If you’re among the majority of computer users who don’t do everything possible to preserve battery life in your accessories, Logitech’s M525 wireless mouse might be for you. The ergonomic design and supposedly extremely accurate scroll wheel are decent (if standard) features, but the mouse’s real selling point is the purported 3-year battery life that, if true, promises to make the frustrating search for your long-forgotten cache of AA’s a rarity. The battery life was tested on a simulated profile of a typical user. That study looked at factors ranging from type of work performed, the surface on which users used their mouse, frequency of use and battery type. Logitech have not made the specifics of their study explaining precisely how they reached the 3-year figure public, but interested readers can review the short article posted on their website explaining their conclusion in vague terms.
If you’re interested, it’s best to be a Windows user. The mouse supports XP, Vista and Windows 7. Mac users need OSX 10.5 and higher, and Linux users need kernel 2.6 and up. Just make sure you remember to turn the danged thing off before putting it into your messenger bag.
Oh my, how we wished we could build this in our own office. In conjunction with the upcoming release of Battlefield 3, a TV show in UK has constructed a one-off and pretty much the most epic first person shooter simulator we have even seen.
The simulator is not just about having a huge 360-degree screen but it also equipped with the world’s first portable omni-directional treadmill together with a wireless gun system, ten infra-red motion control camera, a pixel-mapped ambient LED lighting system and a customized Kinect hack to let players control the game using their own body. To make the simulator even more immersive, it is also equipped with twelve paintball gun to simulate enemy gunfire.
Yup, clearly this simulator is designed to hurt. Nevertheless, you can’t imagine how bad we want to try this simulator out ourselves.
A recently published bulletin by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security shows that the government has a close eye on hacker group Anonymous, especially in their shift in interest. The latest report provides an assessment of Anonymous’ capability to penetrate Industry Control Systems (ICS) and gain access to infrastructural networks, which follows up on a previous report that investigated the group’s ability to develop new cyber-attack tools.
According to the current evaluation, the government believes that Anonymous has shown that it can access ICS, but may not have the ability to actually understand the structure and inner workings of such software yet. There is speculation that Anonymous may be interested in gaining that knowledge, especially through freely available sources: “Free educational opportunities (conferences, classes), presentations at hacker conferences, and other high profile events/media coverage have raised awareness to ICS vulnerabilities, and likely shortened the time needed to develop sufficient tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to disrupt ICS,” the report states.
However, the government’s concern is that the simple capability of “recognizing and posting code”, which Anonymous has done, for example, in the case of Siemens Simatic control software, “could gain the attention of those knowledgeable in control systems”. However, at least in this unclassified report, there is no clear answer why the government believes that Anonymous appears to have increased interest in ICS, especially those that are tied to its “hacktivist” campaigns.
The report concludes:
“While Anonymous recently expressed intent to target ICS, they have not demonstrated a capability to inflict damage to these systems, instead choosing to harass and embarrass their targets using rudimentary attack methods, readily available to the research community. Anonymous does have the ability to impact aspects of critical infrastructure that run on common, internet accessible systems (such as web-based applications and windows systems) by employing tactics such as denial of service.”
The advice to ICS owners is to make sure their security needs of their control system assets are addressed.
By design, the feature is intended to keep unwanted and potentially malicious software off a system by preventing unauthorized binaries to load during the boot process. However, the FSF believes that this technology could be abused and simply be used to not allow users to load certain free software.
“We are concerned that Microsoft and hardware manufacturers will implement these boot restrictions in a way that will prevent users from booting anything other than Windows,” wrote Matt Lee in a post on the FSF website. “In this case, a better name for the technology might be Restricted Boot, since such a requirement would be a disastrous restriction on computer users and not a security feature at all.”
Lee suggests that users should keep their ability to decide whether they want to enable or disable boot restrictions and there should be a way that will allow users to install a free OS.
“Computer owners must not be required to seek external authorization to exercise their freedoms,” Lee wrote. If Windows 8 will prevent users from installing a free OS, Lee believes the result may be “complicated and risky measures to circumvent the restrictions”, and the “popular trend of reviving old hardware with GNU/Linux would come to an end.”
It’s a good idea to keep an eye on such new features, but I would think that it is rather unlikely that Microsoft will shut out other OS from its Windows 8 platform. If Microsoft was almost broken up over the integration of IE in Windows, it’s fairly easy to imagine the potential antitrust effects if it were to shut out other operating systems.
