How Secure is My Password lets you know just that

We've all heard it before; you need to select a lengthy password, one that's hard to guess. Not a dictionary word. And it has to have some capital letters in it too, and some digits, and a symbol or two won't hurt either.

That's a handy set of rules to keep in mind, but How Secure is My Password helps us understand why they're important.

It's basically like a full-screen version of one of those password-strength meters websites sometimes use. But instead of showing you a bar going from "weak" to "strong", it shows you an estimation of how long your password would take to crack. That's a much more visceral way to understand why your password is strong.

For example, when I entered "rabbit", it came back with "your password is one of the 500 most common passwords. It could be cracked almost instantly". "rabbit5" would take two hours, "$rabbit5" would take 38 days, and "$rabbitZ5" would take 237 years. It's quite enlightening to see what a difference three simple characters can make.

How Secure is My Password lets you know just that originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/05/how-secure-is-my-password-lets-you-know-just-that/

DISCOVER FINANCIAL SERVICES DIODES INORATED

Samsung making 3% investment in Apple display provider Sharp

Samsung is taking a 3% stake in Japanese company Sharp, a major Apple component supplier. Sharp will use Samsung’s $110 million investment to show bank lenders that their LCD business continues to be viable. Interestingly, Sharp is not only a long-time partner of Apple, but also a long-time rival of Samsung. The two companies have historically been competitors in both the display panel and television markets. Samsung’s investment signals a change in that relationship, as well as a boon for Samsung, as Min-Jeong Lee And Juro Osawa of the Wall Street Journal report:

For cash-rich Samsung, the move will ensure a stable supply of LCD screens for TV sets from Sharp. The Japanese company is the only LCD manufacturer that currently operates an advanced manufacturing facility—in a separate partnership with Hon Hai—capable of turning out TV panels from the industry's largest sheets of glass. This allows Sharp to lower the manufacturing costs of TV screens larger than 60 inches. Samsung may also rely on Sharp to supply panels for tablets.

Sharp is currently one of the major companies manufacturing displays for Apple iOS devices, and Samsung’s investment could have an effect on that relationship. However, at least in the short term, the impact is likely to be minimal. Samsung is, after all, Apple’s biggest rival in smartphones right now, and Apple relies on Samsung to manufacture the processors for its iOS devices. Of course, Apple could be saying goodbye to Samsung in the near future, but the two have been fierce competitors for years already. Whatever change may take place in the relationship between Apple and Sharp, we’ll have to wait and see what it might be.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/Y4unpYPAvII/story01.htm

ZORAN ZIONS BAN

We Could All Do with a Roll of 36 exposures

Gizmodo friend and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Vincent Laforet recently swapped out his Canon 1D X for a Canon A2e—a film camera he hadn't touched in 14 years. Restrained by only a roll of 36 exposures, Laforet actually loved going back to shooting with film. He writes about his experience below. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/5iHRofsv8yk/we-could-all-do-with-a-roll-of-36-exposures

FACTSET RESEARCH SYSTEMS F5 NETWORKS

TripAdvisor app for Windows Phone 7 now available

TripAdvisor, the popular travel planning tool, has just launched an app for Windows Phone 7. Just like the mobile website, the app allows you to search for anything travel-related -- from hotels and flights to restaurants and points-of-interest to visit once you reach your destination.

Geolocation is supported, which allows TripAdvisor to quickly locate places nearby. But while that's a neat feature, it's also a bit of a downer -- because, really, it's about the only feature TripAdvisor for WP7 brings to the table that its mobile Web app doesn't already offer (its browser-based geolocation doesn't work with WP7 at the moment).

While it's nice to see Windows Phone 7 users getting some big-name apps, it'd be even nicer if we saw some packing a bit more swagger.

Still, TripAdvisor for WP7 might just be worth installing on your device if you're frequently on the go -- at least until a better browser arrives with the Mango update.

