TechEye |  |
- Google in FTC's sights again
- Ketamine touted as depression cure
- Iran accused of hacking US energy companies
- German VIP planes to get infrared countermeasures
- Aussie coppers fear 3D gun explosion
- Android malware forwards SMS to crooks
- Apple's ebook case looks doomed
- Sears turns old stores into datacentres
- Microsoft gets hacked off about start buttons
- After Woolwich attack, 'snooper's charter' back on the agenda
| Posted: 24 May 2013 05:11 AM PDT The Federal Trade Commission is taking yet another look at Google, this time over allegations the company used its near-monopolistic position online to sell and serve graphic and video ads. According to the Wall Street Journal's secret sauces, the inquiry has just started and it is not certain it'll evolve into formalities. The rumour comes shortly after the FTC finished its long running antitrust investigation into Google's web search and search advertising, where the company was let off the hook. Google brings in heaps of cash from display ads, roughly at 15 percent of the entire $15 billion market. This is helped in particular with ads on YouTube. Google also turns money by finding ad space on websites across the net, through DoubleClick Ad Exchange, as well as making cash with DoubleClick for Publishers, an ad serving system at the top of the pack in the market. There are whispers that Google could be punishing publishers who use ad system DoubleClick for Publishers to utilise non Google technology to sell ad space. Google, a rival reportedly complained to regulators, dangles cash in front of clients so they use the company's AdMeld service for managing ad space rather than tech from the competition. It is even alleged that it could be waiving services costs if publishers go with Google. When Google bought Doubleclick in 2007, the WSJ notes, the FTC decided to let the deal go ahead. Even so, it registered concerns that the buy-out had the potential to boost Google's other ad products. |
| Ketamine touted as depression cure Posted: 24 May 2013 04:24 AM PDT Johnson & Johnson is apparently on the verge of a major breakthrough in psychiatry, with an unusual twist. It believes it could use ketamine, a popular street drug, to treat depression. Before he joined the company, Johnson & Johnson neuroscience R&D head Husseini Manji was part of a team that learned that a particular brain receptor, called N-methyl D-aspartate (NMDA) played a crucial role in depression. Then it became apparent that ketamine could successively target the receptor and ease the symptoms of depression, even suicidal thoughts. The effects were nothing short of spectacular. Ketamine had a positive effect on 70 percent of patients just a day after they were injected with the drug. By comparison, currently available antidepressants take weeks to produce actual results and even then they have a much lower success rate, about 30 percent. At the moment, ketamine is mostly used to cure standing up straight and being able to dance properly. Manji pointed out that standard procedure in serious cases of depression involves locking people up to keep them from harming themselves until the drugs kick in. With a much higher success rate and the ability to treat patients in a single day, ketamine could revolutionise treatment, reports Forbes. Manji believes ketamine could be used to develop other drugs, which could be available by 2017, without the negative image and dangers associated with ketamine. |
| Iran accused of hacking US energy companies Posted: 24 May 2013 04:09 AM PDT In an effort to prove that it can be almost as menacing as China, Iran has apparently hacked a bunch of US energy companies. The Wall Street Journal claims the hackers were able to access control system software in several oil, gas and power companies. US officials compared the attacks to cyber reconnaissance missions. They believe the small scale attacks could be used to figure out how to disrupt services in the future. Basically, in case of war, it's alleged that Iran could target US infrastructure, and if it fails it can block the Strait of Hormuz. In theory, attacks on control systems could also inflict crippling physical damage. One example would be turning off safety features, such as automatic lubrication of generators and other equipment. This isn’t the first time the US has accused Iran of cyber attacks. Iran has allegedly targeted US banks with massive DoS attacks in the past and it is said to be aggressively expanding its cyber warfare capabilities. Iran apparently started taking cyber warfare a bit more seriously after it was struck by the Stuxnet virus. If we're not mistaken, this is what the intelligence community would call blowback. |
| German VIP planes to get infrared countermeasures Posted: 24 May 2013 02:38 AM PDT US defence contractor Northrop Grumman has landed a rather interesting contract to equip a couple of civilian Airbus A319CJ aircraft with a top of the line infrared countermeasures system. The $26 million contract should be finalised by March 2016 and then the specially modified “head of state” will enter German service, reports Motley Fool. Although Germany doesn’t exactly top the list of potential terrorist targets, it might be a good idea to have some countermeasures on board when Angela Merkel visits Athens and asks for her money back. Northrop Grumman already won similar contracts to equip Boeings used by the leaders of Oman and Qatar, which should also come in quite handy when the people of these Gulf nations ask for their countries back. The AN/AAQ-24(V) is Northrop Grumman’s latest directional infrared countermeasures system. The company claims it can defeat any IR missile out there, although it is clear the threat comes from MANPADs in the wrong hands. It is capable of detecting and simultaneously jamming missiles in high clutter environments and it covers all current IR threat bands. It is also available in laser based configurations, with added coolness. |
