Protect Against Kiosk-Propagated Viruses

Public kiosks, such as those used for photo printing, are exposed to thousands of USB drives and other media every month. Many of them are poorly secured and are using your media as a virus-propagation tool. Protect yourself with these simple steps.

Security blog Risky.biz reader Morgan wrote in to highlight how an unsecure photo kiosk at Big W—a Woolworth subsidiary—infected one of his flash drives with a virus.

Photo kiosks in Big W stores are allegedly infecting customers with USB-borne viruses.

The Windows-based Fuji photo kiosks located in the company’s stores apparently don’t run antivirus software, so lovely little bits of malicious software like Trojan.Poison-36 are winding up on customers’ USB keys, according to Risky Business listener and blogger Morgan Storey.

On its own, an isolated incident of a photo kiosk infecting a USB device might not be newsworthy. But what makes this item stick out is Big W’s reply to Morgan after he notified the company of the issue:

You can visit the full article at the link below to see a screenshot of the entire email but the most notable quote in the their response should give you pause.

Please note that we are currently testing anti-virus software on our Fuji photo kiosks in a number of stores, and if it is successful, we plan on rolling it out to all stores in the future.

It could be debated whether or not the virus Morgan’s flash drive picked up came from that particular photo kiosk but the people in charge of the kiosk acknowledge that the kiosks have no virus protection. All it would take for each kiosk to become a virus propagating machine then—with access to thousands of USB drives, memory sticks, and SD cards a month!—is exposure to one infected flash drive.

When one screen is just not enough

Convergence is where it’s at.

A recent article over at Mashable looked at some Nielsen statistics regarding the concurrent use of television and a computer. The general trend indicates that households are growing more comfortable with the idea of using a computer (most likely a notebook) while watching their favorite programs. The surge of real-time social media (like Twitter and Facebook) is probably a big factor.

There have been some neat experiments with convergent programming such as sporting events delivering stats and alternate views during games, adding additional content to repeated shows and of course the ever-present user interaction on Twitter and show bulletin boards.

As multi-platform viewership continues to grow, how will networks and companies take advantage of it?

Some interesting stats from Nielsen:

Fatty foods may cause cocaine-like addiction

Scientists have finally confirmed what the rest of us have suspected for years: Bacon, cheesecake, and other delicious yet fattening foods may be addictive.

A new study in rats suggests that high-fat, high-calorie foods affect the brain in much the same way as cocaine and heroin. When rats consume these foods in great enough quantities, it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction, the study found.

Doing drugs such as cocaine and eating too much junk food both gradually overload the so-called pleasure centers in the brain, according to Paul J. Kenny, Ph.D., an associate professor of molecular therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute, in Jupiter, Florida. Eventually the pleasure centers "crash," and achieving the same pleasure–or even just feeling normal–requires increasing amounts of the drug or food, says Kenny, the lead author of the study.

"People know intuitively that there’s more to [overeating] than just willpower," he says. "There’s a system in the brain that’s been turned on or over-activated, and that’s driving [overeating] at some subconscious level."

In the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Kenny and his co-author studied three groups of lab rats for 40 days. One of the groups was fed regular rat food. A second was fed bacon, sausage, cheesecake, frosting, and other fattening, high-calorie foods–but only for one hour each day. The third group was allowed to pig out on the unhealthy foods for up to 23 hours a day.

They began to eat compulsively, to the point where they continued to do so in the face of pain. When the researchers applied an electric shock to the rats’ feet in the presence of the food, the rats in the first two groups were frightened away from eating. But the obese rats were not. "Their attention was solely focused on consuming food," says Kenny.

In previous studies, rats have exhibited similar brain changes when given unlimited access to cocaine or heroin. And rats have similarly ignored punishment to continue consuming cocaine, the researchers note.

See the original article at CNN.

Wii Headtracking Creates 3D Window Display

Johnny Chung Lee is the PhD student from Carnegie Mellon University who has been rocking Nintendo fanboy hearts pretty hard by making the Wiimote do some spectacular feats. We first saw him track his fingertips on the screen for a "Minority Report" type of interface. Then he created an interactive whiteboard. Now, he’s managed to create a headtracking simulation through the Wiimote, creating an amazing 3D window on the world.

