Month: April 2007
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Stellarium Planetarium
The programme is a really easy to use planetarium, with a fish-eye view for round mirrors so you can project the output onto the inside of a sphere should you want to. You can view the stars and labels from any point at any time on the globe as well as from other planets. It’s…
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Optical hacking
You don’t have to splice the optical line or attack the multiplexer to be able to read network traffic over fibre optic cable lines – all you have to do is bend it a bit, and read the light that comes off the bend. There are apparently plenty of devices which clip on to do…
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Synergy: control multiple PCs with one keyboard and mouse
One of the PCs is set up as a server, the rest run the client. Like dual-monitor, you can move the mouse to the next computer and it takes over control. You can also share clipboard content over the computers, allthough this is still a bit buggy. So, can you take an IR keyboard and…
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Vista sets admin rights depending on programme name
Oddly enough, anything named ‘install’ will be seen by Vista as requiring Admin rights. However, just rename it and you don’t require admin rights any more. It’s being touted as a ‘feature’ of course, but it’s one of the most bloody stupid features I’ve ever heard of. A bit like having username ‘Magix’ and being…
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Gaia Online new form of social networking
Gaia online is a mix of an MMO (people have Avatars and can walk around in a virtual, Manga-esque world, but there are no ‘enemies’), forums, media and ways to improve your avatar. You get gold by being social – ie. posting on the forums, exploring the world or uploading content. The subscriber base has…
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RDS-TMC injection
Navigation systems are now using FM systems more and more to tell each other where traffic jams are developing or where accidents have occurred etc. Inverse Path LLC has found a way to inject various messages using $40,- worth of equipment. Apparently the authentication is weakly encrypted and the messages aren’t encrypted at all, making…
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OpenOffice broken
A Russian developer has built a programme which will recover your OpenOffice password using several different methods.
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Desktop apps here to stay
The Register ran a survey among it’s readers and it turns out that Software as a Service is not really taking off yet. The most common apps people use are email and office. MS is the Office king. Doesn’t look like web-based apps will rule any time soon and thin clients are still a stupid…
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Sex Therapy works
And of course it does. Allthough sex therapy only uses intercourse in around 15% of cases, so don’t get too worked up. Oh and the sample size of the brave doctor who has ressurrected this practice is only 30 people, but the results from this group is very promising indeed. So, where can we sign…
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THC cures lung cancer?
THC is the active ingredient in marjhuana and hashish, if you didn’t know. This stuff apparently cuts tumor growth in half and also inhibits the tumor’s ability to grow. Which is why all those hippies never get lung cancer – a strange statistic that has puzzled many 🙂
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Slysoft isn’t sitting still
With all the talk of Blue Ray and HD being cracked, people seem to have missed Slysoft EasyDVD which removes the copy protection and FBI warning screens from DVDs in the drive, allowing them to be backupped by their lovely CloneDVD software.
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GBP 14m diamond heist by one man
Quite possibly the largest one man heist in history, a conman managed to get the keys to the bank and information on where all the diamonds were stored, allowing him to bypass a > 1m GBP security system by being a nice guy.
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Breaking WEP in under 60 seconds
I’ve known that WEP encryption still used to protect a lot of WiFi (wireless connections) was crackable in around 15 minutes, but these papers describe how to do it in under 60 seconds – the fastest attack I’ve found to date! The Original paper by Tews, Weinmann and Pyshkin (pdf) The tool (aircrack-ptw) to do…
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AMD to hardcode DRM
The AMD rep spelled it out in words that would have been undiplomatic coming from me: He said that the new chips will “block unauthorized access to the frame buffer.” In short, that means an unauthorized party can’t save the contents of the display to a file on disk unless the content owner approves it.
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Statistical Analysis of Peak Oil
These guys seem to be oil professionals, and they’re definitely not pulling statistics out of their arse. They’re painting a serious doom scenario – Peak Oil is upon us NOW. Look at the charts, analysis and comments and decide for yourself (nb. there’s also a lot of sociological / economic comments in there as well,…
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Hospital treatments often don’t work
Apparently patients in hospitals are given treatments that just don’t work. Not only this, but the practitioning doctors know this and would probably be surprised by the amount that do! Part of the problem is the huge body of research out there, which doesn’t filter down to the doctors, who don’t change their way of…
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Space Sims
It’s been a long while since I’ve last played X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Elite, Wing Commander, Privateer, Freespace et al. and I’ve missed the genre. After a little hunting around I’ve found two space sims which look very worth exploring (Allthough, unfortunately, none is multiplayer as far as I can see…): X3: Reunion is a huge,…
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Wall Sized 3D Displays
Tom’s Hardware is running a great tutorial how to get a DLP projector, stereoscopic glasses and go all VR by turning your wall into a huge 3D display. They tell you what hardware to get and how to install it, and have reviews of several different types of games you can play.
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Hacker threatened to extradite
Gary McKinnen, a Scot who’s exploits put Kevin Mitnick to shame, allegedly has hacked into 97 US military and NASA computers. He’s in England fighting extradition, probably because he quite sanely doesn’t want to be tried as a terrorist. The US is using threatening strong-arm tactics to get him to not fight the extradition to…
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Now the cameras talk too
Because being able to watch your citizens in an Orwellian way isn’t enough, Britain’s latest addition to the surveillance society is to make it interactive. Unknown people with their voices modified to sound freakily like schoolchildren will be able to shout directives at you from the camera’s all over the country now.
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Driving Licence points have one winner: Insurance companies
Hardly surprising, but putting points on a person’s licence isn’t going to stop them speeding. Or at least, not the 3.7 million motorists in this study. It increased the insurance company’s profits by around $36 million, as they charge more insurance fees if you get points. The way to stop drivers from repeat speeding offences,…
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Cure for Cancer, Herpes
NYU School of Medicine researchers report in a new study that they have isolated a new version of a herpesvirus that kills cancer cells but spares normal tissue. … In animal studies, the new version dramatically reduced the size of human prostate cancer tumors grown in mice. Moreover, it completely eradicated the tumor mass in…
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Anti Anti Smoking Activism continues
This guy has built a 90 seat pub extension to his house, where his mates and family can come in, drink a pint and not worry about those anal retentive anti-smokers. Despite a ban on pub smoking in Wales, he gets away with it because it’s not really a pub. Everything in his place is…
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