Gallery: TripAdvisor for Windows Phone 7

TripAdvisor app for Windows Phone 7 now available originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/05/tripadvisor-app-for-windows-phone-7-now-available/

FISERV FIRST SOLAR

Titanium Escape Ring review

(Cue the Mission Impossible theme) You never know when you’ll find yourself in some third-world nation, taking the wrong turn down a dark alley only to find yourself gagged, bagged, and cuffed in an old abandoned warehouse… these things happen. Scenario aside, there are manufacturers who create hidden tools engineered to get you out of just this type of situation. The Titanium Escape Ring from Shomer-Tec is just such a gadget. Within this very nondescript piece of jewelry hides a shim/saw capable of getting you out of a tight spot.

The Escape Ring is a simple wedding band-styled ring made of titanium. It is cut from solid barstock and polished to a mirror finish. Unlike other rings, the Escape Ring contains a handcuff pick tool completely hidden from view when worn on your finger. The titanium ring has, within the center, a machined ridge on both sides creating a channel that the Micro Escape Tool sits in.

The Micro Escape Tool is made of hardened 316 stainless steel, shaped as a shim pick with built-in saw teeth. The stainless steel tool is  2″ x 1/8″ x 1/64″ and weighs a mere 0.01g. The shim is flexible enough to curve around and be seated in the ring’s interior groove. The saw blade can cut zip-ties, disposable handcuffs, duct tape, rope, and other non-metallic materials.

The Titanium Escape Ring is available in five ring sizes (9, 10, 11, 12, 13) and is made in USA. I typically wear a size 9.5 to 10 on my left ring finger. The folks at Shomer-Tec suggested one size bigger due to the Escape Tool taking up some of the interior diameter of the ring. As rings go, the Escape Ring is comfortable enough but you can feel the teeth of the Escape Tool on your finger if you spin the ring.

I did practice a bit (an hour or so) with my hands handcuffed in front of me so I could see what I was doing before trying it blind. Once you get the hang of it, escaping is relatively easy. The shim gets between the teeth of the two locking parts of the handcuffs, enabling you to slide them apart and unlock yourself.

The micro saw/shim can only unlock single-locked handcuffs. The handcuff you see here can be double locked by inserting the other end of the key into the slot on the side of the cuff. Which totally defeats the ability to shim and unlock the cuffs without the key.

After a few days of playing with it, I gave it the blind, behind-your-back try. Surprisingly, I was able to get out of the handcuffs on the second try in about 10 seconds. When it works, it works. If your restraints are racheted down as tight as they go, getting the shims to work is difficult to impossible. The part that swings around on the handcuff needs a little play in it for the shim to work.

I also tested the saw part of the tool on rip ties and was able to cut my way loose. The escape process was definitely more difficult and took longer than shimming the handcuffs. It is actually much easier and faster to unlock the cuffs than cut through things. That said, given enough time and they are not too tight, you could most likely escape from rip ties and/or duct tape.

Silly as it sounds, one of the thoughts I had while doing this review is what a great drinking game this would make. But I am sure it would lead to folks sleeping it off and waking up still handcuffed to something (or someone ). That not withstanding and with a few caveats, the Titanium Escape Ring and Micro Escape Tool work as advertised. Given the right circumstances, they can get you out of a bind and potentially enable you to escape out of harm’s way. The Titanium Escape Ring is $69 and the Micro Escape Tool is $8, both available through the Shomer-Tec website.

Product Information

Price:	$69 for ring; $8 for the Escape tool
Manufacturer:	Shomer-Tec
Pros:	- Made of strong, lightweight material - Ring looks very inconspicuous when worn - Can unlock/jimmy single-locked handcuffs - Can cut thru rip-ties, duct tape, etc.
Cons:	- Does not work on double-locked handcuffs

Filed in categories: Pocket Gear, Reviews, Travel Gear

Tagged: escape, handcuff shim

Titanium Escape Ring review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 4, 2013 at 11:00 am.

