Microsoft has unveiled its first new logo for 25 years.
Microsoft's new logo is similar to the Windows logo.
Microsoft will
launch Windows 8, the latest version of its computer operating system, later
this year and aims to unify its branding across its range of products.
"It's been 25 years since we've updated the Microsoft logo and now is the
perfect time for a change," said Jeff Hansen, general manager of Microsoft's
brand strategy, wrote
on the company's blog.
He added: "This wave of new releases is not only a reimagining of our most
popular products, but also represents a new era for Microsoft, so our logo
should evolve to visually accentuate this new beginning."
Microsoft last changed its logo in 1987, adopting an italicised rendering of
its name. The new logo adds four coloured squares alongside a plain version
of its name and is similar to the logo for Windows. In fact, the website
Neowin noted
that a very similar logo was used in the marketing for Windows 95.
Hansen added: "The logo has two components: the logotype and the symbol. For
the logotype, we are using the Segoe font which is the same font we use in
our products as well as our marketing communications."
Earlier this month, Microsoft announced
that it was ditching the name 'Metro', which had previously been used to
describe the text-drive, tile-based interface used in Windows Phone and on
the Xbox games console.
A prototype of the plywood kit. Note the rotary encoder is cardboard. [Credit: Dustin and David Andrews]Do you ever dream of building a robot army to take over the world, but you don't quite have the know-how to create a robot from scratch? Sometimes, knowing a bit of code isn't enough to complete a DIY project--you need to make sure all of the different hardware components correspond with each other before you can get your project up and running.
Fortunately, the Robotic Minion Starter Kit by Dustin and David Andrews on Kickstarter aims to give you a hand. The lighthearted project is basically a small computer in a plywood box, with an LCD display, a rotary encoder (left, right, and click button), a USB port, and a speaker. It will help you learn how to go about programming hardware parts like servomotors, LEDs, relays, and so on, so you can create projects like remote-control robots, lasers, cameras, or whatever else you choose. What's more, it's compatible with Arduino boards.
The box is apparently good for sensor-based projects, such as those using GPS, proximity sensors, RFID, and so on. Basically, it's your project creator in a box.
The kit comes with software that contains a bit of code meant to bolster your projects or give you inspiration, but you do need to be fairly confident with coding in order to really work it. The rugged little box is designed to help you get your idea into action, so you can focus on nailing the code to perfection.
This little open-source box also comes with all the little parts you'd typically need for an Arduino project. It gives beginners a chance to get projects off the computer screen and breadboard, and it could be a great testbed for for the more experienced DIYers.
So far, the two brothers have built working prototypes, tested the software and electronics, sourced components, and finished designing the box. However, they need funding to pay for parts and various fees in order to assemble kits for sale. You can pledge just $1 to get a couple of perks, but if you want one of these kits you'll need to put down at least $55 (the cheaper early bird options were sold out at the time of writing!).
To see the full details of what is in the Robotic Minion Starter Kit, and the detailed history of the duo's idea, head over to the Kickstarter page
Ryan Cleary, the 20-year-old Briton arrested over attacks on Fox and PBS
television networks, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Los
Angeles.
LulzSec 'hacker' Ryan Cleary
Cleary, who is already jailed in the United Kingdom where he faces prosecution
over similar charges, is accused of joining other members of LulzSec in
harnessing compromised computers, known as a "botnet," to steal
confidential information, deface websites or attack servers. He was indicted
on Tuesday.
"Cleary is a skilled hacker. He controlled his own botnet, employed
sophisticated methods and his broad geographic scope affected a large number
of businesses and individuals," FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.
LulzSec, an offshoot of the international hacking group Anonymous, has taken
credit for hacking attacks on government and private sector websites.
Anonymous and its offshoots, including LulzSec and AntiSec, initially focused
on fighting attempts at internet regulation and the blocking of free illegal
downloads, but have since taken on such targets as Scientology and the
global banking system.
The charges come just over two months after accused LulzSec hacker Cody
Kretsinger pleaded guilty in US
District Court in Los Angeles to taking part in an extensive computer breach
of Sony Corp's Sony Pictures Entertainment.
In March, court documents revealed that Anonymous leader "Sabu,"
whose real name is Hector Xavier Monsegur, had pleaded guilty to
hacking-related charges and provided the FBI with information on fellow
hackers.
According to the indictment released by the FBI, Cleary and his unnamed
co-conspirators hacked into the computer systems of News Corp's Fox
Entertainment Group and Sony Pictures Entertainment and stole confidential
user information.
The indictment also charges Cleary and his co-conspirators of defacing the PBS
website and launching "denial of service" attacks against an
online gaming website and Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency.
