Microsoft buries hatchet with Apple in heartwarming TV ad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=TMATD2qk564

a group of employees from Microsoft’s Fifth Avenue retail store in New York City are seen marching to the nearby Apple store, where they meet up with a local children’s choir and begin singing “Let There be Peace on Earth” on the sidewalk outside.

Apple gave Microsoft prior permission to film the ad

In the commercial, alerted by the clatter, Apple employees come rushing outside to see what the matter is. Then everyone smiles and hugs amid a glow of mutual admiration and respect

Steve Ballmer was famously averse to his employees using Apple products

Insiders believe that a deeper relationship between the vendors could help both in their battle against Google, both on the Android front and in the cloud wars that loom on the horizon.

China blamed for “massive” Australian cyber-attack: ABC

A major cyber-attack against the Bureau of Meteorology, which may have compromised potentially sensitive national security data, is being blamed on China, the ABC reported on Wednesday

The Bureau of Meteorology owns one of the country’s largest supercomputers and the attack, which the ABC said occurred in recent days, may have allowed those responsible access to the Department of Defence through a linked network.

The ABC, citing several unidentified sources with knowledge of the “massive” breach, pointed the finger of blame at China, which has in the past been accused of hacking sensitive Australian government systems

China’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the accusation, saying its government opposed cyber-attacks and all parties concerned should strengthen dialogue to solve the problem “in the spirit of mutual respect”.

“Groundless accusations and speculation are not constructive,” ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular briefing.

China has long been accused of using its considerable computing resources to infiltrate online businesses for competitive advantage, as well as conducting acts of cyber espionage.

Mark Zuckerberg to give 99% of Facebook shares to charity

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife said on Tuesday US time they will give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares, currently worth about US$45 billion, to a new charity in a letter addressed to their daughter, Max, who was born last week.

On his Facebook page, Zuckerberg posted a photo of himself, his wife, Priscilla Chan and their new daughter, Max, along with a post entitled ‘A letter to our daughter.’

In the 2,220-word letter, Zuckerberg and Chan touched on issues including health, education, Internet access and learning before announcing the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which aims to “advance human potential and promote equality”.

Zuckerberg, 31, and Chan said they plan to give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares over their lifetimes to advance the initiative, which was formed as a limited liability company controlled by the two. It will begin by focusing on personalised learning, curing disease, internet connectivity and community building.

Apple buys virtual reality startup Faceshift

https://youtu.be/RLfAmNDNgHk?t=51s

Zurich-based Faceshift touts software that analyses human facial expressions in real time and applies them to animated avatars and other figures in the virtual reality space.

In 2010, it acquired facial recognition startup Polar Rose, and in 2013, it bought 3D sensor company PrimeSense

US$7 Raspberry Pi Zero: smallest, cheapest model yet

thanks to overclocking, it should be around 40 percent faster. There’s also 512MB of RAM onboard, as well as a microSD slot for storage, micro-USB sockets, and a mini-HDMI capable of transferring 1080p60 video.

Specifications

Raspberry Pi lists the specs of the Zero as below:

A Broadcom BCM2835 application processor – 1GHz ARM11 core (40% faster than Raspberry Pi 1)
512MB of LPDDR2 SDRAM
A microSD card slot
A mini-HDMI socket for 1080p60 video output
micro-USB sockets for data and power
An unpopulated 40-pin GPIO header – Identical pinout to Model A+/B+/2B
An unpopulated composite video header
Our smallest ever form factor, at 65mm x 30mm x 5mm

TELSTRA UNDERCUTS APPLE ON IPHONE 5S PRICING

it was the first to feature Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint reader, and its camera was a huge leap forward over the iPhone 5. Based on Apple’s current approach to software updates, the iPhone 5s should be continue to receive major iOS upgrades for at least another two years.

Soundcloud has come under fire for removing a track with no audio due to copyright infringement

The pulled track, created by D.J. Detweiler, is a remix of a conceptual silent track titled 4’33 by American experimental composer John Cage.

Both tracks feature exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence.

Shortly after publishing the track Detweiler was sent a copyright notice from Soundcloud.

“Our automatic content protection system has detected that your track may contain copyrighted content,” the notice posted to social media by Detweiler reads.

CFO of music site YourEDM, Nick Ward said the platform’s automatic copyright detection technology had reached an all time low.

“Instead of paying to help keep musician’s music protected from false copyright claims, Soundcloud took the easy way out and will remove your music just based on the title of the track,” he wrote.

