More On Sony: Hacker Group Anonymous Denies Affiliation With Most Recent Attack

According to Sony, a file named "Anonymous" with the sentence "We Are Legion" contained within was discovered on Sony servers Sunday during a deep investigation of the most recent hack that brought PSN crashing down.

Sony wants to blame hacker group Anonymous for the attack but the group claims no affiliation with the attack. While the group organized and conducted a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) on Sony's Playstation Network servers days before the high profile break in was discovered, the group still claims that the had nothing to do with the attack and intrustion that compromised over 70 million users personal data.

The group posted a letter stating that "While we are a distributed and decentralized group, our 'leadership' does not condone credit card theft" and "If a legitimate and honest investigation is conducted, Anonymous will not be found liable."

It is possible that the DDoS attack that was conducted by Anonymous provided cover for the true hackers, who performed a well-thought out and organized attack leading to the theft of millions of users credit card information.

In my opinion, I think that Anonymous had nothing to do with it. The true hackers saw a window, pulled off the unthinkable very swiftly and smoothly then planted a file pointing back at Anonymous during their get away.

FOLLOWERS:
1. Are you getting antsy about the still down PSN?
2. Who do you think it was? Anonymous or another group?
3. Isn't Anonymous too unorganized to do something like this?

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Posted in: News,Technology,World News

Alleged PSN Hackers Claim To Have Stolen Over 2 Million Credit Cards

So we all know that the PlayStation Network has been hacked and PlayStation loyalists have been unable to play their beloved games for over a week now.

We also know that these hackers had access to pretty much all of our information should we have provided to Sony at any time. However, Sony claimed that credit card information was encrypted and it was highly unlikely that it was stolen as well.

We all know that was probably a lie. If the hackers managed to do enough damage to keep the network down for over a week, then something big has happened.

Reported by NY Times, some security researchers have uncovered some chatter on underground websites and message boards that state that the hackers made away with just over 2 million credit card numbers, security codes and all.

The researchers also uncovered a few hints suggesting that the hackers intended on selling the database for 100k and allegedly even tried to sell it back to Sony. (which would be a poor choice on their behalf)

At any rate, this could all be a few internet pranksters making up stories about the hackers true intentions and accomplishments. But I'm willing to bet they made off with data more valuable than your name and address.

On the bright side, Sony has stated that they are looking into ways to pay back their users for their cooperation and patients.

FOLLOWERS:
1. Do you use PSN?
2. Are you worried about this?
3. Xbox or PS3 (no flamewarzzzz)

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Posted in: Knowledge,News,Technology,World News

Super Lazer In Production - Creates More Power Than All Of Civilization

 Firstly, I would like to apologize for lacking in the post section for the last week. My whole world became engulfed by my University finals weeks. It's nearly over though!

At any rate, here's the story:

The European Commission has given the go ahead on funding from the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania for three "ultrafast" laser laboratories in each respective country providing funding.

The project between the three countries is called the Extreme Light Infrastructure Project(click the name for their website, pretty interesting). Each of the three countries will contribute about $400 million to the project.

The Extreme Light Infrastructure Project plans to create many new powerful lasers, the first of which will fire at 10 petawatts, thats 8.9 petawatts more than the worlds current most powerful laser.

If you aren't sure what a petawatt is or how powerful it is lets put it in perspective. The power that the Earth receives from the Sun totals around 174 petawatts.

So what about the super laser they plan to create? Well...they are projected to have a firing rate of 200 petawatts. That's more powerful than the Sun.

I don't know what they plan on doing with a laser this powerful but apparently will could advance science and medicine quite a bit.

On a side note, the project coordinator Gerard Mourou says that he hopes it will be enough to "trigger the breakdown of the vacuum, the fabric of space-time itself."

Insanity.

Followers:
1. What do you think of this?
2. Space travel? Black holes? Worm holes? What could be the outcome?
3. Iced Tea or Lemonade?

Read more »

Posted in: News,Technology,World News

NASA's Shuttles Could Fly Again!