Cleary is charged with one count of conspiracy and two counts of unauthorised
impairment of a protected computer. He faces a maximum sentence of 25 years
in prison if convicted.
Eimiller said federal authorities would "allow the prosecution to take
its course" against Cleary overseas before deciding whether to seek his
extradition to the United States. He is next scheduled to be in court in the
UK on June 25.
Anonymous, and LulzSec in particular, became notorious in late 2010 when they
launched what they called the "first cyber war" in retaliation for
attempts to shut down the WikiLeaks website.
They attacked websites including those of MasterCard Inc, which had tried to
block payments to WikiLeaks after apparent pressure from the US government
following the release of thousands of diplomatic cables.
Source: agencies
Iran claims it has defeated a powerful computer virus that has
boasted unprecedented data-snatching capabilities and could eavesdrop on
computer users, a senior official said.
Iran's government-run Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center has said the Flame virus was focused on espionage
Ali Hakim Javadi, Iran's deputy Minister of
Communications and Information Technology, told the official IRNA news
agency that Iranian experts have already produced an antivirus capable
of identifying and removing "Flame" from computers.
Iran's government-run Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center has said the Flame virus was focused on espionage.
Javadi did not say whether any Iranian government bodies or industries were affected by the virus.
"This
is no longer about stealing card data or passwords, the stakes are so
much higher, and security procedures must follow suit," said James Todd,
an expert in virus attacks at specialist firm, FireEye.
"The
next big trend in IT security was always going to be cyber-espionage,
given the potentially huge rewards for the taking. This is particularly
true if hackers can infiltrate information relating to policy, patents,
intellectual property and R&D plans."
Iran did not release any details of the tool to
combat the most complex cyber attack. Its computer emergency response
and co-ordination centre said the programme had identified and removed
the malicious software.
Since Iran's nuclear facilities and oil
ministry have been the target of past virus attacks, Tehran has accused
the US and Israel of trying to sabotage its technological progress.
The Flame espionage virus, believed to target Iran, among others, has been
identified as the most complex malicious software ever discovered.
Flame : most complex malicious virus.
Security experts are still dissecting the Flame code, which is many times
longer than any other computer virus, but some facts are clear:
Basics
Up to 20MB file (by comparison Stuxnet, which dmaage Iranian uranium
centrifuges, is around 500KB)
Infects Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 systems
Detected in Iran, Russia, Egypt, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan
Espionage capabilities
Taking screenshots
Covert sound recording
Intercepting keyboard strokes
Monitoring network activity
Detects 100 types anti-virus software and conceals its presence
Creates a database to store stolen information
Communicates with command and control servers over encrypted channels Propagation
Via USB sticks
On local networks via printers
As a self-spreading internet “worm” when directed by its controllers
Apple’s next iPhone will be cased in ‘Liquidmetal’, according to reports.
Apple's chief executive: Tim Cook.Photo: AP
The iPhone 5, likely to be released later this year, is expected to be cased
in a ‘metallic glass’, otherwise known as Liquidmetal, says a Korean news
outlet citing ‘industry sources’.
The case is expected to be 20 times stronger than the current encasement.
According to The
Register, ‘metallic glass is a metal alloy, but one with the
disordered structure of glass’. The material has been around since the
1990s, but since a new breakthrough in ‘superspeed pulse mould technology’,
this type of glass, which is as tough as metal, can now be used for phone
casings.
An Apple spokesman declined to comment on rumours and speculation.
The technology giant has signed an exclusive deal with Liquidmetal Techologies
Ltd, the inventors of the material. Apple is believed to have paid $11m for
the exclusive arrangement.
The part of the new iPhone expected to be made out of metallic glass is the
back casing – as opposed to the glass display.
The same Korean news outlet has also predicted that the upcoming Samsung
Galaxy S3, due to launch on May 3 in London, will be made out of high-tech
ceramics.
The Downing Street website was also disrupted by computer hackers who targeted the Home Office in protest at the Government’s extradition policies.
The Anonymous hacking network uses as a logo the mask from the comic V For Vendetta
The Anonymous collective has vowed to target British Government sites every week, bringing them offline by overloading them with traffic.
So-called “hacktivists” were able to launch their cyber attack on Saturday night despite announcing it days in advance, raising questions about the effectiveness of Whitehall internet security.
The British branch of Anonymous – a loose global collective of computer hackers who often target law-enforcement websites – first advertised “#OpTrialAtHome” last Monday.
A poster featured the photos of three British citizens who have been sent to the US to face trial – Gary McKinnon, Richard O’Dwyer and Christopher Tappin – together with the slogan “Fight extradition”.
