By PromptBoston

March 31st, 2006

Crooks use BBC News stories to install keyloggers

Crooks use BBC News stories to install keyloggers

People are being warned that spam emails containing BBC News stories are being used to trick them into visiting malicious websites, which cybercrooks are using to install a type of software called a keylogger onto vulnerable PCs. It enables passwords to be stolen, so that crooks can access a web user’s financial details.

The keylogger monitors financial activity and then sends what it has picked up back to the attacker. This latest breach of online security works by exploiting the “createTextRange()” vulnerability in IE, according to Websense’s alert. The vulnerability has to do with how Internet Explorer handles the “createTextRange()” tag in Web pages.

This flaw can be further exploited to download trojan horses and spyware to PCs. Microsoft has said that it’s working on finding a fix for the browser. However, eEye Digital Security and Determina both released unofficial fixes for the IE flaw earlier this week.

By Sean McManus

March 31st, 2006

Environmentally friendly bombs?

Environmentally friendly bombs?

According to New Scientist, US researchers have developed explosives that are more environmentally friendly than the existing ones that use lead. The story says that workers at an FBI gun range were found to have lead poisoning, which could be avoided by using the new chemicals. We confidently expect them to announce next that they’ve developed tanks that jump over flowers and have an ‘I brake for toads’ sticker on the turret.

By PromptBoston

March 31st, 2006

Oooops! I think we took a wrong turning…

Oooops! I think we took a wrong turning…

With technological advancements in onboard navigation and satellite precision, you would be forgiven for thinking that all planes, unless an emergency occurs, land at the right airport. However, Ryanair shows it is still possible to deposit passengers at the wrong airport.
Ryanair’s scheduled flight from Liverpool to Derry in Northern Ireland, got somehow waylaid when the pilot ended up landing at a military base a few miles away from Derry. There was no apparent onboard emergency for the surprise landing, just a huge error in judgement by the pilot. According to Ryanair such a thing had never occurred before in its 20 year history.

By Sean McManus

March 30th, 2006

Sorry. Am I boring you?

Sorry. Am I boring you?

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a system for interpreting body language so that it can warn people if they’re being boring, according to the BBC. A camera on a pair of glasses picks up images of how someone is responding to your conversation. If they’re showing signs of boredom, a device in your hand vibrates. It has apparently been developed to assist those with autism, who can find it hard to interpret other people’s feelings.

The BBC said it was right 64% of the time when tested on the general public, which is probably a technical triumph but some way from a system you could rely upon.

Before posting this story, I did double check the date in case I had lost a couple of days. Following yesterday’s story about people being buried with mobile phones, and today’s story about a personal computer that tells you if you’re being boring, we can hardly wait to read the news on Saturday 1 April.

By PromptBoston

March 29th, 2006

Finally… Video games are actually good for you!

Finally… Video games are actually good for you!

Those of us who are guilty of being glued to the TV screen all day and in danger of having ‘square eyes’ might console ourselves with the knowledge that new research has found that video games actually help lazy eyes!

The medical condition amblyopia, or ‘lazy eye’, where one eye works harder then the other, is caused by the brain recognising the ‘lazy eye’ as being inferior, which in turn slowly makes it redundant so only the good eye is used. The problem with such a condition is not so much that the lazy eye is indeed ‘lazy’, but that as time gradually passes the neural connection between eye and brain is weakened through lack of use. This, in turn, could cause blindness in the amblyopic eye.

The treatment for such a problem has in the past been to wear a patch over the good eye, forcing the lazy one to work harder. More than 400 hours of patch wearing is needed before any real improvement can be detected. However, patching is not all it’s cracked up to be. The patient might report a small amount of improvement in his/her lazy eye; but this improvement could be cancelled out by double vision resulting from the eyes not working together.

To combat such effects, which anyone else might put down to being partially intoxicated, researchers at Nottingham University have found that using virtual reality (VR) forces the ‘lazy eye’ to be active and for both eyes to work together.

So VR as well as being tons of fun can also have health benefits. “Fantastic!” I hear you cry. Well it sounds great, but is it truly VR in the strict sense? In a way it is: the patient is hooked up to the equipment and images flash in front of the eyes, creating the sense of a virtual reality. The difference is that where virtual reality is trying to create something realistic, researchers in Nottingham University create something unrealistic by bombarding each eye with a slightly different image. The eyes have to work together to understand it.

By Media Team

March 29th, 2006

Blogging… A bad influence?

Blogging… A bad influence?

A recent estimate from the coffee company Boca Java claims that there are now more than 50 million blogs on the internet. The phenomenon of writing an online diary or having a place to rant about your pet hates or display your interesting hobbies has really taken off and it is now commonplace for someone to have a blog or just enjoy reading others’.

Boca Java has come up with a great marketing campaign by making coffee for bloggers. It has recently launched so-called ‘bloggers blends’ whereby bloggers can purchase, create and name new coffee blends. Each blogger-inspired blend has its own identity such as: “Bloggers’ boot-up blend”, “Bloggers’ pajama passion” or “Late night log in”. It’s a bit of a gimmick but clever positioning by the company within the blogging community.

