New Android Malware Is A Burglar’s Best Friend

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Newly released malware PlaceRaider sounds like science fiction: It’s Android malware designed to build 3-D models of users’ apartments for burglars and assassins. But PlaceRaider–developed by a team at Indiana University–is very real. The new malware was built as an academic exercise, and it exposes security flaws that government agencies would love to use. More importantly, it also exposes unintended mobile functionality that large companies like Google could easily monetize.

via New Android Malware Is A Burglar’s Best Friend | Fast Company.

Note again that this is a proof of concept and not actual malware in the wild.  It does inspire me to cover any phone or tablet camera with some kind of opaque tape.

Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol

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The Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD) is a method used by clients to locate a URL of a configuration file using DHCP and/or DNS discovery methods. Once detection and download of the configuration file is complete it can be executed to determine the proxy for a specified URL. The WPAD protocol only outlines the mechanism for discovering the location of this file, but the most commonly deployed configuration file format is the Proxy auto-config format originally designed by Netscape in 1996 for Netscape Navigator 2.0.[1] The WPAD protocol was drafted by a consortium of companies including Inktomi Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, RealNetworks, Inc., and Sun Microsystems, Inc.. WPAD is documented in an INTERNET-DRAFT which expired in December 1999.[2] However WPAD is still supported by all major browsers.[3][4] WPAD was first included with Internet Explorer 5.0.

via Web Proxy Autodiscovery Protocol – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Tellabs Finds New PON Frontier

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The manufacturer claims to be the first company to convert its GPON platform into an enterprise switch, back in 2009, to enable enterprises to take advantage of the bandwidth capacity and lower costs of passive optics, and considers itself a global leader in optical LANs. Tellabs is getting competition in the field from Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) and newer fiber-to-the-desktop players such as Zhone Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: ZHNE) are also exploring how to use their PON expertise in what is expected to be a growing market. (See Moto Expands PON Family.)

Other companies capitalizing on this market are fiber management firms, such as 3M Co. (NYSE: MMM) and TE Connectivity (NYSE: TEL).

via Light Reading – Mobile Backhaul – Tellabs Finds New PON Frontier: The Desktop – Telecom News Analysis.

Tellabs has had success selling its optical LAN technology into enterprises through Value Added Resellers, and into federal government agencies. One of its new pushes is to encourage telecom service providers, especially those in rural areas, to look to optical LAN technology as something they can sell to their business customers, as part of a hosted or managed service they deliver, says Van Horne.

Disk drive shipments rebound from Thai floods

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HDD shipments in 2012 for the overall computer market, including PCs, are forecast to reach 524 million drives, up 4.3% percent from 502.5 million units last year, according to an IHS report.

Hard drive prices, however, will remain high, and prices are not expected to fall to pre-flood levels until 2014, IHS stated in a report earlier this year.

via Disk drive shipments rebound from Thai floods – Computerworld.

Hard drives sales will also get a boost from ultrabooks, including machines that use hybrid drives, which combine spinning disk with solid state storage. Those drive shipments are flat now but will take off in the fourth quarter of this years, according to IHS.

How video games are becoming the next great North American spectator sport

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They’re all here to watch professional gaming teams battle it out in the North American regional finals in League of Legends, a PC action-strategy game that has exploded in the competitive video gaming scene over the past year. The tournament’s winning team will take home $40,000 and a trip to the World Championship in October, where the victor will net $2 million and international fame.

via How video games are becoming the next great North American spectator sport | Ars Technica.

In the last year or so, though, eSports has undergone a sudden exponential growth. The Major League Gaming Spring Championship in June (which featured tournaments in four high-profile games like Starcraft II and Mortal Kombat) attracted 4.7 million online viewers over three days in June, peaking at 437,000 concurrent viewers. That’s substantially more than all of their 2011 events combined. Over 2.2 million viewers tuned in to Ustream internet broadcast of the 2011 EVO fighting game championships from a packed ballroom in Las Vegas.

State of the NAS: private clouds and an app platform

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Just as significantly, the firmware that many companies are offering is now extensible. Most NAS boxes are Linux systems, and it’s often been possible to ssh in and install software on them. But several companies are currently offering something that looks suspiciously like an app store, where NAS users can do one-click installs of additional features.

via State of the NAS: private clouds and an app platform | Ars Technica.

The main challenge is that all these options add a degree of complexity to managing things, some on the NAS itself, and some in terms of integrating it with your router, software, etc. Finding the software and firmware with the right balance for you is probably more important than picking your hardware. Of the ones we’ve tried, we’re partial to Synology’s firmware (some of us exceedingly fond) because of its huge range of capabilities and frequent updates that add even more. But if you can, try a few

New Comet Discovered—May Become “One of Brightest in History”

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The comet is already remarkably bright, given how far it is from the sun, astronomer Raminder Singh Samra said. What’s more, 2012 S1 seems to be following the path of the Great Comet of 1680, considered one of the most spectacular ever seen from Earth.

“If it lives up to expectations, this comet may be one of the brightest in history,” said Samra, of the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver, Canada.

via New Comet Discovered—May Become “One of Brightest in History”.

Because 2012 S1 appears to be fairly large—possibly approaching two miles (three kilometers) wide—and will fly very close to the sun, astronomers have calculated that the comet may shine brighter, though not bigger, than the full moon in the evening sky.

Open Networking Foundation

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The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is a non-profit consortium dedicated to the transformation of networking through the development and standardization of a unique architecture called Software-Defined Networking (SDN), which brings direct software programmability to networks worldwide. The mission of the Foundation is to commercialize and promote SDN and the underlying technologies as a disruptive approach to networking that will change how virtually every company with a network operates.

via Open Networking Foundation

FFmpeg Reaches Version 1.0

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The initial release of this open-source multi-media library came in December of 2000, but only now twelve years later has it hit the over-emphasized 1.0 milestone. Michael Niedermayer, the official FFmpeg maintainer since 2004, mentioned on the developers list that he uploaded the 1.0 release. However, he’s not updating the FFmpeg main page until after he’s got “a bit of sleep”, so the official announcement is likely still a couple of hours out.

via [Phoronix] FFmpeg Reaches Version 1.0.

Growing anger over Dotcom fiasco

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If provincial newspaper editorials are anything to go by, there is growing anger about the authorities’ handling of Kim Dotcom. The Waikato Times’ editorial entitled, NZ: 51st state of the US, is particularly worth reading. It says that the announcement of the illegal spying has ‘heightened suspicions that this country’s relationship with the United States has become one of servility rather than friendship’. The editorial’s conclusion is worth quoting at length: ‘Dotcom is wanted in the US to face nothing more threatening than breaches of copyright laws.

via Bryce Edwards: Political round-up: Growing anger over Dotcom fiasco – Politics – NZ Herald News.

She says ‘If the authorities are so supine in their relationship with their US counterparts and so eager to corral an alleged copyright criminal – allegations which Dotcom is strongly contesting – that they don’t check the basics before mounting their interception, what guarantees do other businesses have that this is a one-off affair?’