Xaq Fixx

YouTube increases clip limit to 15 minutes, Cosby Show VHS rips now available in just 2 clicks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 14:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink BoingBoing  |  YouTube Blog  | Email this | Comments

You can find great rugs at estate sales but they're often quite dingy. Freshen up an old rug with a simple salt wash to brighten colors and get rid of grime. More »

LAS VEGAS — A hacker group known as the Ninjas has created what may be the best DefCon badge ever. The badge allows wireless ninja battle between badge holders. Unlike the official badge, attendees can’t buy this one: it’s free.

DefCon, the world’s largest hacker convention, is more than just a group of hackers getting together to exchange the latest exploit code and hacking techniques. It’s a time for hackers who may only see one another once a year, to socialize face to face. One of the most exclusive venues for fraternizing at DefCon is the Ninja party. To attend the party attendees have to know one of the Ninjas and they have to give them a badge.

In years past, a Ninja would give a party attendee a sticker or a paper invite that would get them in to the party. Last year the Ninjas took the party invite to the next level when they created their own custom badge for their party attendees. This year, badge designers Amanda Wozniak and Brandon Creighton decided to take the badge to the next level, and then some. What started as a sketch on a napkin ended up as an amazing hacker gaming and development platform.

The DefCon 18 Ninja Networks badge is an interactive wireless game system, consisting of role-playing style Ninja battles. The badge shows a list of other badges within range and allows the badge holder to fight them. Every time players fight, they gain experience points, making them more powerful.

The badge has a column of LEDs with the same color coding as World of Warcraft items. The players receive virtual items by completing missions in various locations around DefCon and Las Vegas.

The badge transmits stats intermittently to a number of Android-badge-powered base stations hidden around the convention. A leader board at the convention shows current scores. The badges also interact wirelessly with other undisclosed devices at the convention and in addition to ninjas the badge also contains a pirate.

This year’s badge also addresses the recurring problem of party attendees heading in and out of the party with two badges and bringing in uninvited guests. The wireless badge checks in when attendees enter or leave the party, and a black-badge holder can grant a +1 guest.

The badges were designed, programmed, manufactured and assembled in the United States. To offset the high cost of the badges and the party that serves free alcohol, the badges were sponsored by Facebook and Lookout. When the photos were taken last weekend, the badge software was still being tested. See below for more photos of the badge, software and manual.

Photos: Dave Bullock

Follow Dave Bullock on Twitter and on his blog.

The DNSSEC root key has been divided among seven people:

Part of ICANN's security scheme is the Domain Name System Security, a security protocol that ensures Web sites are registered and "signed" (this is the security measure built into the Web that ensures when you go to a URL you arrive at a real site and not an identical pirate site). Most major servers are a part of DNSSEC, as it's known, and during a major international attack, the system might sever connections between important servers to contain the damage.

A minimum of five of the seven keyholders -- one each from Britain, the U.S., Burkina Faso, Trinidad and Tobago, Canada, China, and the Czech Republic -- would have to converge at a U.S. base with their keys to restart the system and connect everything once again.

That's a secret sharing scheme they're using, most likely Shamir's Secret Sharing.
We know the names of some of them.

Paul Kane -- who lives in the Bradford-on-Avon area -- has been chosen to look after one of seven keys, which will 'restart the world wide web' in the event of a catastrophic event.

Dan Kaminsky is another.

I don't know how they picked those countries.

Cullman, Alabama:

A local pastor’s complaint about a brand of underwear being sold with “pornographic” pictures on the packaging at the Cullman Walmart reportedly led to a recall of the product.

Frank Boren, pastor of New Hope Christian Center Church of God in the Springhill community, said he noticed the questionable underwear package while shopping at the store in May.

“I was in there shopping for some underwear one day, and looked at the men’s pictures on the packaging,” he said. “On a few of the packages they were very pornographic in the way they were dressed, in skimpy underwear, so I went to the manager and asked her if she thought it was inappropriate to be displayed.”

After filing a few more complaints in the following weeks, Boren said the questionable packaging eventually disappeared from the store’s shelves.

Full story here.

Thanks to Thomas Pearson for the link.

