Skill $i || Array Key = $key || Value = $value
"; 
    }
 exit();
}
?>

Multiple Select HTML Form List PHP Parsing Tutorial

  What skills do you have? 

  (hold "Ctrl" key to select multiple):

Twitter CEO gives up $200M in stock for company employees

2015-10-24T09:55:00.004-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — After laying off more than 300 workers,Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is trying to lift the spirits of the remaining employees by giving them 6.8 million shares of the stock he owns in the online messaging service.

Dorsey is giving up the stock, currently worth more than $200 million, so Twitter can award the shares to its employees, according to documents filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The gesture comes a week after Dorsey laid off 8 percent of Twitter's workforce in an effort to make the company profitable for the first time in its nine-year history. The gift represents nearly one-third of the stock Dorsey owns in the San Francisco company.

"I'd rather have a smaller part of something big than a bigger part of something small," Dorsey tweeted about surrendering some of his stock. "I'm confident we can make Twitter big!"

Twitter said Dorsey's shares will be earmarked for stock issued to employees next year under the company's incentive plan.

Dorsey will still own 15 million Twitter shares worth about $460 million, based on Twitter's current market value.

Twitter's stock gained $1.13, or nearly 4 percent, to close Friday at $30.28.

The shares have declined by 40 percent in the past six months amid concerns about Twitter's slowing user growth and inability to make money.

Twitter Inc. brought back Dorsey, one of its co-founders, as its CEO in hopes that he can figure out a way to make the messaging service more appealing beyond its core audience of about 300 million users. By comparison, Facebook's social networking service has 1.5 billion users, even though it is only two years older than Twitter.

Dorsey was Twitter's original CEO, but was ousted because the company's board didn't think he was the right leader at that time.

While he tries to re-tool Twitter, Dorsey is also serving as CEO of Square, a payment processor that is preparing to price an initial public offering of its stock.

Dorsey has given back nearly 15.1 million shares of Square stock during the past two years, too, according to Square's IPO documents. He remains by far Square's largest shareholder with a 24 percent stake in that San Francisco company, which is located a block away from Twitter's headquarters.

Online Gaming Is The New Social Network

2015-10-24T09:54:00.001-07:00

We speak to one avid online gamer about how the medium is replacing traditional social media.

Harrison, 16, reveals how a new generation is turning to Xbox and PlayStation as a way to stay in touch with friends and meet new people.

Harrison says: Online multiplayer gaming is like Facebook, but there are far more things to do. It’s just a more entertaining way to be in touch with people.

It’s a great way to stay in touch with my friends and I’ve also made new friends in games who I’ve go on to meet away from the screen.

It’s no longer just entertainment. It’s a new kind of experience. Online gaming on PayStation 4 or Xbox One basically IS a social network. I can instantly see what my friends are up to, and choose whether or not to join in.

When we ‘meet up’, we don’t just shoot each other. There’s lots of ways to interact in online games, whether it’s just sending a message or actually making some sort of in game gesture. Even something stupid like dancing.

If I do something amazing in game, I can also share pictures and video direct to Twitter or Facebook which makes the whole experience even more ‘social’.

Although I will play almost any game, I play online games more than any others. It’s just more satisfying and enjoyable to play with a human being rather than a computer.

When it comes to playing against the computer it’s easy to get bored. If it’s a real person there, it keeps you interested.

Games without multiplayer aren’t over, though. There are just new ways to play. There are plenty of games where you are playing a single-player story, but there just happen to be other people around.

'Destiny' is a good example. You never have to shoot your mates if you don’t want to.

'Destiny' is online right from the very beginning, but you have the option of completing the game by yourself or with others. It’s a great way to stay connected with people. Personally, I really enjoy that way of playing.

I know some people might find it odd, but it’s totally normal for me to wear a headset while playing and talk to other gamers - both people I know and people I don’t.

If someone is sending you a text message, it’s usually because either they don’t know you or their headset has broken and they are waiting for a new one. I think most online players will be able to relate to this!

Microsoft just unveiled its first laptop — and it says it's twice as fast as a Macbook Pro

2015-10-12T03:15:00.003-07:00

Microsoft just unveiled its first laptop — and it says it's twice as fast as a Macbook Pro

microsoft surface book

(Screenshot) Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled its first laptop: the Microsoft Surface Book, a 13-inch touch-screen device that also comes apart to become a tablet.

"This is the ultimate laptop," Microsoft's Panos Panay said.

It has two processors and a dedicated graphics-card system. Microsoft says the laptop is twice as fast as a Macbook Pro.

Pricing starts at $1,499, and the laptop will be available on October 26.

As with all devices in the Surface line, the Surface Book can detach from its keyboard to become a tablet. The keyboard can then dock on the back of the tablet to keep it all together. It also uses the Surface Pen stylus that comes with Surface tablets.

Microsoft Surface Book

(Microsoft) The Surface Book has a unique hinge.It's designed to add more power than the Surface Pro 4, also announced Tuesday. It's for gamers and any enterprise worker who needs more graphical horsepower under the hood. In fact, the Xbox team contributed its graphical expertise, Panay said.

Panay showed off how smoothly Windows 10 games like "Gears of War" and "Gigantic" ran on the Surface Book, even while using video-editing software to record game footage.

Interestingly, the graphics card lies in the keyboard unit, which means you will lose some horsepower while it's unplugged — at a likely gain to battery life.

Plus, it has a super-quiet, backlit keyboard, Microsoft promises, with a great typing experience. It also sports a promised 12-hour battery life.

microsoft surface book

(Screenshot)

The idea of a laptop that's also a tablet isn't exactly new: PC manufacturers like Lenovo have for some time been making similar "convertible" units that fold in on themselves to become a laptop.

But by making the keyboard detachable, and by giving it a ton of horsepower, it seems Microsoft has been really thinking through the design of this device.

microsoft surface book

(Screenshot)

Windows 10 Mobile roll out begins this December

2015-10-07T15:11:00.005-07:00

Microsoft has announced through their Lumia Facebook page that the global rollout of Windows 10 Mobile will begin this December, bringing the company's completely revamped mobile operating system to older Windows Phones before the end of the year.

The statement from a Microsoft representative on Windows 10 Mobile upgrades is as follows:

Windows 10 is available on PCs and tablets now, and while Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL ship with Windows 10 for phones, broad availability of Windows 10 on other devices, including mobile phones, will begin rolling out in December.

As Windows 10 Mobile won't be coming to older Windows Phones until December, there will be a short period of time where the new Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL are the only devices running the new OS. Microsoft has already announced that both their new flagships will be hitting the market in November, and of course they'll come pre-loaded with Windows 10 Mobile.

It's not completely clear which Windows Phones will get an upgrade to Windows 10, but Microsoft are hoping to upgrade "the majority of Lumia smartphones" to the new OS in the near future. Unfortunately Windows 10 Mobile does require 8 GB of internal storage, so there are already some low-end handsets, such as the Lumia 530, that won't be eligible for an upgrade.