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2013/03/04/titanium-escape-ring-review/

LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL LEVEL 3 COMMUNICATIONS

Tango video chat goes native on iPad, makes better use of everyone's screens

The mobile version of Tango's video chat app has almost exclusively revolved around smartphones. It's at last going a little bigger: an update to Tango's iOS app is introducing full iPad support, expanding conversations to tablet size. Those who don't need quite that grand a canvas can still make the most of what they have through the new release. Calls now use the whole screen regardless of OS, and iPhone users can touch up any soon-to-be-shared photos in Aviary. The talkative among us just need to snag Tango's upgrade at the source link to eke a little more from their screens.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets

Comments

Source: Tango

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/sP6yGJo9aN4/

RESEARCH IN MOTION ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS

Adblock Plus developer pokes holes in Mozilla's new add-on performance tests

Wladimir Palant, developer of the most popular add-on in the world, Adblock Plus, is also an active contributor to the Planet Mozilla blog community. Over the last few days, in response to Mozilla's new name and shame list of slow add-ons, Palant has been investigating whether Mozilla's testing methods are actually accurate.

Rather surprisingly, it turns out that Mozilla's numbers could be significantly wrong -- and if they're not wrong, the factors that Mozilla uses to tabulate an add-ons final score should definitely be made more transparent.

In the first set of tests, Palant shows that FlashGot's position in the top 10 is probably due to a fault in Mozilla's testing setup, and that add-ons can perform very differently depending on which operating system they're being tested on. In the second analysis, Palant uncovers an irregularity that doesn't seem to have an obvious cause -- but it could be due to an I/O bottleneck on Mozilla's test machines. Basically, even though performance testing of Read It Later is disabled because of a bug, it still (somehow!) manages to record a 14% slow-down on Windows 7.

Palant concludes both analyses by scolding Mozilla for going public with the performance data before its testing methods had been confirmed accurate. It definitely looks like Mozilla has been more than a little reckless, considering the importance of Firefox's add-on ecosystem.

Adblock Plus developer pokes holes in Mozilla's new add-on performance tests originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 05:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/08/adblock-plus-developer-pokes-holes-in-mozillas-new-add-on-perfo/

NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS MOTOROLA

Save your tabs and Panorama tab groups in Firefox 4

When Firefox 4's tab grouping tool, Panorama, had its keyboard shortcut changed to the finger-breaking combo of Ctrl+Shift+E, we thought Panorama would get dropped before FF4's final release -- but, thankfully, it made the cut!

If you've used Firefox 4 and Panorama, you might have noticed that Mozilla's new browser doesn't always save your tab groupings when you close the browser -- a bit of a pain, if you spend a long time setting up the perfect groups! This is tied into the removal of the 'Save and Quit' dialog box -- and enabling Panorama tab group saving is just a matter of re-enabling the Save and Quit dialog.

Open a new tab and head to about:config. Click through the warning and type 'quit' into the filter box. Double click browser.showQuitWarning to change its value to true (see image after the break). That's it -- now you'll have the option of saving your tabs, and thus tab groups, when you close Firefox.

For more tech tips, visit our tips index.

Continue reading Save your tabs and Panorama tab groups in Firefox 4

Save your tabs and Panorama tab groups in Firefox 4 originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/04/save-your-tabs-and-panorama-tab-groups-in-firefox-4/

JACK HENRY and ASSOCIATES IXYS

This Naked Lady Photo Got a French Museum Blocked From Facebook

A gentle reminder to creative types the world around: if you try to put breasts on Facebook—even highly artistic breasts—Facebook will Shut. You. Down. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Txc-SZ03Nn0/this-naked-lady-photo-got-a-french-museum-blocked-from-facebook

JACK HENRY and ASSOCIATES IXYS

Galaxy S III bug disables lock screen, grants full access, tests patience

Lock screens are around for a reason: to keep people from getting where they shouldn't. They aren't always infallible, though, and a few weeks ago, we saw a vulnerability in several builds of iOS 6 that granted access to the phone module without a passcode. Then, a couple of days ago, we reported on a Galaxy Note II bug that allows the quick-fingered to launch anything immediately behind the lock screen. Now, a similar flaw has been found on the Galaxy S III that breaks the lock screen altogether, permitting full use of the phone. To replicate the bug, you'll need to tap the "Emergency Call" button on the lock screen, then go into the ICE (emergency contacts) menu. From there, press the home button, followed quickly by the power button, and that's it. If successful, pressing the power button again will bring up the home screen straight away, and what's more, the lock screen won't return until the handset is restarted. Sounds worryingly simple, right? In our experience, not so much.