I know I wasn't the only one devastated when I learned that NASA's space program would be discontinued with their last mission later this year.

I was heart broken. As a kid I visited the NASA visitor center countless times, I even wanted to become an astronaut. I still am heart broken that NASA's shuttles are scheduled for discontinuation.

However, the shuttles do have a slight chance to see the outside of our atmosphere again.

According to SPACE.com, United Space Alliance (USA) wants to fly two shuttles (Atlantis and Endeavour) commercially after building new fuel tanks for them.

Apparently NASA is working on some new orbital spacecraft, but those won't be seen for some time. USA's vice president Dan Brandenstein (who is a former NASA astronaut) told SPACE.com that they wanted to keep the space program running while NASA worked on those new spacecraft and came up with the idea for two commercial flights a year.

Wait, what? Commercial?
Yes, commercial. Apparently USA wants to fund their two flights a year with money they will receive from investors and customers who want to fly into space.

Another motive for this would be to alleviate NASA's reliance on Russia for trips to and from the International Space Station.

Hmmm, I wonder if they took the idea of commercial space flight from Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic campaign. He's set to start training astronauts for that here shortly. (be sure to check out the Virgin Galactic site, there are some pictures up of their new space shuttles and they look...insane!)

I wonder how much a trip into orbit would cost.

FOLLOWERS:
1. What do you think of commercial space flight?
2. Do you think a market war between NASA and Virgin Galactic will erupt?
3. Do you think USA took the idea from Virgin Galactic? (it is a great concept)
4. Would you like to step foot on the moon?

Read more »

Posted in: Knowledge,News,Technology,World News

Scientists Plan To Program Computers With Regret; Google Funds Research

Seems pretty accurate, am I right?

 

Every human being is programmed with an emotion called regret and the ability of hindsight, which is directly related to regret.

By definition, regret is a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over something that has happened or been done.
And, hindsight is the ability to understand, after something has happened, what should have been done or what caused the event.

Example:
You came upon a bear while hiking in the forest, instead of walking away from the bear you pull out a leash and try to harness the beast. The bear then tears your face off before chewing your limbs to pieces. Somehow you make it out alive, but while you're sitting in the hospital bed you think of how stupid you were and what you could have done to prevent the unfavorable outcome.

That is, you regret the decision to flank the bear and use hindsight to reflect on what should have been done.

These two emotions are very powerful and allow us to learn from our mistakes, meaning we have a better understanding of what could happen should a similar occurrence present itself in the future. In a way, we can predict what the outcome will be by using past experience and regret.

SO WHATS SO INTERESTING ABOUT EMOTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN AROUND SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME?

Well how about this?

Google is putting in the funding for a team of researchers and scientists at Tel Aviv University who believe they can program computers to regret and use hindsight.

Wait, what?

Yeah, you read that right. These researchers plan to program regret and hindsight right into your computer. Now of course they won't be able to feel the emotion, but they can use such a tool in a way very similar to human use.


This means that computers will be able to learn from mistakes and prevent them in the future. By teaching a computer to learn regret, the computer can then learn to predict and evaluate all possible outcomes before they actually execute something. Once a mistake occurs on the computers watch, the computer will then denote that mistake as regret, use hindsight to review a more favorable outcome, then make sure it doesn't happen the next time around.

Can you say "Hello, real life terminator"?

I, for one, think that this is an incredible idea! However, I can't suppress that looming image of Skynet in the back of my mind.
Followers!
1. What do you think of all this? Good idea, bad idea?
2. Do you think artificial intelligence will ever become smart enough to take over the world?
3. Do you like the Terminator movies?
4. Pancakes or Waffles?

Read more »

Posted in: Knowledge,News,Technology

New Acer Tablet Costs $50 Less Than Ipad: But Is It Worth It?

Alright, so Acer came out with the all new Iconia Tab A500 priced at $449.99, which is 50 whole big ones less than the lowest priced iPad 2 at $500. 

The question is: 
 Is it worth the $50 dollar savings?

