Facebook is doling out bounties to folks who find Oculus bugs
Facebook has a storied history of shelling out bounties to whomever manages to unearth bugs in its systems, and according to The Verge now it’s willing to pay out cash to folks to find who do the same for Oculus VR’s code. Interested? You’ll stand to make a minimum of $500 for your efforts, and just how high that reward goes depends on the complexity and severity of the issue you dig up. This sort of bug hunting has the potential to become an awfully lucrative hobby – after all, Facebook didn’t shell out billions of dollars to invest in the future of communication only to skimp when it comes to patching potentially critical problems. Here’s the thing, though: you probably won’t be ferreting out bugs in the Oculus hardware just yet. Facebook product security engineer Neal Poole told The Verge that most of the issues facing Oculus aren’t found in the face-mounted VR goggles; instead, they lay dormant on Oculus’ website and in the messaging system developers use to keep tabs on each other. Yeah, we know, sort of bummer – just know that Poole didn’t completely close the door on more involved bug hunts down the road.
Via: The Verge
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Twitter shows how its bots keep your timeline spam-free
Have you noticed that you’re getting a lot less spam on Twitter these days? You may have to thank a bot for that. Twitter has just shed light on BotMaker, a recently developed system that (as the name suggests) lets the social network create anti-spam bot code with very little effort. Within a few seconds, engineers can set up rules that automatically take down and track spammers, in some cases before they’ve even managed to post anything. Besides barring known spam links, the bots can flag suspicious behavior — if a lot of people block an account after it sends a tweet, it’s going to be watched very closely. BotMaker will also look at long-term behavior, so spammers that slip through the cracks aren’t necessarily safe.
Importantly, you shouldn’t notice that BotMaker is working; it’s designed to only fight certain forms of spam as they arrive, and saves more time-consuming tasks for later. Whatever its impact on performance, it’s proving to be effective. Twitter is reporting a 40 percent drop in spam since its new tool kicked in, and it can improve any less-than-perfect rules within seconds instead of hours. It’s doubtful the technology will ever completely rid the world of pitches for fake followers and cheap drugs, but it should help staff police a rapidly growing user base without hurting your day-to-day experience.
Filed under: Internet
Source: Twitter Engineering Blog
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UPS says malware attack compromised customer info at 51 of its stores
Have you done any business with UPS recently? You’d better check out the company’s website: some of its stores may have leaked your personal data. After receiving a security advisory from the US Government, the company discovered that 51 UPS Stores were infected with malware, potentially compromising customer data for more than 105,000 transactions. UPS has already removed the offending software, of course, but the damage may have already been done. Now the company is trying to make good.
Customers affected by the data breach are eligible for free identity protection and credit monitoring services — unfortunately, UPS isn’t offering the services to customers directly. Instead, its posting a list of impacted locations on its website and asking customers to check themselves. The free proaction services are a nice gesture, but it’s not the best outreach for customers that don’t keep up with UPS news. Worried you’re affected? Check out the list at the source link below.
Filed under: Misc
Via: Wall Street Journal
Source: UPS
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Engadget Daily: Galaxy Tab 4 Nook, transparent solar panels and more!
Today, we take the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook for a spin, round up a few of our favorite phones, learn about transparent solar panels, and more! Read on for Engadget’s news highlights from the last 24 hours.
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These beautiful objects symbolize human contact using cold, hidden machinery
Ask anyone who’s tried maintaining a long-distance relationship: it’s hard, and video chats, text messages and phone calls don’t always satisfy our emotional needs. A lot of human relations are indirect, subtle actions of body language or behavior that aren’t easily captured in video or text. Capturing the feeling of these unspoken cues seems is the point of “Saying things that can’t be said,” two students’ final project at the Holon Institute of Technology. The series uses a mix of technology and familiar objects to create an abstract sense of presence between two distant partners.
The project consists of three pieces, but none of them directly simulate touch. “I’m with you,” for instance, is a pair of pineapple-shaped objects that “beat” with the pulse of the other user — implying closeness, but not mimicking it. Another pair of devices allows one user to playfully blow on a pinwheel, prompting an object at their partner’s end to shoot bubbles. A third display simulates “blowing a kiss” by having one user’s breath remotely flap a paper butterfly’s wings.
All of the objects are subtle, but beautifully made. They aren’t enough to make you feel as if your loved ones are really present, but the echo of presence they imply may satisfy an emotional need that videos, text and images can’t. At the very least, the abstract objects are an interesting idea — and even its creators admit that something suggested can be more real that something simulated. “It was important to me not to try and reenact the feelings of touch, pressure and warmth we feel when we hug or a caress our loved one,” Student Daniel Sher said of the project. “Trying to imitate that will always feel fake.”
Via: VICE
Source: Design Boom
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Photo of Possible 5.5-Inch iPhone 6 Rear Shell Surfaces
While we’ve seen dozens of part leaks for the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, parts for the rumored 5.5-inch version of the device have thus far been scarce, possibly due to the fact that the larger iPhone 6 is said to have entered production later than the 4.7-inch iPhone 6.