Not every Windows Phone will support every Windows 10 Mobile feature, either. Windows Hello and Continuum will require new hardware in the majority of cases, while naturally some features will only be available on flagship devices. However judging by early builds, Windows 10 Mobile runs pretty well on a wide variety of hardware, and there will be enough new features to make it worth upgrading to on any compatible device.

Are Suck in your drupal Site Development? You most see this...

2015-10-07T08:59:00.001-07:00

How to recover drupal password in localhost?

You can update the password via mysql. You can run the following query in mysql to update password. The given hashed value is the hashed value of password: NewPassword

UPDATE users SET pass = '$S$DRSUIz9NFfxOXKPveQ00UTGMzsJe62LjYvVHfYJ8I8wuy4zRqVBK' WHERE uid = 1;

Clear flood table

If you have reset password either by using script or "request new password" but still receive "Sorry, there have been more than 5 failed login attempts for this account. It is temporarily blocked." then you may delete the corresponding entry in flood table.

This flood table records username and ip which has failed login attempts.

Reviewed: The Thinnest, Loveliest MacBook You’ll Never Buy

2015-04-21T14:10:00.001-07:00

Reviewed: The Thinnest, Loveliest MacBook You’ll Never Buy

It’s so easy to blast Apple for sacrificing utility in the name of beautiful design. Everybody does it every time a new Apple product comes out.

The iPhone, 2007: “No keys! No memory card! No removable battery! Doomed!”

The MacBook Air, 2008: “No DVD drive! No hard drive! Doomed!”

The iPad, 2010: “No USB ports! No expansion! Doomed!”

But time passes. The tumult dies down, the product becomes a huge hit, and rival companies soon embrace exactly the same design.

This Friday, you’ll be able to buy the company’s latest product, the MacBook. Not the MacBook Air, not the MacBook Pro (both of which will remain for sale). Just MacBook.

Yes, the cycle of “Doomed!” is about to begin again. I know this cycle too well. I’ve lived through it over and over. And even so, this time, when I behold this new 12-inch MacBook, I want to shout: “This time, you’ve really gone too far!”

I mean, no jacks at all!?

That’s correct. No standard USB jacks, no video output jacks, no memory card slot, no Thunderbolt port, no Ethernet.

On top of all that, Apple has the gall to introduce another MacBook power connector. With this model, Apple has abandoned the MagSafe connector (both versions of it), the magnetic charging plug that doesn’t drag your laptop to the floor when someone trips on it.

When Apple unveiled MagSafe, Steve Jobs hailed it as a triumph of clever engineering and common sense. And now suddenly MagSafe is dropped like chopped liver.

Meet the MacBook

OK, well, that’s the bad news.

The good news is that this laptop looks amazing. It is crazy thin, light, and small. It’s available in three aluminum hues (a first for Apple) — standard silver, gold, and gray. The gray looks wicked great.

How crazy thin is the MacBook? Thin enough to make the MacBook Air look like a fatso. This laptop is half an inch thick at its thickest point — closed. Here are some comparisons:

How crazy light is it? Under two pounds. So light, you go through a momentary panic every time you leave a restaurant with your bag,because you assume you’ve left your laptop behind. No, it’s in there; you just can’t feel it.

How crazy small? The guy in the airplane seat in front of you can recline all the way, and you can still have your MacBook open at whatever angle you like, with room to spare on the tray table.

Here it is, next to the current MacBook Air:

The MacBook is a sleek, beautiful physical object that’s dangerously close to nonexistent.

The big four

Once you open the lid, you discover more good news: Apple didn’t skimp on any of the Big Four: Screen, keyboard, trackpad, and battery.

* Screen. The MacBook has one of Apple’s super-high-resolution Retina displays (226 dots per inch), appearing on a compact MacBook for the first time. (And no, you still can’t get a Retina screen on a MacBook Air.)

The resolution is 2304 by 1440 pixels, which is much greater than the 1440 by 900 on a current 13-inch MacBook Air. So many pixels in so small a space (12 inches diagonal) makes text so sharp, you could cut tomatoes with it.

* Keyboard. Apple has developed a new keyboard that it says makes the keys wobble less when you’re typing. You don’t really hear people complain about wobbly keys much, so I’m not sure what this is all about.

But the main thing is that the keys are full size. (In fact, they’re actually bigger than the keys on other MacBooks, and there’s less gap between them.) Apple created such a small laptop without sacrificing keyboard size by eliminating the pointless margin around the deck. The keyboard stretches edge to edge.

Typing feels a little different, but you get used to it quickly.

Every key now has its own LED light, too — instead of sharing a single light source inside, as in other MacBooks. That’s supposed to provide more even keyboard lighting, but I’m not sure you’d notice.

One thing you will notice is that the Apple logo on the open lid no longer glows. It’s just a silver Apple.

* Trackpad. The trackpad is new, too. It’s huge. And it’s no longer hinged at the top; now you can click on it anywhere (instead of just the lower part). In fact, it doesn’t really click at all. You feel a click, thanks to an electromagnetic fakeout underneath, but the trackpad surface never actually moves.

It’s also — get this — pressure-sensitive, a first in an Apple trackpad. This is a big deal, a whole new user-interface element. Pressing down harder makes you fast-forward faster in a QuickTime movie, or zoom in Maps.

You can also force click (click hard) on an email attachment to get a Quick Look preview of it, on a date and time in a message to create a new calendar event for it, on a word to find out what it means, or on an address to open it up in Maps.

Pressure sensitivity is also an element on the Apple Watch’s screen, and I’ll bet it’ll come to iPhones and iPads soon enough. Apple just updated its 13-inch MacBook Pro with this trackpad, and it will likely come to other models eventually.

* Battery. Incredibly, the new MacBook really does get the 9-hour life Apple promises. To pull that off, Apple had to shrink the guts down to a tiny circuit board huddled at one edge — surrounded by an entire ocean of batteries.

To fit into the MacBook’s tapered case without wasting any space, Apple designed them in thin slices, terracing them. Crazy.

About those jacks

And now, back to the painful part: the MacBook’s appalling lack of jacks.

There’s a headphone jack on the right side. Good.

On the left, there’s only one connector, a new one called USB-C.

USB Type C was concocted by a consortium of Google, Apple, and others. It’s tiny — about the same size as a micro USB, so it’s small enough to be built into tablets and phones as well as laptops.

Unlike today’s USB, there’s no wrong side up to these connectors (just like Apple’s new Lightning connector), and the cables are the same on both ends (which is completely new, even for Apple).

READ: Can Your New MacBook’s USB-C Port Be Hacked? You Bet.

Even more amazing: USB-C can conduct power, and video, and data. This single jack, in other words, can accommodate your power adapter, your external monitor or projector, and your hard drives and flash drives. With the right adapter, it can even do all of thatsimultaneously.

And once all companies’ laptops move to USB-C power cords, they’ll all be interchangeable, no matter what brand or model you have.

OK, that’s all fantastic. But if USB-C is so great, why does Apple give us only one of them?

Without buying a splitter/adapter, you cannot connect this MacBook to a monitor, hard drive, or flash drive while it’s plugged in.

I’ll wait here while you let that sink in.

I mean, hasn’t Apple finally gone too far with this streamlining business? Isn’t this a stripping-down that the public will finally reward with hostility?

