Latest Technology News & Updates

A 14-year-old Florida boy has been charged with felony computer intrusion after shoulder-surfing his school's computer network password and using it to play a prank on a teacher. Domanik Green, an eighth-grader at Paul R. Smith Middle School in Holiday, Florida, was charged with an offense against a computer system and felony unauthorized access, according to a report published Thursday by The Tampa Bay Times. In late March, the youth allegedly used the administrative-level password without permission to log in to the school's network and change the images displayed on a teacher's computer to one of two men kissing. One of the computers accessed allegedly contained encrypted questions to the FCAT, short for the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. While the factual allegations laid out in the article seem to indicate the youth perpetrated some form of trespass, they also alleged a litany of poor practices on the part of school administrators. These practices include ...

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are a rare type of cancer cell that are found in the blood stream of patients with localized tumors. Successful separation of CTCs from blood could serve as a liquid biopsy to help diagnose cancer and monitor treatment progress. A deeper understanding of CTCs could also lead to a better understanding of the most deadly cancer process: metastasis, where cancer cells leave established tumors and migrate to other locations in the body. Currently, CTC separation methods rely on features that distinguish CTCs from other cells—antibodies that stick to them, cell size, deformability, or even electrical properties. Scientists have also explored using sound waves to separate CTCs. Acoustic-based separation provides excellent biocompatibility and safety; it preserves the viability, function, phenotype, and genotype of cells. It also allow cells to be separated without modification. As a result, sound-based separation methods enable CTCs to be maintained in the...

Republicans in Congress yesterday unveiled a new plan to fast track repeal of the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules. Introduced by Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) and 14 Republican co-sponsors, the "Resolution of Disapproval" would use Congress' fast track powers under the Congressional Review Act to cancel the FCC's new rules. Saying the resolution "would require only a simple Senate majority to pass under special procedural rules of the Congressional Review Act," Collins' announcement called it "the quickest way to stop heavy-handed agency regulations that would slow Internet speeds, increase consumer prices and hamper infrastructure development, especially in his Northeast Georgia district." Republicans can use this method to bypass Democratic opposition in the Senate by requiring just a simple majority rather than 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, but "it would still face an almost certain veto from Preside...

An Arkansas lawyer representing current and former police officers in a contentious whistle-blower lawsuit is crying foul after finding three distinct pieces of malware on an external hard drive supplied by police department officials. The hard drive was provided last year by the Fort Smith Police Department to North Little Rock attorney Matt Campbell in response to a discovery demand filed in the case. Campbell is representing three current or former police officers in a court action, which was filed under Arkansas' Whistle-Blower Act. The lawsuit alleges former Fort Smith police officer Don Paul Bales and two other plaintiffs were illegally investigated after reporting wrongful termination and overtime pay practices in the department. According to court documents filed last week in the case, Campbell provided police officials with an external hard drive for them to load with e-mail and other data responding to his discovery request. When he got it back, he found something ...

For decades now, being able to pull off a complex set of quick button presses to activate a gruesome fatality has been a point of pride for Mortal Kombat players. Now, the latest game in the series, Mortal Kombat X, will let you set off a bloody kill animation with only a couple of button presses... for a price. As Ars' Sam Machkovech noticed last night, the Xbox Live and PSN stores both offer packs of "easy fatalities" as downloadable content for the game, which launched today. The consumable items let players pull off the bloody finishing move by simply holding down a shoulder button and pushing a face button, rather than entering an entire series of buttons and directions in a specific order. Players can buy a pack of five easy fatalities for $0.99, or 30 for $4.99 (the DLC packs don't appear to be available for the PC version through Steam, as of this writing). Mortal Kombat X players start with three free "easy fatality" tokens, though their func...

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) told Apple that it would not accept any further deliveries of Pearson curriculum, which Apple has been providing as part of a $1.6 billion plan to give every student in the nation's second-largest school district an iPad. LAUSD also asked for a “multi-millon dollar refund” for software that had already been delivered, according to local public radio station KPCC. In 2013 the school district signed an initial $30 million deal with Apple in a program that was supposed to cost up to $1.3 billion. As part of the program, LAUSD said it would buy iPads from Apple at $768 each, and then Pearson, a subcontractor with Apple, would provide math and science curriculum for the tablets at an additional $200 per unit. Not a month after the pilot program launched, students were found disabling app and browser limitations on their tablets. A month after that, LAUSD reported that a third of the 2,100 iPads distributed during the pi...

