The Brooklyn Bridge caper is nearly a week old, yet it's still a whodunit despite the New York Police Department invoking every digital age investigative technique in the book to crack what appears to be a low-tech prank that included kitchen cookware to pull off.

The hunt continued Monday.

Vandals performed a monster switcheroo of sorts last Tuesday and removed two giant American flags from atop the bridge's two locked 276-foot towers, replacing them with white flags. The bridge is one of the Big Apple's most heavily guarded landmarks. The culprits, who scaled cables in the wee hours of the night, did it all under the cover of darkness by employing tin cooking pans to blot out the lights while sparking terror fears in the process.

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DooFi

Attackers have figured out a new way to get Amazon's cloud service to wage potent denial-of-service attacks on third-party websites—by exploiting security vulnerabilities in an open source search and analytics application known as Elasticsearch.

The power of Backdoor.Linux.Ganiw.a was documented earlier this month by researchers from antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab. Among other things, the trojan employs DNS amplification, a technique that vastly increases the volume of junk traffic being directed at a victim by abusing poorly secured domain name system servers. By sending DNS queries that are malformed to appear as if they came from the victim domain, DNS amplification can boost attack volume by 10-fold or more. The technique can be especially hard to block when distributed among thousands or hundreds of thousands of compromised computers.

Late last week, Kaspersky Lab expert Kurt Baumgartner reported that the DDoS bot is actively compromising Amazon Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) hosts and very possibly those of competing cloud services. The foothold that allows the nodes to be hijacked is a vulnerability in 1.1.x versions of Elastisearch, he said. The attackers are modifying proof-of-concept attack code for the vulnerability, indexed as CVE-2014-3120 in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database, that gives them the ability to remotely execute powerful Linux commands through a bash shell Window. The Gani backdoor, in turn, installs several other malicious scripts on compromised computers, including Backdoor.Perl.RShell.c and Backdoor.Linux.Mayday.g. The Mayday backdoor then floods sites with data packets based on the user datagram protocol.

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Verizon Wireless

One of the most common reactions to Verizon's announcement that it will throttle the heaviest users of its "unlimited" 4G plans went something like this: "That's the last straw—I'm switching to T-Mobile!"

Unfortunately, switching to T-Mobile, AT&T, or Sprint won't protect you from getting throttled, even if the carrier is claiming to sell you "unlimited" data.

Let's take a look at the relevant passages in each carrier's terms and conditions. We'll start with the Verizon Wireless announcement last week:

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The Lumia 1520 is currently the biggest Windows Phone, but at a mere 6 inches it could be dwarfed by future devices.

Before it has even delivered Windows Phone 8.1 to most users, Microsoft is readying its growing number of Windows Phone OEMs for the next release: Windows Phone 8.1 GDR 1.

Documents intended for the OEMs were accidentally made available on Microsoft's developer site for a short time, revealing details of what the patch will include. Though Microsoft has rectified the error, Paul Thurrott has posted a summary of what we should expect.

As with past platform updates, the release includes a mix of end-user features and behind-the-scenes improvements. The notable user-visible change is that the Start screen will support folders; drop one tile on top of another and it will form a folder, in much the same way as iOS and Android do. The Windows Store tile will also become live.

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So far, Amazon's contribution to the great wide world of 3D printing, where you are limited only by your imagination and stash of printing filament, is bobbleheads.

Amazon has opened a 3D-printing marketplace, offering customers the ability to buy customized products and trinkets like earrings or figurines. To enable customization, Amazon has built a new interface on top of its normal product pages that allows buyers to tweak the look of different 3D products.

There are plenty of 3D print-to-order businesses already in existence, including Sculpteo, Shapeways, and iMakr. While some work just as an on-demand service for individual customers, others are marketplaces for artists' and designers' 3D-printed products that users can browse and buy, like an iPhone phonograph amplifier.

Looking more closely at Amazon's implementation, it's more like the marketplace model, with partnerships from 3D printing services like Mixee Labs, which specializes in bobblehead figurines. 3DLT, a 3D printing design company, is also participating in the new venture, though it has sold its products through Amazon since March.