It included the address of the Home Office website and the direction to “charge ya lazers” on Saturday at 9pm GMT.
Supporters would understand this to be an order to join in a “distributed denial-of-service attack” on the website, in which thousands of computers are used to send a flood of requests to visit the victim’s homepage, causing its servers to buckle under the demand.
At the appointed hour, Anonymous Twitter feeds ordered followers to “fire your Laz0rs”, and soon reported “Tango Down” as the target was hit.
Screenshots showed that the Home Office website was inaccessible from 9pm and service was reportedly patchy until Sunday morning.
A Home Office spokesman said: “The Home Office website was the subject of on online protest last night.
“This is a public-facing website and no sensitive information is held on it. There is no indication that the site was hacked and other Home Office systems were not affected.
“Measures put in place to protect the website meant that members of the public were unable to access the site intermittently.
“We will continue to monitor the situation and take measures accordingly.”
The activists also brought down the Downing Street website at about 10.30pm, but a spokesman for the Prime Minister said it only lasted for a “couple of minutes” and there was no suggestion of it being hacked into. The Ministry of Justice denied the hackers’ claims that its website had also been taken offline.
Anonymous explained on Twitter: “It’s a digital protest which is different [from] hacking. UK want their government to listen. We can do it as long as it takes.
“Selling your citizens to foreigners is not acceptable! We are Anonymous, we do not forget, we do not forgive.”
Another message from the group said: “EXPECT a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) every Saturday on the UK Government sites.”
A malware named 'Flashback' trojan has infected over half a million Mac machines in which half of the infected computers were installed in United States, claimed a Russian anti-virus firm.
According to firm, a software 'Dr. Web' has diagnosed about 6,00,000 Macs installed, have the malware infected, which is potentially allowing them to be hijacked and use them as "botnet".
"By introducing the code, criminals are potentially able to control the machine," the BBC quoted the firm's Chief Executive, Boris Sharov, as saying.
"We stress the word potential as we have never seen any malicious activity since we hijacked the botnet to take it out of criminals' hands. However, we know people create viruses to get money," he added.
Though Apple has released a security update, but users who still haven't installed the patch, remain at risk.
The malware, Flashback, was first detected last September, when anti-virus researchers released a software which posed itself as a Flash Player update. Once it was downloaded, it deactivated some of the computer's security software.
Dr Web also identified that 274 of the infected computers it detected, appeared to be located in Cupertino, California which is the home to Apple's headquarters.
Google today went public with its plans to offer augmented-reality glasses, which it’s calling “Project Glass.”
Unveiling the project should make it easier for Google to test the weird-looking glasses in public. As currently designed, they have a horizontal frame that rests on a wearer’s nose, with a wider strip of computer and a little clear display on the right side. So they’re not really “glasses” in the traditional sense at all.
From a video Google put out of how the prototype works, an augmented-reality-glasses wearer can control music, get directions, take pictures, give voice commands and conduct video chats. The glasses don’t cover the whole eye, so it seems like the wearer does something like look up to engage with the display.
Project Glass is part of the Google[x] special projects division that also includes self-driving cars. The glasses team is led by Babak Parviz, Steve Lee and Sebastian Thrun.
The New York Times first reported the project in February. At the time, it said the glasses were expected to go on sale later this year. However, Google said today that it’s unlikely the glasses will hit the market this year.
Getting ready for the next wave of iPhone excitement
As it happened, there was no iPhone 5 in 2011 after all, but the company did announce the iPhone 4S.
However, the new iPhone 5 is still on the cards - we're expecting it to debut in the middle of this year. So we've gathered together all the latest iPhone 5 rumours and rounded them up below.
First though, why not read our complete iPhone 4S review?
It's the phone that appeared when the whole world was looking forward to the iPhone 5 anyway, so make up your own mind whether to make the jump to Apple's latest now or save those pennies for the 2012 iPhone 5 release.
iPhone 5 release date
Rumours that we reported on 18 October claim an iPhone 5 release date of Summer 2012. Analyst Ashok Kumar claimed that the absent iPhone 5 was meant to be the big announcement at the recent event where the iPhone 4Swas launched.Given the pattern of Apple's iPhone launches, we're expecting the next-gen iPhone 5 to debut in mid to late 2012. We reckon it's most likely to be shown off at Apple's Worldwide Developer Event (WWDC), which usually takes place in early June.
iPhone 5 form factor
Unlike the iPhone 4S, the new iPhone will be a completely new design from what has gone before, so that means an entirely new casing as we saw with the iPhone 3G and, later, the iPhone 4.
