Preiserhöhung: So sieht der neue Tesla Model S aus

Tesla Motors verzichtet beim neuen Model S auf die Andeutung eines Kühlergrills und passt die Optik an die Fahrzeuge Model X und Model 3 an. Zudem gibt es eine Preiserhöhung. (Tesla Motors, GreenIT)

Tesla Motors verzichtet beim neuen Model S auf die Andeutung eines Kühlergrills und passt die Optik an die Fahrzeuge Model X und Model 3 an. Zudem gibt es eine Preiserhöhung. (Tesla Motors, GreenIT)

Apple stops patching QuickTime for Windows despite 2 active vulnerabilities

Security firm urges Windows users to uninstall media player.

If your Windows computer is running Apple's QuickTime media player, now would be a good time to uninstall it.

The Windows app hasn't received an update since January, and security researchers from Trend Micro said it won't receive any security fixes in the future. In a blog post published Thursday, the researchers went on to say they know of at least two reliable QuickTime vulnerabilities that threaten Windows users who still have the program installed.

"We’re not aware of any active attacks against these vulnerabilities currently," they wrote. "But the only way to protect your Windows systems from potential attacks against these or other vulnerabilities in Apple QuickTime now is to uninstall it."

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Guess what? URL shorteners short-circuit cloud security

Researchers search for Microsoft, Google short URLs, find exposed personal data.

Google addresses found in short URLs associated with a single user in Austin, Texas, courtesy of Google's old 5-character short URL tokens. (credit: Vitaly Shmatikov)

Two security researchers have published research exposing the potential privacy problems connected to using Web address shortening services. When used to share data protected by credentials included in the Web address associated with the content, these services could allow an attacker to gain access to data simply by searching through the entire address space for a URL-shortening service in search of content, because of how predictable and short those addresses are.

Both Microsoft and Google have offered URL shortening services embedded in various cloud services. Microsoft included the 1drv.ms URL shortening service in its OneDrive cloud storage service and a similar service (binged.it) for Bing Maps—"branded" domains of the bit.ly domain shortening service; Microsoft has stopped offering the OneDrive embedded shortener, but existing URLs are still accessible. Google Maps has an embedded a tool that creates URLs with the goo.gl domain.

Vitaly Shmatikov of Cornell Tech and visiting researcher Martin Georgiev conducted an 18-month study in which they focused on OneDrive and Google Maps. "We did not perform a comprehensive scan of all short URLs (as our analysis shows, such a scan would have been within the capabilities of a more powerful adversary)," Shmatikov wrote in a blog post today, "but we sampled enough to discover interesting information and draw important conclusions." One of those conclusions was that Microsoft's OneDrive shortened URLs were entirely too easy to traverse.

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All it takes is one (very carefully located) atom to make a magnet

Individual atoms of holmium retain magnetic memories for 25 minutes near 0K.

Magnetic media, in the form of tapes and disks, have had a long run as the primary means of digital storage. In this hardware, clusters of magnetic atoms are set in a single magnetic orientation, which can be read back to determine whether a bit has a value of one or zero. Advances in capacity mostly come from figuring out how to make those clusters smaller. The ultimate limit, of course, would be a single atom, but here, quantum fluctuations will keep the bit from being stored stably. Single atom magnets have been created, but they have ended up holding a random value within a fraction of a second.

Now, a team of Swiss researchers has identified the two quantum effects that cause most of the problems for these single atom magnets and figured out how to limit them. The result is a device where individual atoms can hold onto their orientation for dozens of minutes. The big downside? It needs to be kept near absolute zero to work.

Magnetism in a bulk material, like a bar magnet, arises from the behavior of individual atoms within the material—more specifically, the behavior of some of the electrons orbiting those atoms. Although it would be possible for individual atoms to flip their orientation, the magnetic field created by all the neighboring atoms makes doing so very improbable. As a result, groups of atoms tend to maintain their orientation indefinitely, allowing us to stably write bits to them.

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Signs point to Apple abandoning OS X branding in favor of “MacOS”

Change would bring the Mac in line with iDevices, the Apple Watch, and Apple TV.

(credit: Apple)

iOS, watchOS, tvOS, OS X. One of these things is not like the others, but it may not be that way for long. Today Apple launched a landing page detailing some of its environmental initiatives—an interesting read in its own right that builds upon some of what the company talked up at the iPhone SE event last month—and attentive readers will note that the page refers to the Mac's operating system not as OS X, but as "MacOS." This, along with a reference to "MacOS" buried in OS X 10.11.4 that was noticed by the Brazilian site MacMagazine a couple of weeks back, suggests that Apple is planning a change to its Mac operating system's branding for the first time in quite a while.

Apple's Mac operating system has gone through twelve major revisions and countless minor updates since the first OS X developer betas came to light in 1999, but for the better part of two decades the operating system has always been called "Mac OS X" or just "OS X." This may be Apple's opportunity to ditch that "ten" branding, modernizing it and bringing it in line with the rest of Apple's software platforms without necessarily declaring any particular update worthy of bumping the version number up to eleven.