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Meet GUSS, the little jeep that will follow you anywhere—if you happen to be a beacon-wearing Marine, that is. TORC Robotics

The Marine Corps is testing a robotic version of its micro-truck, the Internally Transportable Vehicle (ITV), that can autonomously drive itself across rough terrain to carry supplies and ammunition for Marines in the field and evacuate the wounded. Called the Ground Unmanned Support Surrogate, or GUSS, the vehicle was developed in a collaboration between the US Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, Virginia Tech University, and TORC Robotics.

As part of the ongoing Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) international naval exercise, the Marine Corps tested GUSS on Oahu at the US Army’s Kahuku Training Area. The vehicle can follow someone wearing a beacon at a predetermined distance or be dispatched to a waypoint by remote control. If it gets stuck, a human can either use a robotic controller to take direct control of the vehicle or jump into its driver’s seat and throw a switch to take control. According to a report from Fox, the Naval Surface Warfare Center and Marine Corps both rated the vehicle’s performance as good, particularly in simulations of casualty evacuations, as demonstrated in the following video:

The GUSS autonomous vehicle in action.

This isn’t the GUSS system’s first RIMPAC appearance. A different version of the system, based on a six-wheeled off-road vehicle, was tested during the 2010 RIMPAC exercise. GUSS and the ITV it is based on are small enough to be carried on a Marine Corps Chinook helicopter or Osprey tilt-rotor. More development work is required on the GUSS robotics system, which could be used on other vehicle “platforms,” but the Navy and Marine Corps believe that a version of it could be deployed within the next five years.

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Just over a month ago, AMD and their partner Raptr pushed out the first version of their video recording Game DVR utility, which ships as a part of AMD’s second-party sourced Gaming Evolved Client. Last month’s release saw the initial take on this feature in beta form, which was a generally positive experience that proved the core technology worked, though not without some rough edges that remained to be cleaned up. Since then the Raptr team has been further working the Game DVR function as part of a broader client update, culminating in today’s release of version 4.0 of the Gaming Evolved Client.

Ahead of today’s client release Raptr gave us some time to spend with the forthcoming update, and while the Game DVR function is still officially in beta as version 4.0, we can briefly report that AMD and the Ratpr team have made good progress in just the last month. In the earlier beta of the Game DVR function – now dubbed Game Video Recorder, or GVR – we encountered both compatibility and image quality issues, and in the case of the latter the problem has been fully resolved in our test suite. The one game we were having a problem with on the previous client, Thief, now records with the correct gamma. All other games that we’ve had a chance to test (our complete benchmark suite and then some) are similarly correct.

Game compatibility however is still hit & miss. GEC will only enable recording for games it can detect – this essentially serving as a whitelist of sorts – and it needs to be able to both detect the installation of a game and its launch. Of the dozen games we’ve tried, all of these games are on the compatibility list and their installations are detected, but GEC stubbornly can’t detect the launch of Bioshock Infinite and hence can’t record it. The actual recording process itself is rather generic and Bioshock is supposed to be supported, so this would seem to expose some weaknesses in GEC’s launch detection process rather than a lack of (intended) support.

Otherwise our other 11 games were detected just fine. And indeed the Raptr team is claiming that they now support 5000 games, versus what Raptr claims is 169 for NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience (a claim NVIDIA strongly disagrees with since they don't even use whitelists). In any case, at 5000 games we have no way to fully validate this claim – and meanwhile we’d note that GeForce Experience worked with all 12 of our test games out of the box – but it’s worth pointing out that for technical reasons it’s important for GEC to support so many games. Since GEC lacks a fallback measure equivalent to GeForce Experience’s desktop capture mode and doesn’t officially support adding unsupported games, a large supported games list is necessary in this case to enable recording of as many games as possible.

Along with the under the hood updates to the GVR function, Raptr has also given the feature a UI tweak from the beta. Of particular note, the always-on (Replay) and on-demand (Record) functions have been separated from each other, allowing them to be easily enabled and disabled separately from each other. GVR’s settings pane has also been tweaked for 4.0, with image quality settings being excised to their own tab for space. Finally the in-game overlay HUD icons for the GVR functionality has also been overhauled to make it clearer when the Record and Replay functions are in use and how to use them, with the HUD being hideable when not in use.

