Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – July 21, 2012

No microSD card slot on the Nexus 7? No problem – Don’t let the lack of a microSD card slot on the Nexus 7 be a deal-breaker. The reason is that the Nexus 7 features a USB OTG (On-The-Go) functionality that allows you to connect devices together without the need of a PC. This allows you to connect a USB flash drive or a microSD card via a USB adaptor. All you need to be able to browse through the storage is a file manager, such as ES File Explorer or File Manager HD (Tablet) — both of which are free.

Control media using hand gestures with Flutter – Smartphones and tablets are spoiling us for our other devices. It’s so easy to swipe, tap, and gesture our way through our mobile lives that we sometimes get frustrated with more traditional tech like laptops. Flutter aims to help solve one small problem in a fun way — playing and pausing music quickly — and it works great. Here’s how to use it.

How to Mirror Your iPad Display to Your HDTV – The iPad’s king-size display is great for watching a movie by yourself, but it’s not so great for group screenings. Fortunately, getting it working with the HDTV in your living room for impromptu movie nights, vacation photo slideshows, or YouTube viral video marathons isn’t difficult.

Over 40% of U.S. adults to stream Olympics on mobile devices: report – Nearly half of adult Americans will be heading to their mobile devices to tune into live coverage of the Olympics, according to a new survey. Approximately 50 percent of U.S. followers will look up archived video content, while 45 percent will tune in to their tablets for live coverage.

Is security training futile? – Phishing attacks succeed against even those who should know better. Which all begs the question, “Why bother with security training?” We shouldn’t, argues Dave Aitel, CEO of security firm Immunity Inc. and former computer scientist for the National Security Agency.

Syria disconnects itself from the Internet for 40 minutes – Syria didn’t exist online for 40 minutes between 4:32PM to 5:12PM local time on July 19, 2012. The country’s government temporarily severed all connections. Was this a mistake that was quickly rectified or was it part of a larger test of censorship?

EFF: New Cybersecurity Bill Better, Still Unnecessary – The controversial Lieberman-Collins Cybersecurity Act has been scrapped and replaced by a new bill that online rights advocates still consider unnecessary, but which they also acknowledge is a vast improvement on the slew of other bills that have cropped up in recent months.

Windows 8 in the Enterprise: Why IT pros say no – Gina Smith surveyed enterprise tech pros about their intentions regarding Windows 8. The reaction was less than enthusiastic. Out of 50 tech pros I interviewed at enterprises around the world, 41 said they had no plans to bring in Windows 8 because of learning curve issues. Many are racing to upgrade XP systems to Windows 7 now and Windows 7 sales are as brisk, or brisker, than ever – the opposite of what typically happens before a major OS release comes out. But there is nothing usual about this.

US top of the class for teaching computer science – The US is the best country in the world to be taught computer science according to an international study but some rivals like Japan and China are catching up in leaps and bounds.

Five easy-to-use archiving/compression tools – If you’re looking for a better app to handle your archiving and compression tasks, one of these tools might fit your needs.

In India, there’s a tablet for everyone – The interest in tablet PCs has gripped the price conscious Indian market with manufacturers leveraging personalities to sell cost-efficient, under powered and crappy tablets.

Security:

Pinterest starts blocking hacked accounts, investigates – Affected users theorize about a possible breach of Pinterest’s user databases, especially because oftentimes changing their password doesn’t help with getting their accounts back into their hands, but at this point in time, it’s difficult to tell what exactly is happening. Pinterest is yet to comment on the findings (if any) of the aforementioned survey and on the situation.

Firefox 14 fixes 5 critical security vulnerabilities – Summary: The newest version of Mozilla Foundation’s flagship Firefox browser fixes 5 critical security vulnerabilities. Users are advised to update to the latest version immediately.

When good Android apps go bad — a security lesson – After loading a legitimate Android app onto Google Play, researchers were able to update it with malicious functionality without triggering the malware detection system. Whoops.

Bandwith-Burning Malware Among Biggest Consumer Threats – A new malware report indicates Android malware samples grew three-fold last quarter and that one in every 140 devices connected to mobile networks was infected at some point.

