Use a Pseudonym to Better Control Your Searchable Online Identity [Online Identity]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5580262/use-a-pseudonym-for-easy-just-google-me-business-cards

You can establish and monitor your real name's Google presence, but you won't get complete control, especially when others with your name try the same tactic. Using a pseudonym/alias/author's name in conjunction with pages you control can be much more effective.

Mister Jalopy, a true DIY enthusiast, writer, and all-around device enthusiast, takes his nom de plume to the extreme, preferring not to give his real name, even in interviews. You wouldn't have to do the same to get the same benefit he does from the "Mister Jalopy" tag, though—just use a unique alias in conjunction with sites and profiles you have the most say in:

If you Google my nom de bullshit, Mister Jalopy, all the top hits are for web pages that I control. And my e-mail address is right on the front page of all of them. For detractors, fans and spam scraping robots alike, I am super easy to find.

Mister Jalopy utilizes all the methods Jason detailed in his online identity how-to, just with his alter ego instead of his real name. It's worth considering, especially if you're one of the world's Robert Smiths or Nancy Jones.

Mister Jalopy's Business Card [Dinosaurs and Robots via BoingBoing]

Read More...

Summary only...

Use Read-Only Media to Protect Against Kiosk-Propagated Viruses [Security]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5580329/use-read+only-media-to-protect-against-kiosk-propagated-viruses

Public kiosks, such as those used for photo printing, are exposed to thousands of USB drives and other media every month. Many of them are poorly secured and are using your media as a virus-propagation tool. Protect yourself with these simple steps.

Photo by clix.

Security blog Risky.biz reader Morgan wrote in to highlight how an unsecure photo kiosk at Big W—a Woolworth subsidiary—infected one of his flash drives with a virus.

Photo kiosks in Big W stores are allegedly infecting customers with USB-borne viruses.

The Windows-based Fuji photo kiosks located in the company's stores apparently don't run antivirus software, so lovely little bits of malicious software like Trojan.Poison-36 are winding up on customers' USB keys, according to Risky Business listener and blogger Morgan Storey.

On its own, an isolated incident of a photo kiosk infecting a USB device might not be newsworthy. But what makes this item stick out is Big W's reply to Morgan after he notified the company of the issue:

You can visit the full article at the link below to see a screenshot of the entire email but the most notable quote in the their response should give you pause.

Please note that we are currently testing anti-virus software on our Fuji photo kiosks in a number of stores, and if it is successful, we plan on rolling it out to all stores in the future.

It could be debated whether or not the virus Morgan's flash drive picked up came from that particular photo kiosk but the people in charge of the kiosk acknowledge that the kiosks have no virus protection. All it would take for each kiosk to become a virus propagating machine then—with access to thousands of USB drives, memory sticks, and SD cards a month!—is exposure to one infected flash drive.

What can you do to protect yourself against infection from a dirty public kiosk? To play it extremely safe, burn your photos to read-only media such as a writable CD or DVD. Alternately you can keep a handful of small flash drives around for the task and when you've used the last of your throw-away pile you can boot your computer with a Live CD—check out our Hive Five on the topic—and format them all.

If you've had an experience with a third-party virus infection or have a tip for keeping viruses from public computers and kiosks away from your home network, let's hear about it in the comments.

Big W Infecting Photo Printing Customers? [Risky.Biz]

Read More...

Summary only...

New ultra-battery is the most powerful non-nuclear energy storage ever [Mad Chemistry]

Source: http://io9.com/5580592/new-ultra+battery-is-the-most-powerful-non+nuclear-energy-storage-ever

What do you get when you combine some xenon, some fluoride, and pressures similar to those found at the center of the Earth? You get an ultra-battery, capable of storing more condensed energy than any other battery ever built.

The material used to make the "battery" is xenon difluoride (XeF₂), a white crystal primarily used to etch silicon conductors. The crystal was placed in a diamond anvil cell, a tiny device that measures only two inches by three inches. The cell uses two tiny diamond anvils (as you might expect, considering its name) to produce incredibly high pressures in tiny, contained spaces.

