| Newegg Daily Deals: Dell 34-Inch Curved Monitor, WD Red 2TB HDD, and More! Posted: 23 Mar 2016 01:19 PM PDT |
| Pornhub Giving Away Google Cardboard to Kick Off New Virtual Reality Channel Posted: 23 Mar 2016 10:37 AM PDT Adult website jumps on the VR bandwagon  If you thought all this virtual reality hoopla would turn out to be a passing fad, think again. The porn industry is jumping on board, and as we've seen before, that can have a real impact on emerging technologies. In this case, there's a new VR channel coming to Pornhub, one of the most popular adult websites around. It's also one of the most popular websites, period—according to Alexa, it ranks No. 65 among all internet portals. It's even been featured in popular movies such as Sex Tape starring Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel. To kick this thing off, Pornhub has partnered up with BaDoinkVR to offer free 360-degree trailers, Fortune reports. BaDoinVR has already been making VR adult content and it will use the trailers to try and draw in more traffic by linking to its website. "At Pornhub it is our duty to provide our global audience with the latest in cutting edge technology," said Corey Price, Pornhub Vice President. "Virtual reality is the next phase in the constantly metamorphosing world of adult entertainment, and will provide users with a mesmeric experience unlike anything they've seen before." To promote the launch of a new VR channel, Pornhub is giving away 10,000 Google Cardboard headsets. However, the adult website says its content will also work just fine with other VR platforms, including Samsung Gear VR and the Oculus Rift. These types of announcements tend to attract a lot of giggles, but there's big money to be made in the porn industry. Citing a Piper Jaffray report, TechCrunch says the VR adult content segment could be worth $1 billion by 2025, which would make VR porn the third biggest market for VR content behind NFL content and video games. It's not inconceivable. Porn has a history of affecting the market, like it did when HD-DVD and Blu-ray were battling it out. After initially backing HD-DVD, the porn industry threw its weight behind Blu-ray, which played a role in deciding (and ending) the format war. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Is Your Wireless Mouse a Security Threat? Posted: 23 Mar 2016 10:01 AM PDT Mouse problem  Back in the early days of computing, the most common way to get a computer virus was by sticking a compromised floppy disk into your PC. But in the Internet era, remote hacks are all the rage, and it turns out your wireless mouse could be yet another vector for attack. That's the world from Bastille, a cyber security startup that believes it found a critical flaw with today's wireless rodents, Reuters reports. The flaw is that wireless mice from companies like HP, Dell, Lenovo, Amazon, and others don't take advantage of encryption. "That makes it possible for the attacker to send unencrypted traffic to the dongle pretending to be a keyboard and have it result as keystrokes on your computer. This would be the same as if the attacker was sitting at your computer typing on the computer," said Marc Newlin, a security researcher at Bastille. Newlin and Balint Sabeer, another reseacher with Bastille, set out to see how far away they could be from one another while still hacking the other person's system. It's farther than you might think—180 meters (~590.5 feet). As Newlin explains it, an attacker could send data to a wireless mouse's dongle that spoofs the mouse but is actually a keyboard. If the attacker then sent keystrokes at 1,000 words per minute—easy with a macro— it could take control of the PC or infiltrate the network within just a few seconds. This only works wireless mice that connect via a USB donglei; Bluetooth rodents aren't susceptible. Bastille says that some companies are now pushing out firmware updates to prevent these types of attacks, though the bigger issue is the need to rethink cyber security to take into account all wireless traffic. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Google Yanks Chrome App Launcher for Windows, Mac, and Linux Posted: 23 Mar 2016 09:28 AM PDT You weren't using it anyway  Show of hands, how many of you were using Google's Chrome app launcher on your Windows desktop? What about your Linux box? Anybody on a Mac using the Chrome app launcher? Don't worry, we didn't hack your webcam so we can't really see if you're raising your hand, but we suspect it's not many. That's the same conclusion Google came to, so it's retiring its Chrome app launcher on Windows, Linux, and Mac. "The app launcher makes Chrome apps easy to open outside the browser, but we've found that users on Windows, Mac, and Linux prefer to launch their apps from within Chrome.With Chrome's continued emphasis on simplicity and streamlining browser features, the launcher will be removed from those platforms. It will remain unchanged on Chrome OS," Google stated in a blog post. This won't happen right away—Google's drawing out the retirement over the next several months. Starting in a few weeks, Chrome will no longer enable the launcher when users first install a Chrome app. Anyone that currently has it installed will receive a notice of Google's plans around the same time. And in July, Google will remove existing instances of the launcher. With the Chrome app launcher on various desktops, Google was trying to get away from the mental separation of cloud services for local ones. It works in Chrome OS because Chromebooks are highly dependent on Internet connections, but on other platforms, users simply preferred to launch Google's apps from within Chrome. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