Apple cheerfully points out that if you live exclusively in an Apple world, you don’t need any physical connections — everything can be wireless. Why would you need a hard drive when you could buy space on Apple’s Internet-based iCloud Drive, or back up wirelessly to a Time Capsule? Why would you need a flash drive when you can use AirDrop to send files to another Mac? Why would you need a video-output jack when you can send video wirelessly to an Apple TV?

If you foolishly choose to live in a world where non-Apple devices occasionally appear, well, then you can buy USB-C-to-USB-A adapter cable ($20 from Apple), or a splitter that let you connect to power, a monitor, and one standard USB device simultaneously ($80).

But what about people who routinely pop cameras’ memory cards into the SD slots on the other MacBook models? What about people who regularly give presentations on a projector? What are you going to do the next time someone hands you a flash drive?

If you have the new MacBook, you’ll do a lot of fumbling for adapters from your laptop bag.

What else is lost

To keep its battery life up and its heat down (the MacBook contains no fan), the new computer comes with a slower processor than other MacBook lines: the Intel Core M.

You can certainly be productive reading, typing, spreadsheeting, and watching videos. But you pay a speed penalty when you open a program. In a series of app-opening races against my year-old MacBook Air (Core i7), the new MacBook lost every time, and sometimes by a lot. A program that opens on the Air in 4 seconds might take 7 or 8 seconds on the newer laptop.

You’ll also notice the difference in labor-intensive tasks like applying Photoshop filters and exporting video.

And the price for all of this beauty, sparseness, and slowness? $1,300 (1.1 GHz processor, 256 gigabytes of storage) or $1,600 (1.2 GHz processor, 512 GB of storage).

For the same $1,300, you can get a MacBook Air with the same memory (8 GB) and storage (256 GB), but a much faster processor (1.6 GHz Intel i5) and a full array of ports.

The new MacBook is really small and thin and great-looking. I mean, you could practically fold it into a paper airplane. And when the FedEx man arrives, he can slip it under your front door.

But unless you’re a well-heeled executive who doesn’t do much besides write, email, and surf the Web, the price you pay — in speed, utility, and, yes, price — is just too high.

We know what this is: This is the 2008 MacBook Air. Today, the MacBook Air is frequently cited as the best laptop on the market — but the first model, in 2008, was also called overpriced, underpowered, and amazing-looking. In the same way, the 12-inch MacBooks of 2016 and 2017 will lose their flaws, enter a new era of USB-C compatibility, and seem much more at home in a more wireless world.

Even Apple is allowed to start with a 1.0 version. But you don’t have to buy it.

New aluminum battery for smartphones can be charged in a minute

2015-04-08T14:48:00.001-07:00

New aluminum battery for smartphones can be charged in a minute

Reuters

April 7, 2015

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. scientists said they have invented a cheap, long-lasting and flexible battery made of aluminum for use in smartphones that can be charged in as little as one minute.

The researchers, who detailed their discovery in the journal Nature, said the new aluminum-ion battery has the potential to replace lithium-ion batteries, used in millions of laptops and mobile phones.

Besides recharging much faster, the new aluminum battery is safer than existing lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames, they added.

Researchers have long tried but failed to develop a battery made of aluminum, a lightweight and relatively inexpensive metal that has high charging capacity.

A team lead by chemistry professor Hongjie Dai at Stanford University in California made a breakthrough by accidentally discovering that graphite made a good partner to aluminum, Stanford said in a statement.

In a prototype, aluminum was used to make the negatively-charged anode while graphite provided material for the positively charged cathode.

A prototype aluminum battery recharged in one minute, the scientists said.

"Lithium-ion batteries can be a fire hazard," said Dai. "Our new battery won't catch fire, even if you drill through it."

The new battery is also very durable and flexible, the scientists said.

While lithium-ion batteries last about 1,000 cycles, the new aluminum battery was able to continue after more than 7,500 cycles without loss of capacity. It also can be bent or folded.

Larger aluminum batteries could also be used to store renewable energy on the electrical grid, Dai said.

(Reporting by Eric Onstad, editing by David Evans)

How to Do a Word Search on Webpages with iPhone and iPad

2015-04-04T02:59:00.003-07:00

How to Do a Word Search on Webpages with iPhone and iPad

Yoni Heisler, BGRApril 2, 2015

If you’re an iPhone or iPad user, odds are that you use mobile Safari to do all of your web browsing. But buried underneath all all of the more overt browsing options is a hidden way to search an individual webpage for a specific word or phrase.

Here’s how you can find it and use it to your heart’s content.

DON’T MISS: Dual-core iPhone 6 graphics performance crushes Samsung’s octa-core Galaxy S6

Let’s say I hop on over to NBA.com and want to quickly scan the page for any stories involving, say, Kevin Durant. Instead of tediously scrolling through the entire webpage and hoping to spot a story of interest, iOS provides a clever way to do all of the heavy lifting for you.

To get started, simply apply a single tap to the URL bar, highlighted below.

Once the URL bar becomes highlighted, you can begin typing in your search phrase which, in this case, is “Durant.”

Next, you’re presented with what appears to be a standard Safari search results page. Clearly these are of no help.

But here’s where things get cool.

Simply scroll further down on the page and you’re soon presented with a previously hidden category which lists out all of the instances in which “Durant” is found on the webpage in question.

Boom. There it is.

Following that, simply tap on “durant” and you’re whisked back to the NBA.com homepage and all of the instances of “Durant” on the open page will be highlighted in yellow. What’s more, iOS makes it easy to navigate between each instance of the word simply by tapping the arrow keys on the lower left hand side of the display.

For a feature that’s as useful and widely used as in-page search, one would think that Apple would advertise this functionality just a little bit more. Either way, this handy tip should help save some time you might otherwise spend searching and slogging through a massive webpage with tiny text.

How to boost your WiFi speed by choosing the right channel

2015-03-29T19:36:00.002-07:00

How to boost your WiFi speed by choosing the right channel

By Jamie Lendino on March 26, 2015 at 2:18 pm
36 Comments

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Wireless networks have come a long way in the past 15 years. And yet, sustained WiFi speeds are still a vexing problem in a lot of situations. A number of things can come into play, such as the way your router is set up, whether there’s nearby interference, if you live in an apartment building or a separate house, and how far apart your devices are from the router. Fortunately, there’s always a way to fix slow transfer speeds.
If you’ve ever messed around with your WiFi router’s settings, you’ve probably seen the word channel. Most routers have the channel set to Auto, but I’m sure many of us have looked through that list of a dozen or so channels and wondered what they are, and more importantly, which of the channels are faster than the others. Well, it turns out some channels are indeed much faster — but that doesn’t mean you should go ahead and change them just yet. Read on to find out more about 802.11 channels, interference, and the massive difference between 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi.

Channels 1, 6, and 11

First of all, let’s talk about 2.4GHz, because as of the start of 2015, almost all WiFi installations still use the 2.4GHz band. 802.11ac, which debuted in 2013, is driving adoption of 5GHz — but thanks to backwards compatibility and dual-radio routers and devices, 2.4GHz will continue to reign for a while.