With all of the new wanna be iPad killers hitting the market, it's hard to tell if the tablet you're looking at really does stack up against the big daddy of them all. So far, most of the competitors have been...lackluster. 

However, the new Iconia, which is set to be released later this month, brings big promises. (but haven't we heard them all before?)

Lets do a quick comparison of specs between the two.

First up:
The Iconia Tab A500 by Acer

Well this sleek thing looks quite alright in my opinion. Do a quick Google Search and you'll find yourself looking at more stunning pictures. This one will do for now.

Display: 10 Inch LCD Capacitive Touch Screen
CPU:      NVIDIA Tegra 2 Dual Core 1GHz processor, 1GB Ram

OS:         Android 3.0 Honeycomb
Storage:  16GB micro with expandable memory of 32GB
Camera:  Still at 5MP and a secondary at 2MP, video recording capabilities.
Data:       GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA, HSUPA
Battery:  Up to 8 hours

Weight:  1.6 lbs

Some other features include a HDMI port, 1080p video playback, and Dolby Mobile Surround Sound.

Second up:
Apple's 16GB iPad 2

 

Display:   9.7 Inch LED Display

CPU:       1GHz Dual-core A5, 512MB RAM

OS:          iOS 4.3

Storage:  16GB

Camera:  Back record 720p HD and has a front-facing VGA camera.
Data:       3G
Battery:  Up to 10 hours

Weight:  1.3 lbs

Other features: Can do backflips.

CONCLUSION:

Alright, so what stuck out to me the most was the fact that the Acer tablet only runs on 2G speeds. That probably won't fly with many, but I'm sure others will only use it where they can get wifi anyways.

Secondly, the Acer seems to have better RAM, more storage and better camera.

So from the looks of things, the Acer just might be worth the bargain despite its network speed. However, coming from my own experience with Android tablets, they just don't seem to perform correctly no matter the specs. But it's equipped with Honeycomb, which could be a gamechanger for me.

At any rate, I would wait until the reviews come pouring in after the release before planning to buy one. It looks promising and most definitely better than any Android tablet yet. 

You'll either see "Acer Flop" or "Acer iPad Killer" headlines after the release.

Man, that 2G speed thing is still killing me though.

Followers:
1. Do you own any sort of tablet? What kind? Do you like it?
2. Would you buy one of these new Acer tablets?
3. Do you prefer iOS to Android or vice versa?
4. Coke or Pepsi?

Read more »

Posted in: Android,News,Reviews,Technology

Funerals Of The Future: Webcams and Woolen Coffins

 Get buried, son.

Traditionally, most of us typically don't think about the end of our lives until, well, the end of our lives. Often times, the deceased have no say in how their funeral is held aside from a few small requests like clothing, open or closed coffin, etc.

After we pass, we don't usually have control over details like who's invited to the funeral, where we're buried, or what kind of coffin we're buried in. Usually that is all organized by the people we leave behind.

Well, now those people have a few more options to consider.

I was reading my local newspaper a few days ago and stumbled across an article about a funeral that was broadcast via webcam to friends and family that couldn't make it to the real deal.

At first I was shocked, how disrespectful right? Well then I thought about it more, and it's actually a pretty damn good idea. In this day and age, we can live far from our loved ones. What if you were from Europe and moved to America, then dropped dead? You couldn't expect that all of your friends and family bought last minute international plane tickets to attend your funeral. So why not let them be there in spirit by letting them watch via Skype?

On another related note, I was browsing through an online magazine I frequently read and stumbled across something even more interesting.

A company in Britain, which provides wool for many different products including the headliners in Rolls-Royce and Bentley automobiles, came up with a brilliant idea. Woolen coffins. (image above)

These coffins are eco-friendly and are quite sturdy. At first I thought it was a joke, but apparently the idea is spreading like wild-fire and the company has reported that it is currently their top selling product.

Pretty odd, huh?

Followers:
1. How would you feel about having your funeral shown on webcam?
2. How would you feel about being buried in a woolen coffin?
3. Do you like Beetle Juice?