“The meat makes it Korean,” said Mr. Ban, who marinates chuck roll in a soy and garlic sauce that is traditionally used with Korean barbecue dishes. “The tortilla and the toppings are a way to tell our customers that this food is O.K., that this food is American.”

The link is here and I thank Roland Stephen for the pointer.  I had read right over that passage and didn't even notice anything funny.

Michigan machinist GarE Maxton makes many different interlocking solid puzzles of this type, but this one, which he calls The Intimidator, is his masterpiece. Starting the disassembly process requires a special key. Once diassembled, about 20 of the pieces can be recombined to make a functioning single-shot pistol. Other parts of the puzzle separately and securely store "a customized set of tools, all necessary hardware, 45 caliber bullets, a standard sight, a laser sight, a cannister containing black powder pellets, a secure storage area for 209 shotgun primers, a spent primer removal tool and a ramrod for loading the bullets."

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Made On Earth | Digg this!

Let's be honest -- you saw this one coming, didn't you? Today Amazon is introducing a new reading device for e-book aficionados dubbed simply... the Kindle. The new handheld -- slated to be released on August 27th -- is 21 percent smaller and 15 percent lighter than the previous model, has a 20 percent faster refresh rate on its E Ink (yep, still E Ink) screen, and will now come in two colors (graphite, like its big brother the DX, and the original white). In addition to the color changes, there will be two radio configurations available: a $139 WiFi only version, and a $189 3G version (utilizing AT&T's network, just like the last model). The screen will remain the same 6-inch size as the last two Kindles, though the company claims page turns are faster and contrast is improved. The internal storage on the device has been cranked to 4GB, and the battery life is now rated at a month with no wireless, and 10 days with wireless switched on. The company also announced plans for a UK-localized version at £109 and £149, respectively, as well as a UK e-book store.

Along with the big changes, there have been minor tweaks as well -- the keyboard and five-way controls have been streamlined and altered slightly. The rocker is now more compact and flush with the device, and the side buttons have been modified in length to emphasize the forward paddles, while the back buttons have been downsized. Software wise, there are some interesting new features, the most notable being the inclusion of an "experimental" Webkit-based browser. If you're expecting future iterations to go even bolder with their multimedia capabilities, we kindly direct you to some choice quotes by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, care of WSJ: "For the vast majority of books, adding video and animation is not going to be helpful. It is distracting rather than enhancing. You are not going to improve Hemingway by adding video snippets," adding later, "there are going to be 100 companies making LCD [screen] tablets... why would we want to be 101? I like building a purpose-built reading device. I think that is where we can make a real contribution."

We had a chance to play with the device for a short while during a meeting with the company, and we can report that the Kindle is still very much the reading device you know and love (or hate, depending on your preferences). The build quality and materials used did seem slightly more polished than the previous version, and we really liked the new, more subtle rocker. We can also attest to screen refreshes and overall navigation feeling noticeably more responsive and snappy compared with the previous generation. Amazon was showing off a jacket accessory which will be made available at launch that includes a small, pull-out light for late-night reading sessions. We're sure it will please a lot of folks eager to keep their partners undisturbed while they tear through The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. We'll have a full review as soon as we can get our hands on the device, but for now, check out all the details in the video and PR after the break, and feast your eyes on the handful of press shots in the gallery below.

Continue reading New Amazon Kindle announced: $139 WiFi-only version and $189 3G model available August 27th in the US and UK

New Amazon Kindle announced: $139 WiFi-only version and $189 3G model available August 27th in the US and UK originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

thecarchik writes "The first two plug-in cars from major manufacturers will go head-to-head on warranties and lease prices: $350 a month for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, $349 for the 2011 Nissan Leaf. Now the choice shifts to other measures, including electric and overall range, as well as the plug-in perks that states like California offer to early adopters to encourage them to opt for electric cars. This is where it gets interesting. While California loves the Nissan Leaf, current regulations deny Chevy Volt buyers two significant perks: a $5,000 rebate, and permission to drive solo in HOV Lanes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A few weeks ago, I bought “playmobil 5878″ from a toy store in Ann Arbor. I thought it was really cool that you could buy a social protest action figure at a regular toy store. Later, I found that toy web sites call this “police and bandit.” Maybe. But look at the following photos from the Toronto Star, which covered recent G20 protests. A specter haunts the European toy business, the specter of anarchism!

