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Talk about quick reflexes. Apple’s new patent could allow future iPhones to automatically safeguard themselves whenever they’re headed toward the ground.

A new USPTO listing shows that Apple has secured the rights to a “protective mechanism for an electronic device,” which would work with the iPhone’s motion sensor and processor to adjust the product’s weight distribution in the midst of a drop.

The patent outlines “a method of protecting a vulnerable area of an electronic device during freefall,” in which the device detects its state of freefall, estimates the distance of the surface below and automatically shifts itself in order to land on, say, one of its edges rather than its shatter-happy screen.

The patent mentions a number of ways in which this “protective mechanism” could work, including some sort of movable mass within the device that would slide around to change the way your smartphone lands on the ground. The filing also makes note of a “thrust mechanism” that would use bursts of gas to reorient the device, as well as a mechanism that would automatically contract a device’s physical buttons during a state of freefall.

While the patent doesn’t apply exclusively to Apple’s iPhone, its description notes that the mechanism is built primarily with mobile devices in mind. Many of the patent’s images show an iPhone-like mockup, though one sketch of a laptop suggests that the technology could come to the company’s MacBooks.

Source: toms hardware

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/apple-iphone-drop-proof-patent,news-19972.html

You can teach an old dog new tricks, provided that dog is a powerful and infamous type of malware. The Citadel Trojan now steals master passwords from the password-management applications Password Safe and KeePass, as well as the enterprise authentication solution Nexus Personal Security Client.

Once it’s infected a computer, Citadel waits until one of these programs is launched, logs keystrokes to steal the master passwords, giving the attackers to every account protected by the password manager. Fortunately, while the Citadel Trojan is widely distributed, this password-seeking variant probably is not.

Many security experts recommend use of password managers to ensure that each of an individual’s online accounts have strong, unique passwords. It’s a lot easier to have the program remember dozens of long, complicated passwords, especially when all you have to remember is the master password that unlocks the password manager.

However, password managers also create a single point of failure. If the user forgets the master password, he loses access to every covered account; if an attacker manages to learn the master password, she gets access to all those accounts.

The fact that Citadel can do this isn’t the fault of the password managers. Any typed information can be stolen by a keylogger. But master passwords are the crown jewels of passwords, compromising many accounts in one fell swoop.

The Citadel Trojan is primarily a banking Trojan used by multiple online criminal groups. Once it has infected a PC, Citadel connects to a remote server, called a command-and-control server, via which attackers can send it specific commands and updates.

This variant of Citadel Trojan was discovered on a single PC by data-security company IBM Trusteer, which said the PC in question was infected with the Citadel variant before Trusteer’s security software was installed on it.

Trusteer guessed that the Citadel variant may be part of a targeted attack, one meant for a specific person or group of people. Nevertheless, the fact that the variant can target third-party password managers (instead of browser-based password vaults, as has been more commonly seen in malware) may represent a significant new trend.

“[The Citadel variant] might be an opportunistic attack, where the attackers are trying to see which type of information they can expose through this configuration, or a more targeted attack in which the attackers know that the target is using these specific solutions,” writes Dana Tamir, Trusteer’s director of enterprise security, on IBM’s security blog Security Intelligence.

IBM Trusteer researchers found three new processes in the Citadel software: Personal.exe (which targets the Nexus Personal Security Client), PWsafe.exe (which targets Password Safe, an open-source password manager created by encryption expert Bruce Schneier), and KeePass.exe, which targets KeePass, also an open-source password manager.

Source: Toms Hardware

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/citadel-trojan-password-managers,news-19942.html

Source: ScienceAlert

http://www.sciencealert.com/watch-japan-s-built-a-maglev-passenger-train-that-travels-500-km-hour

Researchers from Palo Alto Networks uncovered the largest malware attack against iOS devices, and the first attack of its kind to affect non-jailbroken devices on such a large scale. According to the report, there have been 467 infected Mac OS X applications that have been downloaded 356,104 times from the Chinese app store, Maiyadi, since March of this year. This malware is called WireLurker and is described as a “new era in OSX and iOS malware” by the researchers who discovered it.

