Mac OS X Lion Login Passwords Extracted With Ease →
The Mac OS vulnerability relates to user login passwords that are stored in the system memory even if the computer is locked or put into a sleep mode. Passware's software captures live Mac computer memory over FireWire and analyzes it, extracting these passwords, a process that the company says takes just a few minutes--regardless of password strength and use of a FileVault encryption. The vulnerability is present in all modern versions of Mac OS, including Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and the latest Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, released last week.
How the Editor of Windows Magazine Became an Apple Fanboy →
Apple has struck upon a devastating strategy for taking control of the consumer electronics industry and mainstream computing: Build simple, elegant, functional and beautiful devices at all points in the consumer electronics chain. The cheap little devices like iPods and iPhones charm people, and build trust and affinity for Apple, predisposing them to choose Apple for the bigger-ticket items.
If Apple can turn the editor of Windows Magazine into a fanboy, no one is safe.
Happy WiFi Day! 8.02.11
Transparent Lithium-Ion Batteries →
Using silicon lithography, liquid silicone, and electrodes that are fashioned into patterns that are invisible to the naked eye, researchers at Stanford University have created a transparent battery.
Uses include various gadgets, but most importantly, futuristic flexible OLED displays that may serve as digital paper.
California Enacts Law Letting Illegal Immigrants Pay In-State Tuition →
The California law updates a previously enacted law that allows all people who have attended high school in the state for three or more years to pay cheaper in-state tuition rates to attend one of its public universities, colleges or community colleges.This is the same California school system that has raised tuition as much as 32% in its struggle to stay afloat.
The Horrifying AAA Debt-Issuance Chart →
On a micro level, triple-A securities are safer than any other securities. But on a macro level, they're much more dangerous, precisely because they're considered risk-free. They breed complacency and regulatory arbitrage, and they are a key ingredient in the cause of all big crises, which is leverage.
Lion Downloads Top One Million in First Day →
Ben Brooks:
Wow.By itself this is a respectable number, now take into account this Tweet from Thomas Ricker:
In other words, Apple moved over 3.6 petabytes in the last 24 hours.Wow.
Guitar Oscillations Captured with iPhone 4
by justkylevids
It's an effect of the "rolling shutter" that the iPhone and most other consumer gadgets use. Richard Gaywood offered a decent summary of what's going on last year when this effect was used on airplane propellers.
via TechCrunch
Cool. Another awesome result here.
Next-Generation Memory Tech Outperforms Flash →
I mean, they all do, but this is still a pretty impressive experiment:
The devices presented here are 30nm thick, and the switching current is 50 μA - an order of magnitude smaller than that of PRAM. They also demonstrated an endurance of greater than 1012 switching cycles (higher than the previous best of 1010 and six orders of magnitude higher than that of flash memory at 104-106). The device has a switching time of 10ns, and a data retention time estimated to be 10 years at 85°C. This type of RRAM also appears to work without problems in a vacuum, unlike previously-demonstrated devices.