Photos depicting what might be the rear shell of the larger device have finally surfaced, however, and have been shared by Evasi0nJailbreak.com. According to the site, the photos have been sourced from “deep within Apple’s supply chain in China,” and may be only a prototype of the final rear shell.
Outside of 5.5-inch iPhone 6 rear shell compared to inside of 4.7-inch rear shell
That said, the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 rear shell images, which are compared in the photos to the rear shell of a 4.7-inch iPhone, do resemble early images of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 rear shell, depicting thick antenna breaks, a rounded True Tone flash, a cutout for an embedded Apple logo, the camera, and the microphone.
Inside of 5.5-inch iPhone 6 rear shell compared to outside of 4.7-inch rear shell
More convincingly, the screw holes on the rear shell image accurately match up with the screw holes on an earlier leaked image of a logic board said to be for the 5.5-inch iPhone 6, so this may be our first look at a true 5.5-inch iPhone 6 rear shell.
Apple is expected to introduce the iPhone 6 at an event on September 9, but it is unclear whether the company will show off both the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch models at the same time. If the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 does make an appearance at the event, it may not ship to customers until several months after the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 ships due to production delays.
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China’s ‘bullet screens’ combine movies and your snarky texts
Movie theater texters here in the US are (rightfully!) viewed as the lowest of the low, but certain spots in China look far more kindly on those cinematic simpletons. Why? Because some of their hastily composed missives actually become part of the show itself. According to the New York Times, some Chinese theaters are experimenting with what they call “bullet screens,” which meld movies with text messages sent in from the audience. For the low, low price of 0.1 renminbi (or a dime), a film connoisseur can watch as their most poignant wisecracks scroll across the screen with countless others… for better or worse.
Sound familiar? This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the line between content and comments blur — Japan’s niconico video service (see above) would’ve just been a regional YouTube knock-off were it not for the occasionally insane stream of comments sweeping across videos as they played. The end result is a visually jarring, often hilarious union of art and critique, a text-only version of MST3K unfolding before your very eyes. Our only question: when can we unleash our sparkling wit on a movie screen near us?
Source: New York Times
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What if your Netflix queue was just a big, virtual room?
Sure, we know Oculus VR chief technology officer John Carmack’s likes watching movies on the Rift headset from bed when he’s sick, but what if you’d rather catch up on Orange is the New Black instead? A recent hackathon at Netflix produced something that could make that possible. The custom UI, dubbed “Oculix,” shows off what it’d be like to navigate the interface in a virtual space replete with gesture control. It looks pretty neat if you ask us. What, with its floating tiles and text descriptions and all that. Sadly, unlike the home-brew Oculus apps we’re used to, whether or not the greater community will get to give this a shot is up in the air. As is typical with Netflix’s Hack Day projects, the outfit is making no promises of Oculix ever seeing the light of day.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Via: The Verge
Source: Netflix
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Parties for Secret users get you spilling the beans in real life
Part of the allure of Secret’s app is supposed to be the anonymity; you can confess your innermost thoughts without facing any accusing fingers. However, people are now using Secret as a launching pad for parties where the very point is to confide in others you can see across the table. As Recode notes from first-hand experience, it’s like seeing the app unfold in real life. Rather than make small talk, guests share their sincerest feelings about family and relationships — you may find more about a stranger in a few hours than you would by following them on Facebook for a year. Even meeting up is dependent on revealing interesting tidbits, so you end up breaking the ice before you know anyone’s names.
These parties are still new, and there’s a distinct possibility that they’ll fade out. However, the Secret-inspired occasions appear to have some benefits for real socialization. They help people meet strangers (albeit ones connected to existing friends), and you don’t get the sense that these would-be friends have something to hide. Secret can be used for some decidedly malicious purposes, but these get-togethers suggest that it can be a force for good in the right hands.
[Image credit: Jupiterimages]
Filed under: Internet
Source: Recode
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Watch two fish duke it out in ‘Street Fighter’ on a live internet stream
The bar has been raised for fish-controlled video games. Not content with the solo action of Fish Plays Pokemon, Andrew Hill has launched FishPlayStreetFighter, a Twitch stream that lets you watch two fish (Aquarius and Robert the Bruce) square off in Capcom’s classic Street Fighter II. It’s mapping movement around the tank like before, but it’s using a significantly more advanced control scheme to liven things up. Color detection makes the two-player mode possible, and the fish can string together input combos based on where they’re swimming — watch for long enough and you’ll see a goldfish throw its opponent across the room. The best part is that the matches actually move along pretty quickly. While you’ll sometimes see the fighters wasting time, one fish usually gets a knockout before time is up. The feed doesn’t run at all hours (usually between 7:30AM and 10PM Eastern), but it should easily keep you distracted while you’re at work.
Source: Twitch, Andew Hill (Twitter)
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AIVAnet 