The way this malware works is by infecting users’ Macs when they download an infected app from the Maiyadi app store and then connect their iPad or iPhone to the Mac through a USB cable.

After the two are connected, the Trojan installs infected iOS apps on the mobile devices through Apple’s “Enterprise Provisioning Profile” feature, which is normally used by businesses to install apps on their employees’ devices.

In this case, however, the feature was used to allow the malware to bypass the iPhone or iPad’s security. The user would still have to agree to use the app, but once he or she would click on “continue,” the infected app would be installed.

“WireLurker is unlike anything we’ve ever seen in terms of Apple iOS and OS X malware,” said Ryan Olson, Palo Alto Network’s intelligence director.

“The techniques in use suggest that bad actors are getting more sophisticated when it comes to exploiting some of the world’s best-known desktop and mobile platforms.”

The researchers said that the malware was able to steal “a variety of information” from the mobile devices, including phone numbers from the Contact app and the user’s Apple ID. The malware would also repeatedly make requests to the attacker’s command-and-control server.

Apple has already issued a statement about this attack:

“We are aware of malicious software available from a download site aimed at users in China, and we’ve blocked the identified apps to prevent them from launching,” it said.

“As always, we recommend that users download and install software from trusted sources.”

The bad news is that it seems Apple only blocked the infected apps, but at best that’s a short term solution. Apple will need to send an update to iOS that further restricts the use of Enterprise Provisioning Profile in consumer iPhones and iPads so that the devices won’t be able to install such infected apps anymore.

Because Apple doesn’t have such a solution out yet, it’s unclear whether this could fix the malware problem for the jailbroken devices, too. iOS devices that are jailbroken are usually much more vulnerable to infection because the user has administrator privileges, which means the attackers do, too.

To minimize the effect of this malware, the researchers who uncovered it recommended that the users:

• Do not download Mac apps from third-party stores
• Do not jailbreak iOS devices
• Do not connect their iOS devices to untrusted computers and accessories, either to copy information or charge the machines
• Do not accept requests for a new “enterprise provisioning profile” unless it comes from an authorized party, for example the employer’s IT department

The past few months have not been good to Apple from a security point of view. From the hacking of celebrity iCloud accounts, to having Chinese users’ traffic intercepted by the Chinese government, to this rather widespread malware infection of non-jailbroken iOS devices, it’s becoming clear that increasingly more attackers are attempting to infect or hack Apple devices.

Despite all of the security checks Apple has implemented in its hardware and software, it was only a matter of time before malicious hackers would turn their attention to iOS and Macs, given the rising popularity of these devices, globally. Apple may be able to fix these issues as quickly as they appear, but they can’t put the cat back in the bag. More hackers have their eyes on Apple’s devices now, and there’s little doubt that there will be more such attacks in the future.

Source: Toms Hardware

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/wirelurker-new-apple-malware-era,28033.html

Microsoft has a problem when it comes to sticking with product names. With the exception of Windows and Office, it seems to re-brand everything it offers every few years. Sometimes it’s arbitrary (at least to customers). Sometimes it’s because of legalities.

Take FolderShare, for instance, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2005 and promptly renamed Windows Live FolderShare—because everything was called “Live” back then. In the years since, it has been Windows Live Mesh, Essentials, Live Folders, and SkyDrive.

SkyDrive is a great name, but it was taken. Sort of. Microsoft got sued in the U.K. by broadcaster BSkyB for using the word “Sky.” A court agreed that it infringed a trademark, and Microsoft had to rebrand again. In keeping with other products like OneNote and Xbox One, it went with OneDrive.

OneDrive really should be a bigger name than it is. But Microsoft isn’t as synonymous with cloud/sync as Dropbox or Google Drive The latter has the excellent integration of Docs and Sheets for online editing, but OneDrive has something arguably better: full integration with Office Online (formerly Office Web Apps; see what I mean about renaming?). Office Online houses the online versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Plus, OneDrive is integrated directly with Windows 8.1—no utility needed. All it takes to access OneDrive is a Microsoft account. The service will sync files between all your Windows and Mac computers, which you can access online via mobile apps and the Web.

