Day: October 20, 2019

Privacy-Respecting Smart Home System Can Work Offline and Sends Fake Data

A publicly-funded group of designers, artists and privacy experts from Amsterdam have designed a smart home system prototype to “prove it’s technically possible to build a privacy respecting smart home while maintaining convenience.” Its controller uses an Arduino Nano to disconnect the system from the internet during times when it’s not in use. They’re building…


WAV Audio Files Are Now Being Used To Hide Malicious Code

JustAnotherOldGuy quotes ZDNet: Two reports published in the last few months show that malware operators are experimenting with using WAV audio files to hide malicious code. The first of these new malware campaigns abusing WAV files was reported back in June by Symantec security researchers who said they spotted a Russian cyber-espionage group known as…


Navigating the Dark Side: Controlling Robots With Zero Radio Communication

While autonomous robots have been the subject of some projects in the past, this particular project takes a swing at building a robot that can teach children about controls and robotics. The idea is to mimic a space mission on the dark side of the moon, where radio contact is nearly impossible. The students learn…


Coppola calls Marvel movies ‘despicable’ in defense of Scorsese’s criticism – CNET

Godfather director’s comments come after Martin Scorsese called MCU movies “not cinema.” …read more Source:: CNet


Coppola defends Scorsese’s criticism of Marvel movies, calls them ‘despicable’ – CNET

Godfather director’s comments come after Martin Scorsese called MCU movies “not cinema.” …read more Source:: CNet


Mozilla is Sharing YouTube Horror Stories To Prod Google For More Transparency

CNET reports on a new crowdsourced public awareness campaign: Mozilla is publishing anecdotes of YouTube viewing gone awry — anonymous stories from people who say they innocently searched for one thing but eventually ended up in a dark rabbit hole of videos. It’s a campaign aimed at pressuring Google’s massive video site to make itself…


Alexa and Google Home devices leveraged to phish and eavesdrop on users, again

Amazon, Google fail to address security loopholes in Alexa and Home devices more than a year after first reports. …read more Source:: ZDNet


Made by Google 2019 wrap-up, first thoughts on Pixel 4 and Pixelbook Go (MobileTechRoundup show #484)

Kevin and Matt attended the Made by Google event in NYC last week and shared thoughts on the announcements with some initial hands-on experiences with some of the hardware. …read more Source:: ZDNet


‘How I Compiled My Own SPARC CPU In a Cheap FPGA Board’

Long-time Slashdot reader ttsiod works for the European Space Agency as an embedded software engineer. He writes: After reading an interesting article from an NVIDIA engineer about how he used a dirt-cheap field-programmable gate array board to code a real-time ray-tracer, I got my hands on the same board — and “compiled” a dual-core SPARC-compatible…


Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer hits Monday, along with ticket sales – CNET

The trailer will debut during Monday Night Football halftime, on Carrie Fisher’s birthday. …read more Source:: CNet