Reality Bites
Twitter, Facebook, and LiveJournal have all been experiencing outages (Twitter) and slow-downs (Facebook and LiveJournal) all morning according to the New York Times (and, well, our own experience along with countless other sites and users around the internet). From the sound of things, it appears to have been a DDoS attack (those seem to be going around lately), but it only serves to highlight the risks of keeping your data in the cloud we’ve mentioned in the past. Photo by edwheeler. [NYT]
Twitter, the popular and ubiquitous (as long as you’re over 25) microblogging service was down for several hours on Thursday.
“Attacks such as this are malicious efforts orchestrated to disrupt and make unavailable services such as online banks, credit card payment gateways, and in this case, Twitter for intended customers or users. We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to defend and later investigate,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote in the site’s official blog today.
The outage began at around 8:00 am EDT, and continued until around 11:00 am, when the Twitter Status Blog was updated to say, “Update: the site is back up, but we are continuing to defend against and recover from this attack.”
The site is still difficult to reach, but has returned to a more stable state. Expectedly, the top trending topics on the freshly-restored site include “DDoS,” “Denial-of-Service,” “Twitter Status,” and the names of several Twitter clients such as TweetDeck, and UberTwitter which were also unresponsive this morning.
(Windows/Mac/Linux): Encrypting a message is an excellent way to protect it from prying eyes. What if you want to protect it against prying eyes and make it disappear? Expiring-message service Vanish can help.
Alarmed by trends in US case law where individuals were forced to give up their encryption keys and by the brutality of regimes abroad that did the same in less tactful ways, the creators of Vanish wanted to create a method of encryption where your encrypted data expired and could in no way be retrieved.
We created “self-destructing data” to try to address this problem. Our prototype system, called Vanish, shares some properties with existing encryption systems like PGP, but there are also some major differences.
First, someone using Vanish to “encrypt/encapsulate” information, like an email, never learns the encryption key. Second, there is a pre-specified timeout associated with each encrypted/encapsulated messages.
Prior to the timeout, anyone can read the encrypted/encapsulated message. After the timeout, no one can read that message, because the encryption key is lost due to a set of both natural and programmed processes. It is therefore impossible for anyone to decrypt/decapsulate that email after the timer expires.
How do they achieve this guaranteed destruction? The key that is generated each time you create a unique Vanish message is shared across Bittorrent networks—unlinked in anyway to your identity—and temporarily stored in a distributed hash table. By the nature of the Bittorrent network your key can exist in increments of 8 hours depending on how long you want the Vanish servers to keep your message alive.
Once your message reaches the expiration date the number of users in the Bittorrent network carrying the necessary parts of your key begins to degrade and your message essentially disintegrates. You can never decrypt the message or be compelled to share the key because no key even exists. Check out the following video for an overview.
Vanish is available as a web-based demo, but they recommend you download the Java-based Vanish System for a more powerful and customizable experience—you can increase the size of your key and tweak other settings with the download. The Firefox plug-in makes it easy to quickly create Vanish-encrypted messages for web-based email and other online services. Vanish is an open-source and free project available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard made up his qualifications along with his religion, as shown by secret documents released to the Times.
Next Tuesday (that’s August 11th), a dream we have long held near our hearts will be fulfilled — Xbox 360 will add the first twenty-one titles to its Games on Demand service. Now, we don’t have any details about pricing for these yet, but Microsoft has said that the games, which include such august titles as Mass Effect, Call of Duty 2, and Tomb Raider: Legend, will be priced similarly to the physical games. We could whine about that all day, but we’re going to hold off until we see actual pricing details, and move on to dreaming of a trackpad that doesn’t become unresponsive when we spill orange juice on it. Check out the video of the newest addition to the dashboard after the break, hit the read link for the full list of twenty-one.
Update: A Microsoft spokesman just emailed us a list of the Games on Demand titles for the US, which has a couple of notable differences. BioShock, Ridge Racer 6, Karaoke Revolution American Idol, Dance Dance Revolution Universe, and Sonic The Hedgehog are in, while SEGA Rally and Tomb Raider: Legend are decidedly Europe-only for now. Full US list after the break.
