On April 2 1987, IBM launched its plan to revolutionize the PC industry: a next-generation operating system called OS/2. Co-developed by IBM and Microsoft, it was designed to replace DOS and change the way we used computers. Sadly, it didn’t. But it still crops up in some of the weirdest places. More »
When someone tells me about a “platformer”, my first thought is that it’s probably a simple game that mainly revolves around running and jumping around, with a minimal plot. [Play a Zelda game! -Ed]
Elephant Quest is one platformer that managed to prove me completely wrong. Yes, you do run and jump around, and you also shoot at stuff. But the game has much, much more going for it.
Basically, as you run, jump and shoot, you gain experience points and level up. Hitting Space brings you into an interface where you can convert your experience points into Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Dexterity points. Once you’ve “specialized” your points, you then get to pick what exact skills you’d like to enhance in each field. For example, you could use your dexterity to enhance your weapons or increase your swiftness.
The game is played in a huge maze; you go through rooms using doors, and there’s a large map. As the name implies, there are quests you can take, too. For example, one quest had me searching all over the place for ten balloons.
The bottom line is that this is a surprisingly deep game that just might ensnare you for a good bit longer than you intended to play. Beware!
In 2003, a group of engineers got together in Menlo Park, Calif., and began developing an all-new electric vehicle — what would become the world’s first highway-capable electric car. “[They] wanted to show the world that electric vehicles could be awesome,” said Khobi Brooklyn, a spokesperson for the company they formed, Tesla Motors.
The exploit, which used specially-crafted Flash embedding in Excel spreadsheets, was first reported on March 15 and has since been fixed. RSA was hacked sometime in the first half of March when an employee was successfully spear phished and opened an infected spreadsheet. As soon as the spreadsheet was opened, an advanced persistent threat (APT) — a backdoor Trojan — called Poison Ivy was installed. From there, the attackers basically had free reign of RSA’s internal network, which led to the eventual dissemination of data pertaining to RSA’s two-factor authenticators.
The attack is reminiscent of the APTs used in the China vs. Google attacks from last year — and indeed, Uri Rivner, the head of new technologies at RSA is quick to point out that that other big companies are being attacked, too: “The number of enterprises hit by APTs grows by the month; and the range of APT targets includes just about every industry. Unofficial tallies number dozens of mega corporations attacked [...] These companies deploy any imaginable combination of state-of-the-art perimeter and end-point security controls, and use all imaginable combinations of security operations and security controls. Yet still the determined attackers find their way in.”
What we’d like to know, though, is whether the attack on RSA was caused by Adobe’s lackadaisical approach to patching Flash — or was it the other way around? Was it the RSA attack that first brought the zero-day vulnerability to Adobe’s attention?
It’s been less than a year since our first opportunity to get up close and personal with BMW’s i8 plug-in electric car, and now the German automaker is back to tease a whole new beast. The Concept Spyder made a static appearance over the weekend, but today the sportier i8 has returned to the spotlight, with video footage in tow. BimmerPost managed to share some clips via YouTube, including a straight-cut-gear-fueled drive around a parking lot and across a lamp-lit bridge, somewhere in the Eastern U.S., believe it or not (take note of the I-95 sign in the first few seconds). You can also gawk at some side-to-side pans of the Spyder’s exterior, with a few HD interior close-ups to boot. And where can you find said stimulating simulations? Buckle up and click past the break.