OneDrive is a favorite of PCMag analysts. It also made a big splash last week announcing unlimited online storage for those with Office 365 Home ($99.99/year), Personal ($69.99/year), or University ($79.99 for four years). That’s not exactly free, but it’s full access to install and use all the Microsoft Office products, so think of OneDrive as a bonus. Limitless cloud storage is coming for OneDrive for Business in 2015.

That unrestricted storage is up from 15GB, which is still available to non-Office 365 subscribers. The only other service that comes close is Google Drive’s unlimited storage for education users. Files stored with OneDrive can also now be as big as 10GB, up from 2GB. (Dropbox file size is unlimited.)

But…so what? Lots of storage, you install the software to sync your files (or just turn it on in Windows 8), so you set it and forget it, right? You shouldn’t. There’s a lot more to OneDrive than that. Check out our list of tips in the slideshow. You’ll get the scoop on exactly what you need to take full advantage of a service that could be named Windows Live SkyFolderShareMeshDrive… but thankfully, is not.

Click To View Slideshow »

Original post by Eric Griffith Nov. 4, 2014

http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/story/329141/14-tips-to-help-you-master-microsoft-onedrive

Scientists have created the ‘black hole of sunlight’ – a new nanoparticle-based material that absorbs and converts more than 90 percent of captured sunlight to heat.

Image: foxbat/Shutterstock

Research from the US have developed a super-Sun-absorbing material that will help concentrating solar power (CSP) plants to generate more electricity and run for longer – a huge step towards making solar a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

Traditional power plants burn coal or fossil fuel to create heat in the form of steam. This steam then turns a giant turbine that generates electricity from spinning magnets and conductor wire coils. One of the most promising clean energy technologies are CSP plants, which create the steam needed to turn the turbine by using sunlight to heat molten salt.

A world-first CSP plant has already proved that the steam generated by solar power is pressurized and hot enough to match that produced by fossil fuels.

Most CSP plants generate energy by using hundreds of thousands of large, reflective mirrors that concentrate sunlight at a tower that has been painted with a light-absorbing black paint material. Importantly, this electricity generated from the power of the Sun can be fed directly into our existing grid, and, because the mirrors can be used to concentrate light even on cloudy days, it overcomes many of the issues of solar panels.

But one downside is that the material that is currently used degrades quickly and needs to be reapplied once a year, meaning that CSP plants are shut down and no power can be generated in this time.

To combat this problem, scientists have developed a material that has a longer life cycle and allows for greater conversion of captured sunlight into heat.

Researchers from the University of California in the US created the new “multiscale” material by covering it in thousands of scale-like particles ranging from 10 nanometres to 10 micrometres. The material can withstand temperatures greater than 700 degrees Celsius, allowing it to more efficiently trap and absorb sunlight.

It can also tolerate exposure to air and humidity, enabling it to survive for many years in the outdoors. More importantly, these unique properties allow the material to convert more than 90 percent of captured sunlight to heat.

“We wanted to create a material that absorbs sunlight that doesn’t let any of it escape,” said Sungho Jin, engineer and one of the researchers,  In a press release. “We want the black hole of sunlight.”

CSP plants can produce around 3.5 gigawatt-hours of power per year, which is enough to power more than 2 million homes. The technology can easily retrofit existing power plants, as both use the same process to generate electricity.

The team are continuing their research by further extending the usage life of the material, and hope that the breakthrough will finally prove that solar is not only a cheaper and more sustainable source of energy than fossil fuels, but also that it’s more efficient.

Source: ScienceAlert

http://www.pda.sciencealert.com.au/news/20140111-26439.html

So, I’m sure a lot of you have heard about our mayors being pitted against each other. Mayor Jeff Tripplet of Sanford has challenged Mayor Dominic Persampier of Oviedo for the title of “Most generous city.” Anyone who lives in this area knows these two have had a “healthy” back-and-forth for a few years. Not only are we gathering a lot of food to help our local food shelves but it’s also some good healthy competition. It’s also heartwarming to see people bring bags of food stuffed full to the drop-off points around the city. Just today there was a wonderful lady who came in with a huge reusable bag full, and I mean — you couldn’t put another thing in it or it would’ve burst from the sides– FULL, of baby food. It’s so nice to see so many generous people out there trying to help their local community.

