Wall outlets — what exactly can we say? It’s a hole in the wall from which electrons spew forth when the appropriate (and sometimes inappropriate) material is inserted. How could technology and society actually make it better?
Enter the world transformed with the Rambler Socket. For starters, who says technology and mundane things such as wall outlets have to be ugly and unsightly? The Rambler is quite the looker.
Just because it looks good doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be functional. The Rambler excels again — offering up a fair amount of real world practicality.
The houses of tomorrow could have such a gadget pictured above and below. An outlet that stores an extension cord inside the outlet itself, allowing for more versatility and options when designing and building homes as well as giving homeowners one less thing to fret over.
I just with such concepts would come more quickly. It will easily be 15-20 years before we see any such technology implemented as “common” construction techniques in the U.S.*sigh*. Then again, they’ll have to swap out that goofy euro-connector in the pictures with a U.S. style before we could even use it anyway.
Follow that? T-Pain’s “I’m On A Boat” while not everyone’s personal preference for music, has enjoyed a fair amount of “remixing” the last couple of months (Kanye West version oddly absent). Yesterday we saw a parody movie of “I’m On A Boat” done by SwitchtoMac dubbed “I’m On A Mac”. The corniness couldn’t be ignored, but overall it was clever and helped relieve a small smidgen of daily stress.
Today however the Mac is old news and “I’m On A Phone” is the latest and greatest parody. It’s important to highlight the two videos and their creators are completely unrelated. “I’m On A Phone” is actually the $5,000 winner of Smule’s (developer of “Ocarina” and “I am T-Pain” iPhone apps) contest they launched to promote the “I am T-Pain iPhone app.
Did they succeed? You be the judge. A fair amount of laughs and large amount of vulgarity will ensure that the next two minutes and fifty-four seconds of your life are a tad better than the rest. Give both Smule contest winner “I’m On A Phone” and SwitchToMac’s “I’m On A Mac” a watch and let us know which you like better!
Ever wonder what goes on in your head when you do things such as think, walk down the stairs, smell a flower, etc? For some time now, scientists and researchers have known some basic information about the brain and how it functions. One thing to make note of though is that even today, scientists aren’t that comfortable in their breadth of knowledge involving the brain.
That’s where an unconventional brain scanning method used by raiology professor of Harvard, Van Wedeen. His new scans have been dubbed the diagrams of the “connectome”. The real excitement to get all nerdy about is that these scans actually depict (in 3D) all of the neurons and other connections within the brain.
The hope is to of course gain a more thorough understanding and grasp of how the brain works as well as the deeper interactions within the brain, down to the very level at which electronic signals take place.
It’s all extremely geeky, scientific, and technical so if you’re in search of some real brain food. Have at it with the links below.
Thankfully, *del*the fraud problems*/del* whatever caused AT&T to stop online iPhone sales to NYC residents has been solved. Venturing over to AT&T’s website and clicking the appropriate boxes will once again net you an iPhone no matter your zip code — NYC residents included. Whether the “fraud problem” was actually eliminated or AT&T fixed the imminent network problems in the area isn’t known and probably never will be. At least hopeful New Yorkers can be at peace, let out a sigh of relief, and get to ordering that bulk order of 1,000 iPhone’s they were so eager to resell for cheap shiny iPhone that was gleaming in their eye.
Parodies of any type are fun to watch and/or listen to. I’m a completely joker at heart so a little humor at someone or some other corporation’s expense is always fine in my book. So I of course had a few chuckles when I saw “I’m On A Mac” — performed by the talented and funny team over at Switch To Mac. The video is a parody of Lonely Island’s “I’m On A Boat” which you’ve probably heard in one form or another. In Switch To Mac’s version, instead of boats being the prized possession, it is Mac’s that obviously take the cake. Is it corny? Ya, but it’s pretty damn funny and catchy to boot. You can’t be that busy today that you don’t have a spare 2:36 to spare. Go ahead and give it a watch…
Not a week goes by that I don’t see some form of Mobile iChat/iTablet rumor. Such has been the case for well over a year now. Many hoped that the iPhone 3GS would pack some form of the heavily sought after application as well as a front facing video camera for video calls. Truth of the matter is, while video calls are more popular in other parts of the world, here in the states the feature has failed to gain any real traction or even following.