Netflix will soon use the HTTPS protocol to authenticate and encrypt customer streams, a move that helps ensure what users watch stays secret. The move now leaves Amazon as one of the most noticeable no-shows to the Web encryption party. Flipping on the HTTPS switch on Netflix's vast network of OpenConnect Appliances (OCAs) has been anything but effortless. That's because the demands of mass movie streaming can impose severe penalties when transport layer security (TLS) is enabled. Each Netflix OCA is a server-class computer with a 64-bit Xeon CPU running the FreeBSD operating system. Each box stores up to 120 terabytes of data and serves up to 40,000 simultaneous, long-lived connections, a load that requires as much as 40 gigabits per second of continuous bandwidth. Like Amazon, Netflix has long encrypted log-in pages and other sensitive parts of its website but has served movie streams over unsecured HTTP connections. Netflix took the unusual step of announcing the switc...

On Thursday, J.J. Abrams kicked off a weekend-long Star Wars convention by revealing the second teaser trailer for the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens film, and it included the first reveal of Harrison Ford reprising his role as Han Solo. "Chewie, we're home!" Ford says with Chewbacca standing behind him to close the teaser, which also included footage of a Millennium Falcon chase, a melted Darth Vader mask, a lightsaber hand-off, and Mark Hamill's speech to Leia from Return of the Jedi, though this time chopped up to sound like he's now saying it to an heir apparent. Stormtroopers, X-Wings, TIE Fighters, new droids, and the sequel's three new leads also feature prominently. As a lead-up to that teaser reveal, Entertainment Weekly columnist Anthony Breznican hosted a panel with Abrams and Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, where he asked questions about filming scenes in Abu Dhabi, designing new droids (including new droid "BB8," whos...

What would you say if we told you that your version of Windows is affected by a vulnerability that dates back to 1997? You’d laugh, right? Surely, after all, Microsoft would have patched the fault prior to releasing Windows 98, or at the latest, Windows 2000? Well, not quite. This Redirect to SMB vulnerability has its roots in the identically-named attack discovered by Aaron Spangler 18 years ago. And it’s a problem that you need to do something about, because it doesn’t only affect Windows, but also programs from Adobe, Apple, Symantec and even the Windows 10 preview. Redirect to SMB: What Does it Do? Affecting Windows PCs, tablets and servers, Redirect to SMB – discovered by Cylance’s Brian Wallace – is a development of the original vulnerability. In 1997, Spangler found that introducing URLS beginning “file” would cause Windows to attempt authentication with an SMB server at the given IP address (for example, file://1.1.1.1), which could then be used to record login crede...

A federal judge has rejected AT&T's claim that it can't be sued by the Federal Trade Commission, which is trying to put a stop to the carrier's throttling of unlimited data plans. The FTC sued AT&T in October 2014, saying the company deceived customers by offering unlimited data plans and then throttling data speeds once customers hit certain usage thresholds, such as 3GB or 5GB in a month. AT&T claimed in January that because it is a common carrier, it isn't subject to FTC jurisdiction. In a decision out of US District Court in Northern California yesterday, Judge Edward Chen refused to dismiss the lawsuit. It's true that the FTC Act exempts common carriers from the commission's oversight. But while AT&T is a common carrier for landline telephone and mobile voice service, the mobile data services at issue were not classified as common carriage at the time the lawsuit was filed. AT&T argued that it is exempt from FTC oversight "...

CESSY, France—As we drive through small villages in Eastern France, some for the second time, it's becoming increasingly clear that my tour guide is lost. She's got a stack of printed Google Maps, but, without a clear indication of where we actually are, it's tough to tell where in the stack she should be looking. Eventually, on the other side of a corn field, she spots a building that looks out of place. Someone apparently ripped this structure out of an office park in New Jersey and dropped it into France. Before long, we step onto an elevator and step out into a scene that wouldn't look out of place in a science fiction movie. A building-sized heap of electronics dominates the underground cavern before us, and this contraption has an equally sci-fi-ish name: the Compact Muon Solenoid. Best known for helping physicist Peter Higgs earn his Nobel Prize for the discovery of the Higgs boson, the CMS is one of two general purpose particle detectors built on the Large ...

The renaissance of self-reliance has brought about such things as a flood of creative ideas on Pinterest, Arduino projects, popular YouTube DIY Channels, and the Raspberry Pi movement. But why should grown-ups have all the fun? Kids are born into technology, so why not include them in the experience? Teach them to fix and create things and you teach them to take control of their world. Why Should I Introduce DIY to My Kids? Because you want them to be people who can solve problems, be creative, think analytically, and have healthy self-esteem. You want them to be able to adapt to or overcome life’s obstacles. Most importantly, you want them to never feel helpless and alone. Does that sound like a lot to expect from doing DIY with your young ones? Maybe, but at least one expert thinks it can. Clayton Christensen, an intellectual, as well as physical, giant, and the originator of the term “disruptive innovation”, thinks so. He believes that, “…really creative people have almo...