[Via Joystiq]
Continue reading First 21 Xbox ‘Games on Demand’ titles revealed
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming
First 21 Xbox ‘Games on Demand’ titles revealed originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Here at the gdgt party, Lenovo introduced an all-in-one nettop we haven’t seen before: The IdeaCentre C100 is an Atom-based, 20-inch nettop that will eventually pack Windows 7 and a touchscreen, but it’ll have touchless Vista first.
The IdeaCentre C100 is a 20-inch all-in-one that’ll launch at a price point of, as the Lenovo people told me, “around $400.” It’ll have a 1.6GHz Atom, 1 or 2GB of RAM, a DVD burner and an 80GB-160GB HDD. Interestingly, the webcam and WiFi are both optional, which we suppose is one way to keep the price down.
The demo unit I saw was running Windows 7, but I was informed that they’ll be releasing it this month with Windows Vista and without a touchscreen, even though the unit is dying for one. They’ll be releasing a touch-optimized Windows 7 version come the OS’s release in October, but the price will go up to accommodate the change. We’ll update this post with more exact info when we get it, especially a specific price and release date. [Lenovo]
The government of Saskatchewan Tuesday released its proposal for a Saskatoon-based nuclear reactor, with a potential price tag of up to $750M, to supply medical-grade isotopes and be used in scientific research.
We’ve seen our fair share of Microsoft’s upcoming Zune HD, but the company just threw together a delightful little photoshoot for its new PMP, with the black and silver versions of the device on display along with a large quantity of attractiveness in both flavors. Most of the shots are variation on a pretty basic theme (and a little small, since these haven’t made their way through quite “official” channels just yet), but they do give a good idea of what the UI will look like if you’re into the Black Eyed Peas. Check ’em all out below.
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
New Zune HD press shots emerge showing black and silver color options, true freedom from ugly originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We’re not exactly huge Microsoft boosters around here. Most of us in the Switched offices are devoted Mac users, and there’s at least one professed Linux nerd in house. We regularly joke that it takes just as long in 2009 to open Microsoft Word as it did back in 1992. Operating system preferences aside, we can’t help but feel as though Microsoft is getting a raw deal. The Redmond-based company is regularly painted as the enemy of… well, just about everything. Yet, while the European Union is forcing Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows, no one seems to be keeping an eye on 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA. Here are a few ways we think Apple is evil, and getting away with it.
Continue reading Is Apple More Evil Than Microsoft?
Filed under: Columns, Google, iPhone
Is Apple More Evil Than Microsoft? originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
A Google engineer recently posted a message on the Chromium development board stating that his team would be implementing a synchronization service into Chrome’s open-source progenitor as early as this week. What’s different about Chrome’s sync service? It uses a “push” service, through Google Talk protocols, to instantly move bookmarks, settings, and other user data into a Google account base, where it could be accessed on the web from any browser. A developer channel build of Chrome with some of the first features implemented can be expected as early as the end of this week, according to the posting. Does a push-synchronized Chrome change your view of each web browser’s strengths and weaknesses? [via Ars Technica]
Apple attempted to silence a father and daughter with a gagging order after the child’s iPod music player exploded and the family sought a refund from the company.
According to a report in Barron’s, a phantom “veteran analyst” has actually handled Apple’s heavily rumored tablet-device-thing. If you believe what the report is laying down (and honestly, that’s a big if — analysts have a funny habit of making things up) the tablet is still on for a September unveiling, with a shelf life beginning somewhere in November. What’s also interesting about the report is that the analyst claims the device will be marketed somewhere in the $699-$799 range — as was previously rumored — and will be aimed at uses as a media player (with some kind of potential Apple TV tie-in) and gaming device. The analyst, who obviously declined to be named, said that the tablet is simply awaiting Steve Jobs’ final blessing, and claimed that other ODMs have paused new products until they see the finished version of what Apple has in store. That last bit is potentially the most interesting of all, as we’ve recently heard reports of device-makers freezing new production until 2010, which definitely raises the possibility that the industry is holding its breath to see what kind of new trick Apple has up its sleeve. Yeah — things are about to get fun. [Warning: read link requires subscription]
[Via 9to5mac]
Filed under: Handhelds
Barron’s: Analyst handled Apple tablet, says competitors have paused production lines until launch originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Normally, I’d say that TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington’s public quitting of the iPhone was a shrill, disingenuous ploy for attention and pageviews. But you know what? It’s totally legit, and Apple should pay attention.