We first tried this method on an S III running Android 4.0.4 ICS, and a Note II for good measure, but to no avail. Then, we had a crack at an S III running 4.1.2 Jelly Bean, and were close to giving up trying to replicate it when voilà, it worked. We hoped to provide you with a video of the bug, but it must be camera shy. Despite literally hundreds of attempts in front of the lens and several more behind it, we've only managed it once -- we found it impossible to nail down the correct timing between the home and power button pushes. Samsung's likely aware of the bug already and when quizzed about the Note II vulnerability, said a fix for lock screen issues on affected "Galaxy devices" was in the works (read: they didn't say the Note II specifically). We've reached out for comment just to be sure, but until a patch is provided, keep your phone concealed from nosey types who read tech sites and have saint-like patience.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Samsung

Comments

Via: SlashGear

Source: Full Disclosure

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/06/galaxy-s-iii-bug-disables-lock-screen/

TOTAL SYSTEM SERVICES TNS

Volvo revamps its pedestrian detection system to automatically brake for cyclists (video)

Cars that automatically stop when a pedestrian is in the way have been in Volvo's fleet for a while now, but the automaker has just unveiled an update to its existing tech that'll stomp on the brakes when cyclists are too close for comfort. Announced at this year's Geneva Motor Show, the revamped system detects how close objects are with a grille-mounted radar and then uses a high-def camera within an auto's rear-view mirror to discern whether it's barreling down on a pedestrian or a biker. When bicyclists swerve in front of an automobile heading in the same direction, the setup immediately alerts the driver and applies full brake power -- a world's first Volvo says. According to the Swedish manufacturer, all vehicles outfitted with the pedestrian detection will have the cyclist spotting technology baked in, and it'll show up in mid-May within the new Volvo V40, S60, V60, XC60, V70, XC70 and S80. Head past the break for a video of the feature in action.

Filed under: Transportation

Comments

Via: The Verge

Source: Volvo

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/06/volvo-cyclsist-detection-automatic-breaking-system/

PLANAR SYSTEMS PEROT SYSTEMS

What to Do After You’ve Been Hacked

Whether you were hacked, phished, had malware installed or just don't know what the heck happened but there's somebody all up in your e-mail, here are a few good first steps to take following an incident. This is by no ...

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/03/what-to-do-after-youve-been-hacked/

AMAZONCOM AMERICA MOVIL

Humble Bundle 5 brings six games in one awesome deal

There's no better way to get a handful of awesome Android applications for one low price than the Humble Bundle, and it's back in its fifth iteration with up to six titles. The gist is that you pay whatever you want and get these four apps:

• Beat Hazard Ultra, a musically powered arcade shooter
• Dynamite Jack, a 2-D stealth action game
• Solar 2
• NightSky HD, a physics puzzler

And if you opt to pay more than the average price (which as of this writing is a little more than $5 -- that'll change as time goes on), you also get Super Hexagon and Dungeon Defenders.

Plus, you can choose for some of your purchase to go to the Electronic Fronteir Foundation and the Child's Play Charity, which helps bring technology and games to children in hospitals. (Humble Bundle says it's donated more than $10 million to date.)

So peep the video above, and hit the link below for Humble Bundle 5.

More: Humble Bundle

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/_4_M_BaTAVQ/story01.htm

TRANSACTION SYSTEMS ARCHITECTS TOTAL SYSTEM SERVICES

Team Coco app now supports phones, full episode streaming

The Conan O'Brien Team Coco app now supports phones as well as full episode streaming right inside the app. Previously, the app was only available for tablets, which didn't make a whole lot of sense. The new update opens things up to phones, and has a pretty solid UI to go along with it. You have access to videos, photos, articles and show schedule from a slide-in panel on the left, and a video clip viewer on the main page.

You can also now "sync" your phone with the TV broadcast for enhanced functionality while watching, or even watch full episodes on demand in the app. The Team Coco app still shows ads, unfortunately, but surely has a lot of increased functionality in this latest update. You can grab a download from the Play Store at the link above.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/CbghMHauHBY/story01.htm

QLOGIC PROGRESS SOFTWARE