Community is what we are all about at Palm Tree Computers. We’re involved in our local chambers. Very active members. We’re voted number one in central florida. And that doesn’t happen by just being good. You have to build a relationship with your customers. It’s one thing to make the customer happy. It’s another to make a customer your friend. That’s what we try to do. And being involved in the community like this is exactly how we do it. City-Wide food drives raise hope for those in need. That people actually care. I know it’s hard to think about all of the children in our local communities who go hungry because their family can’t even afford to feed them every day, but knowing that these communities are also here to help and raise support and gather food to give to people in need is such a nice blessing.

God has given us all so many blessings. From a roof over our head, to a reliable car. But what about all those people who don’t have what we do? God has a blessing for them too. You may see these stories on the news. The ones that make you sad, or angry with the way the world is. You may cry out to God saying, “Why don’t you do something?” Well He did. He made you.

He made us all. And our generous gifts and support can be that exact blessing to these people in need. So when you go home today, think about that. Think about a way you can help. And if you’re like a lot of us and have very little as it is, maybe you can just help by telling the next person. Your neighbors, co-workers, friends, and relatives. That weird guy on the street you see every day. Get the word out. Any amount will help.

Bring in any non-perishable food items to any one of dozens of locations in your area. You can find some places through our food drive facebook page. Or bring food to your local Palm Tree Computer Systems.

Oviedo vs Sanford City Wide Food Drive

Also “like” Palm Tree on Facebook for exclusive deals and discounts only available to our followers.

Thank you for your time, and God Bless!

-Jeff

The last company to make plasma TV screens for U.S. consumers said this week that it would stop production of plasma sets in November. The widely expected announcement by LG has put the final nail in plasma TV’s coffin.

Samsung (SSNLF) said earlier this year that it too would stop making plasma screens by November. Panasonic, the only other manufacturer of plasma TVs for U.S. consumers, shut down its plasma screen production in 2013.

As the TV makers sell off their existing plasma TV inventory, tech consultancy IHS expects that plasma TVs will no longer be available in U.S. stores after the 2014 holiday shopping season.

There are still a few Chinese companies producing plasma TVs, but they don’t sell their televisions in the United States. They too will likely stop plasma production by 2016, IHS forecasts.

Related: With new TVs, size matters

TV buyers have opted for the less expensive, higher-resolution and lower-energy LCD TV technology over plasma TVs. Once a popular high-end option for HDTV sets, plasma technology has been outpaced by LCD, which includes the super-thin LED TVs.

Plasma TVs are composed of pixels filled with gas that light up in different colors when they’re hit with an electrical current. LCD televisions use screens made of liquid crystals that are lit up from behind to create images.

Plasma TVs offered what many considered to be the best picture quality on the market in the past few years, albeit at higher prices than LCDs. They gained favor thanks to their brighter images, warmer tones and wider viewing angles.

Source:

http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/30/technology/plasma-tv/

Microsoft’s Chris Jones, corporate vice president of OneDrive & SharePoint, updated the OneDrive blog on Monday to report that customers of Office 365 will get unlimited OneDrive storage for free. He said that the free storage is rolling out now for Office 365 Home, Personal and University editions.

The full rollout will take a few months to complete, but customers are able to get in front of the long line by heading here. After that, customers will be notified by email when their free storage becomes available. Jones said this move to free storage is an important milestone for the OneDrive cloud service.

“For OneDrive for Business customers, unlimited storage will be listed on the Office 365 roadmap in the coming days, and we will begin updating the First Release customers in 2015, aligned with our promise to provide ample notification for significant service changes,” Jones wrote.

Office 365 Home costs $9.99 per month and can be installed on five PCs and Macs, as well as on five tablets. The Personal version costs $6.99 per month and can be installed on one PC or Mac and one tablet. Both include online versions of Office, support for offline and online storage, and $60 worth of Skype minutes each month.

On the business end, Office 365 Business Essentials costs $5 per user per month. There’s also Office 365 Business that costs $8.25 per month per user and Office 365 Business Premium for $12.50 per month per user. All three have a user maximum of 300 individuals, and they require an annual commitment.

