Tech News
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Fear of 3D-printed guns overblown? - CNet Story
Published: Friday, May 10, 2013 | By: Dennis3D Printing weapons isn't about overclocking or high-end gaming but it is technology and something anyone can do now, provided you have an industrial 3D Printer and a copy of the latest design.
The question is, does this deserve the hype it is getting? Some say no and I tend to agree.
"The government says it wants to review the files for compliance with arms export control laws known as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations," Forbes wrote. "By uploading the weapons files to the Internet and allowing them to be downloaded abroad, the letter implies [Defense Distributed] may have violated those export controls."
That federal government action came a day after Democratic California state Sen. Leland Yee introduced legislation that would ban the technology used to create 3D printed guns, and earlier action by Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) that sought to restrict the manufacture of such weapons.This seems reasonable considering that many people forget that the US is one of the few countries that allows anyone to own a firearm and the export laws are designed to keep it that way.
I'm not really going to follow this story but I find it interesting how quickly things have escalated and based on the photos the design isn't complex so I will expect to see new variations and even more complex designs surfacing in a matter of months.
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US government orders removal of 3D-gun designs
Published: Friday, May 10, 2013 | By: DennisWell this didn't take long. Per the announcment the first (known) version of a 3D Printed gun has been posted on the Internet and much like Pandoras box, once its opened, it cannot be closed.
The order to remove the blueprints for the plastic gun comes after they were downloaded more than 100,000 times.
The US State Department wrote to the gun's designer, Defense Distributed, suggesting publishing them online may breach arms-control regulations.
Although the files have been removed from the company's Defcad site, it is not clear whether this will stop people accessing the blueprints.
They were being hosted by the Mega online service and may still reside on its servers.
Also, many links to copies of the blueprints have been uploaded to file-sharing site the Pirate Bay, making them widely available. The Pirate Bay has also publicised its links to the files via social news site Reddit suggesting many more people will get hold of the blueprints.I wouldn't worry too much about reddit, unless it's an animated .gif or a meme people are less inclined to care however, having the file out on torrent sites means anyone can get a copy.
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The Onion tells how Syrian Electronic Army hacked its Twitter
Published: Thursday, May 9, 2013 | By: DennisIt is not every day that you can say "Pwned by The Onion" but we can say that The Onion got pwned, for being very relaxed in their security procedures.
ArsTechnica has the story.On Monday, the "hacktivist" group Syrian Electronic Army briefly took over the Twitter account of the satirical news publication The Onion, posting a series of anti-Israeli "joke" stories and an anti-Obama "meme" image. The Onion returned fire with its own joke story, "Syrian Electronic Army Has A Little Fun Before Inevitable Upcoming Death At Hands of Rebels."
Putting all jokes aside, The Onion's technology team yesterday made a post describing how the SEA had managed to compromise the accounts of a number of employees and take control of the Twitter feed-a series of phishing attacks that took advantage of the organization's use of Google Apps.phishing is one of the leading causes behind identity theft and all it takes is a single person clicking on a bad link to have everything stolen from you. As you can imagine even emails from trusted sources cannot be trusted since embedded malware can send messages to your entire contact list an even use existing emails as a template.
Lesson to learn here is to learn how to spot the fake and if all else fails never NEVER click on a link in an email especially when that email is asking you to verify your account information or sending you status updates. Those URLs are easy to swap in the source code and without peaking at the URL you may never know. -
The Onion tells how Syrian Electronic Army hacked its Twitter
Published: Thursday, May 9, 2013 | By: DennisIt is not every day that you can say "Pwned by The Onion" but we can say that The Onion got pwned, for being very relaxed in their security procedures.
ArsTechnica has the story.On Monday, the "hacktivist" group Syrian Electronic Army briefly took over the Twitter account of the satirical news publication The Onion, posting a series of anti-Israeli "joke" stories and an anti-Obama "meme" image. The Onion returned fire with its own joke story, "Syrian Electronic Army Has A Little Fun Before Inevitable Upcoming Death At Hands of Rebels."
Putting all jokes aside, The Onion's technology team yesterday made a post describing how the SEA had managed to compromise the accounts of a number of employees and take control of the Twitter feed-a series of phishing attacks that took advantage of the organization's use of Google Apps.phishing is one of the leading causes behind identity theft and all it takes is a single person clicking on a bad link to have everything stolen from you. As you can imagine even emails from trusted sources cannot be trusted since embedded malware can send messages to your entire contact list an even use existing emails as a template.
Lesson to learn here is to learn how to spot the fake and if all else fails never NEVER click on a link in an email especially when that email is asking you to verify your account information or sending you status updates. Those URLs are easy to swap in the source code and without peaking at the URL you may never know. -
NL: Review Block - Cases Coolers and Misc Other Stuff
Published: Tuesday, May 7, 2013 | By: DennisIn this episode we have a special request going out to LanOC who felt I didn't post their news enough. Well, here is looking at you kid..
Cases = The chassis you never have to detail
- In Win D-Frame Case Review @ Hardware Secrets
- Aerocool Xpredator case @ Rbmods
- NZXT Phantom 630 Full Tower Case Review @ Hi Tech Legion
- Corsair Obsidian 350D Case Review @ Hardware Secrets
- High End Case Roundup: In Win, Lian-Li, & SilverStone @ HotHardware
Coola - Keep your cool
- be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 2 Review @ HCW
- Cooler Master Eisberg 240L Prestige review
- Gelid Black Edition CPU cooler review
- Cooler Charts: 28 Models tested - update Thermalright AXP-100 @ Ocaholic
- Cooler Master TPC-612 review: cheaper TPC-800 CPU cooler
Powa! - we need more powa wes!
