If you’re thinking of robbing a bank but don’t fancy the gun-toting mayhem, jackpotting might be for you.
Get a smart friend to hack into the bank’s ATM network, then hang around and wait for the machine to spit out all its bills. You don’t even have to enter the bank.
Sounds good, right? That’s what two guys in Massachusetts thought when they allegedly tried it at the end of January. They are accused of hitting several ATMs and raking in ten grand.
If found guilty, they’ll be charged with fraud, not robbery. But that still carries a maximum of 30 years in prison.
Maybe it’s best to stick to the day job after all.
Down With Disney was identified as a hate group and banned on Facebook and elsewhere when it announced plans to attack Marvel blockbuster Black Panther on the Rotten Tomatoes movie website.
But the trolls’ efforts ended in failure, with the movie’s score still in the high nineties.
So they turned their attention to IMDb with a flurry of one-star user reviews that dragged down the movie’s overall score on that website.
None of this seems to be worrying the film’s cast or director much. In addition to great reviews, there is already a slew of sequels and a spin-off planned, and ticket sales promise to be very healthy indeed – in contrast with the mental states of its wannabe hijackers.
Is checking email late into the night making you tense, affecting your relationships, and generally screwing with your life?
Then you may well be suffering from technostress, a threat to our well being that is finally being taken seriously by researchers.
The condition isn’t helped by managers who expect that we will always be ready to reply to late-night or weekend messages.
Some bosses have realized that far worse than existential despair and suicidal depression, this also makes us drones less productive, and so they’ve started banning out of hours emails.
French workers have even won the right to disconnect, allowing them to insist on email-free evenings and weekends. And a lot of us are asking when the rest of the world will follow suit.
Apple’s wireless ear jacks have been out for over a year now, and have proven very popular for joggers and gym bunnies who appreciate the lack of annoying cables.
But all that earplug love could turn to fear and loathing thanks to what Jason Colon said happened to him during a workout in Tampa, Florida.
According to the buff gym-goer, one of his AirPods started belching white smoke, caught fire, then exploded.
There are no corroborating witnesses, but take a look at the news report; Colon’s testimony seems pretty genuine, as does the damage to his ear jacks.
Apple is investigating the incident – but in the meantime, let’s hope listening to music won’t literallyblow anyone’s ears off.
The DroneGun Tactical is just what you need stop low-flying, camera-toting drones dead in their tracks – facially controlled or not.
Point it at any buzzing blighter less than one kilometer (two-thirds of a mile) away, pull the trigger, and it should do a swift 180 and return to its operator as you follow, arrest warrant in hand. Pay a little extra for the optional GPS blocker to force it to land immediately.
The DroneGun Tactical is made by Aussie company DroneShield, and has enough juice to down a dozen or so drones before recharging. The bad news is that due to FCC rules, it’s totally illegal for the general population to use one, but that only makes us want one more.
It looks like the world’s most exciting entrepreneur is so strapped for cash that he’s reduced to hawking novelties on Instagram.
After the success of his $20 Boring Company baseball caps, Elon Musk has made good on his promise to sell flamethrowers to the masses.
The 500-dollar lame-throwers aren’t exactly military grade, but that hasn’t stopped problems getting them shipped, with Musk rebranding them as “Temperature Enhancement Devices”.
Needless to say, the hype ensured that all 20,000 got sold within days, with many now fetching several times their retail price on eBay.
We have to ask: Is this the best you can do, Elon? With SpaceX’s earningsshrouded in mystery, and Tesla losing$16 million every day, the answer might sadly be “yes.”
Ready-Aim-Fly is a drone project that lets you control your favorite flying toy by making faces.
Researchers at British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University have created the system to be as intuitive as possible – insofar as staring at a flying robot is ever “intuitive.”
Here’s how it works: First, hold your UAV at arm’s length and stare at it, trying not to make any facial expressions. Next, turn the drone on its side and choose a “trigger” expression, which will tell the drone when to lift off.
Finally, “aim” the drone by walking backwards the same distance you’d like it to fly, and make another face to decide if the flightpath will be straight or a boomerang round trip.
He may be in his thirties, but the bushy be-’stached Italian plumber shows no sign of slowing up or settling down. In fact, he and brother Luigi are more in demand than ever.
The new games keep coming, and moving onto new platforms, with Mario Kart Tour is scheduled to hit smartphones in just over a year.
Meanwhile, the great news for younger fans is that legendary game designer Shigeru Miyamoto is co-producing a Super Mario Bros. movie with the same team that brought Despicable Me and Minions to the big screen.
The film doesn’t have a set release date yet, but we do know that it’s being produced by Universal – which should mean a theme-park tie in, too.
The launch of WhatsApp Business has given the messaging service a completely new dimension. WA Business gives companies and customers an official and secure way to communicate with each other and in the coming months and years; we’ll see all sorts of entrepreneurs using this new facility to sell us their wares. WA Business also brings with it an interesting new function; it allows you to hook up your WhatsApp account using a landline number instead of your mobile number.
Although WhatsApp Business is designed for use by businesses, anybody can download the app. You will still need a mobile phone to run the app but you’ll be able to register your landline number instead of the number associated with your SIM card.
Once you’ve downloaded WhatsApp Business all you have to do is tell the app that you won’t be registering your mobile number but rather your landline. Normally WhatsApp sends an SMS to verify your number but for landlines, you’ll have to select the Call Me option.
After you receive the call and verify your number, you’ll be able to use WhatsApp Business with your landline number the same you use WhatsApp with your mobile number.
Google Chrome is widely regarded as one of the most secure web browsers available today. If you add speed and reliability to Chrome’s high-level security, you can see why it is the most popular browser. There is a chink in Chrome’s armor, however, that has been exploited before and that has again seen hundreds of thousands of Chrome users exposed to malicious code. That weakness is the Google Chrome Web Store.
We reported in October that 30,000 Chrome users had downloaded a fake ad blocker extension that caused their browser to be inundated with ads. On Friday, researchers at security firm ICEBRG uncovered four Chrome extensions that contained malicious code that had already been downloaded 500,000 times from the Chrome Web Store.
The extensions in questions are the HHTP Request Header, Nyoogle, Stickies, and Lite Bookmarks. The researchers discovered that there had been a spike in outbound traffic from one of ICEBRG’s customers and their investigations led them to the extensions mentioned. Each infected the victim’s PC with code that forced the PC to “click” certain advertisements that would generate revenue for the people behind it. According to ICEBRG a similar bot in 2013 generated $6,000,000 a month.
(Image via: ICEBRG) – How the malicious extensions generate money
Google removed the malicious extensions from the Chrome Web Store as soon as ICEBRG privately notified it of their presence. In ICEBRG’s report on their findings, however, they pointed out that this type of attack will continue to be attractive to cyber-criminals due to the high payoffs that they offer. They added:
“…without upstream review or control over this technique, malicious Chrome extensions will continue to pose a risk to enterprise networks.”
The ball is definitely in Google’s court on this one. If they want to stamp out this type of scam, they’re going to have to assess their review process for Chrome add-ons. In the meantime, take care when you’re downloading anything from the Chrome Web Store.