Finally, with the release of the 4.0 client the Raptr team is looking to parlay the GVR functionality into their larger social networking ambitions, with the final feature addition of the new client being a dedicated community replay showcase. The replay share feature allows for replays to be uploaded to YouTube and simultaneously listed in the Raptr community showcase, complete with comments and hashtags. The built-in video uploading is fairly clever – many, if not most of these recordings will be destined for YouTube – though I’m not sure how frequently gameplay videos are uploaded directly to YouTube without editing (something that notably Sony included as part of their replay sharing package on the PS4).

The Gaming Evolved Client 4.0 update will be released later today, and should be available both as an automatic client update and as a download from AMD's Gaming Evolved Client website.

The launch of the QNAP TS-x51 series was covered in detail last month. Its introduction has revitalized the premium NAS market for SOHO and power users by providing a powerful enough alternative to the Atom D270x-based NAS units. The 22nm Celeron J1800 in the TS-x51 is a SoC (obviates the necessity for a platform controller hub) and brings a revamped Atom microarchitecture (Silvermont) to the NAS market. Does this make the TS-x51 perform better and consume lower power compared to its predecessors in the same class? Read on for our review of the 4-bay TS-451 to find out.

Composite image of X-ray (pink) and weak gravitational lensing (blue) of the famous Bullet Cluster of galaxies. X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/ M.Markevitch et al.; Lensing Map: NASA/STScI; ESO WFI; Magellan/U.Arizona/ D.Clowe et al. Optical: NASA/STScI; Magellan/U.Arizona/D.Clowe et al.

It’s in the room with you now. It’s more subtle than the surveillance state, more transparent than air, more pervasive than light. We may not be aware of the dark matter around us (at least without the ingestion of strong hallucinogens), but it’s there nevertheless.

Although we can't see dark matter, we know a bit about how much there is and where it's located. Measurement of the cosmic microwave background shows that 80 percent of the total mass of the Universe is made of dark matter, but this can’t tell us exactly where that matter is distributed. From theoretical considerations, we expect some regions—the cosmic voids—to have little or none of the stuff, while the central regions of galaxies have high density. As with so many things involving dark matter, though, it’s hard to pin down the details.

Unlike ordinary matter, we can’t see where dark matter is by using the light it emits or absorbs. Astronomers can only map dark matter's distribution using its gravitational effects. That’s especially complicated in the denser parts of galaxies, where the chaotic stew of gas, stars, and other forms of ordinary matter can mask or mimic the presence of dark matter. Even in the galactic suburbs or intergalactic space, dark matter’s transparency to all forms of light makes it hard to locate with precision.

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Two years ago, the acronyms FISC or FISA would require a majority to frantically hit the Google search. But thanks to Edward Snowden and his leaked information regarding the NSA, the general public is now aware of the domestic-based Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court's role: approving all government requests to engage in its various spying initiatives.

This weekend, Vice discovered an unusual, additional role for two FISC judges—stakeholder. According to 2013 financial disclosures obtained by the website, FISC Judge Susan Wright and FISC Judge Dennis Saylor each owned Verizon stock. Wright purchased (Scribd) $15,000 or less on October 22 and Saylor collected (Scribd) less than $1,000 from his stock in 2013. (As Vice notes, "the precise amount and value of each investment is unclear—like many government ethics disclosures, including those for federal lawmakers, investments amounts are revealed within certain ranges of value.)

There is an ethics law for federal judges that, among other things, requires judges to avoid cases where they have a financial stake or where they may act in bias. This scenario isn't quite that clear-cut. While FISC absolutely ruled on situations involving Verizon, Vice points out FISC proceedings are ex parte. Telecoms may absolutely have a stake in these FISC rulings, but they aren't an active party for the NSA requests FISC rules on.