Professional network LinkedIn is getting into the professional skills education market in a big way: The social company purchased Lynda.com, the online learning company founded in 1995 by technical skill instructional book author Lynda Weinman and co-founder Bruce Heavin. Lynda.com has long been the go-to resource for online learning on subjects like Photoshop, basic HTML, CSS, management practices and many more, offering instructional videos and tutorials from industry experts and vets long before e-learning was at anywhere near the level of interest it enjoys today. The acquisition is valued at $1.5 billion total, combining 52 percent cash payout and 48 percent stock, with an expected close date sometime in the second quarter of this year. “Most” Lynda.com employees will join LinkedIn as part of the deal, according to a release from the companies. In a blog post addressing the deal, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner talks about how the acquisition helps his company move closer towards ...

The idea of learning a new language in just 10 days sounds absurd. Learning a new language completely will certainly take longer than that, but you if done correctly, you can actually manage to lay down a solid groundwork and actually begin speaking Spanish (you may be able to apply these techniques to other languages, too). So how can you pull this off? Just check out the infographic below and follow the steps. Before you know it, you’ll be ready to talk in a language other than your native one. Via  Click To Enlarge

The BBC has just made the groundbreaking decision to release Doctor Who on BitTorrent as a legal download. This is fantastic news for fans worldwide and will hopefully pave the way for more legal BBC content via BitTorrent in the future. In fact, this is surely a win for everybody involved. BitTorrent Wins While BitTorrent is commonly known for the illegal content available to download, it is trying to legitimize itself by offering legal bundles, both paid and unpaid. The addition of legal BBC content to the paid BitTorrent bundles is an incredible boon for them, as more people will become aware of the legal content available via torrents. Doctor Who Fans Win There are Doctor Who fans located all around the world, and many of them do not have access to timely TV broadcasts of their favorite show. By putting the content on BitTorrent, any fan with Internet access will be able to pay a small fee and download the whole bundle… legally. People downloading the Doctor Who bundl...

In September, Google launched ARC—the "App Runtime for Chrome,"—a project that allowed Android apps to run on Chrome OS. A few days later, a hack revealed the project's full potential: it enabled ARC on every "desktop" version of Chrome, meaning you could unofficially run Android apps on Chrome OS, Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. ARC made Android apps run on nearly every computing platform (save iOS). ARC is an early beta though so Google has kept the project's reach very limited—only a handful of apps have been ported to ARC, which have all been the result of close collaborations between Google and the app developer. Now though, Google is taking two big steps forward with the latest developer preview: it's allowing any developer to run their app on ARC via a new Chrome app packager, and it's allowing ARC to run on any desktop OS with a Chrome browser. ARC runs Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS thanks to Native Client (abbreviated "NaCL...

On Tuesday, Gen Con, the United States' largest annual gaming convention, issued a political challenge to the governor of Indiana, where the con is currently hosted, over a bill passed by that state's House of Representatives the same day. The open letter ended by threatening to seek a new home should the bill pass. The language of the bill, SB 101, resembles that of recent bills passed in other states in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Hobby Lobby corporation. The bill's critics have argued that it would allow Indiana corporations to openly discriminate against anybody they deemed out of favor with their religious beliefs, particularly members of the LGBTQ community. In the letter, posted to Gen Con's Twitter account, Gen Con CEO Adrian Swartout spoke of the event's "diverse attendee base" made up of visitors from around the world, and he made clear that such diversity included factors like cultures, religious beliefs, and sexual...

RadioShack is trying to auction off its customer data on some 117 million customers as part of its court-supervised bankruptcy. The data in question, according to a legal challenge (PDF) launched by Texas regulators on Friday and joined by the state of Tennessee on Monday, includes "consumer names, phone numbers, mailing addresses, e-mail addresses, and, where allowed, activity data." The states say the sale breaches the 94-year-old chain's promises to its in-store and online customers that it would not sell their personal identifying information (PII) data. "The Debtors have affirmatively stated in multiple privacy policies currently in effect that consumer PII will never be sold. Yet the Debtors come before this Court with a Motion which seeks to do precisely that," according to the challenge. The states claim that RadioShack told its online customers (PDF) that "We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to anyone at any...

In a key case before the European Union's highest court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the European Commission admitted yesterday that the US-EU Safe Harbor framework for transatlantic data transfers does not adequately protect EU citizens' data from US spying. The European Commission's attorney Bernhard Schima told the CJEU's attorney general: "You might consider closing your Facebook account if you have one," euobserver reports. The case before the CJEU is the result of complaints lodged against five US companies—Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Skype, and Yahoo—with the relevant data protection authorities in Germany, Ireland, and Luxembourg by the Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, supported by crowdfunding. Because of the important points of European law raised, the Irish High Court referred the Safe Harbor case to the CJEU. The referral was prompted by Edward Snowden's revelations about the Prism data-collection program, wh...