Dell Vostro V131 Laptop Available in Singapore

 Technology  No Responses »
Aug 152011
 

The Dell Vostro V131 is a thin, powerful, and sleek laptop which comes with an ultrathin, ultra-stylish chassis housing Intel Core i3 and i5 processors. A removable 4-cell battery and Intel® ULV Celeron 847 processor, both available as an option, will deliver up to 9.5 hours of battery life.

The Dell Vostro V131 has WWAN, WLAN and Bluetooth 3.0 and the standard fingerprint reader security. The Dell Vostro V131 provides collaboration options such as a full HD camera, SRS Premium Voice Pro, digital array mics and built-in Skype. In addition, the laptop offers two USB 3.0 ports, a chiclet keyboard with a backlit option, and quick launch keys.

The new Dell Vostro V131 (core i3) is available today on http://www.dell.com/sg/business/p/vostro-v131/pd, starting at SGD$999. The Dell Vostro V131 (core i5) will be available in the upcoming weeks.

The Moonwalking Bear Con

 Security  5 Responses »
Aug 152011
 

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything about security, and I love watching Leverage TV Series for their various con techniques. The latest episode uses the “Moonwalking Bear” con, is one of the many types of  distraction con by using two cons interleaved together to distract the target by a main con while executing the real con right under the target’s nose without him realizing it.

As seen in the video above, if you concentrate on counting the number of passes the team in white makes, majority of the people will not be able to notice the “Moonwalking Bear” in the background. The same concept applies to this “Moonwalking Bear” con.

In order to make this successful, you’ll need the target to know that both cons are happening, but the distracting con will be the main focus with the knowledge that it will fail, while the “Moonwalking Bear” con will be downplayed in the background happening at the same time.

This is a fairly difficult con to execute because both cons needs to be well orchestrated to interleave with each other, together with providing enough distraction for the target to focus all his efforts on the main con, all the while letting the main con help the real con succeed. Furthermore, the target needs to already know there’s a con happening and wants to beat you at your own game.

Perfect for those who think they are smart enough to outwit you. :)

Using Facebook to Recognize You and Getting Your Information

 Security, Technology  No Responses »
Aug 152011
 

Alessandro Acquisti from Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University presented a research on how they could essentially get every private data about you from just your face, with the help of Facebook’s database of images.

The research called “Faces of Facebook: Privacy in the Age of Augmented Reality“, shows how the lack of privacy on Facebook (and other social networks), or rather the lack of awareness and privacy management, can allow anyone including yourself find out about their names, where they live, cell numbers, birthdays, monikers, sexual orientation, credit ratings, social security numbers (or NRICs), even inferring various information – basically everything about you in an instant by just your face.

Combine that with your phone’s camera, Augmented Reality, and cloud computing to crunch and data-mine those data, and I can walk down the street, flash my phone at you and I will know everything about you.

Scary? It’s becoming a reality. It’s only a matter of time.

Find out more about the research, experiments, and capabilities - http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/~acquisti/face-recognition-study-FAQ/