Read more »

Posted in: Fun,Knowledge,News

Smartphone Apps May Be Violoating Your Privacy

 Alright, lets face it. How many smartphone users actually read the user agreement when downloading a new app to their phone? I know I don't and Android usually spells it out for me in black and white right before I hit "allow".

As I said before, when using an Android device to download new apps, the phone alerts you of permissions that you are granting the app to have.(I'm not sure how the iPhone or other devices go about telling you this information, but I'm sure they do.) Many times these permissions include access to GPS, phone records, contacts list, etc. But why does an app need to access all of that? According to the app, it's essential to the performance of the application. However, most of the time it's not.

In the last couple of months, many apps have been undergoing investigations to clarify what their true intentions are.

So far, one major app has been thrown into the spotlight. That app is the ever so popular music streaming app, Pandora. Many of us have probably used Pandora online and were excited when it was turned into a smartphone app. I sure was, and I used it everyday.

What exactly is this app, and possibly many others, being charged with? Well if you guessed they may be selling your information to advertising companies, then you're right.

Pandora, and probably a ton of other apps, provide these agencies with your name, birthday, gender, IP address, GPS information, and postal code. This pretty much means that they can trace where you go, where you live, who you visit, what stores you like, where you work, etc. Which is pretty powerful information to advertisers.

Creeps.

Man, I was really into Pandora too. Looks like that apps getting deleted now.

Followers:
1. Do you ever read app user agreements?
2. Does this surprise you?
3. Do you even care?
4. Nutella and toast?

Read more »

Posted in: Android,News,Technology

Richard Branson And Google Set Out To Chart The Depths

While reading through a fellow bloggers post, YouTube TV, I came to the conclusion that Google is indeed changing the world in many ways. As you can read in Profusely's post about Google's new endeavor, YouTube TV, they are stepping their worldly presence up a notch.

I decided to see what else Google is diving into and came up with this:

What you see in the picture above is the Virgin Oceanic. It's a deep-water submarine owned by billionaire Richard Branson (the guy who founded Virgin Records, Virgin Galactic and much more. Click the link for his wiki page, he's a pretty interesting guy).

So it looks pretty futuristic, but in all honesty, there is nothing really interesting about some billionaires toy submarine, right?

WRONG.

Branson has just finalized plans to explore the oceans deepest trenches with that bad boy. Before the end of the year he plans to make his first descent into the Mariana Trench, which could swallow Mount Everest whole and is the deepest place on Earth.

What's even more interesting is that Google is teaming up with him and will receive topographical data that has never before been seen. They plan to add these findings to Google Earth, allowing users to explore these trenches from their very own homes.

Sounds pretty boss doesn't it?
I wonder what he's going to discover down there.
It has to be awesome.

See a video teaser of the project after the page break. It's pretty intense.

Read more »

Posted in: Fun,News,Technology

April Fools' Joke "Gmail Motion" Comes To Life

So I'm sure many of you caught wind of Google's April Fools Day Joke, Gmail Motion. I'm also quite sure many of you probably wish it was a reality. I mean come on, it looks quite silly, but who wouldn't want to mess around in the office with something like that?

Though I wish it were real, I still knew it was a hoax while watching the introduction video to Gmail Motion. I don't know how I did, but it probably had to do with the fact that it was April 1st and everything must be questioned on that day. On a side note, the video also looked quite satirical and that raised some flags for me as well.


Anyways! For those of you who were disappointed that this wasn't a reality(myself included), you have no need to be disappointed any longer!

After the guys from Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) at the University of Southern California saw the video they sprung into action. Using a Kinect, the team recorded the gestures used in Google's prank video and wrote a code that actually works.

Check the Kinect hack in action here:
Click for ICT's Gmail Motion video

If you haven't seen the original from Google:
Click for Google's April Fools' prank: Gmail Motion

And if you think you can handle putting together something yourself,
get the ICT code here.

I know Gmail Motion is silly and would never catch on because it simply isn't practical, but I love the fact that we live in a world where people can turn some crazy ideas into reality.