The mod requires you to wear the sensor bar (or any IR-emitting headband, Lee makes some sweet goggles) and place the Wiimote by the screen (it’s hooked up to a laptop with a TV-out for this demonstration). Essentially, your head becomes the mouse peeking through a 3D room, and the gameplay implications would be incredible.

Anyone else thinking that Nintendo should pay this guy whatever he wants to make some awesome games? Or, you know, Sony and Microsoft could always grab him up, too. These ideas just use the Wiimote’s IR—technology that isn’t exactly cutting edge stuff.

Barbie Video Girl Features A Built-In Camcorder

Besides pursuing a career as a computer engineer, it seems Barbie is also considering espionage as a side gig. The Barbie Video Girl Doll, which was just unveiled at Toy Fair, features a video camera ‘hidden’ in Barbie’s necklace that can capture up to 30 minutes of footage. But what’s more disturbing is the LCD display fused to her back that allows you to play back those videos.

Now I know Mattel has never been that concerned with anatomical correctness in the Barbie line, but I’m pretty sure they’re taking some real creative licenses here. There’s also a USB port hidden somewhere on the doll, not exactly sure where, that allows the videos to be downloaded to a PC and/or uploaded and edited on Barbie.com. The whole idea just seems kind of creepy to me, probably even more so if there was a Ken version, but don’t let me stop you from picking one up in July when they’ll be available for about $50.

Japanese researchers develop see-through goldfish

TOKYO (AFP) – First came see-through frogs. Now Japanese researchers have succeeded in producing goldfish whose beating hearts can be seen through translucent scales and skin.

The transparent creatures are part of efforts to reduce the need for dissections, which have become increasingly controversial, particularly in schools.

“You can see a live heart and other organs because the scales and skin have no pigments,” said Yutaka Tamaru, an associate professor in the department of life science at Mie University.

“You don’t have to cut it open. You can see a tiny brain above the goldfish’s black eyes.”

The joint team of researchers at Mie University and Nagoya University in central Japan produced the “ryukin” goldfish by picking mutant hatchery goldfish with pale skin and breeding them together.

“Having a pale colour is a disadvantage for goldfish in an aquarium but it’s good to see how organs sit in a body three-dimensionally,” Tamaru told AFP.

The fish are expected to live up to roughly 20 years and could grow as long as 25 centimetres (10 inches) and weigh more than two kilograms (five pounds), much bigger than other fish used in experiments, such as zebrafish and Japanese medaka, Tamaru said.

“As this goldfish grows bigger, you can watch its whole life,” he said.

Meanwhile another group of researchers who announced in 2007 they had developed see-through frogs said they planned to start selling the four-legged creatures, whose skin is transparent from the tadpole stage.

“We are making progress in their mass-production. They are likely to be put on the market next year,” said Masayuki Sumida, professor at the Institute for Amphibian Biology of Hiroshima University.

Sumida said see-through tadpoles and adult frogs would be available in the first half of next year in Japan for laboratories and schools and as pets, with a price tag expected to be below 10,000 yen (110 dollars) each.

He also wants to sell the creature abroad.

Animal rights activists have pressed for humane alternatives to dissections, such as using computer simulations.

Sumida’s team produced the creature from rare mutants of the Japanese brown frog, or Rena japonica, whose backs are usually ochre or brown. Two kinds of recessive genes have been known to cause the frog to be pale.

While goldfish are easier to keep, frogs are higher forms of life and therefore preferable for experiments, Sumida said.

New Yorkers beware! New cockroach hits the Big Apple

NEW YORK (AFP) – New Yorkers are used to fighting each other for space, but there may be a new contender in town according to a Rockefeller study that appears to have uncovered a new species of cockroach.

“The cockroach is genetically modified. Species don’t differ more than one percent, this cockroach is four percent different, which suggests it is a new species of cockroach,” Professor Mark Stoeckle, an expert on genomics and DNA barcoding at Rockefeller University, told AFP.

“We think that the museums of natural history in Paris or New York could be interested.”

The previously-unidentified creepy-crawly was uncovered as part of a project undertaken by two high-school students, Brenda Tan, 17, and Matt Cost, 18, under Stoeckle’s supervision.

In their roles as “DNAHouse investigators,” the pair trawled New York apartments, stores and street, collecting 217 specimens between November 2008 and March 2009.

