‘Anti-Gravity’ 3D Printer Uses Strands to Sculpt Shapes on Any Surface

"3D printers build objects by cross-section, one layer at a time from the ground up—gravity is a limiting factor. But what if it wasn’t? Using proprietary 3D printing materials, Petr Novikov and Saša Jokić say their Mataerial 3D printing system is gravity independent. The duo’s method allows a robotic arm to print objects on floors, walls, ceilings—smooth and uneven surfaces. It uses a thermoplastic that cures on contact with the air, not unlike the 3Doodler, a Kickstarter project that places an extruder in human hands to draw 3D forms on the air." Continue reading

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Burner Phone – A Simple and Anonymous Disposable Cell Phone

"Our Burner Kit is the simplest, most secure, and most affordable pre-paid cell phone kit in the US. The Burner Kit comes with a quality disposable cell phone, in addition to unlimited voice and SMS messaging for 30 days. After 30 days, just throw away your Burner Kit and you'll never have to worry about compromising your identity. We take your privacy seriously. You can purchase your Burner Kit using Credit or Debit card or Bitcoin (an anonymous digital crypto currency). Every time you make a purchase we'll package and ship your order, then destroy all transaction records in our system. We make it impossible to give or share your information with anyone." Continue reading

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Meet the nice-guy lawyers who want $1,000 per worker for using scanners

"Starting late last year, hundreds of US businesses began to receive demand letters from secretive patent-holding companies with six-letter gibberish names: AdzPro, GosNel, and JitNom. The letters state that using basic office equipment, like scanners that can send files to e-mail, infringes a series of patents owned by MPHJ Technologies. Unless the target companies make payments—which start at around $9,000 for the smallest targeted businesses but go up from there—they could face legal action." Continue reading

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Sears Plans To Retrofit 2,500 “Ghostbox” Stores As Data Centers

"There are over a billion square feet of vacant commercial space in the US right now, most of it in the form of big box stores. This month, Sears announced the formation of a stand-alone company—the ominously-named Ubiquity Critical Environments LLC—to handle to conversion of thousands of Sears and KMart stores into data centers. Ultimately, the structural skeletons of these stores will house servers, chillers, and generators, as well as roof-mounted antennas. In a crushingly ironic twist, the centers will target medium-sized e-commerce retailers—the very companies helping to put department stores out of business." Continue reading

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Anatomy of a hack: How crackers ransack passwords like “qeadzcwrsfxv1331”

"Nate Anderson, Ars deputy editor, downloaded a list of more than 16,000 cryptographically hashed passcodes. Within a few hours, he deciphered almost half of them. If a reporter with zero training in the ancient art of password cracking can achieve such results, imagine what more seasoned attackers can do. Imagine no more. We asked three cracking experts to attack the same list Anderson targeted and recount the results in all their color and technical detail Iron Chef style. The results, to say the least, were eye opening because they show how quickly even long passwords with letters, numbers, and symbols can be discovered." Continue reading

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Black Hat hackers break into any iPhone in under a minute, using a malicious charger

"Security researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have built a malicious USB charger that can inject persistent, undetectable malware onto your iPhone, iPad, or other current-gen iOS device. This USB charger, called Mactans, takes less than a minute to compromise a device once it has been plugged in. Mactans, which is named after the black widow spider’s Latin taxonomy, will be demonstrated by Billy Lau, Yeongjin Jang, and Chengyu Song at the Black Hat 2013 conference in July." Continue reading

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Bitcoin Grows Up

"According to the official count, 1200 enthusiasts, techie geeks, trendy investors, eccentric entrepreneurs, crypto hackers, small-government aficionados, and a few downright weirdos had descended on the Bay Area for America's first big bitcoin conference, which, for a $300 fee, promised participants a hard look at the not-so-hard future of money. In one way it was like a rich guy's LAN party, a chance to put a face to people who had known each other mainly through internet forums. But it also had the vibe of one of those night-long infomercials about the Next Big Thing." Continue reading

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Need Some Bitcoin? Hit This ATM Machine

"The brothers are converts to the bitcoin story. They were running a guitar shop in Israel, Zach is a guitar player and was in a band, when their interest was piqued in the virtual currency. At first, their enthusiasm was limited to accepting bitcoin at the shop. Josh Harvey has a tech background, though, and together with a third partner, they dreamed up the idea of a bitcoin ATM. They built the first mock-up out of their house, but when they started showing it off at bitcoin conferences, the reception convinced them to build and sell the machine. They’ve got a manufacturer contracted and expect to start sales in the fall." Continue reading

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Digital Currency Firms’ Sites Have Been Shut Down.

"One of the companies involved in digital currency transfers is Perfect Money. It just got a lot less perfect. The screws are tightening on digital money sites. Bottom line: the U.S. government reserves the right to shut down any website on earth, at any time — no appeal. Meaning: you can put your legal digital money into these sites. Then, without warning, these sites are defined by the U.S. government as money-laundering sites. They mysteriously go offline. Think of them as roach motels: your money goes in. It does not come out." Continue reading

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