“Soundcloud has finally turned its back on protecting their content creators in favour of saving a few extra bucks, and absolving themselves of liability at the hands of the major labels.”

http://www.mediafire.com/download/op753fph9yg9oh1/Ciley+Myrus+-+Brecking+Wall+%28D.J+Detweiler+Remix%29.wav 40secs

Las Vegas man sues Tinder date for genital herpes

The man, who has been listed as John Doe in court papers, has sued a Hollywood producer he met on Tinder who allegedly gave him genital herpes.

He is seeking $10,000 compensation, reimbursed lawyer fees, and punitive damages for claims of battery, constructive fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, wilful misconduct, intentional inflection of emotional distress and gross negligence.

After a couple of unprotected sexual encounters he received a phone call from the woma\n explaining that she had a herpes break out, which included genital blistering

explaining that she had a herpes break out, which included genital blistering

Similarly, Rhode Island’s Department of Health said cases of syphilis grew by 79 per cent between 2013 and 2014, while HIV infections were up 33 per cent and gonorrhoea by 30 per cent.

Shayne

China blamed for ‘massive’ cyber-attack on Bureau of Meteorology computer

China is being blamed for a major cyber-attack on the computers at the Bureau of Meteorology, which has compromised sensitive systems across the Federal Government.
Multiple official sources have confirmed the recent attack, and the ABC has been told it will cost millions of dollars to plug the security breach, as other agencies have also been affected.
The bureau owns one of Australia’s largest supercomputers and provides critical information to a host of agencies.
Its systems straddle the nation, including one link into the Department of Defence at Russell Offices in Canberra.
ABC has been told this is a “massive” breach and one official said there was little doubt where it came from.
In the event of a conflict, compromising Australia’s ability to accurately forecast weather would affect the operation of military and commercial aircraft.

The iPhone May Ditch The Headphone Jack, For Real This Time

A reliable Apple-obsessed Japanese site Macotakara, claims insider sources confirm Apple will be ditching the 3.5mm port to shave off one millimetre of the iPhone. Instead, the iPhone will rely on Bluetooth headphones and a new audio-enabled lightning port, which some headphone makers like Philips already make.
The iPhone 7 is also the year the phone will see significant physical changes in comparison to its “S” years.

Toymaker VTech Leaks Millions of Parent Emails and Child Photos in Latest Massive Breach

Interactive toy maker VTech has confirmed hackers have accessed private data including names, email addresses, and passwords as well as some mailing addresses and download history. The company claims that no credit card data was stolen but it seems that multiple headshots of parents and children are now in the wild due to the breach.
An anonymous researcher discovered a trivial exploit that allowed them to export over 4 million individual parent records and about 280,000 child records. Further, the researcher found over 2.3 million headshots – 190GB worth – on the server.
The researcher explained they used an SQL injection to dump data from the VTech servers and that the entire process was trivial and could have been performed by actual hackers in the wild. This means the breached data could be available publicly.
Security researcher Troy Hunt was able to confirm that the data did come from a number of VTech customers and that it does reflect some version of the company’s customer database. Further, he confirmed that there were 4,833,678 parent records in the dump as well as 227,622 child records.
NO SSL ANYWHERE – All communications are over unencrypted connections including when passwords, parent’s details and sensitive information about kids is transmitted.
The company released a statement confirming that no payment details were stolen.

Privacy vulnerability exposes VPN users’ real IP addresses

A major security flaw which reveals VPN users’ real IP addresses has been discovered by Perfect Privacy (PP). The researchers suggest that the problem affects all VPN protocols, including IPSec, PPTP and OpenVPN.
The technique involves a port-forwarding tactic whereby a hacker using the same VPN as its victim can forward traffic through a certain port, which exposes the unsuspecting user’s IP address. This issue persists even if the victim has disabled port forwarding.
Port Fail’ affects VPN providers that offer port forwarding and have no protection against this specific attack,”
The only requirement is that the attacker has port forwarding enabled on the same VPN network as its target. A phishing link or laced image file, for example, is then sent to the victim which leads the traffic to a port under the hacker’s control.
PP discovered that five out of nine prominent VPN providers that offer port forwarding were vulnerable to the attack. The company has since notified the affected before disclosing the vulnerability publicly.
To mitigate the attack, PP suggests that VPN companies should implement firewall rules at the VPN server level in order to block access to forwarded ports from users’ real IP addresses.

Episode 466 – Aussie Tech Heads Shownotes