I live in Phoenix, the front line in the war against the tired, poor, and huddled masses yearning to be free.  I would imagine everything here looks pretty awful from the outside, seemingly without a silver lining, but I’ve been seeing something different, something beautiful happening here. 

In the midst of our police raids, our masses of children orphaned by deportation, women giving birth in shackles, and our racist legislation, something wonderful is happing in the heart of the church.  People from all sides of the religious spectrum are coming together in a way I haven’t ever seen before to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8). 

And it’s beautiful.

 A friend of mine and I went to a meeting of clergy recently, gathering to discuss what we as a church can do.  We met in the chapel of a United Church of Christ congregation downtown and had everyone from pastors and priests with their collars to rabbis with their yarmulkes, Muslim women in their hijabs and a few Anabaptists with babies in slings across their chests.  Throw in a few Buddhist monks, devout Hindus, Unitarian Universalists, Baptists, and everyone in between and you’ve got a good idea of what the average immigration reform demonstration looks like here.

It’s a rainbow of beliefs putting our differences aside and uniting in the belief of a God without borders, without nationality, and who cares more about someone’s well being then their legal status.  I have in my mind an image of God looking down on us and repeating the phrase “It is good.” as he did in the creation story in Genesis.

The hardest thing about SB1070 and similar hate based legislation is that politically, in a lot of ways, they makes sense.  But I believe that we are called to do something radically different when we decide to follow Jesus.  Jesus’ teaching didn’t make sense.  Loving your enemy, praying for those who persecute you, turning the other cheek, these things don’t make sense at all… and that’s part of what makes it so fantastic.

Believing in Jesus is believing that doing what doesn’t make sense can be the best thing, and that sometimes doing what doesn’t make sense is what makes a better world possible.  I believe in that world and I want so badly to be a part of it.

angry tapir writes "Windows CE-based ATMs can easily be made to dole out cash, according to security researcher Barnaby Jack. Exploiting bugs in two different ATM machines at Black Hat, the researcher from IOActive was able to get them to spit out money on demand and record sensitive data from the cards of people who used them. Jack believes a large number of ATMs have remote management tools that can be accessed over a telephone. After experimenting with two machines he purchased, Jack developed a way of bypassing the remote authentication system and installing a homemade rootkit, named Scrooge."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mike Senese, cohost of the Science Channel's Punkin' Chunkin' and Catch It Keep It, rescued this tutorial about how to "pirate" a vinyl record from Internet oblivion and posted it on his personal site for posterity. [Thanks, Sam!]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Music | Digg this!

You know what goes great with hamburgers, and summer in general? Pickles. Know what's even better than buying a jar of Vlasic and calling it a day? Making them yourself after only an hour's time. More »

It's a prototype called txtBOMBER, by Felix Vorreiter. It has seven solenoid-actuated pens and an Arduino for a brain. [via Dude Craft]

Read the Full Story » | More on MAKE » | Comments » | Read more articles in Arduino | Digg this!

Several erotic writings have been pulled from Apple’s iTunes Store and replaced with less sexier titles.

Given the lovingly detailed descriptions of early-2000s computers and technology the late Stieg Larsson peppered into The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, we're pretty sure he'd love to know that he's just become the first author to sell over a million Amazon Kindle e-books -- and we can only imagine what kind of trouble Larsson's Lisbeth Salander would have gotten into with a Droid X or an iPad. Considering the dominance of Amazon's platform and company's recent announcement that Kindle titles are now outselling hardcovers we'd guess that also makes him the first author to sell a million e-books period, which is fairly notable -- and with the upcoming Hollywood adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, we'd guess these numbers aren't going to slow down any time soon. Too bad we don't know the breakdown of where these million books went -- we'd love to know if Kindle devices are as popular as the Kindle apps on various other platforms.

Stieg Larsson becomes the first author to sell a million Kindle e-books originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  BusinessWire  | Email this | Comments

William Watson points to the latest Pew survey on global attitudes to free markets.
China tops the scale in support of the free market. Germany also beats the United States. As does Brazil. And France is only one point behind the US.

And while 93% of Chinese surveyed say trade is a good thing, only 66% of Americans agreed.

If they ever re-make Red Dawn with China invading the US, which side do we cheer for?