All of the versions of WiFi up to and including 802.11n (a, b, g, n) operate between the frequencies of 2400 and 2500MHz. These paltry 100MHz are separated into 14 channels of 20MHz each. As you’ve probably worked out, 14 lots of 20MHz is a lot more than 100MHz — and as a result, every 2.4GHz channel overlaps with at least two (but usually four) other channels (see diagram above). As you can probably imagine, using overlapping channels is bad — in fact, it’s the primary reason for awful throughput on your wireless network.
Fortunately, channels 1, 6, and 11 are spaced far enough apart that they don’t overlap. On a non-MIMO setup (i.e. 802.11 a, b, or g) you should always try to use channel 1, 6, or 11. If you use 802.11n with 20MHz channels, stick to channels 1, 6, and 11 — if you want to use 40MHz channels, be aware that the airwaves might be very congested, unless you live in a detached house in the middle of nowhere.

What channel should you use in a built-up area?

If you want maximum throughput and minimal interference, channels 1, 6, and 11 are your best choice — but depending on other wireless networks in your vicinity, one of those channels might be a much better choice than the others.
For example, if you’re using channel 1, but someone next door is annoyingly using channel 2, then your throughput will plummet. In that situation, you would have to change to channel 11 to completely avoid the interference (though 6 would be pretty good as well). It might be tempting to use a channel other than 1, 6, or 11 — but remember that you will then be the cause of interference (and everyone on 1, 6, and 11 will stomp on your throughput, anyway).
In an ideal world, you would talk to your neighbors and get every router to use channels 1, 6, or 11. Bear in mind that interior walls do a pretty good job of attenuating (weakening) a signal. If there’s a brick wall between you and a neighbor, you could probably both use channel 1 without interfering with each other. But if it’s a thin wall (or there’s lots of windows), you should use different channels.
There are tools that can help you find the clearest channel, such as Vistumbler, but it’s probably easier to just switch between channels 1, 6, and 11 until you find one that works well. (If you have two laptops, you can copy a file between them to test the throughput of each channel.)

But what about 5GHz?

Get ready for lots of antennas.

The great thing about 5GHz (802.11n and 802.11ac), because there’s much more free space at the higher frequencies, is that it offers 23 non-overlapping 20MHz channels!
It’s also worth pointing out that, starting with 802.11n, wireless technology in general is a lot more advanced than the olden days of 802.11b and g. If you own a modern 802.11n router (i.e. if you bought a router in the last couple of years), it likely has some fancy hardware inside that chooses the right channel and modifies the output power to maximize throughput and minimize interference.
If you’re using the 5GHz band, and your walls aren’t paper-thin, then attenuation and the general lack of 5GHz devices should mean there’s very little interference in your apartment — possibly even allowing you to use the fatter 40, 80, and 160MHz channels if you feel like it.
Eventually, as everyone upgrades to newer hardware and moves towards 5GHz, picking the right channel will mostly become a thing of the past. There may still be some cases where it makes sense to fine-tune your router’s channel selection. But when you’re dealing with MIMO setups (up to eight in 802.11ac), it’s generally a better idea to let your router do its own thing. Eventually, of course, 5GHz will fill up as well — but hopefully by then, we’ll have worked out how to use even higher frequencies (60GHz WiGig) or entirely new antenna designs (pCells, infinite capacity vortex beams) to cope with our wireless networking demands.
Sebastian Anthony contributed to this report.

Asus Transformer Book T300 Chi review

2015-03-29T19:29:00.004-07:00

Asus Transformer Book T300 Chi review

Where Chi stands for compromise

By Dan Seifert
on March 23, 2015 12:00 am
Email
@dcseifert

Take a look at the side profile of your laptop. Chances are, it's anywhere from a half an inch to an inch thick, replete with a handful of USB ports, a power plug, headphone jack, and maybe an SD card slot. I can all but guarantee that it's thicker than the laptop I'm currently using to write this article, Asus' Transformer Book T300 Chi. The $699 T300 Chi ($899 as tested) is a sliver of a computer, closer in size to the average tablet than a full-blown laptop.
In fact, the T300 has a lot more in common with an iPad than an ultrabook. As with many Windows 8.1 machines, it's a convertible laptop, with a detachable keyboard and full touchscreen. But unlike many other convertibles, the T300's tablet portion is only 7.6mm thick and it doesn't have any full-size USB ports, HDMI ports, or SD card slots. Like Microsoft's Surface Pro 3, all of the T300's major components are crammed into the tablet area, including its 12.5-inch, 2560 x 1440 pixel IPS display, Core M processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB SSD. The Core M processor lets the T300 do away with the fans (just like Apple's upcoming new MacBook) and gives it that tablet-like profile. When attached to its Bluetooth keyboard, the T300 is still only 16.5mm thick, though the combined 3.14lbs of the two parts is more laptop-like than tablet-like.

In place of the standard ports you might expect to find on a laptop, the T300 has one Micro USB port, one Micro HDMI port, and a microSD slot hidden on its bottom edge. That means connecting any peripherals requires the use of adaptors, whether you just want to plug in a standard thumb drive, output video to an external display, or use a wired mouse. Those are the compromises that come with such a thin computer, and Apple's upcoming MacBook will require jumping through many of the same hoops.
But there are other compromises with the T300 that make it tough to use as a daily machine. The Bluetooth keyboard (which is included and matches the main computer's attractive, but fingerprint prone sapphire blue finish) offers a large layout, but the keys are shallow and don't have backlighting. The deck below the keyboard is very short and isn't enough to support my hands for long periods of time. And the trackpad, while responsive to both single and multi-touch gestures, is very small and tedious to use. The two halves of the T300 connect with magnets, but unlike the Surface Pro 3, they don't talk to each other through the attachment point. The keyboard communicates with the main tablet part strictly via Bluetooth, which means there is often an annoying delay as the keyboard wakes up and pairs with the tablet when I open the computer and type in my password. Further, the T300 Chi has a slight wobble when it's on a flat surface and the screen is tilted all the way back (which isn't very far).
The T300 Chi is a study in compromises Like so many other Windows 8.1 convertibles, the T300 is also rather awkward to use as a tablet. It's over one and a half pounds without the keyboard, and its large display combined with fat bezels make it much more clumsy to use than an iPad Air 2. The 12.5-inch, 16:9 screen works best in landscape mode, and while it has lots of resolution and wide viewing angles, there is uneven backlighting that's distracting and hard to ignore. Combined with the fact that Windows 8.1 is better suited for desktop environments than as a tablet interface, the T300 is best thought of as a laptop that can work as a tablet in a pinch, not the other way around.

