Apple has, now officially, lost its iPhone trademark in Brazil. Gradiente Eletronica, a Brazilian company has registered the name in 2000 and secured this name until 2018. The Brazilian Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) ruled in favor of Gradiente Eletronica and now Apple can’t use this name on handset products. It can use however this name for software, clothing and in advertising. Apple has filed an appeal but I doubt if it will change anything. It can’t use the name iPhone for handsets in the South America’s largest market.
Serious Sam 3 BFE issues and fixes
First of all I would like to say that I don’t support piracy, I am a software engineer and I know how much effort is needed to create a game or a software in general. If you like a game you should purchase it to support its developers. This way you can enjoy future releases of the game you like and love to play. On the other hand, there are many reasons why someone might use a crack. I have met several gamers that don’t use their DVDs to play their games, some told me that they are collectors, some don’t like using the DVD. For any reason, not anyone that uses a crack pirated it, at first it sounded very strange to my ears but now I am one of those people.
DDoS can be legal with your help
No, this is not a joke and yes it can be done. Anonymous, the hacktivist group, has filed a petition online on the White House website claiming that Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) shouldn’t be illegal because it is a form of protest. They claim, and it is correct in my opinion, that DDoS is the digital version of the “occupy” form of protest. It is the equivalent of users hitting the refresh button on a website repeatedly. It slows or stops the traffic to that website. For the time being there are 3500 votes and another 21500 needed for the Obama administration to gain their attention. The goal of 25000 is not very high for Anonymous and their supporters but the goal of 25000 needs to be reached by February 6. You can find the petition and vote for it on the source link.
Windows 8 To 75% of DOD Employees
U.S Department of Defense signed a three-year contract with a Microsoft reseller to bring Windows 8 along with Office 2013 and SharePoint 2013 to 75% of all DOD personnel. The license agreement will cost about $617 million and it will save to DOD around $70 million per year. This is a big win for Microsoft which is showing that happening to many TV series like Hawaii 5-0 and NCIS Los Angeles. This is a reality and we will see the numbers of windows 8 users growing.
Ubuntu for mobile
Canonical announced that it will release Ubuntu, the Linux-based operating system, for smartphones. It will have a new user interface which is adapted for small screens. Ubuntu for mobile uses the kernel and the drivers from Android. This means that any hardware which has Android is able to install Ubuntu and manufacturers don’t need to change their hardware to support the new OS. Canonical already spoke with manufacturers to have Ubuntu pre-installed in their devices but don’t expect them before the end of 2013. Finally, Ubuntu will not be the only new OS, Firefox OS is also arriving and those operating systems will make a big impact in the mobile world.
YouTube removes fake video views
Several companies in the music industry have violated Google’s terms of services by altering the views of their videos which is not allowed. YouTube deleted more than 2 billion views in the channels of Sony, Universal and RCA. Those companies among several others and many users hired view building services to increase the number of views. Universal had 1 billion fake views and Sony went from 850 million views to only 2.3 million. There is a huge number of services on the web that offer view building to fake the popularity of your videos but it is a violation of terms of services. There are also services to increase the likes of a Facebook page and get Twitter followers.
Creative photo by Charley Elmaga
From time to time I post a photograph that is beautiful, unusual and inspiring. Last time it was a beautiful lightning shot by Bertrand Kulik. This time is a photograph by Charley Elmaga that shows 2 burning matches that resembles two humans, a king and a servant bending in front of the king. At least this is the first thing I thought when I looked at it. Maybe I was influenced by the “Game of Thrones” series. In any way, it is an inspired and innovative photo.
You can buy a Yahoo mail exploit
Few years ago, gaining exploits was available only in some underground forums or chat rooms. Today there are many forums to get them and some hackers sell their founding. Some of them they even advertise them in public. Like “TheHell” which is showing a Yahoo! mail exploit and says that it sells it for $700. It is a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability and according to the hacker, it works on all the browsers. What it does, it steals the cookie from the victim. Don’t be afraid just yet, in order to work the attacker must send a link to his victim and the victim click on that link. Of course it is very easy to create a website, offer something for free and have this link instead. Yahoo! is aware of that and they are working on a fix, I hope soon.
TYLER: Anonymous WikiLeaks
The hacker group Anonymous is going to create its own WikiLeaks and the project’s name is TYLER. This is a decision derived from the conflict of the Anonymous and Julian Assange for the forced funding. Anonymous will publish secret government documents to their own platform which is scheduled to the end of this year (21 December). Also, they don’t like when Assange was threatened to close WikiLeaks and they want to keep such information public and available to everyone. Maybe there is also the need to create another platform for secret commercial documents to see the dirty work of large organizations and their way to rule the world.
A possible way for mass murder
Pacemakers send and receive signals and it seems that pacemaker transmitters can be reverse engineered. This means that criminals can hack them and make them send a high voltage electric shock to pacemakers. The most scary part is that this can be done wireless and the attackers can be anywhere within few meters range. The distance can vary with different antennas and different environment (walls, windows, etc). It is also possible to change the firmware of a pacemaker and create some king of virus which will spread from pacemaker to pacemaker.