Although they may bring amusement to many and certainly do act as an easy way to waste away the hours, blogs appear to be an unwelcome activity for employers. A survey of 2,000 office workers by Thomas Cook has found that workers in the UK spend the equivalent of 75 days every year surfing the internet instead of working. This amounts to a third of each week being lost to workers skiving which leaves employers out of pocket.

By PromptLondon

March 28th, 2006

More Xbox 360 consoles and game titles on their way

More Xbox 360 consoles and game titles on their way

Microsoft is planning to boost shipments of its Xbox 360 games console by two to three times this week in order to meet shortages being faced by the games industry, TechWeb reports. The company has also added Celestica as a third manufacturer of the popular new Xbox model, first launched in November 2005, because its initial manufacturing plans involving just two makers – Winstron and Flextronics – had failed to meet huge consumer demands.

In the first week of release, Xboxes were being whisked off the shelves at a rate of one every 13 seconds! Ebayers (as always) were quick to cash in on this shortage, at one stage selling consoles intended for retail from $299 (£209) depending on model, for an average of $718.

Microsoft is also planning to expand its games portfolio, with 80 new titles scheduled to be available by June.

By PromptBoston

March 28th, 2006

Global mobile foible

Global mobile foible

New EU proposals could soon lead to cheaper fees for mobile phone owners making and receiving calls abroad, according to the BBC, and myriad other sources today.

These roaming charges may currently account for a massive 15 per cent of leading mobile operator income, but they also represent a sizeable hidden expenditure for businesses with mobile workforces, and can often make it prohibitively costly for holiday-makers to even turn their phones on while out of the country. After months of warnings, EU Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding has now called for legislation to slash “unjustifiable” roaming charges to levels consistent with calls made between different networks.

The BBC has reported the mobile industry’s global trade body, the GSM Association, as saying any new regulation on roaming would increase uncertainty and may put at risk further investment and development of new services. Draft legislation due to be announced on Tuesday will then be considered by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.

Any resulting recommendations for operator actions are expected to be finalised within months, so there might well be one less excuse for a mobile-free, completely disconnected fortnight in the sun for us all come the summer.

tags: roaming

By Media Team

March 28th, 2006

Waiting for working high definition DVDs? Holding breath not advised.

Waiting for working high definition DVDs? Holding breath not advised.

The next generation high definition DVD format war: Blu-ray versus HD-DVD – it’s going to be like VHS versus Betamax all over again. Only this time round it’s a bit more complicated and there are going to be a lot more confused and frustrated consumers. For a start, although the formats are incompatible the disks look pretty much identical and as if that’s not going to cause enough confusion, it turns out that most of the high definition TVs already on the market will not be fully compatible with either format. And then there’s the whole DRM issue, trying to get your head around that is like opening a can of worms whilst sitting in a nest of vipers.

Business Week has the full story, and it’s not pretty.

By Sean McManus

March 22nd, 2006

Microsoft postpones Vista. Again.

Microsoft postpones Vista. Again.

After all the excitement and marketing hype we’ve been enduring, Microsoft has postponed the consumer release of its forthcoming Vista operating system until next year. VNU reports that Microsoft claims hardware manufacturers are asking for more time to test their hardware with Vista. The operating system was first expected in 2003, and was most recently promised in time for Christmas 2006. PC World – the magazine, not the shop – speculates that this will give Apple a big boost in the Christmas shopping season. Even so, Apple has a lot of ground to make up and is unlikely to steal a significant proportion of Microsoft’s upgrade business.

By PromptBoston

March 15th, 2006

Ubiquitous technology leads to toilets 'crashing'

Ubiquitous technology leads to toilets 'crashing'

There’s an excellent article in The San Francisco Chronicle today, warning of the everyday perils we’re likely to face when technology finally takes over every facet of our lives.

The article was spurred by a speech by tech author Adam Greenfield given at a Texan geekcon called South by Southwest Interactive. Greenfield is best known for his new book ‘Everywhere‘ in which he discusses ubiquitous technology, such as ‘smart toilets’ and ‘intelligent bandages. It’s all either very scary or very cool, depending on your own personal geek quotient.

It’s easy to be calm about a toilet or a bandage that keeps track of your health by analysing your escaping fluids, until you actually find the things in your own bathroom. I mean, what if they start crashing when you need them most, like every other piece of technology ever known to man ever, from the first fragile stone age wheels to the US space programme?

Some things are sacred, and shouldn’t be fixed unless very, very broken indeed. For now, I draw my own personal techy line in the silicon just shy of my humble, common or garden Crapper.

By Sean McManus

March 15th, 2006

Does your cat have a computer virus?

Does your cat have a computer virus?

A new research paper (PDF) says that it’s possible computer viruses could be spread using RFID tags. RFID tags are used to trace goods through supply chains and have been injected into family pets to enable them to be identified if lost. The paper says that despite the small memory capacity of an RFID tag, it is possible to include malicious code in them. Here’s an interesting article about it, and there’s more information at rfidvirus.org.