I was an interesting article (written in Finnish) on AV-Visio 2/2013 on-line magazine about EBU – Recommendation R 128. In Finland the public broadcasting company YLE and biggest TV companies start to use that new practice this year on their channels. Similar standards on subjective audio volume control is in use USA and Canada.
FreeLCS (Free Loudness Correction Server) is a free software that lets users easily have their audio files loudness corrected according to the EBU R128 loudness recommendation. FreeLCS uses other open source programs to get the job done (Linux, libebur128, gnuplot, FFmpeg, sox, mediainfo).
You have a secret that can ruin your life. It’s not usually a well-kept secret. Kill the Password: Why a String of Characters Can’t Protect Us Anymore article tells that just a simple string of characters—maybe six of them if you’re careless, 16 if you’re cautious—that can reveal everything about you: Your email. Your bank account. Your address and credit card number. Photos of your kids. The precise location where you’re sitting right now.
Access to our data can no longer hinge on secret word. The age of the password is over. Look around. Leaks and dumps are now regular occurrences. Everyone is a few clicks away from knowing everything.
We just haven’t realized it yet. And no one has figured out what will take its place.
There have been several options on trial but none of them have become enough widely used and easy to use. For example smart cards for authentication fall short on lack of smart card readers on all computers (and problems related to reader software). For SSH connections I have tried to use SSH keys and certificates instead of passwords where I can, but that is not practical everywhere. And in many web services there is no possibility to use other authentication than old fashioned username and password.
In the short time I expect that you see more and more two or multi factor authentication schemes to be used where password is one factor and then there are other factors to add the security. Combining two or more factors increases security considerably (none of the factors need not to be 100% secure for this to work well).
Addressable markets for high-end phones article has some interesting statistics: There were about 5.2bn adults on earth at the end of 2012 and roughly 1.1bn of them had ’smartphones’ at the end of 2012. Around 900m of smartphones ran either the iOS or Android. Both iOS and Android are based on Unix technology (iOS is based on Darwin BSD and Android is based on Linux).
Have you ever wondered where all those magical Arduinos come from? Tour of the Arduino Manufacturing Facility article tells that they come from Torino, Italy, and how they are built. The video below will walk you through the PCB manufacuring and assembly process.
Freeduino is a collaborative open-source project to replicate and publish Arduino-compatible hardware files. The Freeduino Eagle SCH, BRD and Gerber production files allow users to create boards that are 100% functionally, electrically and physically compatible with Arduino hardware.
I think this is funny and all, but it could get annoying in shorter time than it took to make the hack. And this hack would work only on old cars with mechanical locks. Majority of the cars in use nowdays have microchipped keys, so this hack does not work for them (unless you get a clever idea where to hide that microchip and surrounding electronics, some ideas for that can be found at Drive It Like You Stole It page discussion).
Image of the Day: The World Wide Web celebrates its 20-year anniversary article tells that April 30, 2013 marks the 20 year anniversary of the World Wide Web. World Wide Web was put into the public domain on April 30, 1993. The World Wide Web was created few years earlier (1989) by British physicist, Tim Berners-Lee at The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
To honor 20-year anniversary of World Wide Web CERN started a project to restore the very first website.
I personally started using World Wide Web at 1994. Pretty soon I started making my first web pages, some of which lead to creating this ePanorama.net web site (one of the first pages was my own web link list so I have my favorite links easily accessible from all different locations I accessed the web).