The Core M processor in my review unit is clocked at 1.2GHz and combined with the 8GB of RAM on tap, has no trouble handling most basic computing tasks. It surely won't play any modern 3D games, but working in Chrome, Word, and other Windows 8.1 apps is no issue. I'm able to have as many tabs open in Chrome as I need without the system grinding to a halt, and switching between apps is quick and painless. I often forgot that I was using a computer that was more tablet than laptop, though the heat from the back of the T300 was enough to remind me that this is a full-blown Windows 8.1 machine and not a crippled charlatan faking the role.
In addition to the heat, the speed and power in the T300 Chi come with less battery life than you'd expect from a tablet or even a modern ultrabook. The T300 lasted for 6 hours and 38 minutes in our rundown test, and in normal usage of browsing the web in Chrome, chatting with coworkers in Slack, and typing in Microsoft Word, the battery would kick the bucket in about five hours. That's a lot less than the iPad Air 2 musters, and it's far behind what you can get with the Surface Pro 3, which might be the T300's closest analogue in terms of performance and design (if not price). The T300 could be the ultimate road warrior's computer, but its average battery life make it hard to go all day away from an outlet.

Many have looked at Apple's upcoming MacBook as the future of laptop computers, even if it's too forward-thinking for where we are today. The T300 Chi is very similar to the MacBook in many respects: it's incredibly thin, solidly built, and attractive to look at. It also comes with many of the same compromises as the MacBook, namely a lack of port options. But the T300 does things differently than the MacBook will, and its attempt to be both a laptop and tablet at the same time don't do it any favors.
I'd love to have a Windows ultrabook that's as thin and powerful as the T300, but doesn't pretend to be anything else. Give me a full laptop chassis in place of the detachable keyboard, longer battery life, and a slightly better display with the bezels of Dell's XPS 13 and I'd have a machine that I could easily use all day. The T300 is close, and as a taste of the future, it's pretty cool, but it's not quite there yet.

Facebook Invites App Devs to Join in Messenger Family Planning

2015-03-28T18:26:00.002-07:00

Facebook Invites App Devs to Join in Messenger Family Planning

By John P. Mello Jr.
03/27/15 12:39 PM PT

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week told an audience at the F8 conference for Facebook developers that the company's future lies in its family of apps and in giving the network's members the ability to share what they want, where they want.

"We're building this family so we can offer unique, world-class experiences for all of the ways that people want to share," Zuckerberg told some 2,000 developers attending the forum in San Francisco.
That shift from a single service to a family of applications is a significant one, he added. "Moving from just being a single service to a family of world-class apps for helping people share in different ways is the biggest shift that we've made in our strategy of helping to connect people in many years."

New Platform

A key part of Facebook's future strategy will be its new Messenger Platform.
"As Messenger has grown, we think this service has the potential to help people express themselves in new ways, to connect hundreds of millions of new people, and to become a really important communication tool for the world," Zuckerberg said.
In the past, only Facebook could add new features to Messenger. That's changing with Messenger Platform, which allows developers to create apps that hook into Messenger, he explained.
In addition, the platform can be used by businesses to communicate directly with their customers through Messenger.
"Helping people communicate more naturally with businesses is going to improve, I think, almost every person's life," Zuckerberg said.
With Messenger Platform, it almost seems Facebook is creating another mobile operating system, noted Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research.
"It's seems to be building an operating system on top of the existing operating systems," he told TechNewsWorld.
The platform will improve the workflow between apps by making it easier to share data among them. "Consumers will have a richer experience," Dawson said.

Competitive Pressure

Expanding Messenger's capabilities may be a market necessity.
"They had to do something to make Messenger more relevant compared to the other solutions out there that people have adopted and are more flexible," said Jim McGregor, founder and principal analyst with Tirias Research.
"They're trying to give Messenger all the features the other messenger apps have and doing more by reaching out to e-commerce. It's an aggressive goal -- especially when you're trying to pull e-commerce into it -- but Facebook is an aggressive company," he told TechNewsWorld.
"They're going to need a lot of support for this," he added, "because they're not just asking consumers to use this, but they want businesses to use it. That's a huge challenge."
Messaging is a popular worldwide phenomenon that Facebook wants to fully exploit.
"It's trying to make Messenger a more vital, broader tool," said Greg Sterling, vice president of strategy and insight for the Local Search Association.
Although Zuckerberg touted the "family of apps" approach as the best way to meet all Facebook followers' needs, it may be a way to cope with future uncertainties in the market.
"They're hedging, to some degree, for the future," Sterling told TechNewsWorld.
"These apps have different fan bases, so it's a diversification strategy," he explained. "If they absorbed the apps into the Facebook app, it would have destroyed a lot of their value."

Embedded Video

In addition to announcing Messenger Platform, Facebook unveiled new ways to embed video into outside websites. That's an especially attractive feature for professional publishers on Facebook.
"If you're a publisher and you've got great video on Facebook, you want the most distribution you can get," said Gareth Capon, CEO of Grabyo.
"As long as you're happy seeing that video shared everywhere, you'll be happy to embed that video on third-party sites where you can get additional consumption," he told TechNewsWorld. "The best part of embedded content is you still have control of it, so if you want to expire that content or remove it, you can do that through the Facebook platform."
Facebook also released a software development kit for its Parse platform for the Internet of Things.
With that step, Facebook is showing it's ready to compete with other big players, like Apple, Samsung and Google, who already are preparing for an explosion of IoT devices in the coming years.

CAPTCHAs May Do More Harm Than Good

2015-03-28T18:25:00.002-07:00

CAPTCHAs May Do More Harm Than Good

CAPTCHAs -- those misshapen funhouse mirror letters you have to decipher in order to gain access to various online tools -- are so annoying to some people that they'd rather turn their back on a website than fiddle with them. Worse yet, CAPTCHAs don't always work. "CAPTCHAs can stop most bots, but the worst bots know how to get past CAPTCHA," said Distil Networks CEO Rami Essaid.

By John P. Mello Jr.
03/26/15 11:08 AM PT

If an annoyance contest were held between passwords and CAPTCHAs, passwords would probably win, but not by much.

CAPTCHA -- Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart -- was created to foil bots attempting to mass-create accounts at websites. Once created, those accounts could be exploited by online lowlifes for malicious ends, such as spewing spam. However there are signs that the technology that uses distressed letters to weed out machines from humans may have outlived its usefulness.
When users are presented with a CAPTCHA, they are 12 percent less likely, on average, to continue with what they came to do at the website, according to a Distil Networks study released earlier this month.
That number is even worse for mobile users, who abandon their intended activity 27 percent of the time they're confronted with a CAPTCHA, the study suggests.
"If it causes too much friction for a checkout or a transaction, it could cost a website real dollars and cents or users," Distil CEO and cofounder Rami Essaid told TechNewsWorld.

Better Bots

Distil got the idea for the CAPTCHA study from one of its customers.
"They were trying to solve a fraud problem," Essaid said. "When they put in their CAPTCHA, it dramatically decreased their conversions by over 20 percent."
So Distil decided to study the problem.
"We wanted to see if that was unique to that company or if people were annoyed by CAPTCHAs to the point that they abandon any interaction that they're doing," Essaid said. "The results shocked me. I didn't think they'd be as dramatic as they were."
The wide gap between desktop and mobile abandonment is largely a usability issue, he said.
"CAPTCHAs were created for desktops. We've never seen one fully designed for mobile, and that impacts users much more," Essaid explained.
The kicker to CAPTCHAs is that their purpose -- to block bots -- has become problematic.
"Bots have evolved to a point where they can solve the CAPTCHAs," Essaid pointed out. "CAPTCHAs can stop most bots, but the worst bots know how to get past CAPTCHA."

