Wednesday, 23 September 2015

Poker Players Targeted By Card-Watching Malware

Poker

Malware Target Popular Online Poker Sites


Malware researchers at security firm ESET have come across a new Trojan which has been designed to cheat online poker by a sneak quick look at the cards of infected opponents. According to ESET’s security researcher, Robert Lipovsky, the malware is said to target PokerStars and Full Tilt which are two of the most popular online poker sites.

He has mentioned in his recent blog post that the attackers operate in a simple manner and after the victim has been affected successfully with the Trojan, the culprit then attempt to join the table where the victim tends to be playing with an unfair advantage by getting to know about the cards in their hands.

Malware, Win32/Spy.Odlanor, covers up as a benevolent installer for several general purpose programs like Daemon Tools or mTorrent. Lipovsky has mentioned that people tend to get infected while downloading some other useful application from some unofficial source.

In some instances, it tends to get loaded on to the user’s systems through several poker related programs which comprises of poker player databases as well as poker calculators like Tournament Shark, Smart Buddy, Poker Calculator Pro, Poker Office and much more.

Prowls in Software Created For Better Performance


The tricky malware has been discovered prowling in software created to support poker fans with better performance according to a security firm which discovered it. The software is also said to target other valuable information on a user’s computer like login names as well as passwords.

When a system is infected, the software observes the activity of the PC and operates when a victim has logged in to any of the two poker sites. Thereafter it begins taking screenshots of their activity and the cards they tend to deal with and send the screenshots to the culprits.

Lipovsky mentioned that later on the screenshots can be retrieved by the cheating culprits which reveal not only the hands of the infected opponent but the player ID as well.This according to ESET enables the criminals to search the sites for that play and join in their game. Both the targeted poker sites permit searching for players by their player ID and so the culprit can connect with ease at the table on which they tend to be playing.

Largest Detection of Spywares – Eastern European Countries


With the information gathered with regards to the victim’s hand, it provides significant advantage to the criminal. Lipovsky writes that he is not sure if the attacker tends to play the games manually or in some automated way.ESET have discovered that the Windows malware seem to be prowling in some of the well-known file-sharing applications, PC utilities and many other widely used poker calculators and player databases.

Lipovsky writes that the largest number of detection of spyware has been active for several months where most of the victims were from Eastern European countries. However, the Trojan tends to be a potential threat to any online poker player.

 Most of the victims were from the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. ESET had stated that they had discovered various versions of this malware dating back to March 2015. To make matters worse, new versions also tend to contain `general purpose data stealing functions’ with the abilities of siphoning passwords from several web browsers. As of September 16, several hundred users have been infected with Win32/Spy.Odlanor.

5 Durable Products for Your Photography


print
Pictures on the desk or hanging on the wall adorn a variety of homes. However, many of these images have one inescapable flaw: glass frames. How often have you knocked a picture frame off of your desk or had a family portrait crash to the ground? Depending on the extent of the damage, the picture within the frame can be scratched or punctured. Luckily, there are several ways you can protect those valuable pictures from suffering such damages.

Metal Prints

When it comes to durability and longevity, metal prints are some of the most cost efficient forms of protecting your photographs. The process of heat-fusing the image directly onto an aluminum surface provides vibrant colors on a strong surface. In some cases, you can even have the metal shaped in various ways to give the print a more unique look and feel.

Acrylic Blocks

Acrylic is a material that has a completely transparent appearance while offering great resistance to impact damage. Polished to a high-gloss finish, the acrylic allows for vivid colors while augmenting the image. These blocks can be dropped from variable distances without damaging the photograph. Even if the surface is scratched, it can be repaired easily.

Album Boxes

Album boxes can protect your photo albums from various elemental conditions and ultraviolet fading. In most cases, you can have these boxes customized with various colors and cover materials. As many of these boxes resemble books themselves, they can easily fit on a shelf while keeping with the aesthetics of your literary collection.

Coasters

Entertaining your guests with customized coasters of your photographs can enhance a special occasion. These surfaces were designed to prevent moisture damage and can keep your imagery looking like new for years to come. You could also set them aside as a collector's item and never use the coasters if you want to keep them in mint condition.