- Cooler Master V1000 Power Supply @ LanOC Reviews
Cards all video like
- PowerColor HD 7790 Turbo Duo 1GB Video Card Review @ Hi Tech LegionFor more LanOC news be sure to check out their news page, assuming you can find it.
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My Best Buy Sales Experience @ MHW
Published: Tuesday, May 7, 2013 | By: DennisI think we can all share a similar experiences at Best Buy, I know they mean well but the volume of people just browsing vs money in hand I'm buying something today is pretty low. Funny thing I famously call BB "The Cave of Evil" not because its a bad place but because you get people greeting you as you walk in followed by people asking if you need help. I know this is to keep down "shrinkage" but it gets annoying.
Best Buy is really not in a position to let too many customers with an envelope full of cash walk out the door. Not unless they want their doors to close for good. In this case Best Buy was its own worst enemy. If they do go out of business--and again I hope they don't--I think they will have to consider blaming themselves and their sometimes ridiculous business practices, instead of the nearly insurmountably-changing buying habits of the modern American consumer spiel that I read from them in the media all the time.
I have seen many tech stores like Best Buy fold up, the most famous was CompUSA. That was a great store but suffered from not enough stuff in stock and what was in stock sucked.
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How Intel Builds Custom Chips for Giants of the Web
Published: Monday, May 6, 2013 | By: DennisThis is a great article that proves you can sometimes cut out the middle man and go directly to the source. The Facebook servers are still assembled in Asia (likely by Foxconn or Gigabyte) and then shipped back for use in the datacenter.
According to Frank Frankovsky — who oversees hardware design at Facebook — this started as far back as 2009. That’s when the company first asked Intel for certain changes to the design of the silicon chips it builds for computer servers — the machines that drive the internet and the private computer networks inside the world’s businesses. Since then, Frankovsky says, Intel has worked hand-in-hand with the company to accommodate such changes.
For the most part, he explains, these changes are rolled into the same processors that Intel sells to the world at large, though there are cases where the changes are unlikely to benefit anyone but Facebook. “The more insight we can give our technology suppliers about what makes our software work the best, the more we’re able to influence their design roadmaps,” Frankovsky says. “We do influence their roadmaps — way upstream — but then they are able to bring these changes out to all of their customers.”-- snip --
This is really the best part of the whole article, Intel releasing purposefully overclocked CPUs.
He also says that there are cases where Intel will crank the chip clock speeds to unusually high levels at the request of certain buyers — if the buyer is willing to deal with the extra heat this generates.
I guess we now know where the K and X edition processors got their start.
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How Intel Builds Custom Chips for Giants of the Web
Published: Monday, May 6, 2013 | By: DennisThis is a great article that proves you can sometimes cut out the middle man and go directly to the source. The Facebook servers are still assembled in Asia (likely by Foxconn or Gigabyte) and then shipped back for use in the datacenter.
According to Frank Frankovsky — who oversees hardware design at Facebook — this started as far back as 2009. That’s when the company first asked Intel for certain changes to the design of the silicon chips it builds for computer servers — the machines that drive the internet and the private computer networks inside the world’s businesses. Since then, Frankovsky says, Intel has worked hand-in-hand with the company to accommodate such changes.
For the most part, he explains, these changes are rolled into the same processors that Intel sells to the world at large, though there are cases where the changes are unlikely to benefit anyone but Facebook. “The more insight we can give our technology suppliers about what makes our software work the best, the more we’re able to influence their design roadmaps,” Frankovsky says. “We do influence their roadmaps — way upstream — but then they are able to bring these changes out to all of their customers.”-- snip --
This is really the best part of the whole article, Intel releasing purposefully overclocked CPUs.
He also says that there are cases where Intel will crank the chip clock speeds to unusually high levels at the request of certain buyers — if the buyer is willing to deal with the extra heat this generates.
I guess we now know where the K and X edition processors got their start.
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Windows 8: The Microsoft New Coke Moment
Published: Monday, May 6, 2013 | By: DennisIt would seem tech writers are getting more creative when it comes to writing about the failure of Windows 8. In this ZDNet article the author is trying to parallel the cola wars claiming that Microsoft just needs to listen to their customers and they will come out on top again.
Funny thing is unless you consider apple there is very little competition for the top one spot.
How did Coke do it? They gave people what they wanted: The original "taste." As Coca-Cola chairman and CEO Roberto Goizueta said in 1995, "The most significant result of 'New Coke' by far was that it sent an incredibly powerful signal... a signal that we really were ready to do whatever was necessary to build value for the owners of our business."
I've suggested Microsoft do the equivalent by bringing back the Aero interface and dumping the Metro interface. Does Ballmer have the guts to admit he made a mistake and give users what they clearly want? We don't know.Write about and they will change, or so people think. I'm of the opinion that MS doesn't have to do anything, they could continue to push Metro and people will eventually buy into it. Lets hope that doesn't happen.
I also noticed the author claims that Coke won the cola wars. *tisk*
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Welcome to the New Hardware Asylum
Published: Sunday, May 5, 2013 | By: DennisHardware Asylum is a computer hardware review site that will bring you the latest product reviews and current industry and gaming news. This site has been established by computer hardware enthusiasts with backgrounds in professional gaming, overclocking, system building and even web programming and design.
We are sure many of you share a similar passion or simply want to learn more about your computer, if that is the case then Hardware Asylum is the right site for you.
As with any new website it will take some time to get the various sections populated so stay tuned!