Bad Cert

Microsoft issued a security advisory last week alerting Windows users that a rogue certificate had been issued that could be used to spoof the company's Live services.
"Microsoft is aware of an improperly issued SSL certificate for the domain 'live.fi' that could be used in attempts to spoof content, perform phishing attacks, or perform man-in-the-middle attacks," the advisory reads.
"It cannot be used to issue other certificates, impersonate other domains, or sign code," it continues. "This issue affects all supported releases of Microsoft Windows. Microsoft is not currently aware of attacks related to this issue."
Certificates increasingly have become targets for cybercriminals, noted Kevin Bocek, vice president for security strategy and threat intelligence at Venafi.
"Bad guys are not only trying to steal certificates, but use fraud to obtain them, too," he told TechNewsWorld.
"There are over 200 public Certificate Authorities trusted around the world," he explained, "and at any one time, any could be attacked to obtain a valid certificate."
Microsoft has taken actions to thwart anyone trying to use the illicit cert, but those measures only work on its products. Since the cert will work in other products, it's up to maker of those products to update them to block recognition of the cert.

Mobile FREAK-out

Earlier this month, researchers discovered a vulnerability in SSL implementations called "FREAK." It allows an attacker to force SSL to stop using 128-bit encryption and start using 40-bit encryption, which can be cracked in a matter of hours using commodity computers or readily available cloud computing resources.
Most of the attention on FREAK has been focused on its impact on browser communication, but last week, researchers at FireEye found a substantial number of mobile apps are vulnerable to the SSL flaw.
After scanning 10,985 popular Google Play Android apps with more than 1 million downloads each, the researchers found 11.2 percent of them vulnerable to a FREAK attack.
A similar analysis of 14,079 iOS apps revealed that 5.5 percent of them vulnerable to FREAK.
"This is a problem of a client or server being able to say, 'I don't want to do this really secure thing, let's do something less secure,'" said Jared DeMott, principal security researcher at Bromium.
While that sounds serious, exploiting the flaw isn't a piece of cake. "You need to be in a position to sit on the traffic, and you still have to decrypt the downloaded encryption, even if it isn't very good," he told TechNewsWorld.
"That's the kind of thing you'd expect to see organized players doing -- a nation state or big crime ring," he said. "I don't know if it's going to have a big impact on individual consumers."

Breach Diary

March 17. Premera Blue Cross of Mountlake Terrace, Washington, reveals a data breach has placed at risk personal information of some 11 million customers. Intrusion took place on May 5, 2015, but was not discovered until Jan. 29 of this year.
March 17. Advantage Dental, of Redmond, Washington, reports that information on more than 151,000 patients is at risk after a data breach lasting three days in February. An employee's credentials were compromised and used for unauthorized access to a membership database.
March 17. FireEye researchers Yulong Zhang, Hui Xue, Tao Wei and Zhaofeng Chen report 11.2 percent of popular Android apps and 5.5 percent of popular iOS apps are vulnerable to a FREAK attack, in which HTTPS traffic can be forced to use a weak form of encryption.
March 17. Microsoft warns that a certificate for the live.fi domain has been improperly issued and can be used for malicious purposes such as website spoofing and hijacking Internet traffic.
March 17. American Federation of Teachers demands Pearson Education come clean about its monitoring of students' social media to protect the integrity of its testing materials. Pearson says it is contractually obligated by the states it does business with to monitor social media posts to make sure students do not disclose test questions.
March 17. Microsoft announces Windows 10 will include Hello, which allows a user to log into a computer or other device through biometric authentication such as facial, iris or fingerprint recognition.
March 19. Federal Judge Paul A. Magnuson grants preliminary approval of US$10 million settlement of data breach class action lawsuit against Target. In 2013, data thieves stole payment card and personal information of some 101 million Target customers.
March 19. Security researcher Laxman Muthiyah posts blog item describing vulnerability in Facebook's mobile app that can be exploited to steal photos stored in the software.

Upcoming Security Events

March 30. New Account Fraud -- Understanding Fraudsters Behavioral Prints. 2 p.m. ET. Webinar sponsored by BioCatch. Free with registration.
March 31. Monitoring for Network Security. 1 p.m. ET. Webinar sponsored by ThousandEyes. Free with registration.
April 1. SecureWorld Kansas City. Kansas City Convention Center, 301 West 13th Street #100, Kansas City, Missouri. Registration: open sessions pass, $25; conference pass, $75; SecureWorld plus training, $545.
April 11. B-Sides Nashville. Lipscomb University, Nashville, Tennessee. Fee: $10.
April 11-12. B-Sides Charm. Howard Community College, Gateway Building, Charles I. Ecker Business Training Center, 6751 Columbia Gateway Drive, Columbia, Maryland. Fee: TBD.
April 11-12. B-Sides Orlando. University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., Orlando, Fla. Fee: $20.
April 17-18. B-Sides Algiers. Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Informatique, Oued Smar, Algiers, Algeria. Free.
April 18. B-Sides Oklahoma. Hard Rock Casino, 777 W. Cherokee St., Catoosa, Oklahoma. Free.
April 19-20. B-Sides San Francisco. 135 Bluxome St., San Francisco. Registration: $20, plus $2.09 fee.
April 20-24. RSA USA 2015. Moscone Center, San Francisco. Registration: before March 21, $1,895; after March 20, $2,295; after April 17, $2,595.
April 25. B-Sides Rochester. German House, 315 Gregory St., Rochester, New York. Free.
April 29. Dark Reading's Security Crash Course. Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Las Vegas, Nevada. Registration: through March 20, $899; March 21-April 24, $999; April 25-29, $1,099.
May 6-7. Suits and Spooks London. techUK, 10 Saint Bride St., London. Registration: government/military, $305; members, $486; industry, $571.
June 8-10. SIA Government summit 2015. W Hotel, Washington, D.C. Meeting Fees: members, $595; nonmember, $795.
June 8-11. Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit. Gaylord National, 201 Waterfront St., National Harbor, Maryland. Registration: before April 11, $2,795; after April 10, standard $2,995, public sector $2,595.
June 16-17. Black Hat Mobile Security Summit. ExCel London, London, UK. Registration: before April 11, Pounds 400; before June 16, Pounds 500; after June 15, Pounds 600.
August 1-6. Black Hat USA. Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, Nevada. Registration: before June 6, $1,795; before July 25, $2,195; after July 24, $2,595.
Sept. 28-Oct. 01. ASIS 2015. Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, California. Registration: through May 31--member, $895; non-member, $1,150; government, $945; student, $300; June 1-August 31--$995, $1,250, $1,045, $350; Sept. 1-Oct. 1--$1,095, $1,350, $1,145, $400.

Are You Addicted to Your Smartphone? Read These 12 Sentences to Find Out

2015-03-28T18:16:00.002-07:00

Are You Addicted to Your Smartphone? Read These 12 Sentences to Find Out

Dr. James Roberts, Baylor UniversityFebruary 13, 2015

It’s hard to imagine life without smartphones. For many Americans, it’s the first thing they see after waking and the last thing they check before falling asleep.

