Sunday, February 17, 2013

Learn to type faster and with fewer errors using Keybr.com



Have you ever wished that you had a way to practice typing for work or just for fun?
Keybr.com is a web software designed to provide readable text for you to imput. 
The idead is quite straight-forward: Type what you see
There are words, phrases and even quotes emering in the platform for you to type. There is a mode for learning how to type faster and there is also a kind of 'challenge mode' where you can see how fast you can type and keep highscores. Finally, to up the entertainment level of your typing lessons, you can import content from a web site or blog into Keybr.com to type it out.
How long would it take for you to develop a good typing speed? It would probably take you weeks to polish your skills up to a top level, but really decent speed can be achieved in a matter of hours with daily training. 
Keybr.com does not force you to type random characters over and over again; that is simply boring and contributes very little to your learning. Instead, Keybr.com generates readable random words using the phonetic rules of your native language. These words look almost natural, and often they really are. Typing sensible text is much easier than random letters, and it helps you to remember frequent key combinations. For example, it’s almost impossible for the letter ‘W’ to follow the ‘Z’ in English, and you will never type this combination in Keybr.com. Instead, you will type more common words, such as “the,” “that,” “with,” and so on. Keybr.com lets you introduce as few keys as possible to the lesson, adding more keys later when you feel that you are competent and fast enough on the current level. So, if you start with the keys from the Caps Lock row, then add keys form the Tab row, and then from the Shift row, you will eventually end up typing real text with capital letters and punctuation.
Keybr.com is a web–based software that runs directly in your browser. You don’t have to download or install anything! The most recent and up–to–date version is always with you. You can use it from any computer connected to the Internet, and your typing statistics are kept on the web site and available on–demand.
source: keybr.com

Facebook Hacked -No personal data compromised




Facebook announced on Friday that it been the target of a series of attacks by an unidentified hacker group, but it had found no evidence that user data was compromised. 

"Last month, Facebook security discovered that our systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack," the company said in a blog post. "The attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised." The social network, which says it has more than one billion active users worldwide, added: "Facebook was not alone in this attack. It is clear that others were attacked and infiltrated recently as well." Facebook's announcement follows recent cyber attacks on other prominent websites. Twitter, the microblogging social network, said this month that it had been hacked, and that approximately 250,000 user accounts were potentially compromised, with attackers gaining access to information including user names and email addresses. Newspaper websites including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal have also been infiltrated, according to the news organizations ( although those attacks were attributed by the news organizations to Chinese hackers targeting their coverage of China).

Two questions rise from the news above. The first one is if these attacks really left the personal data of the users untouched. Without the will to be conspirator, if the data had been compromised, would the companies announce it openly? A statement that leads to the second question: is the personal data safe under the possesion of the social media companies and in what level are these companies truly responsible for the personal data of the users? 

Although these questions lead to a very long conversation, the issue is that companies like Facebook will always be the targets of suck attacks since they represent a full database of the attributes, wills, likes, dislikes, trends and personal info of every person registered. 

Friday, February 15, 2013

iPhone 5 passcode security compromised



This could easily be a 'how to hack your iPhone 5' post.

In the Video you can see an exploit of a bug in the iOS 6.1 operating system that enables the user to gain access to the phone's contacts, text messages, data library and all the other features. 

The trick involves a call to the International distress number and a tapping of the power button of the phone. You can see the detailed procedure in the video above.

According to Apple sources, the company is aware of the bug and will deliver a patch on the next update resolving this issue. So, if you are a user that has not yet updated the operating system to iOS 6.1 it would be better for you to wait until the fix for this issue has been released. On the other hand, if you have already installed iOS 6.1 then it would be a good idea to protect your phone from 'malevolent hands'

Thursday, February 14, 2013

iWatch: The new Apple trend


Rumors for a smart watch from Apple are constantly rising.

Latest leaks indicate that Apple is now focusing on creating a hand watch that will be able to execute all applications that an iPad or iPhone would. According to Bloomberg, Apple has already assigned a group of 100 people, including managers, marketeersm engineers and other stuff, to develop this watch according to the everyday needs.

Although someone might just claim that these rumors are not based on reality, truth is that Apple faces quite a problem regarding the value of its company that has dropped quite a lot according to the stock value. As a result, it is only logical for Apple to look for new ways of reaching top sales and elevating the value of its stock on the last September's peak.

With this creation, Apple will make the first 'serious' attempt on smart wearable mobile devices worldwide. Using this watch as the first step, the opportunity of experimentation is born. And if the experiment is successfull, there are countless other products that are characterized as wearable and can be turned into smart mobile electronic devices.

In any way, you can see some suggestions or ideas from individuals across the globe of what the iWatch could look like:





Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Nokia Experimenting on Graphene

graphene

Nokia has announced the claim of a 1.000.000.000 Euros (1,35 Billion Dolars) grant from the European Union in order to study in cooperation with Graphene Flagship Consortium the the application of Graphene, one of the toughest substances on this planet, into electronic devices.

...And by saying 'one of the toughest substances on the planet', graphene as a material is about 300 times more resilient than steel! Also, at high temperatures the material has indicated signs of self-repair (yes, self-repair!). It also is one of the thinnest electricity conductors, a fact that encourages the use of graphene in electronics.

Nokia researcher Jani Kivioja in his statement implied that the use of graphene is studied for already existing devices which would gain a certain level of extra resilience with the use of graphene. Also, this study is a great opportunity for the creation of new jobs in European Union, since unemployment has reached a critical point in some countries.

To end up, graphene is the material of the future for electronics and there is no better company to study the extended resilience of electronics with its use than Nokia (let's not forget the reputation of Nokia Phones..!)