What do you guys think?

Read more »

Posted in: Fun,Knowledge,News,Technology

Blackberry Playbook Not Playing By The Rules?

Not many of us have been anticipating the release of the Playbook, Blackberry's new tablet. I guarantee it won't even make a dent in iPad sales. I'm sure most of you didn't even know it is set to be released in a couple of weeks. I'm not even going to post the specs and details of it, because I know most of you just aren't that interested.

WHAT IS INTERESTING though, is the fact that Blackberry is opening up their device to Android apps.

Developers will have to work with Research In Motion(RIM) in porting the apps to work on the Playbook. It seems that because RIM slowly lost its power to the iPhone and Android phones, they are trying to make up for lost ground instead of wasting time further developing the Blackberry App World.

That just sounds silly right? They're trying to get ahead of the game by blending into their competition. Sounds to me like RIM lacks a little confidence in their own devices.

However, on the other hand, this could be a GREAT marketing strategy. For those Android users who were on the edge (which probably aren't many) about buying a Playbook may now be more inclined to buy one. But I'm sure that all Android apps won't be available because ultimately, it is up to the developer to port it.

Follower Opinions:
1.What do you guys think about all of this cross app blending and such?
2. Do you think it's a good marketing strategy?
3. Are you interested in a Playbook?
4. Do you like chicken noodle soup?

Read more »

Posted in: Android,Knowledge,News,Technology

Top 100 Toys: 1920s Through 2000s

I was recently browsing through Time Magazine's website and came across an article that really brought me back to my childhood. The article is titled All-Time 100 Greatest Toys and covers toys from every decade from the last century starting in the 1920s. You can find the original article by following the title link.

I've chosen my favorite toy from each decade and will share them with you in this blog post. While I wasn't alive when the majority of these toys were released, I still played with some form of them when I was a kid.

Prepare for nostalgia blast off....5....4....3...2....1

edit: having a little issue with my layout. The "read more" link is hard to locate. Click that, the title of the post, or this text link to get the whole post. :)

Read more »

Posted in: Fun,Knowledge,News

GoDaddy.com CEO Shoots Elephant; NameCheap Takes Advantage

Alright, so I'm sure many of you have seen GoDaddy.com CEO Bob Parsons in the news lately, but for those of you who haven't, here's some backstory:

Parsons recently took a nice little vacation to Zimbabwe and filmed himself shooting a bull elephant. Afterwards, he proceeded to take photos with the elephants corpse, spread GoDaddy.com hats and clothing to the local villagers, and uploaded the whole package to the internet for the world to see.

Upon being questioned, Parsons claimed he shot the elephant because they cause crop damage.

Needless to say, the internet masses didn't take lightly and the story raged across the web like a wildfire.

GoDaddy competitor, NameCheap saw an opportunity and took it. They turned the mass anger and sadness into a promotional campaigne and offered a registrar switch from GoDaddy.com to NameCheap for just $4.99 for the first year using promo code BYEBYEGD. (That promotion ends soon, get it now! Click me)

Good job Bob Parsons, I'm sure making elephant shooting videos will be a great marketing strategy.

.....oh wait.

Input from my lovely followers:
1. How do you guys feel about Bob Parsons?
2. Would you switch domains because of something like this?
3. Is NameCheap in the wrong too for taking advantage?
4. Is Bob Parsons a smug elephant killing douche bag?

I'll answer the last one for you.
Yes, yes he is. See?

Read more »

Posted in: Knowledge,News,Technology,World News

1% of Twitter Users Responsible For More Than Half Of Content

I just saw this in my Twitter feed, posted by Times Magazine as a retweet from Techland. Instead of retweeting it myself, I figured I would blog it to all of you!

Maybe if you all followed me on twitter I could retweet it too.
*cough cough* Check the upper right hand corner for my Twitter link. Follow me. *cough*

Whew, okay. Now that that's out of my system on with the post.

According to a Yahoo research team, only about 20,000 individuals, 1 percent of the Twitter user base, are responsible for OVER half of all tweets in the database.