Puzzles

Many people assemble a puzzle and then return it to its box. This can provide an entertaining pastime while giving you a method in which to keep the image secure. These can also make great gift ideas for special occasions.

Whether your using Photo Prints behind acrylic blocks or having the image fused onto metal plates, there are a number of ways to protect your moments captured in time. By stepping away from the traditional and mundane, you can add more appeal to the area which adorns your durable photography.

Google will Fly a Crazy, Plane-like, 84-Foot Wind Turbine Next Month


Makani
The tech giant Google has some extraordinary plans, which might seem futuristic and quite far-fetched in reality but still is worth counting. Google has one of its pet project which aims at gathering the wind energy not from the ground from the higher altitudes where wind possesses more power through stronger and reliable blowing. Google has earlier tested the prototypes of its flying wind turbine with capabilities of harnessing energy from the wind in higher altitudes. Now Google will be launching its 84-foot wind turbine next month at SXSW.

Features of Google Wind Turbine


Google turbines are very much different from the general wind turbines, which are usually seen along the US coastline. It is more like planes, which are equipped with eight propellers and tethered to a docking station. Once it is released from the ground it can hover up to 450 meters in the air and it should be noted that this is the altitude at which planes usually starts doing the circles in the sky. The drag helps turning the propellers on this exciting piece of machine into turbines, which has the ability to send back 6+00 kilowatts of energy harnessed from the wind back to the ground.

Google has long been working on the wind turbines and it has even bought a part in the energy company named Makani Power in 2013 for this purpose. It has also made a number of tests with prototypes with a 28 feet wind turbines but it will be flying a more robust 84 feet wind turbine possessing the ability to harness more power easily.

Prior testing helps in boosting confidence


Google has performed extensive testing in the past to ensure the stability and reliability of the wind in the harsher and much challenging environment found at the higher altitudes. Google indulged in performing the tests on its futuristic wind turbines in one of the windiest places in the whole of North America namely Pigeon Pint in Pescerado California.

The challenges faced by the Google tech were quite pressuring and compelling in every manner but they held their ground and ensured that the product offers the most remarkable results regardless of difficulties. At higher altitudes, the speed of wind can easily change by 20 miles per hour within a matter of few seconds and the direction can change by 90 degrees within a second. However, it is worth noting that wind turbines failed to be let down by the wind changes at all and performed in the most efficient and best manner.

Google X’s Astro Teller has also stated while chatting with the media and smaller crowd of tech enthusiasts that they had done all those tests on smaller prototypes. The testing crew was advised by the Larry Page to make sure they get their wind turbines crashes as many five times in order to ensure it offers best solutions for harnessing energy. But luckily Google techs were able to do it without crashing even once.

Continuing A Proud Legacy Of Contributions To Work Place Safety


weller
The AJ Weller corporation is known throughout the world as the proud inventor of wear technology, an amazing new system that has revolutionized the ability of industrial machines to fulfill their purpose in a safe, productive, and profitable fashion. More and more industrial work sites are making use of this potent new system to realize incredible returns on the investment they have made on all manner of heavy equipment. Not only have these machines been rendered more productive and profitable, they have also been made far safer for work place employees to operate and remain in the proximity of.

Work Place Safety Is Always A Paramount Issue Of Concern

When it comes to the issue of work place safety, there is no margin whatsoever for any type of oversight, neglect, or error. Human limbs and lives are at stake, and the safety of the employees of the company should always be the paramount concern. This is precisely why the use of wear technology has become so prevalent throughout the heavy industrial industry all over the world. Without proper safety equipment and techniques firmly in place, no company can be given the go ahead on any of the projects it may have planned.

Wear Technology Renders Valuable Services To Any Industrial Work Place

The use of wear technology not only reduces the instance of equipment failure and down time for repairs, but also renders other valuable services to any heavy industrial work site that makes use of it. For example, the use of wear technology has been cited by many industry experts as a means of lowering the premiums that major industrial corporations pay in order to insure both the equipment used at a particular site and the employees who work in proximity to it.