| Aussie coppers fear 3D gun explosion Posted: 24 May 2013 02:37 AM PDT While the US is scratching its head about what to do about 3D printed guns finding their way into the hands of criminals and right-wing nutjobs, the Australian cops want them banned. According to Gizmodo, the New South Wales Police Force downloaded the 3D printable weapon known as The Liberator to print for themselves, and it scared the billabongs out of them. According to the Police Commissioner: “they are truly undetectable, truly untraceable, cheap, easy to make”. They have the potential to turn Australia into the Wild West. Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said that the NSW Police bought themselves a 3D printer for $1,700 and decided to test how easy it would be to build their own gun. They downloaded the blueprints for The Liberator from the internet and printed out two weapons to test fire. They said that they printed the 15 parts required to assemble The Liberator in 27 hours and assembled it within 60 seconds with a firing pin fashioned out of a steel nail. The two guns were test fired into a block of resin designed to simulate human muscle, and the first bullet penetrated the resin block up to 17 centimetres. In other words, it could result in a fatality if fired at someone. However, the second gun failed and the barrel exploded. Based on that, the failure rates of these guns are going to be jolly high and you will not know if you will kill yourself or your target when you pull the trigger. As the coppers say, either event is probably not going to be good. The police service is lobbying to make the download and construction of 3D printed guns illegal in Australia. However the NSW Commissioner said you can’t stop the spread of The Liberator. He said that he is less concerned about the guns being used by crooks than he is by the prospect of non-criminals fascinated by 3D printing building one for a laugh. It would be all fun and games until the gun blew up. He thinks the only way around this is to educate people so that they know that it is bloody dangerous and making one is a good way to remove yourself from the gene pool. |
| Android malware forwards SMS to crooks Posted: 24 May 2013 02:35 AM PDT The latest malware designed for Android forwards a copy of your SMS to Russian criminals. While there are some cases where we can think it would be useful for a Russian criminal to know that you are on your way home with a frozen pizza, it is not clear what it hopes to achieve with a huge database of useless data. Nevertheless, Next Web calls us to admire the coding and tremble with fear at its results. Once installed, the trojan can be used to steal sensitive messages for blackmailing purposes or more directly, codes which are used to confirm online banking transactions, Next Web wrote. Yeah it could, but the crook would have to install it on a specific phone manually which is not the most efficient way of spreading malware. They would then have to sort out the message they wanted from a huge database created from everyone who had the malware on board. The malware in question has been dubbed "Android.Pincer.2.origin" by Russian security firm Doctor Web. The user will see a fake notification about the certificate's successful installation but after that, the trojan will not perform any noticeable activities for a while. Doctor Web has found criminals can send following instructions to the trojan and turn it on and off. It can also change servers if the current one is shut down. |
| Apple's ebook case looks doomed Posted: 24 May 2013 02:33 AM PDT It is starting to look like Apple's defence of its anti-trust antics in the ebook trade is doomed even before it starts. In what Reuters calls a rare move, a federal judge expressed a tentative view that the US Justice Department will be able to show evidence that Apple engaged in a conspiracy with publishers to increase ebook prices. Judge Denise Cote gave her view during a pre-trial hearing and said it was based on reading some of the evidence. The move might be to put pressure on Apple to stop being an idiot and settle the case like all the book publishers involved in the cartel. Apple's big problem is that, before he died, Steve Jobs bragged of the success of his cartel at jacking up the price for users while sticking it to Amazon. Apparently the DoJ found a wealth of emails saying similar stuff on Apple's servers. Cote stressed that the view was not final but she believed that the government will be able to show at trial direct evidence that Apple knowingly participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of ebooks. She added that the circumstantial evidence in this case, including the terms of the agreements, will confirm that. Apple insists that view must be completely wrong, because it is always right. Although since the case is not being heard with a jury to befuddle, it will have its work cut out. Cote emphasised that no final decision would be made until after the trial takes place. She also said she had not read many of the affidavits submitted in support of the parties' positions. |
