At any rate, if Jobs' vision of Apple is to make an increasingly large number of devices on which we can watch Zoolander, I find myself much less enthusiastic about that vision or that world.

Oh, You Disappointing Bastard

A hundred years ago, companies stopped producing their own power with steam engines and generators and plugged into the newly built electric grid. The cheap power pumped out by electric utilities not only changed how businesses operated but also brought the modern world into existence. Today a similar revolution is under way. Companies are dismantling their private computer systems and tapping into rich services delivered over the Internet. This time it's computing that's turning into a utility. The shift is already remaking the computer industry, bringing new competitors like Google to the fore and threatening traditional stalwarts like Microsoft and Dell. But the effects will reach much further. Cheap computing will ultimately change society as profoundly as cheap electricity did. In this lucid and compelling book, Nicholas Carr weaves together history, economics, and technology to explain why computing is changing -- and what it means for all of us.

The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google

shimmer is a pair of small programs (a client and a server) that provide an alternative to port knocking programs such as tumbler and are used to hide a valuable port (such as a hidden web server or SSH) on a public IP address.

shimmer works by cryptographically changing a set of 16 ports (one of which forwards to the real service, and 15 others that lead to a trap to blacklist attackers). The 16 ports change every minute frustrating an attacker, but a legitimate user with access to a secret shared between the client and server can determine the real port, avoid blacklisting, and get a connection.

Since both client and server must be time synchronized to the nearest minute shimmer actual holds 48 ports open at a time (16 for the previous minute, 16 for the current minute and 16 for the next minute) to avoid problems due to small amounts of clock drift.

shimmer

What was on the edge has now become the core.

John Hagel and John Seely Brown on Android and the upcoming spectrum auction.

Phoning from the Edge

Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner passenger jet may have a serious security vulnerability in its onboard computer networks that could allow passengers to access the plane's control systems, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

The computer network in the Dreamliner's passenger compartment, designed to give passengers in-flight internet access, is connected to the plane's control, navigation and communication systems, an FAA report reveals.

Boeing's New 787 May Be Vulnerable to Hacker Attack

Sun recently released its "Social Software for GlassFish". It is now available @ GlassFish update center for both AppServer 9.1 & AppServer 9.1 UR1.

The download contains an integration of both roller (blogging) and slynkr (content rating) social applications, along with a common administrative interface, common user management, dynamic discovery along with single sign-on (including support for Sun's Access Manager).

Social Software for Glassfish available!

In the future, offshore platforms could be run by robots alone, with human beings staying on land.

Robots Taking Over The Job On Offshore Oil Drilling Platforms

Sounds like someone out there needs a certain new book ...

Our topic today, then, is the Gmail dashboard widget -- a handy dashboard frontend to Google Mail. As so many other widgets, this one, too, runs with access to the widget.system method. However, the bug in question here does not relate to eval(). Instead, it's script-injection into the DOM due to a lack of output cleansing in the client-side JavaScript code. It's, effectively, the same kind of vulnerability that underlies cross-site-scripting vulnerabilities in servers; for a change, however, this is a client-side problem.

When one e-mail is enough to break a system.

There are some differences to be sure in this bubble or boom, such as a lack of public offerings and more cost-consciousness among companies. The parties are tamer, and now the impact of the credit crises looms, but there is still a sense of major excitement. And at least, as "Here Comes Another Bubble," demonstrates, there is a sense of history this time around.

Techie singers confirm: we're in another bubble

Given the controversy, you’d think that Google wouldn’t touch anything remotely Beacon-like with a ten-foot pole. But a source familiar with the matter says that Google has contacted at least one Facebook Beacon partner, and perhaps more, in an effort to drum up support for its own initiative for OpenSocial, which it is calling “universal activity streams. These “universal activity streams” are meant to combine all actions you take online, similar to Facebook’s Beacon, and present them as a line of text in your personal activity feed on Google or an OpenSocial partner site like MySpace or Bebo. Within Google, for instance, these feeds could appear in Gmail, iGoogle, or Google Reader. The universal activity stream is expected to launch around February or March of next year.

Google Poaching Beacon Partners For “Universal Activity Stream”