They took samples from supermarket food, the remains of an insect found in a box of fruit, a feather from a duster, dried dung and a cockroach and matched DNA sequences using the Barcode of Life Database and GenBank.

The American Museum of Natural History laboratory identified 170 genetic codes, leading the researchers to identify 95 different animal species, including some that were unexpected.

“A feather from a duster yielded ostrich DNA. A delicacy labeled ‘sturgeon caviar’ instead turned out to be from the strange-looking paddlefish. A popular Asian snack was revealed as giant flying squid. Bison DNA was found in a dog biscuit,” the pair wrote on the Rockefeller University website.

In fact, they found that 16 percent of food items were mislabeled, including cheeses labeled sheep’s milk that were actually made of cow’s milk, a potentially dangerous labeling error for those with allergies.

But perhaps the biggest surprise for the researchers was the discovery of “a genetically distinct ‘mystery’ cockroach that might be a new species.”

“By appearance it looks like the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana) but it is genetically different from other American cockroaches in the databases,” the researchers said.

5 reasons 3-D video will come to our living rooms

Let’s face it, there are some skeptics out there when it comes to 3-D.  Some point to competing standards, others to the kitsch factor, and almost all point to the glasses. But not everyone’s a hater. In fact, Sony and Panasonic see the technology as a savior for their living room business. So will 3-D make it in the home?  Chances are it will, and here are five reasons why:

1. 3-D will become a standard feature. TV makers will put a premium price on anything 3-D in the next few years (much as they did with HD), as Alfred Poor points out in his new 3DTV report at GigaOM Pro (subscription required); but over time, the technology will become just another standard feature. Chances are in five years we’ll see $799 50-inch 3-D TVs from Vizio at Costco.

2. Invasion of the 3-D movie theaters. 3-D movies are bringing in higher per-screen revenues than their 2-D counterparts, and by the end of this year there should be 7,000 3-D screens worldwide. Hollywood has caught 3-D fever, and it’s logical to think the big focus on 3-D in the theater will migrate over time to the living room.

3. Those crazy gamers. Gamers have been enjoying crude 3-D effects since Wolfenstein 3-D, and more and more are being pulled into a new dimension with the latest 3-D technology.  Sony has stated that existing game catalogs will be 3-D upgradeable through software, which could build the library of content quickly and justify the cost of accessories such as glasses.

4. Cheap glasses. While active shutter glasses would set you back at least 50 bones today, prices will fall through the floor once they’re manufactured at scale.  Think four-packs at Wal-Mart for $25 in about five years.

5. Kids. 3-D’s secret weapon, really. I have to wonder how many 3-D skeptics are child-less. Just as tens of millions of parents came down with Wii tennis elbow in recent years, so will they be donning 3-D glasses in the future.

3-D in the home will continue to be a source of both skepticism and excitement in the coming years. But make no mistake, as both the DVD and HDTV gravy trains continue to slow to a crawl, TV makers and Hollywood are seeing an extra dimension.

See the original article at GigaOm.

Voyeurism in the Twitter age

Often when people tweet or post a Facebook status update from the road they accompany it with a picture or two.  These photos can range form the mundane to the fascinating with a bit of everything in between. While you may not be viewing the status updates yourself, the pictures are usually posted to a publically available service like Twitpic, yFrog, TwitrPix and others.

A site called PicFog grabs the links to these photos in real-time and presents them in a constantly updated webpage (see the photo). If you want to kill a few minutes just open up the site and let photos scroll by. Each photos has additional information associated with it, and clicking on the photo opens up a larger photo.

It’s all public although it tends to be a little creepy sometimes. That said, it’s definitely worth a look for a few minutes of mindless entertainment.

Play some classic Nintendo (NES) games in Javascript

The idea that somebody could program a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) emulator completely in Javascript just blows my mind.

For those that don’t know, Javascript is a language of sorts that’s built into your browser. It’s usually used for doing such mundane tasks as button roll-overs, making simple screen transitions, verifying that you entered a valid e-mail address, etc. I don’t think that using it as a full-blown processor environment was ever part of the original conception.

You’ll want to use Google Chrome for this – competitor browsers aren’t quite fast enough to play this yet.

Yeah, there’s no sound on this emulator but for a quick arcade fix it’s pretty good. There are lots of other ways to play games like this, just use Google or Bing to find them.

Try the emulator here.