Wear Technology Represents A Bright New Future For Work Place Safety

In the end, it's clear that the invention and implementation of wear technology represents a truly bright new future for work place safety. As the 21st century continues to unfold, it's obvious that employee safety remains a pressing issue for companies, industry experts, and critics alike. By giving such a strong guarantee for the continued health and prosperity of their employees, industrial companies that have implemented wear technology have also set themselves up to enjoy a golden age of unprecedented productivity and profitability for years to come.

Tuesday, 22 September 2015

How the 'Memristor' could Revolutionize Electronics

Memristor

Memristor – Combination of Resistor/Capacitor/Inductor


A physicist in 1971 theorised the presence of a fourth fundamental element in the electronic circuit in addition to the three that were utilised at the time. Leon Chua the physicist believes for reasons of symmetry that an extra component would probably one day be created to combine the resistor, the capacitor as well as the inductor. He has called it memristor, a multiple of the words memory and resistor.

It took 37 years for the engineering skills to catch up with the idea, the first memristor being built by Hewlett Packard in 2008. Many researchers presently are of the belief that it could spark a revolt in computing. The memistor in plain terms could mean the end of electronics and the beginning of a new period known as `ionics’.

Transistors were invented in 1947 and were an important component of computer chips and functions utilising a flow of electrons while the memristor couples the electrons with ions or electrically charged atoms. In the case of transistor, once the flow of electrons tends to get interrupted by cutting the power, all information is lost. But a memristor can recall the amount of charge which was flowing through it and like a memory stick, tends to retain the date even when the power seems to be turned off.

Outflow the Boundaries of Binary Code


This could make the coast clear for computers which can immediately turn on and off like a light bulb without losing data. The RAM or memory will not get erased when the machine is turned off without the need of saving anything to hard drives as it is with the present technology.

However memristors have another important difference when compared to transistors, they outflow the boundaries of binary code. Originally, the technology would be utilised mostly to create super-fast memory chips which contains more data and will consume less energy and would make regular powerful, though down the line the memristor would also take on the processing.

Professor of electrochemical materials at ETH Zurich, Jennifer Rupp, working with IBM to build a memristor based machine pointed out to CNN’s Nick glass, that it tends to function just like a human brain. Unlike a transistor that is built on binary codes a memristor could have various levels. One could have various states such as zero, one half, one quarter, one third and so on which gives a powerful new perspective on how the computers tends to develop in the future.

Transistor Based on Silicon


This kind of change in computing methodology would help in creating smart computers which tend to operate in a meaningful way like the synapses in our brains.

Transistors are based on silicon which is a rigid substance where the properties are utilised in managing the flow of electrons and information. Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, had formulated a famous law in 1975 which stated that the number of transistors in an electronic circuit tends to double around every two years. This has proved to be precise so far setting the pace for the gradual increase in computing power; however the trend could probably be ended.

There seems to be a physical limit to the number of transistors which can be packed on a chip and we are already on the road of reduction threshold of this technology. It is predicted that someday we would have to move away from silicon based computing.

The memristor technology seems to be a candidate for this crucial step and Rupp has commented saying that `it could mean the end of the silicon era, giving lower power consumption, that ability to compute more information, increased data storage as well as a completely new logic pattern for the computers.

Memristors Operates at Lower Power Consumption


Memristors does not need a silicon layer and various materials could be utilised as substrate thus creating a new class of microchips which would ultimately be assimilated in everyday products such as clothes, windows or coffee cups.

After manufacturing the first memristor, Hewlett Packard, had been working for years on a updated type of computer based on the technology and as per plans would be launched by 2020. Known as `The Machine, it utilises electrons for the purpose of processing, photons for communication and ions for storage.

Rupp informed that there is a race going on and there is a strong driving force while at the same time it is very important that there are players like HP since they intend to get to the market and show everyone that this is real. Presently manufacturing cost tends to be on the higher side though the benefits are worth it.

Rupp has informed CNN that Memristors tends to operate at lower power consumption with a faster speed and with a higher volume density of information than anything that is based on silicon microchip transistors. The existence of the memristor, like a particle in the realms of physics, was theorized much before one was actually built.