A new Hack Code can steal CPU time without being noticed!

Three scientists have developed a new kind of attack against Linux, Windows and Unix.

Prior to an international IT security convention in Boston this Agust – Usenix Security ’07 – three of the presenters published the following publication: Secretly Monopolizing the CPU Without Superuser Privileges.

The trio, Dan Tsafrir, Yoav Etsion and Dror G. Feitelson, are all working at School of Computer Science and Engineering at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. One of them, Tsafrir, is also connected to IBMs Watson Research Center in New York.

The publication shows how you can build a program that uses the CPU in a way the OS can’t monitor. The process is completely invisible as the impact caused by the program is added to the other “normal” processes run at the same time, thus bypassing the security and monitoring systems in the OS. The program can be executed without superuser privileges (admin).

MIT researchers are designing a “Digital Water Pavillion” for next year’s Expo Zaragoza in Spain. The walls of the structure are sheets of water sprayed from suspended pipes. Software-controlled valves enable the valves to be opened and closed with high accuracy to create gaps at very specific locations, forming something like liquid pixels.

More info and an intro video available at www.digitalwaterpavilion.com.

Ever since Xbox 360 hit the market the gaming and video console has had a growing reputation of having multiple errors. Unnamed employee’s at some of the biggest American dealers recently told PCWorld.com about an error rate between 25 and 33 percent. Microsoft previously claimed this rate to be within industry standards (3-5%).

A few days ago Microsoft Corp. announced that it will expand its global Xbox 360™ warranty coverage (Listen to the Webcast). Any Xbox 360 customer who experiences a general hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights will now be covered by a three year warranty from date of purchase. All other existing Xbox 360 warranty policies remain in place.

As a result of what Microsoft views as an unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles, the company conducted extensive investigations into potential sources of general hardware failures. Having identified a number of factors which can cause general hardware failures indicated by three red flashing lights on the console, Microsoft has made improvements to the console and is enhancing its Xbox 360 warranty policy for existing and new customers.

Not surprisingly Microsoft will take a $1.05 billion to $1.15 billion pre-tax charge to earnings for the quarter ended June 30, 2007 for anticipated costs under its current and enhanced Xbox 360 policies.

The good news is that any customer who has previously paid for repair expenses related to the three flashing lights error message on the Xbox 360 console, Microsoft will retroactively reimburse them.

According to News.com Microsoft didn’t manage to reach their expected sales figure of 12 million units. However after 11.6 million units sold the financial director, Chris Liddell, still believes Microsoft should be satisfied.

I suppose announcing this extended warranty coverage doesn’t hurt the sales figures either. Smells like a clever marketing campaign to me, and they even get (take) a tax reduction while running it…

Edit your movies directly on Youtube!

Youtube.com is now offering Adobe’s web based video editing tool, Premiere Express. The brand new beta version of the service was named Youtube Remixer.

The users (you and me) can upload movies, pictures and music and mix everything together. There’s also a nice selection of transitions, frames, speech balloons, titles and a whole lot more available.

If you’ve ever uploaded from your cell phone, wished for an easy way to add titles and transitions, or just wanted to remix your own videos, Remixer is a great place to play. It lets you assemble your new video in an easy drag-and-drop timeline, and then publish it right back to YouTube. Your original videos will stay exactly the same.

Wanna try? Visit the new YouTube Remixer section.

STANFORDS HOPE: The robot car named Junior passed the first of many city test yesterday and qualified for Urban Challenge this autumn. Google is one of many companies sponsoring “Junior”. The newly released Street View, which allows Google Earth-users to look around in the streets, is partly based on the technology developed at Standford, that were used in their previous robot car “Stanley”.