| Sears turns old stores into datacentres Posted: 24 May 2013 02:31 AM PDT Sears has decided that one of the best things to do with all those stores it had to close after the US ran out of money was to convert them into data centres. According to Datacentre Knowledge, Sears has created a Ubiquity Critical Environments unit which will convert a Sears retail store in Chicago into data centre space. The cunning plan is to market space from former Sears and Kmart retail stores as a home for data centres, disaster recovery space and wireless towers. This way the company will convert the shells of the 20th century retail industry into tools for the 21st century digital economy. Sean Farney, the Chief Operating Officer of Ubiquity, said that the goal was to reposition Sears' assets. The big idea is that you have a technology platform laid atop a retail footprint, creating the possibility for a product with a different look to it, he said. So what does Sears know about data centres? Well Farney does know a thing or two as he previously managed Microsoft's huge Chicago data centre, and then ran a network of low-latency services for the financial services firm Interactive Data. Sears aims to use the property of both closed stores and some that are still operating. Each building is being evaluated to see if they can become a data centre. The first Ubiquity project will be a Sears store on the south side of Chicago. The 127,000 square foot store is closing at the end of June, and will be retrofitted as a multi-tenant data centre. Farney says he already has a commitment for the first tenant at the site on East 79th Street, which has five megawatts of existing power capacity and the potential to expand. |
| Microsoft gets hacked off about start buttons Posted: 24 May 2013 02:29 AM PDT It would appear that Microsoft's failed attempt to get rid of the start button from Windows 8 have got its designers a little grumpy. One of the reasons cited for the failure of Windows 8 to take the world by storm has been that Microsoft, for reasons known only to itself, removed the Start button from the console. Microsoft was furious and defended its moves incredibly strongly, right up until the moment it brought it back. Now it seems that Microsoft is going into overkill mode and is telling users: "You want start buttons we will give you start buttons, soon you will be drowning in a sea of bloody start buttons". The latest thing to ship from Microsoft with a start button is a mouse. The start button is on the left hand side of the mouse where you are fairly likely to press it by accident. In case you might miss it there is also one below the scroll wheel. Then when the start button appears on the screen you can swear at it and Microsoft can say "well we did try to take the sodding thing out!" In case you feel that accidently pressing the start button is not enough, the cunning designers have worked out other ways to get you really annoyed with the start button. According to its blog, the mouse's start button does more than just take you to the Start screen. "If you swipe up on the blue strip, it cycles through all your open Windows Store apps in Windows 8. And if you swipe down, it will reveal all the open apps (on the left side of your screen) for you to select the one you want." It sounds to us like there is a lot that could go wrong. |
| After Woolwich attack, 'snooper's charter' back on the agenda Posted: 23 May 2013 09:55 AM PDT The UK thought it was rid of the reviled 'snooper's charter' communications bill, which would make storing data on all Britains legal, but now political figures are suggested it be resurrected in light of the axe attack in Woolwich yesterday. Lord Carlisle, formerly the independent reviewer of terror laws, said on BBC's Newsnight that it should offer a "pause for thought" about dropping the bill, the Metro reports. "We must ensure that the police and the security services have for the future the tools they need which will enable them to prevent this kind of attack taking place," Carlisle said. "I hope that this will give the government pause for thought about their abandonment for example of the communications data bill and possibly pause for thought about converting control orders into what are now called Tpims, with a diluted set of powers". Lord Reid weighed in saying that mobile data stopped a 2006 airline attack. "2,500 people would probably have been blown out of the sky over the United Kingdom," he said. The unpopular bill was thought to be blocked by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, and it was not mentioned in the Queen's speech. Nick Pickles, at Big Brother Watch, told TechWeekEurope that Lord Reid's track record speaks for itself. Reid was, Pickles said, "one of those responsible for the knee-jerk decision to try and introduce powers for people to be detained for up to 90 days without trial by the last government, after the 7/7 attack". "We face down terrorists by defending our values and traditions and acting proportionately, which is a balance current policy recognises," Pickles said. In a blog post, Big Brother Watch offered agreement to former head of MI5 Lady Neville-Jones, who said efforts need to be made in tackling hateful rhetoric online and elsewhere. |
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