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HBO Films

The premise of Love Child, HBO’s latest feature-length documentary, doesn’t leave much room for moral questions or shades of grey. It opens with the 2010 story of a South Korean couple who met through an online video game, had a child, then neglected it in favor of playing said game. The baby girl died three months later of malnutrition; the couple found her the morning after they’d spent 10 hours (their typical session length) at a “PC Bang” gamer café.

The aftermath of that story, especially as it’s presented in this film, is pretty cut and dry: babies good, game addiction bad. Thus, this documentary (named after the baby in question, whose name, Sarang, translates to “Love Child”) doesn’t offer many surprises in perspective. It casts a particularly negative light on the gaming world and the rapid expansion of Internet access throughout South Korea.

As a result, the film’s attempts to humanize its subjects—Kim Jae-beom and his wife Kim Yun-jeong—are uneven and hard to swallow. To the filmmakers’ credit, that choice comes off as wholly intentional. Love Child paints the couple’s story in pity and sadness as it tries to make sense of how gaming, technology, and depression combined in a story that, tragically, has become a cornerstone in conversations about its nation.

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Bunch O Balloons is a new product that allows you to fill and tie dozens of water bombs at the same time and is sure to revolutionize water fights across the land.

On the face of it, it's a hose attachment with 37 pre-connected balloons that automatically tie themselves once filled with water. It looks a little like a bunch of deflated grapes. But the impact that this technological solution to a fiddly problem will have should not be underestimated: it's the water fight equivalent to the invention of the machine gun. Suddenly those who have this new munitions invention will have an enormous advantage over those who don't. The war will be one-sided, brutal, and extremely soggy.

The company behind Bunch O Balloons—Tinnus Enterprises—promises that it makes it possible to fill 100 balloons in just one minute. This compares to the six or so balloons that you could tie by hand per minute. It's devastating for your enemy.

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These are the jokes, folks...

Those of us who have played Hearthstone since the closed beta was released have stared at the same basic collection of cards, play modes, and once-a-turn hero powers for nearly a year now. These features haven't limited play too much. There are tons of viable deck combinations to create out of the game's nearly 400 cards, and the controlled randomness of the Arena mode has kept the game fresh after what must be hundreds of hours of play.

Yet the metagame (i.e. the types of decks people pick to match up against other common decks) has stagnated around two or three viable deck types (with slight variations) in which players see the same ultra-powerful cards appear again and again (if I never have to hear Leeroy Jenkins' famous war cry again, it will be too soon). At some point, even the best-designed collectible card game needs an infusion of new cards and gameplay ideas to prevent things from getting stale.

Blizzard realizes this, of course. The newly released "Curse of Naxxramas" expansion allowed the company to expand the game's card selection and add new types of gameplay to the mix. The first of five "wings" of the expansion launched earlier this week as a free update, and future wings will appear weekly for a small cost ($20 or 2,800 in-game gold for the whole thing). While it's definitely nice to get some new content in the game, I came away from that first wing a little disappointed.

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Kristina Servant

Animals have evolved to occupy almost all corners of the Earth. To survive, no matter the weather outside, the chemical reactions that run their bodies must adjust to the temperature. This is easy for warm-blooded animals like humans, because we have the ability to maintain our body temperature.

But cold-blooded animals can’t do that. When the weather changes and the mercury swings, their cells get exposed to that change in temperature. Yet cold blooded animals survive just fine. Michael Welte, associate professor of biology at the University of Rochester, may have just discovered one way such animals compensate. His team’s findings have been published in the Journal of Cell Biology.

One key to an organism’s survival at any temperature is to ensure that proteins are being made at the right time and in the right amount. But making proteins requires chemical reactions, and those reactions are sensitive to temperature.

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CBS Sci-fi drama Extant explores a world where human-level artificial intelligence is a reality. Centered on the Woods family, it follows astronaut Molly (Halle Berry), who finds herself pregnant after a year alone in space, husband and genius roboticist John (Goran Visnjic), and their son Ethan, a robot and the most advanced AI ever created.