Sixty-eight percent of adult Americans sleep with their cellphones next to their beds. A majority text or talk while driving. A Harris Interactive poll shows that a third check their phones during movies. Twenty percent do this during church. Nearly 10 percent have admitted to checking their phones during intimate moments. Some take selfies with the dearly departed at funerals. And a new trend of taking a selfie while on the toilet, aka the “poopie,” has emerged.

So is there such a thing as cellphone addiction?

Yes.

Cellphone addiction is in the same family as other technology addictions, such as computers and gaming, which are all part of a larger family of behavioral addictions (to gambling, exercise, sex, etc.). Anything that can produce pleasure in your brain has the potential of becoming addictive. Loss of control is the essential element of any addiction.

Research has identified the “six signs” of any type of substance or behavioral addiction. Those six signs – salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse – apply to cellphone addiction as well.

Are you addicted?

Let’s see.

Read the definitions of each of the six signs below and then agree or disagree with the following statements. By the time you’ve completed this task, you will have a better idea of whether you’ve reached your tipping point when it comes to your cellphone use.

Salience

A behavior becomes salient when it is deeply integrated into your daily routine.

1. The first thing I reach for after waking in the morning is my cellphone.

2. I would turn around and go back home on the way to work if I had left my cellphone at home.

Euphoria

Who knows what the beep, buzz, whistle, or stylized ringtone might have in store for you? The feeling of anticipation or excitement that precedes and/or follows the use of your cellphone is a mood modification that can result in euphoria.

3. I often use my cellphone when I am bored.

4. I have pretended to take calls to avoid awkward social situations.

Tolerance

As in the case of drug and alcohol abuse, tolerance addresses the need for an ever-increasing “dose” of the behavior to achieve the desired “high.”

5. I find myself spending more and more time on my cellphone.

6. I spend more time than I should on my cellphone.

Withdrawal symptoms

The feelings of irritability, stress, anxiousness, desperation, and even panic that often occur when you are separated from your cellphone are good examples of withdrawal symptoms.

7. I become agitated or irritable when my cellphone is out of sight.

8. I have gone into a panic when I thought I had lost my cellphone.

Conflict

A common outcome of cellphone addiction is conflict. Do your spouse or children complain that you are always on your phone? Do you allow texts, calls, and e-mails to spoil your vacations and personal time? Are your work activities interrupted by playing games, visiting Facebook, and countless other forms of entertainment offered on your cellphone?

9. I have argued with my spouse, friends, or family about my cellphone use.

10. I use my cellphone while driving my car.

Relapse

When we acknowledge that our cellphone use may be undermining our well-being, we attempt to stop. But then we slip back. We relapse.

11. I have tried to curb my cellphone use, but the effort didn’t last very long.

12. I need to reduce my cellphone use, but am afraid I can’t do it.

Are you addicted?

It’s time to see if you have crossed the tipping point from reasonable cellphone use to a potentially addictive habit. To calculate your score, simply add up the number of “agree” responses to each of the 12 statements and check the results.

8 + “Agrees”

You need a reservation at the Betty Ford Clinic for habitual cellphone users.

5-7 “Agrees”

You have crossed the tipping point and are moving quickly to full-blown cellphone addiction.

3-4 “Agrees”

You have not yet reached your tipping point, but need to carefully assess how your cellphone is influencing your life.

0-2 “Agrees”

You are either living in a monastery or have the patience and self-restraint of a monk. Alternatively, technology simply scares you.

Since cellphones (in some form) are likely here to stay, we all need to reach some kind of digital détente as how best to relate with the 21st-century equivalent of the security blanket. I am not so bold as to suggest that you go “cold turkey,” but we must all set aside times where we unplug from our digital devices and plug into what really matters – friends, family, and being in the moment.

Try it. You might like it.

James Roberts is the Ben H. Williams professor of marketing at Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business. He has spent much of his professional career studying the “dark side” of consumer behavior, including widely publicized research on cellphone addiction. Roberts’s book “Shiny Objects: Why We Spend Money We Don’t Have in Search of Happiness We Can’t Buy,” was published in 2011.

Can Hackers Really Take Over Your Car?

2015-03-28T18:14:00.001-07:00

Can Hackers Really Take Over Your Car?

Daniel HowleyTechnology ReporterFebruary 13, 2015

(ThinkStock)

It’s a dystopian scenario: You are driving down a mountain road, listening to Spotify through your car’s Bluetooth connection, when suddenly, your brakes fail and your car goes careening off the road. Your car has been hacked, and you didn’t even know it was happening.

That’s the nightmare hinted at in a scary report from Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, which was picked up by many news outlets. A segment on “60 Minutes” recently showed how effective and frightening car hacking could be. It featured reporter Lesley Stahl losing control over her car’s horn and brakes as a hacker clicked away on a nearby laptop.

Could it happen to you? Today, it is extraordinarily unlikely. Though automobile hacking is possible, it requires deep technical knowledge possessed only by a handful of academics and researchers. According to experts, the chances of your car being hacked while it sits in your garage, or while you’re driving it, is very, very low.

What is car hacking?

Your average new car is a rolling network of high-powered computers. It has a number of processors and wireless systems that allows it to do everything from getting you directions to your aunt’s house, to streaming music from your smartphone via Bluetooth, to making sure you don’t rear-end the car in front of you when it brakes suddenly.

(ThinkStock)

Like any network, cars are vulnerable to hacking: an intrusion from an outside source. That intrusion can be through something physically connected to the vehicle, or (more scary), a remote, wireless connection, over cellular, Bluetooth, or Wi-Fi.

What can someone do if they hack into a car?

As the recent “60 Minutes” report demonstrated, a dedicated hacker was able to manipulate a vehicle’s braking system, control the windshield wipers, and honk the horn by wirelessly hacking into a vehicle via its cellular connection.

There are also privacy concerns: A hacker could access a vehicle’s location information, allowing a criminal to determine where you have traveled and where your car is currently located.

How do these hacks work?

Let’s use the “60 Minutes” report as an example. That hack used the same methods employed by the University of Washington computer scientist Tadayoshi Kohno and his co-researchers at the University of California, San Diego in 2010.

(60 Minutes)

The team hacked a vehicle through its emergency 911 system — automotive blog Jalopnik figured out it was General Motor’s OnStar system — and managed to take control of some of the vehicle’s major systems, including the brakes.

They did this by dialing the car’s cellular number (all cell radios have one, but not all cars have cellular radios), flooding it with dial tones, thereby confusing the car’s computers, and then sending their own code to the car to take it over. It’s far more complicated than just that, but that’s the gist.

Can my car be hacked?

The truth is, like any computer system connected to the outside world, your car can theoretically be hacked. So far, however, there have been no reported instances of hackers taking over cars outside of controlled testing environments.

That still sounds terrifying. Should I be scared?

No.

Hacking a vehicle is still extremely complicated and requires a heck of a lot of technical know-how and time. This isn’t exactly getting a virus on your computer, after all. It’s far more complex.