Of course, nothing is certain until we get our first look at Apple's new operating systems at WWDC in June. But a branding change would make sense, especially if Apple took some time out of its opening day presentation to shine a light on the kind-of-neglected-looking Mac lineup (Macs and OS X were barely mentioned at all at the event in March or the iPhone 6S event last September).

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Gigabyte’s latest Brix mini-PCs sport Skylake chips, Thunderbolt 3 ports

Gigabyte’s latest Brix mini-PCs sport Skylake chips, Thunderbolt 3 ports

Gigabyte is adding four new models to its Brix line of tiny desktop computers. They all have one thing in common: 6th gen Intel Core “Skylake” processors and Thunderbolt 3 high-speed USB Type-C ports. For the most part, the new models have similar specs, but here’s a quick run-down of some key differences: GB-BSi5HT-6200: Core […]

Gigabyte’s latest Brix mini-PCs sport Skylake chips, Thunderbolt 3 ports is a post from: Liliputing

Gigabyte’s latest Brix mini-PCs sport Skylake chips, Thunderbolt 3 ports

Gigabyte is adding four new models to its Brix line of tiny desktop computers. They all have one thing in common: 6th gen Intel Core “Skylake” processors and Thunderbolt 3 high-speed USB Type-C ports. For the most part, the new models have similar specs, but here’s a quick run-down of some key differences: GB-BSi5HT-6200: Core […]

Gigabyte’s latest Brix mini-PCs sport Skylake chips, Thunderbolt 3 ports is a post from: Liliputing

After “pepper spray incident,” UC Davis spent $175,000 to boost image online

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, meet the Streisand Effect.

(credit: Doctor Popular)

The University of California, Davis has spent at least $175,000 to hire companies that would try to “expedite the eradication of references to the pepper spray incident in search results,” and to counter “venomous rhetoric about UC Davis and the chancellor,” according to new documents obtained by the Sacramento Bee.

The pepper spray incident occurred at the Sacramento, California-area university on November 18, 2011, during a demonstration that was part of the broader “Occupy movement.” After asking seated protesters to leave, UC Davis police officer Lt. John Pike pepper sprayed several of them at close range. Video of his actions were widely distributed and ridiculed.

In October 2013, a judge awarded Pike over $38,000 in worker’s compensation benefits from UC Davis itself to compensate for his apparently psychological pain and suffering stemming from the incident. Pike was fired from the university police force.

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Worshipping the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not a real religion, court rules

Believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not a constitutional right.

(credit: aaditya sood)

Inmate Stephen Cavanaugh

A Nebraska inmate who has professed his allegiance to the divine Flying Spaghetti Monster lost his bid demanding that prison officials accommodate his Pastafarianism faith.

A federal judge dismissed the suit (PDF) Tuesday brought by Stephen Cavanaugh, who is serving a 4- to 8-year term on assault and weapons charges at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. US District Judge John Gerrard ruled that "FSMism" isn't a religion like the ones protected under the Constitution.

"The Court finds that FSMism is not a 'religion' within the meaning of the relevant federal statutes and constitutional jurisprudence. It is, rather, a parody, intended to advance an argument about science, the evolution of life, and the place of religion in public education. Those are important issues, and FSMism contains a serious argument—but that does not mean that the trappings of the satire used to make that argument are entitled to protection as a 'religion,'" the judge ruled. (PDF)

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Haier’s next Chromebook is a convertible tablet

Haier’s next Chromebook is a convertible tablet

Chinese electronics company Haier launched its first Chromebook in 2015. Now it looks like the company has a new model on the way, and it could have a new processor, a touchscreen display, and a screen that flips nearly 360 degrees, allowing you to use the notebook like a tablet. Notebook Italia spotted a prototype […]

Haier’s next Chromebook is a convertible tablet is a post from: Liliputing

Haier’s next Chromebook is a convertible tablet

Chinese electronics company Haier launched its first Chromebook in 2015. Now it looks like the company has a new model on the way, and it could have a new processor, a touchscreen display, and a screen that flips nearly 360 degrees, allowing you to use the notebook like a tablet. Notebook Italia spotted a prototype […]

Haier’s next Chromebook is a convertible tablet is a post from: Liliputing

Google Fiber planning wireless home Internet where fiber is too pricey

Wireless can boost access in low-density areas where it’s costly to build fiber.

Google Fiber's latest expansion plans. (credit: Google Fiber)

Google Fiber is testing a few wireless technologies in an effort to build a wireless home Internet service that would complement its fiber broadband, according to a company executive.

Craig Barratt, a senior vice president at Alphabet who oversees Google Fiber and other projects in the company's Access and Energy division, spoke generally about the plans in an interview with Re/code published today. Though Barratt didn't reveal a timeline or specifics on technology, he said Google Fiber wants to provide fixed wireless Internet to homes where it wouldn't make financial sense to build fiber.

"We are experimenting with a number of different wireless technologies," Barratt said. "One of the things that is intriguing about wireless is that it allows you reach houses and users that are in lower density settings—where fiber becomes too expensive. So providing fixed wireless services using some of the technologies we think are ways of accelerating our deployments."

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