Researchers at North Carolina State University have uncovered a variety of vulnerabilities in the standard configurations of popular Android smartphones from Motorola, HTC, and Samsung, finding that they don’t properly protect privileged permissions from untrusted applications. In a paper just published by researchers Michael Grace, Yajin Zhou, Zhi Wang, and Xuxian Jiang, the four outlined [...]
By now everybody knows that the Federal Communications Commission has accepted the withdrawal of AT&T’s $39 billion bid to buy T-Mobile. That doesn’t mean that the fight is over. The companies promise that they’ll continue to battle the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the deal in the United States District Court for the District of [...]
GamePro magazine is set to shut down this coming month, owner IDG Games announced today. The magazine that enjoyed so much popularity in the 1990s will shut down its website in five days, and one more issue of the physical quarterly will be published. The magazine started in 1989 and established a website in 1996, [...]
No less an official than US Attorney General Eric Holder rolled out yesterday’s new government-backed public relations war on piracy. “In just a few moments, we’ll be unveiling a series of television, radio, and Internet messages designed to help get the word out about the dangers of buying counterfeit goods, and the seriousness of intellectual [...]
One of the most dissatisfying aspects of modern physics is the fundamental constants. It’s not that they are constant that bothers anyone, it is their very existence that is offensive to right-thinking people. Fundamental constants are needed to get working versions of the mathematical models we use to explain our observations. But their values are [...]
The Motorola Droid Razr is going to be one of the last really powerful smartphones arriving on market without Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich, and that’s its major downside compared to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the other recent high-profile release on Verizon. But while the Droid Razr has some weak points, its performance is great, [...]
Ars’ science articles link to the academic papers that are being discussed, and based on reader comments, people have a clear interest in looking over the publications. Unfortunately, that interest often runs into a significant hurdle, one that can be summarized as “they expect me to pay $30 to read that?” Now, one academic publisher [...]
Samsung has successfully appealed a preliminary injunction that barred the company from releasing its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Australia. A three-judge appellate panel unanimously reversed the injunction ruling, citing issues with the way Justice Annabelle Bennett interpreted Australian law. The appellate judges said that Bennett had “misunderstood and misapplied” basic requirements of local patent [...]
A patient has filed a class-action lawsuit against his New York dentist over her attempts to use copyright law to gag the patient’s online reviews of her services. Robert Lee, who recently moved to Maryland, has asked a New York federal court to declare that his comments are protected under copyright’s fair use doctrine, that [...]
If there’s any doubt how social networks have presented hackers with a wealth of social engineering tools, a Brazilian security researcher recently demonstrated how he could “friend” even allegedly more wary Facebook users in less than 24 hours. At the Silver Bullet security conference in São Paulo, UOLDiveo chief security officer Nelson Novaes Neto showed [...]