Microsoft changed the name of its cloud storage service back at the end of January from SkyDrive to OneDrive. The company was ordered to change the name as part of a legal trademark infringement lawsuit with UK satellite company BSkyB (aka Sky). The British company used to have a cloud service called “Sky Store & Share,” but closed it in 2011. The company didn’t want customers to be confused by Microsoft’s own SkyDrive service.

tomshardware

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-one-drive-storage-office-365-subscription,27963.html

Chances are you’ve heard of wireless charging, and if you have, chances are that you’re disappointed by what’s on the market today. A new company, Energous, thinks so too and has set out to build wireless charging with a (decent) range.

The company says that today’s wireless charging isn’t really wireless, because the range of inductive charging systems is so limited that it is effectively a near-field technology. This means that you still have to put your phone or device down somewhere and cannot roam (relatively) freely with it around the room. Energous’ solution works very differently from competing implementations, and promises a much larger range, hopefully ending the wireless charging debacle.

Despite developing the technology and providing reference designs, Energous’ primary focus is on licensing its technology. Initially, the company will be working with smaller partners, but in the future it hopes to move up to tier-one home appliance manufacturers to bring its technology into the world. Energous has already announced that it is working with a handful of unnamed vendors (Energous teased that you almost certainly have a couple of products in your home from one of these vendors), but today the company announced a collaboration with Haier’s Wireless division. Haier is a Chinese company that specializes in making home appliances and consumer electronics.

Energous’ wireless charging system is called “WattUp” and consists of a transmitter and receivers. The transmitter will be about the size of a standard wireless router and will have a charging radius of up to 15 feet. Rather than using magnetic induction to charge devices, it uses radio frequencies. The frequency it operates under ranges from 5.7 through 5.8 GHz, and rather than broadcasting it in all directions, the WattUp transmitter creates small 3D RF pockets with a diameter of about four inches around the devices that it is charging.

Within the first five feet it can push up to 16 W, between five and ten feet it can push 8 W, and from ten through fifteen feet it can push 4 W. The power envelopes in each of these increments are split over the number of devices it is charging, so for example, if you have four devices within five feet of the transmitter, each device will receive 4 W of power. That’s not a lot of power, but it is enough to charge your device. The primary focus of the technology is sub-10 W devices, such as smartphones and wearables. In total, a single transmitter will be able to charge up to 24 devices at any given time.

On the receiving end, the device shouldn’t be all that complicated. The antenna for a receiver can be worked into the PCB of a device, and a single 1 x 1 mm chip is all that’s required. This means that it shouldn’t be too costly to implement in devices.

One point that Energous is particularly excited about with regard to collaborating with home appliance manufacturers is the way that the technology will be placed in your home. While you might think of a WattUp transmitter much like a wireless router, the company said that it doesn’t have to be. It hopes that transmitters will be built into all sorts of devices, including bezels around a TV, tops of refrigerators and more. That way, you can bring a transmitter into your home without feeling like you have yet another device cluttering up your house.

Naturally, when we were speaking to the company, we had to ask about health and safety. The representative who spoke to us said that the frequency it uses is very reflective, meaning that it doesn’t actually penetrate human skin all that effectively. Energous claims that when it showed the technology to a medical embedded device company, the company told Energous that it couldn’t use it – because it doesn’t penetrate human skin, Energous’ technology cannot charge devices inside your body, such as pacemakers. Energous also indicated that it does not have any worries about passing SAR testing procedures and that it is working on passing the FCC’s Part 15 testing. The tech also shouldn’t interfere with WiFi, Bluetooth or other wireless technologies.

Initially, though, it’s more realistic to start seeing so-called “wearable transmitters” show up in people’s homes because of a lower power envelope, as well as the fact that smartwatch charging is something that has a lot of room for improvement.

Energous hopes to deliver its first market-ready designs to its partners in Q2 2015, and you can expect the first products to arrive between Q4 2015 and early 2016, depending on how quickly the partners adopt the technology. Whether the actual products will live up to the promises remains to be seen, but Energous is certainly very confident.

Source: toms hardware

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/energous-wattup-wireless-charging-haier,27944.html