(ThinkStock)

So far, nearly all incidents of automotive hacking have been performed by scientists, academics, and white-hat (good guy) hackers trying to prove there are vulnerabilities within cars, so automakers will take notice and plug any holes they find.

In fact, Tadayoshi Kohno at the University of Washington doesn’t even think this is something drivers should fear at the moment.

"I don’t think the average consumer has to stay awake at night worrying about this," he said.

Okay so why all the fuss?

The idea of scientists hacking into cars isn’t new. The original experiment proving the concept was possible is almost five years old.

Still, hacking a car is incredibly dangerous, because, unlike computers, cars are 2,000 pounds of metal hurling down the road at 65 miles per hour.

Whether or not a car has been hacked outside of a controlled setting doesn’t matter to researches. The very fact that it’s at all possible means they want automakers to take steps to better insulate their vehicles, no matter how difficult it may be to break into them.

(ThinkStock)

Right now, the good guys are winning. Not only is hacking a vehicle incredibly difficult, as Forbes’s Doug Newcomb points out in his piece on the topic, there’s also no financial incentive for hackers to bother.

Sure, hackers could remotely unlock a vehicle, but as Newcomb explains, they wouldn’t even be able to steal it, because, most new cars require key fobs to be within a certain range of the vehicle before the engine will fire.

We’d be more concerned about someone hacking a car in order to harm the occupants, but, again, there have been no reports of such incidents occurring.

So are automakers doing anything to protect future cars?

Yes. Thanks to the aforementioned research, and other tests like it, automakers are completely aware of the risks hackers could pose to their vehicle fleets.

It’s not just car manufacturers, either. Industry groups, computer scientists, and a host of others are also working to make cars less susceptible to hacking.

That doesn’t mean the governmental and industry watchdog groups shouldn’t be keeping the automakers on their toes. It does, however, mean the companies are well aware of the issue and working to mitigate it.

But what about those things that plug into my car, like Automatic?

Automatic, and other devices like Mojio, plug into your car’s onboard diagnostic (OBD) port and let you monitor your vehicle’s performance from a smartphone app. And while hackers have demonstrated that they can break into a vehicle by connecting to an OBD port, systems like Automatic or Mojio are still safe.

Automatic’s CEO Thejo Kote explained that his company uses banking-level 128-bit AES encryption when transmitting data and that each encryption key for cars using Automatic is different. So even if someone managed to hack a car with Automatic, they wouldn’t be able to access another Automatic user’s vehicle.

OK, so what can I do?

Keep driving your car like you always do. Stream your Spotify playlist, use your navigation system, and keep listening to your awful drive-time radio.

It’s important to be aware that, despite the minute chance of it happening, your car could be hacked in the future, just like you should be alert that your house could be broken into while you’re at work.

In reality, the chances of your car being hacked far smaller than your house being broken into, but it’s still worth keeping in mind.

So I’ll be fine while driving my car?

As long as you’re not driving through a Mad Max-style hellscape, or next to someone who’s talking on their phone, for now, you’ll be fine.

Android Malware Can Spy on You Even After Your Phone Is 'Shut Off'

2015-03-28T18:05:00.000-07:00

Android Malware Can Spy on You Even After Your Phone Is 'Shut Off'

Daniel BeanEditorial AssistantFebruary 20, 2015

It looks like a breakthrough in nefarious mobile device software: a newly discovered spyware program can actually track you after you’ve shut down your phone.

Well, after you think you’ve shut down your phone, anyway.

As spotted by the AVG anti-virus software company, the malware (which affects Android phones, and which does not yet have a catchy nickname) tricks phone owners into thinking that they’ve shut down their devices. Pressing the power button on an infected phone calls up a fake Power Off button onto the screen. When tapped, only the phone’s screen, sound alerts, and notification lights are actually powered off.

While in this state, the spyware can reportedly make calls, take pictures, and send and receive messages.

Yikes.

The malware is hidden inside some apps found on Chinese app markets. So, if you’re not downloading apps from third-party Chinese app markets, you’re probably safe.

We’ve heard reports of hackers, and even the government, looking through computer and smartphone cameras remotely without owners being any the wiser. But those types of hacks had to be performed while owners were aware their devices were powered on. The introduction of this new malware looks to ruin any piece of mind that you may have once gained after allegedly “shutting off” your phone.

The good news is that this creepy spyware isn’t something that has been, or probably ever will be, found in Google Play apps. Android has gone to great lengths to clamp down on fraudulent and malicious apps in its market, now scanning them both before and after you’ve installed them to your Galaxy, HTC One, Moto X, or whatever. So if you stick with the official Google app store, you should be safe from any of the above scariness.

And obviously, if that isn’t enough assurance for you, you can always resort to pulling your phone’s battery out anytime you want privacy. We’re pretty sure there will be no malware workaround coming down the pipe for that trick. (Please, hackers, do not prove us wrong.)

Android 5.1 Starts Hitting Google Nexus Devices

2015-03-28T01:56:00.004-07:00

Android 5.1 Starts Hitting Google Nexus Devices

Lance Whitney, CNETMarch 11, 2015

Android 5.1 Lollipop is now flavoring certain Nexus devices. (Nicole Cozma/CNET)

Owners of certain Nexus mobile devices should be on the lookout for Android 5.1.

Announced by Google on Monday, the latest flavor of the Android Lollipop operating system is already out for the Nexus 4 smartphone, Nexus 5 smartphone and 2013 Nexus 7 tablet via T-Mobile. The carrier’s page for the Nexus 4 shows the 5.1 update available as an over-the-air (OTA) installation via Wi-Fi as of Monday. The page for the Nexus 5 and the one for the 2013 Nexus 7 show the same information. Both pages say the update will be available via a cellular connection at a later date.

A Sprint support page says that Android 5.1 is available for the Nexus 6 phablet as of Wednesday via an OTA update. The page cautions that such updates may be released in stages, so Nexus 6 owners on Sprint may not see the update arrive for several days. A Sprint spokesman told CNET that the new flavor of Android is also rolling out OTA for Nexus 5.

What’s different about Android 5.1? The latest update to Google’s mobile OS fixes several issues in 5.0 and also throws in a few new features. Google’s official blog on the update touts unspecified performance and stability improvements.

One feature new to Android 5.1 is tighter security for lost or stolen devices. Even if the device is reset back to factory conditions, a user will still need to sign in with the original Google account. The new security feature will be available on the Nexus 6 phablet and Nexus 9 tablet for starters but will pop up on other devices that come shipped with Android 5.1.

Another new feature lets you connect to a Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device more easily via the Quick Settings menu. Users of phones with multiple SIM card slots will be able to switch between the cards without having to physically swap them out. And phone calls should be clearer thanks to the new high-definition voice calling available between Android 5.1 devices.

Nexus owners who don’t want to wait for their carrier to roll out Android 5.1 can “flash” their devices with factory images available directly from Google. But be forewarned that this process is much more complex than simply installing the OTA update. The process also wipes your device clean, which means you lose any personal data. So if you’re in no hurry, you’re better off waiting for your carrier’s update, even if it may take awhile.

T-Mobile did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for comment.