Google disables SSL search at BT’s request
Update – Since this was posted, Max Allan and Damion Yates have investigated further and found that BT are intercepting DNS queries and replying with doctored DNS results, which I didn’…
Quora in the next YC batch
This month, YC will be participating in Quora’s most recent investment round and Quora will be joining this summer’s YC batch. This is a new experiment for us; we’ve funded later-stage companies before, but none close to Quora’s stage. Our hope is that both the company and the YC community will get a lot of value out…
How to create 2D visibility/shadow effects for your game
How to create 2D visibility/shadow effects for your game.
We've Open-Sourced Everything
CodeCombat is a programming game for learning to code [https://blog.codecombat.com/180000-child-programmers-versus-44-ogres]; a multiplayer coding challenge arena [https://blog.codecombat.com/beat-this-level-get-a-programming-job] for sharpening your skills; a Y-Combinator-funded…
PSD to HTML is Dead
There are PSD to HTML tutorials are all over the web. In fact, many have asked why there's not a PSD to HTML tutorial on Treehouse. So why is it dead?
JavaScript: Servo’s only garbage collector
pre.sourceCode { margin-left: 2em; } .sourceCode > span.k, .sourceCode > span.o, .sourceCode > span.bp, .sourceCode > span.kd { font-weight: bold; } .sourceCode > span.kt, .sourceCode > span.cp { ...
Comments on the Sony Hack
I don’t have a lot to say about the Sony hack, which seems to still be ongoing. I want to highlight a few points, though. At this point, the attacks seem to be a few hackers and not the North Korean government. (My guess is that it’s not an insider, either.) That we live in the world where we aren’t sure if any given…
How Paul Graham Is Wrong
I love Paul Graham’s essays and his latest is no exception: Let the Other 95% of Great Programmers In. I agree that the US deserves dramatically better immigration policies, but in the meantime I’m…
Machines are better referees than humans but we’ll be sued if we use them
Andy Howlett and Mark Williamson in our group have been developing fantastic software. It can read the whole scientific literature and analyse it in minute detail. One of the things we are starting with is chemistry. ChemVisitor (part of AMI2) can read chemical structure diagrams and chemical names and work out what…
Wayback Machine Hits 400,000,000,000
The Wayback Machine, a digital archive of the World Wide Web, has reached a landmark with 400 billion webpages indexed. This makes it possible to surf the web as it looked anytime from late 1996 up until a few hours ago. Let’s take a trip back in time and visit some sites. Yahoo (Captured way back
Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012)
At CMU yesterday, I heard a story about how Yahoo Trip Planner has pretty much zero adoption. It has never taken off, though it remains online even today. Yahoo keeps it around because it's...
Can I drop a pacemaker 0day?
Can I drop a pacemaker 0day at DefCon that is capable of killing people? Computers now run our cars. It's now possible for a hacker to i...
Bash 'shellshock' bug is wormable
Early results from my scan: there's about 3000 systems vulnerable just on port 80, just on the root "/" URL, without Host field. That doesn'...
Zeroing buffers is insufficient
With a bit of care and a cooperative compiler, we can zero a buffer — but that's not what we need. What we need to do is zero every location where sensitive data might be stored. Remember, the whole reason we had sensitive information in memory in the first place was so that we could use it; and that usage almost…
Transit – A format for conveying values between different languages
We are pleased to announce today the initial release of Transit. Transit is a format and set of libraries for conveying values between applications written i...
The first stable release of PyPy3
We're pleased to announce the first stable release of PyPy3. PyPy3 targets Python 3 (3.2.5) compatibility. We would like to thank all of th...
Shutting down Ubuntu One file services
Today we are announcing plans to shut down the Ubuntu One file services. This is a tough decision, particularly when our users rely so heavily on the functionality that Ubuntu One provides. However, like any company, we want to focus our efforts on our most important strategic initiatives and ensure we are not spread…
CSS: It was twenty years ago today
The latest news about Opera web browsers, tech trends, internet tips.