Normally, the molecules in xenon difluoride stay relatively far apart. The squeezing process the crystals underwent in the diamond anvil cell forced the molecules closer and closer together. At first, the squeezing caused the crystal to become a two-dimensional semiconductor, but then something even more remarkable happened. When the pressure reached a million atmospheres, similar to the pressure found halfway to the center of the Earth, the molecules formed 3D metallic "network structures", which forced all the mechanical energy of the compression process to be stored as chemical energy within the molecular bonds. At a million atmospheres, that's a whole lot of stored energy.

Heading up this research is Washington State chemistry professor Choong-Shik Yoo, who says this "is the most condensed form of energy storage outside of nuclear energy." The possible applications of the material pretty much all include the word "super": superconductors, super-oxidizing materials that can destroy chemical and biological agents, not to mention new fuels and, most obviously, an energy storage device.

[Nature Chemistry]

Read More...

Summary only...

Logitech Revue Google TV Box Is Powered Like a Netbook [Google TV]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5580635/logitech-revue-google-tv-box-is-powered-like-a-netbook

Logitech's Revue, their set-top-box Google TV machine, just hit the FCC and got all of its parts documented. That it's powered by a 1.2GHz Intel Atom processor and 4GB RAM isn't surprising, but the fact that it has a built-in fan is.

What this means is that unless the fan spins at quite a low speed, it's going to generate noise comparable to a netbook. Probably louder than a netbook, because it's going to be doing some intensive video tasks (as well as running apps). You can't say for sure that this is going to be loud until you see it, but the fan hints at the fact that it won't be silent. [FCC via Wireless Goodness via Liluputing via Slashgear]

Read More...

Summary only...

AppleCare: The iPhone 4 Update Won't Solve the Antenna Problem [Iphone 4]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5580587/applecare-the-iphone-4-update-wont-solve-the-antenna-problem

AppleCare has confirmed what we already knew: The incoming software update won't fix the iPhone 4's transmission and reception problems. They acknowledged the antenna problem exists, offering the same solution as before: Buy a case or hold the iPhone differently.

I was secretly hoping that the software update would magically fix the iPhone 4's antenna design problem, because I really wanted to buy what otherwise is an great gadget. Unfortunately, the cosmetic change to the bar display—which promises to show the actual signal strength—will not fix the transmission/reception problem that countless iPhone 4 users are experiencing.

AppleCare's response

We called AppleCare three times today to confirm it. We told them that we were experiencing voice quality problems and call drops, as well as problems with internet access. Their response was immediate and unequivocal, the same in the three cases:

• There is an antenna interference problem when you hold the iPhone 4 in a certain way (the tests by Anandtech and many demonstration videos in the internet show that the signal drop will happen every time when you touch the phone's dead spot, on the left bottom corner).

• One solution is to hold the phone differently, avoiding to touch the left bottom corner of the phone (coincidentally, this is how models hold the iPhone 4 in most of Apple's promotional material).

• The other other solution is to buy a case or one of Apple's $30 bumpers (we are hosting a petition to ask Apple for free cases. You can sign it here).

• The incoming software update will not fix this antenna problem, only change the way the phone displays the available signal, make it more accurate.

While we already knew about it, the official AppleCare response is sad news. Like Gizmodo reader and former RF engineer for HP Medical products Gordon Cook said in a recent email: "Wrapping a metal antenna around a phone is simply asking for trouble, and Apple may in fact have realized too late that they had a real can of worms, so chose to release what they had instead of enduring a lengthy shipping delay. Now, after millions of phones shipped, and given the alternatives, screwing with the software is the only realistic way of fixing this, even if it's mostly cosmetic."

But cosmetic fixes will not stop the problem from happening. Apple should provide with a real fix to a design problem that ruins what could have been the best smartphone experience out there, bar none. And if they can't fix the units currently in the market, they should fix their manufacturing so this doesn't happen and at least provide with a free solution, like free bumpers or cases.

If you want Apple to solve this problem for free, sign the petition here and pass it around to other iPhone 4 users.

Read More...

Summary only...