Perhaps one potential iPhone 4.0/iTablet feature we can eye more closely is that of a mobile iChat and/or front facing video camera if subtle clues discovered by 9to5 Mac conclude. On the subject of 9to5 Mac, their ever persistent eyes recently noticed that typing in http://apple.com/ichatmobile no longer returns a “page not found” as it once did. Instead, curious geeks are now redirected to the iChat for OS X page.
As any die hard geek who spends countless hours searching around the web in such stealthy ways knows, a simple page not found to redirect isn’t a sign of anything really. Though it can easily be interpreted as such be eager gadget aficionados. I for one would love to see a mobile iChat come to the iPhone as a true in-house multi-messaging mecca app would do wonders for the platform while simultaneously killing 3rd party multi-chat apps’ profits.
One thing I’ve always wondered about though is what would a mobile iChat include — text and/or video? We’d all love to assume video chat w/ a front facing camera would be a given. But looking at AT&T’s pathetic excuse for a track record instantly decimates any chances of any “video” feature taking place over the airwaves. Then again, iPhone 4.0 could support and include the feature with AT&T subsequently blocking said feature much as they’ve done with tethering and up until September had done with MMS messaging.
So what’s your take? Is this whole http://apple.com/ichatmobile redirect a bigger sign of things to come or nothing but the hopes of dreams of too many red bull fueled geeks?
For the next few weeks be afraid, very afraid. Karsten Nohl, an encryption expert with PhD. in computer engineering from the University of Virginia has successfully cracked the algorithm that secures the billions of calls that populate the GSM airwaves around the world each and everyday. What does it mean? On the surface it shows that the GSM technology may be ready for another security update as listening in on wireless GSM calls just became a tad easier.
As tempting as it is however, resist the urge to stockpile vast amounts of precious resources for the world isn’t going to end quite yet. While the algorithm has technically been cracked, there are many more things that go into intercepting, decoding and actually listening in on “stolen” phone calls. Many of those other “things” mind you are copyrighted products and services that ordinary citizens don’t exactly have easy access to. Then again, the code book (more on that in a second) and necessary tools to get the ball rolling come in several open source forms.
How exactly was GSM cracked (again)? Brute number crunching actually. Mr. Nohl along with the help of roughly 24 other (some of the individuals included are members of the “Chaos Computer Club” [Berlin]) team members worked together to generate the massive amount of possible algorithms into one (very) large book. This code book of sorts holds over 2 terabytes of data in the form of binary codes that in theory can be used to hack into GSM phone calls. As highlighted earlier however, their are several pieces of equipment and software applications needed to bring together all the bits and pieces.
Is the world in inherent danger? It’s not as bad as it sounds really. Sure someone could hack into a GSM network with the book of provided codes. But according to the GSM, a simple alteration of the algorithm would render the entire code book useless. Still, for a technology that was created in 1988 and hasn’t really gone through many security revisions, this may signal a growing need for the aging 2G technology.
It may surprise you however to know that an update to the underlying security for GSM technology is already available. You see, when GSM/2G technology was first launched, it was based on a 64-bit binary code called the A5/1. 3G networks since inception have used a higher security 128-bit code. But in 2007, an updated A5/3 GSM algorithm was released — only few cellular operators have chosen to upgrade to the newer, more secure algorithm. This recent re-hacking just goes to show that you can never fall asleep at the wheel when security is concerned.
To recap, the world is not going to end and our phone calls aren’t going to become a library for hackers to pick and choose as the please. Though given enough determination and the right tools and skills, such information — especially now that it’s public domain and freely available — means that cellular providers should at least think about beefing up security.
Somehow, somewhere, someone thought I knew a thing or two about mobile devices. Take a minute or two to check out Freescale's Smart Mobile Device Pundit 2012. There's some pretty big names on there and some awesome people. Not to worry. I won't judge you if you vote for someone else.
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