These users are mainly media, celebrities, organizations, and bloggers. That's some pretty insane stuff. I wonder what percentage produces the second half of tweets.

Talk to me:
1. Do you use twitter? How often and in what way?
2. How many times did I use a variation of the word "tweet" in my post?
3. Do you follow huge twitter contributors like media sources and celebrities?
4. Do you like mac & cheese?

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Posted in: Knowledge,News,Technology

2022 Qatar World Cup, 122 Degree Summers, and Robotic Clouds

While I do watch some football from time to time, I've never really been a HUGE fan of the sport. However, fan or not everyone should know by now that the 2022 World Cup will take place in Qatar.

For those of you who don't know, Qatar is pretty much smack dab in the center of the Middle East and has summer temperatures that can climb up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. With nearly 90,000 people crammed into a stadium open to direct sunlight, temperatures like that are sure to melt the skin off of bones.

Good decision FIFA,  great way to kill off your fans. You don't need them anyway.

BUT WAIT, we have science and scientists at Qatar University are currently developing a solution to the sweltering heat dilemma. That solution is...wait for it....

...

ROBOTIC CLOUDS. WHAT?!

These bad boys are made from a crazy carbon fiber material, injected with helium gas to make it float, and are remotely controlled. Those round spots you see in the image are large propellers that allow the robotic cloud to hover like a helicopter. They are also programmed to automatically follow the sun's path in the sky to optimize it's shielding capabilities.

They are estimated to cost around $500,000 US.
But, pfft. That's no biggie. It's the World Cup. Spend a billion!

Take that mother nature.

Read more »

Posted in: News,Technology,World News

Move Over Einstein, This Kid's Got You Beat

Einstein died 56 years ago, yet the theory of relativity lives on and is one of the most well know equations in history.



However, that could all change very soon.

Jacob Barnett is a 12-year-old from Indiana. He was born with Asperger's syndrome, which is a mild form of autism, but instead of impacting his learning ability in a negative way, the syndrome accelerated Jacob's learning ability 10 fold. He thought himself calculus, algebra and geometry in a matter of two weeks and graduated high school at 8 years of age. He is currently studying college level astrophysics and is also being recruited by Purdue University for a paid research position.

I don't know about you, but hearing about a kid like this makes me feel like my life is something to rofl over.

But that's not the best part. Jacob has been expanding Einsteins theory of relativity and may very well be a few equations away from disproving it. Professors at the Institute for Advance study, an institution Einstein himself was apart of, believe that Jacob holds the key to debunking the theory.

If I were Einstein, I'd feel like a douche for being disproved by a 12-year-old.

What does this mean for the world of science?
Click here to watch him explain calculus on Youtube. You won't understand.

Read more »

Posted in: Knowledge,News,World News

Earth Hour: How Did We Do?

A little background:
Earth Hour is an annual event introduced by the World Wildlife Fund and is held on the last Saturday of March every year. During the worldwide event, participants are asked to cut off their lights and any other unnecessary appliances for one whole hour to drive home the idea of conservation, literally. The organization aims to reduce the amount carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere.

This year, hundreds of countries and an estimated 1 billion people participated. Landmarks all around the world like the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, and the Las Vegas Strip also cut off their power for Earth Hour.

Unfortunately, there is no actual report that collects how much each city or each country saved (stupid right? That information seems valuable.) However, last year in Chicago alone 124,000 pounds of carbon dioxide were prevented from entering the atmosphere; that's the equivalent of 15 acres of trees being planted. So one could only imagine how much that adds up to worldwide, and because the event was more talked about this year, the impact is sure to be higher.

So I ask you this,
1. Do you think this makes any sort of impact on climate change?
2. What do you think about required or forced hours of reduced electricity throughout the year to make more of an impact?
3. Do you even think climate change is an issue?
4. Are polar bears awesome?
5. Don't you hate it when you burn your mouth on something and can't taste food properly for days?

 

Before Earth Hour/During Earth Hour

Read more »

Posted in: Knowledge,News,World News