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Bislang betreibt Apple einen live moderierten Onlineradiosender, weitere könnten folgen: Der Konzern hat Markenschutz für Beats 2 bis 5 beantragt. Möglicherweise sollen sich die Stationen um Fans von Rockmusik oder anderer Genres kümmern. (Apple Music, Apple) 
Bislang betreibt Apple einen live moderierten Onlineradiosender, weitere könnten folgen: Der Konzern hat Markenschutz für Beats 2 bis 5 beantragt. Möglicherweise sollen sich die Stationen um Fans von Rockmusik oder anderer Genres kümmern. (Apple Music, Apple) 
Mit der überwiegend in Berlin, aber auch in Brandenburg eingesetzten VBB-Fahrcard können laut VBB keine Bewegungsprofile gespeichert werden. Wie sich nun herausgestellt hat, stimmt das nicht. Lesegeräte in BVG-Bussen speichern Bewegungspunkte auf der Fahrcard. (BVG, Datenschutz) 
Mit der überwiegend in Berlin, aber auch in Brandenburg eingesetzten VBB-Fahrcard können laut VBB keine Bewegungsprofile gespeichert werden. Wie sich nun herausgestellt hat, stimmt das nicht. Lesegeräte in BVG-Bussen speichern Bewegungspunkte auf der Fahrcard. (BVG, Datenschutz) 
Der Start der neuen Certificate Authority Let’s Encrypt hat offenbar recht gut funktioniert. Nach nur rund einem Monat im Betabetrieb ist das Projekt schon die fünftgrößte CA der Welt. Doch es gibt noch einige Aufgaben zu bewältigen. (Let’s Encrypt, Firefox) 
Der Start der neuen Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt hat offenbar recht gut funktioniert. Nach nur rund einem Monat im Betabetrieb ist das Projekt schon die fünftgrößte CA der Welt. Doch es gibt noch einige Aufgaben zu bewältigen. (Let's Encrypt, Firefox) 
Zumindest beim Aussehen bleibt die Überraschung weitgehend aus: Wie auf Bildern der US-Zulassungsbehörde FCC erkennbar ist, sieht die neue Version der Google Glass aus wie die alte. Das neue Modell ist jetzt allerdings zusammenklappbar. (Project Glass, Google) 
Zumindest beim Aussehen bleibt die Überraschung weitgehend aus: Wie auf Bildern der US-Zulassungsbehörde FCC erkennbar ist, sieht die neue Version der Google Glass aus wie die alte. Das neue Modell ist jetzt allerdings zusammenklappbar. (Project Glass, Google) 
Most of the UK’s biggest retailers are currently running sales but those looking for Amazon’s Fire TV Stick will go home disappointed. After massive sales this festive period the product is currently out of stock at all of the largest stores. While Netflix and Amazon Prime are partially to blame, piracy has been a big driver.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
Amazon’s Fire TV stick is a great little device. Plugging nicely into an available HDMI port on most TVs, the device ‘smartens up’ the dumbest of devices and makes available the growing world of IPTV services.
The one currently plugged into my TV in the bedroom has mainly been used for the ‘free’ video streaming services bundled with Amazon Prime but the stick is equally at home streaming video from Netflix or any of the many services available from Amazon’s store.
However, Amazon’s little device has a trick up its sleeve. Being Android based, Fire TV Stick can run a much wider array of apps and services than Amazon offers through its regular on-screen interface. Of particular interest is Kodi, which together with a vast array of plugins offers access to all the latest movies, TV shows and live sports most people could ever need.
And news of just how special the Fire TV Stick/Kodi combo can be has been traveling fast in the past few weeks, particularly in the UK.
The first signs that something might be going on came very early December when even for Prime customers Amazon started advising that delivery for Fire TV Sticks was not the usual ‘next day’, but was actually nearer two weeks. For someone looking to buy two units as gifts, that was unacceptable. Other stores weren’t much help either.
After checking stock at nearly two dozen Argos and Currys retailers (both huge operations in the UK), just two units were found at the former 12 miles away. But the bizarre thing was that when I collected the items the lady behind the counter asked smilingly: “Are these for Kodi?”
Of course, I know about Kodi. We all know about Kodi. But for it to be mentioned without any prompting at the point of sale in a retailer was quite a surprise to say the least. And for a worker at a non-specialist retailer to know so much about it hints at the scale of the issue.
In case you missed it, Amazon banned Kodi from its store in the summer over piracy concerns but with the official APK plus adbFire and a loader like FireStarter, the software runs like a dream on Amazon Fire TV Stick.
“Everybody is buying these for Kodi, you can get everything on it. But that’s it now, we’re out of stock,” I was told while handing over the cash. Interesting…..