Phone manufacturer and long-time supporter of Android, HTC, has spoken out about Google’s latest iteration of the Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich. While it’s expected that the Nexus One will get ICS, HTC has its own Sense UI overlay on its other Android devices. So what’s going to happen with Sense and Android 4.0?
HTC recently had problems upgrading Desire users to Gingerbread, aka Android 2.3, because of Sense UI. The company originally said that it couldn’t give Desire owners Gingerbread because, with the Sense UI already on there, there wasn’t enough room for the newest version of Android. The company eventually managed to work around the problem by stripping out some apps, however, last night’s statement hints towards similar problems with ICS. HTC is promising to make performance and usability a priority but the company also said it’s determined to update as many of its recent devices as possible. Check the full statement below:
We are excited about the latest update for Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, and are currently reviewing its features and functionality to determine our upgrade plans. Our goal for Android updates is to give every customer an improved user experience, which means balancing each phone’s unique hardware, HTC Sense experience and the Android kernel. While our goal is to upgrade as many of our recent devices as possible, we are committed to maintaining every phone’s performance and usability first. Please stay tuned for more updates on specific device upgrade plans.
Let’s be honest: There have not been many features that have blown your socks off in Photoshop recently and for those who actually have to pay for the software themselves, the reasons that justify an upgrade have not been very compelling.
However, I predict that this is a feature that you will want — one that you’ll pay for — if it works as Adobe promises. And I promise, that this will blow your mind.
Adobe recently demonstrated a deblurring feature for a future version of Photoshop. They did not say which version they are targeting, but it seemed a bit rough around the edges, so I would be cautious about speculating that it will be in CS6. The feature was integrated into Photoshop via a plug-in and can magically correct blurred images and come up with a sharp picture. Magic?
Common sense tells us that if you screw up a picture, you screwed it up and especially if its blurred, your options to make it look better are very limited. How would Adobe be able to deblur a picture?
Adobe’s approach is interesting – and quite compute-intensive. The analysis of the picture tries to trace the path a picture was blurred – it basically attempts to recreate your hand movement during the time a picture was taken, based on the blurring in the picture. Depending on the size of the picture, this process can consume some time, but the effect that Adobe presented on stage was breathtaking. In one example, the software even revealed a blurred phone number in a picture.
Adobe declined to confirm a release date of the feature. But even if it is just half as good as it worked in the demo, this feature will be reason enough for many Photoshop users to upgrade.
The team behind the StarCraft Universe mod for Blizzard’s StarCraft 2 said on Monday that a special developer preview will go live on Battle.net between October 19 (today) and October 30 to test the game. After that, the PvP mod will be pulled from Blizzard’s network for further polishing given that it hasn’t even entered the open beta stage.
“Upon entering the arena or… ‘Encephalon Grid’ as we call it, you will be able to play as any class, starting at level 30 with a full set of level 30 gear,” the team reports. “You also will be given a mid-level starting kit of abilities for your class, and may even be able to unlock more abilities during the preview if you win enough matches.”
The StarCraft Universe mod originally appeared at the beginning of the year as “World of StarCraft,” created by Ryan Winzen and a few others using StarCraft 2′s own extensive editing tools. Once a pre-alpha video demo was posted on YouTube, Activision sent along a legal warning claiming copyright infringement. The StarCraft 2 team contacted the modders to make sure the mod wasn’t being created outside the actual Blizzard title as an MMOG. Eventually it came down to a conflict with the mod’s title, forcing Winzen to choose something else.
It also just happens that Activision owns the copyright to the name World of StarCraft. Hmm…
“With the name so closely resembling that of World of Warcraft, we wanted to discuss the title of the mod with the developer, and as part of our routine procedure, we contacted YouTube to request the video be removed while that discussion took place,” said Blizzard. “It was never our intention to stop development on the mod or discourage the community from expressing their creativity through the StarCraft 2 editor.”
Now ten months later, the controversial mod is available for testing on Battle.net… with Blizzard’s blessing. To find out more about the StarCraft Universe mod, head here.
By design, the feature is intended to keep unwanted and potentially malicious software off a system by preventing unauthorized binaries to load during the boot process. However, the FSF believes that this technology could be abused and simply be used to not allow users to load certain free software.
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