Wired.co.uk caught up with creator Mickey Fisher and showrunner Greg Walker to discuss Extant's creation, how to build a realistic future, using tech to foster personal connections and partnering with Steven Spielberg.

Wired.co.uk: How long had you been working on Extant before you got people like Halle Berry and Steven Spielberg involved?

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These aren't our illustrious orbiting sex geckos, but they are the experiment's ground-based control sex geckos, and that's almost as good! imbp.ru

Good news, everyone: according to a statement from the Russian space agency Roscosmos, positive control has been reestablished over the agency’s orbiting Foton-M4 satellite. Launched a week ago, Foton-M4 carries a primarily biological payload made up of geckos, flies, plant seeds, and various microorganisms.

The satellite made headlines late last week when just a few days after launch, ground control lost communication with the satellite and could no longer send it commands.

As of Saturday night, the crisis appears to be over, and Roscosmos can once again talk to Foton-M4. "The link is established, the prescribed commands have been conducted in accordance with the plan," confirmed Roscosmos' chief official Oleg Nikolayevich Ostapenko. According to an additional quote from Ostapenko on RT.com, Roscosmos is sure that "90 percent" of the satellite’s experiments are still viable.

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Bose Corp. filed a lawsuit on Friday that accuses popular headphone maker Beats Electronics of infringing upon several of its patents.

The suit claims that Bose lost sales because Beats—which Apple announced it would acquire for $3 billion in May—used patented noise-cancelling technology in its Studio and Studio Wireless headphone lines.

Beats’ products that allegedly use the technology “can also be used for noise cancellation when no music is played, a feature that Beats also advertises,” the suit states. “Thus, Beats specifically encourages users to use the infringing functionality. Beats advertises no method to turn off features that cause end users to directly infringe.”

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Stack Exchange

This Q&A is part of a weekly series of posts highlighting common questions encountered by technophiles and answered by users at Stack Exchange, a free, community-powered network of 100+ Q&A sites.

theGreenCabbage asks:

I am interested in implementing a free trial version to my existing software. I plan on having the trial last 14 days. Upon the 14th day, my software would prompt the user to either pay for the paid version, or have the consequence of not being able to use it. The free trial version is entirely unlocked, meaning all paid features are there.

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Beamsplitters like these are enough to confirm that single photons can be linearly polarized. Fermilab

One of the joys of the arXiv is that anyone can submit anything to the website. Cranks and kooks can publish to their hearts' content in the theoretical physics section. Their work will remain there, read only by those searching for casual amusement. Yet somewhere between all the excellent science and slapstick comedy are scientists who just get stuff flat out wrong.

This is the story of how two respected physicists failed to understand photon angular momentum. Don't worry, they're not alone. Every physicist who has given the subject any thought has lost sleep working it out (and has had nightmares involving Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics). Since I lost sleep over it, I figured I would ensure that you all lose some sleep too.

Spinning photons and rotating electric fields

The fundamental confusion arises from the fact that there are two equivalent ways of describing the angular momentum of a photon. A cursory inspection of nature, however, seems to reveal that one is more natural than the other.

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CN.dart.call("xrailTop", {sz:"300x250", kws:["top"], collapse: true});Chrome Beta for Android updated recently, and with the update came a Material Design makeover, the new design style Google introduced at I/O. It's easy to think of a browser as "just an address bar," but this new version of Chrome has a ton of changes, including a slick new incognito mode design, a flatter icon, and an overall cleaner and brighter look. Just click through the gallery below for an overview.

In a blog post announcing the update, Google says the new version of Chrome "is starting to sport some of the elements of Material Design," indicating that the redesign isn't finished yet. While it looks like most of the immediate stuff is finished, like the new tab page, address bar, menu, and incognito mode, some areas, like the settings, haven't changed at all.

In addition to the new look, Chrome Beta 37 will now support automatically signing in across multiple accounts. The changelog also lists "performance improvements," and on the Android L developer preview especially, this new version is fast, even when scrolling. The version also fixed a bug where Chrome 36 would identify Android L as "Android 4.3" (that's Jelly Bean), the beta corrects that and identifies L as "4.4.99."

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