The reason he's quitting isn't because of AT&Ts horrible network, which everyone with an iPhone has been begrudgingly putting up with for two years now. No, it's the Google Voice debacle.
He really wants to use Google Voice, but in order to do so, he needs the app for it to really work. It’s not just an inconvenience; it’s seriously detracting from how he can use his cellphone. And with legit GV apps available for both BlackBerry and Android, he doesn’t have to. So he’s terminating his iPhone contract.
And really, power to him. If GV was important to me, I’d do the same. And I’m sure Arrington isn’t the only person furious enough to cancel their iPhone service over this, he’s just one of the most visible. So Apple, pay attention. Because lately your App Store nonsense has crossed from irritating to inexcusable, and that’s just not going to work in the long term. [TechCrunch]
Twentieth Century Fox is resuscitating its Alien franchise. The studio has hired Jon Spaihts to write a prequel that has Ridley Scott attached to return as director.
From its earliest incarnation as a pared-down Netscape rewrite to its current browser share of nearly 30 percent, Firefox has come a long way. Today, it crossed another milestone: more than 1 billion downloads of the free, open source browser.
The recent release of Firefox 3.5 surely boosted the numbers, as more than 5 million downloaded the browser within the first week it was available, but 1 billion downloads is more an indication of a long-term movement than a sudden surge. Peering at StatCounter’s numbers, Firefox 2, 3, and 3.5 are carrying somewhere above 27.5 percent of net traffic through their windows, which says a lot for a browser that started out in November 2004 at, effectively, zero.
For a quick bit of nostalgia, here’s Lifehacker’s first Firefox-centered post (not that we aren’t still discovering neat little keyboard shortcuts). We’d also recommend running through Wikipedia’s History of Mozilla Firefox page, which shows off some smirk-inducing early designs and toolbar buttons.
Mozilla will soon launch an official page to commemorate 1 billion downloads, and has a place-holder at Spread Firefox. In the meantime, let’s hear your own early experiences with the browser in the comments.
John Carmack has revealed that the Xbox 360 version of Rage, which uses id’s new Tech 5 engine, matches the 60fps framerate of the PC version, while PS3 runs at just…
Here’s something I wish I had found before half our staff flew off on a surfing trip: a water soluble bikini.
Sure, it would have only made sense as water soluble bathing trunks for everyone but Jesus, who is European and therefore wears a bikini, but still, the idea holds up. You give them to your unsuspecting friends who then go in the water. Within three minutes, they disintegrate, leaving your friend humiliated and terrified. Heeee-larious! [RevengeShop]
A few months back we got word that Gmail had fixed the annoying “On behalf of” nonsense that showed in your email headers when you sent email from your consolidated email addresses via Gmail—an annoyance that steered many away from using Gmail to send from alternate addresses. It turned out to be a bug that time around, but Gmail has now officially offered the option to remove the "On behalf of" indicator, meaning you can now send emails from several different addresses via one central hub in Gmail without tipping your hat to the recipient.
To switch to this new method, go to the Accounts page under Settings, and click “edit info” from the “Send mail as” section. Then choose the option to “Use your other email provider’s SMTP servers.”
Huzzah! [Official Gmail Blog via Smarterware]
Last we heard, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington wasn’t ready to talk about a timeframe for the release of his self-proclaimed “science project,” the CrunchPad tablet. That’s not the case for The Straits Times, however, who’ve published an article claiming that developer Fusion Garage is aiming to get the device out to the masses by November of this year, just in time for Christmas shopping. The Singapore newspaper got a sneak preview of the device, as well as some new specs. The tablet reportedly about 2.64 pounds, has a 1.6GH Intel Atom and 1GB RAM (which we knew), a USB port for keyboard and / or mouse, built-in WiFi and 3G connectivity, and a port for mobile broadband. Price is estimated around $400, a little bit more than the $300 he pegged in April, but it’s still being filed in the “unconfirmed” category for now — hopefully it comes out a little leaner when this thing goes official.
[Thanks, David]
Filed under: Handhelds
CrunchPad coming in November with built-in 3G connectivity, says Straits Times originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Fortune’s Bridget Brennan has a bold statement: “Why doesn’t Apple make remote controls? You ask: Why Apple? Because if any company could improve one of the world’s most user-unfriendly electronic devices, it would be Apple. And then there’s this: Apple just may be the world’s most discreetly feminine brand.”