Interestingly, someone who claimed to have seen a larger-screened iPhone 5 prototype said in November 2011 that Steve Jobs canned the new handset and opted for the iPhone 4S because of the larger screen size of the new device. According to Business Insider, it was feared that a new size would create a two-tier iPhone ecosystem.
Beatweek also claimed in November 2011 that the 5-inch was scrapped "because Apple wouldn't be able to do it properly" this year. However, theDaily Mail (make of that what you will) then suggested that a four-inch version was likely and that Sony has already shipped top secret demo screens to Apple.
iPhone 5 specs
Based on the roadmap of mobile chip design specialist ARM (of which Apple is a licensee), we'll see a quad-core processor debut in the new iPhone 5 - probably called the Apple A6. We know that we'll see other quad core handsets debut in 2012, so it's not too much of a stretch to say that the iPhone 5 will be the same.
We had expected some kind of help in terms of predicting the iPhone 5 CPU from the launch of the new iPad, but the announcement of a slightly tweaked A5X processor really didn't help things there.
iPhone 5 will have 4G/LTE support
With many 4G handsets already announced in the US, it can't be long before the iPhone supports 4G technologies - even if we won't even have a UK spectrum auction until 2012.
4G mobile broadband and LTE explained
Will Strauss from analyst firm Forward Concepts, who says that the next iPhone will feature LTE technologies."They're saving iPhone 5 for the LTE version and that won't be out until next spring," said Strauss.
After the new iPad's launch brought 4G to an Apple device, it's widely expected that 4G will come to iPhone 5.
Steve Jobs' iPhone 5 legacy
Many sites have reported that Steve Jobs was working hard on the iPhone 5 project, which will apparently be a "radical redesign". We shall see... but the fact the iPhone 4S was so similar to the iPhone 4 suggests that Steve was working on something pretty special before
And if you're in a bit of a hurry, we've also got a handy iPhone 5 video detailing the latest rumours on release date, spec and more - so check if out for a quick fix of next-gen Apple fun:
The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that: "Apple is also developing a new iPhone model, said people briefed on the phone. One person familiar said the fifth-generation iPhone would be a different form factor than those that are currently available… it was unclear how soon that version would be available to Verizon or other carriers."
This has since been backed up by reports from Engadget, which state the design will be a 'total rethink'.
iPhone 5 screen
Various sources claim the iPhone 5 will feature a larger, 4-inch screen. Digitimes quotes the source as saying that Apple is expanding the screen size "to support the tablet PC market as the vendor only has a 9.7-inch iPad in the market."
On 23 May 2011, we reported on rumours that the iPhone 5 could feature a curved glass screen. These rumours also came from Digitimes, which said that Apple has purchased between 200 and 300 special glass cutting machines because they're too costly for the manufacturers to invest in.
In March 2012, new reports suggested that the new iPhone 5 would come sporting a larger 4.6-inch retina display.
There's been some speculation that Apple might include Near Field Communication (NFC) technology in the iPhone 5, turning it into a kind of credit/debit card.
However, with the tech being inside the Google Nexus Sand Samsung Galaxy Nexus, as well as a host of other top smartphones, the time for NFC may finally be here.
On 24 June 2011 it was reported that the Google Wallet mobile payment platform could feature on the new iPhone. Eric Schmidt admitted that Google is looking to port the software to other manufacturers.
However, on 31 January 2012 9to5Mac claimed to have spoken with a well-connected developer who disclosed information received from Apple iOS engineers saying they are "heavily into NFC".
The developer in question has not been named, but is working on a dedicated iOS app which includes NFC reading for mobile transactions. When questioned how confident he was on the information he had received his reply was "Enough to bet the app development on".
iPhone 5 camera
Sony makes the camera for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. Speaking at a liveWall Street Journal event, Sony's Sir Howard Stringer was talking about the company's camera image sensor facility in Sendai, a town that was recently ravaged by the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
According to 9to5Mac, he said something along the lines of, "Our best sensor technology is built in one of the [tsunami] affected factories. Those go to Apple for their iPhones… or iPads. Isn't that something? They buy our best sensors from us."
Sources have also suggested the new iPhone could have an 8MP camera. Indeed, Sony announced in January 2012 that it had developed new back-illuminated stacked CMOS image sensors which are smaller in size.
iPhone 5 price
If the iPhone 5 is an evolutionary step like the move from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S then we'd expect the price to stay more or less the same, although in the UK higher VAT rates may well mean a higher price tag.
It's pretty much nailed on that the new iPhone will cost around £500 for a 16GB / 32GB model (depending on the capacity Apple whacks in there) and unless the iPhone 5 comes with some truly next generation technology that pricing model should hold firm.