2.4 million Ontario voters’ private info compromised – Elections Ontario, an agency tasked with the organization and conduct of general elections and by-elections in Canada’s Ontario region, is warning voters about the loss and potential theft of two USB sticks containing private information of 2.4 million voters from approximately 20–25 electoral districts.

In-app purchase hacker sets sights on Mac App Store – The exploit that let users get paid digital goods inside of apps without actually paying jumps to Apple’s Mac platform.

Microsoft: Fake Skype For Android App Linked To SMS Scams – Microsoft researchers are warning about a new Trojan horse program for Android mobile devices that sends out premium SMS messages once installed.

Users Remain Mostly Oblivious to Spear Phishing – A new survey shows that 50 percent of employees think that their company has been the victim of a targeted attack. Security firm Proofpoint found in its survey that these targeted attacks continue to be a nuisance, affecting both small and large organizations.

Company News:

Facebook acquires Mac, iOS developer Acrylic Software – Facebook has acquired Acrylic Software, a Vancouver-based developer of Mac and iOS apps. The small firm is known for the RSS app Pulp (a personalized newspaper) and the secure database app Wallet (for securely storing passwords, credit-card numbers, etc.).

Google Buys Email Client Sparrow – The Sparrow team posted the news at their site this morning. Whether Google will pull the plug on the app or continue to develop it is unclear, but the Sparrow development team will be moving to the Gmail team once the acquisition is complete.

Google probe: Is now the time to regulate mobile search? – The European Commission has reportedly told Google that any settlement of its antitrust case must involve changes to its mobile services. But both parties in these negotiations have to tread very carefully indeed.

Windows Sales Plummet 13% — and That May Be Good News for Microsoft – Shrinking Windows sales could be the best thing that has happened to Microsoft in a while.

Oracle Set to Hype Advances in Exalogic ‘cloud in a Box’ – Oracle is planning to discuss how its Exalogic application server machine is “the logical choice” for running applications, during a special webcast event on Wednesday.

Webopedia Daily:

ARM Processors – ARM processors are a family of 32-bit microprocessors developed by Advanced RISC Machines, Ltd. in the 1980s. Today ARM processors power a wide variety of electronic devices, including mobile phones, tablets, multimedia players and more. ARM processors are based on a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture, and while they do share the low-end market with processors from AMD and Intel, they aren’t designed to compete with these companies’ higher-end processors.

Off Topic (Sort of):

Learning passwords you can use but not remember – How can you make sure that you’ll never share your password with anyone, even under threat of bodily harm, or other illegal and illegal type of coercion? The answer is simple: don’t actually know your password.

Police mobile phone sting fails when.. err.. no handsets stolen – When British police left secretly tracked phones as “bait” hoping that they would be stolen by thieves from bars and pubs, they probably thought they had come up with an ingenious plan.

Steve Jobs’ Business Card, 1979 – I wonder whatever became of that young man and his computer company?

“Introducing Macintosh” ad insert in Newsweek, 1984 – Just before the US Presidential election (in early November) of 1984, Apple bought ALL the advertising space in one week’s issue of Newsweek.

Seeing red on eBay has buyers spending more green – Red—it’s the color of arousal, aggression, and…higher eBay bids? According to a new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, the answer is yes. eBay items with a red background were found to receive higher bids, but the color had the opposite effect on negotiation-based sales, influencing consumers to make lower offers. (recommended by Michael F.)

Today’s Quote:

“Our worst fault is our preoccupation with the faults of others.”

–     Kahlil Gibran

Today’s Free Downloads:

VSO Downloader – Download videos from thousands of sites with fast download speed. Steaming content is automatically detected and downloaded extra fast. Convert downloaded videos to MP3, AVI, iPad, iPhone, Mp4, H264, Xvid. Compatible with any web browser.

WinISO – WinISO is a CD-ROM image file utility that can convert BIN to ISO and other image files format conversion, extract, edit, and create ISO files directly, make bootable CDs and more. With WinISO, you can easily add, delete, rename, and extract file(s) within original image files. WinISO can process almost all CD/DVD/Blu-ray Disc image files, including ISO and BIN. It has the ability to open an image file, display the file tree, and then run files from within the image file. This is useful when viewing files, or running programs.