Intrigued, in the weeks that followed I monitored stock at Argos, Currys/PC World, Amazon themselves and several other big retailers including John Lewis and the nation’s biggest supermarket, Tesco. After an initial delay Amazon appeared to do the best in having stock available but all the rest really struggled.
Now, just days after Christmas, Currys/PC World have zero stock for home delivery and its the same situation at Tesco, John Lewis and Argos. Checking for local stock at the latter in the London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow regions reveals not a single unit available. Only Amazon themselves can offer anything (correct, 28 Dec).
Granted, it’s more than likely that Fire TV Stick has proven popular with consumers due to it working with Netflix and iPlayer, but Chromecast does that too and anyone can buy one of those devices at any of the above retailers anywhere in the next hour.
Admittedly, it’s a possibility that Amazon screwed up and didn’t make enough Fire TV Sticks. But if that’s the case, why is eBay awash with (ahem) ‘fully loaded’ Amazon Fire TV Sticks for immediate delivery?
Also, Google Trends can sometimes offer an insight into what people are interested in during a given period. So, we locked into December, did searches for both Kodi and Fire TV, and restricted results to the UK.
As can be seen from the image below, not only is Kodi even more popular than Amazon’s device, but the interest in both the software and the hardware follows similar waves.
There can be little doubt that interest in both Kodi and Fire TV are now at a high, not only in the UK, but also elsewhere. It’s also a further sign that piracy has really migrated out of the bedroom and onto the living room TV, something that Hollywood and other interested parties really wanted to avoid.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
SoCal Gas hits milestone in plugging gas leak, but completion will take months more.
First Aerial Footage of Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Leak Credit: Environmental Defense Fund and Earthworks
Southern California Gas Company had been trying to plug a massive natural gas leak for more than two months, and now we have some new perspective on the scale of the leak. The non-profit organization Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has released an infrared aerial video showing the plume created by the normally-invisible methane seeping out of the former oil well in the hills north of Los Angeles. The video puts in sharp relief the gravity of the situation caused by the rupture, which was discovered on October 23 and has been estimated to be releasing tens of thousands of kilograms of methane into the air every hour.
The leak at SoCal Gas’ Aliso Canyon site is northwest of Los Angeles and just adjacent to the Porter Ranch community. Although the Los Angeles County Department of Health and SoCal Gas have assured residents that the leak poses no harm to human health, the highly-flammable, odorless gas has been treated with chemicals to give it a “rotten-eggs” smell, which can cause headaches, nausea, and nosebleeds. Because of this, SoCal Gas has relocated families in Porter Ranch to motels and offered to reimburse them for household air purifiers, per an agreement with Los Angeles officials.
The most concerning result of the leak, however, is that methane is a potent greenhouse gas, according to the California Air Resources Board (CARB). It is many time more harmful than CO2 with respect to climate change in the near-term. CARB estimated in November that the Aliso Canyon leak has released methane approximately equivalent to one-quarter of California’s normal methane emissions.
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Stealing PINs and pillaging bank accounts are both trivial.
Credit card users could have their PINs stolen, and merchants could have their bank accounts pillaged, in a set of attacks demonstrated by researchers Karsten Nohl and Fabian Bräunlein at the Chaos Computing Club security conference.
Much research has been done into the chips found on credit cards and the readers and number pads used with these cards, but Nohl decided to take a different approach, looking instead at the communications protocols used by those card readers. There are two that are significant; the first, ZVT, is used between point of sale systems and the card readers. The second, Poseidon, is used between the card reader and the merchant's bank. Nohl found that both had important flaws.
The ZVT protocol was originally designed for serial port connections, but nowadays is used over Ethernet, both wired and wireless. The protocol has no authentication, meaning that if an attacker can put themselves on the same network, they can act as a man-in-the-middle between the point-of-sale system and the card reader. The attacker can then read the magnetic stripe data from the card, and can also request a PIN.
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Lampen, Heizungen und andere Geräte lassen sich ab 2016 direkt über den Samsung-Fernseher steuern: Der Hersteller hat bekanntgegeben, dass alle Smart-TVs des kommenden Jahres einen Hub für die eigene Smart-Home-Plattform Smartthings eingebaut haben werden. (
Ein Bug in der Windows-Fassung von Skype kann derzeit dazu führen, dass Nachrichten nicht korrekt sortiert werden. Laut Microsoft sollen betroffene Nutzer die Vorgängerversion installieren. (
Die Milliardeninvestitionen von Banken und Handel in mehr Sicherheit zeigen Wirkung: Datendiebe erbeuten an Geldautomaten in Deutschland immer weniger Geld. Doch noch finden die Kriminellen Löcher im System. (
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