PWN2OWN Flushes Birds With Hanlon's Razor

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Security prompts don’t help you think, Tricoders are closer then you think, abandoned means abandoned with cool pictures, are people evil or stupid, how to pwn a browser, Mars photos, and more GeekNews.

Correction about Birds and Windmills

Two weeks ago on Siri gets an alternative Lyft to Pi Energy GeekSpeak episode we talked a bit about wind energy, and I (Lyle) said a flippant remark about birds being killed. Here is my attempt to correct that mistake.

First off, a lot of birds are killed. Take a look at Do wind turbines kill birds

And also read National Geographic’s article Will Newer Wind Turbines Mean Fewer Bird Deaths?

Ben Hacks his Toilet to Save Water

The blue basin gets filled with rain water from larger collection barrels outside, or from the shower when the water is heating up.

Working Tricorder shown at SXSW

Kaul was showing off the components of his entry in the Tricorder Xprize, the $10-million competition that requires teams to develop a sci-fi medical scanner worthy of Star Trek. Each device must be able to diagnose 15 different medical conditions and monitor vital signs for 72 hours.
Cloud DX was ready to unveil its prototype at SXSW, but all ten finalist teams must be nearly done tinkering with their devices. They’re required to turn in their entries on 1 June in preparation for a six-month round of consumer testing.

MRIs show our brains shutting down when we see security prompts

 In a first, scientists have used magnetic resonance imaging to measure a human brain’s dramatic drop in attention that results when a computer user is subjected to just two security warnings in a short time.

Pwn2own 2015, all browsers were compromised

On March 19, the second day of the Hewlett-Packard Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) sponsored Pwn2Own hacking challenge at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, B.C., security researchers were able to successfully exploit Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Apple Safari.

Chromium Hack : special 13 character can crash Chrome Browser Tab on a Mac PC

 A developer has discovered a hack in Google Chrome which can crash the Chrome tab on a Mac PC.
The code is a 13 character special string which appears to be written in Assyrian script and is given below :

Hanlon's razor - Wikipedia

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

An Adage that I endorse strongly.

first ever billion-pixel panorama of Mars

Curiosity took full advantage of its state-of-the-art equipment to take the first ever billion-pixel panorama of its location, raw-colored (atop) and color-corrected.

Joseph DeSimone: What if 3D printing was 100x faster? | Talk Video | TED.com

What we think of as 3D printing, says Joseph DeSimone, is really just 2D printing over and over … slowly. Onstage at TED2015, he unveils a bold new technique — inspired, yes, by Terminator 2 — that’s 25 to 100 times faster, and creates smooth, strong parts. Could it finally help to fulfill the tremendous promise of 3D printing?

Suggested by geek Greg Merkley.

Android's smart lock now detects when you carry your phone

On-body detection uses the accelerometer in the phone to detect when it’s being held or carried by a person. If enabled, the feature requires a passcode the first time the phone is accessed but then keeps the device unlocked until it is placed down.

GoDaddy accounts vulnerable to social engineering and Photoshop

On Tuesday, my personal account at GoDaddy was compromised. I knew it was coming, but considering the layered account protections used by the world’s largest domain registrar, I didn’t think my attacker would be successful.
I was wrong. He was able to gain control over my account within days, and all he needed to do was speak to customer support and submit a Photoshopped ID.


This episode of GeekSpeak was pre-recorded on March 23rd in Los Gatos, CA.