'Third wheel' stars get cast out at high speeds

Love triangles are rarely sustainable ? even in space. New simulations show that single stars that try to come between a tight stellar pair are kicked into space at breakneck speeds, explaining the origin of "runaway" stars that have puzzled astronomers for half a century.

Most stars in the Milky Way plod around the galaxy at a relatively sedate pace of 5 kilometres per second. But some rocket along at more than 30 kilometres per second, faster than the Earth orbits the sun.

In 1961, Adriaan Blaauw of Leiden University in the Netherlands suggested that the runaways were shoved to punishing speeds when a companion star exploded in a supernova, a picture that was bolstered by the discovery of just such a pair in 1997.

But last year, two high-speed stars were spotted fleeing a cluster of stars called R136, a dense group of infant stars thought to be less than 2 million years old.

"That was odd," says Simon Portegies Zwart of Leiden University. Because such stars don't explode until they're at least 3 million years old, the exiles from R136 could not have been kicked out by detonating partners.

Portegies Zwart had another idea: instead of having just one violent companion, the runaways were the unfortunate victims of a love triangle.

Tighter pair

Massive stars in clusters sometimes come close enough to a pair of stars to be caught in their orbit. But the trio is gravitationally unstable ? someone has to go. The intruder typically doesn't have enough energy to unbind the binary, so it's the one to get the boot. The energy it receives in the process only ties the couple together more tightly.

To test this idea, Michiko Fujii, also at Leiden, and Portegies Zwart ran about 60 simulations of star clusters. They found that each cluster developed a binary "bully" that ejected about 21 stars from the cluster before leaving the cluster itself.

That can easily account for most of the runaway stars observed in the Milky Way. "Right now I would say the majority, maybe even the vast majority, of runaways are produced by dynamical ejection," Portegies Zwart says.

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1211927

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Samsung Omnia W slides through FCC with North American 3G support

The Omnia W isn't exactly a stranger among Julius Genachowski's minions, who first laid eyes upon the device back in October, but apparently, that first round of scrutiny just wasn't enough. That's right. The Omnia W is back, with one fundamental change: unlike the first handset (GT-I8350), which maxes out at EDGE connectivity on our domestic 1900 / 850MHz bands, the latest model (GT-I8350T) has piled on support for WCDMA and HSPA over the 850MHz spectrum. Given the similarity of AT&T's Focus Flash to the Omnia W, it seems terribly unlikely that this one is bound for the States -- which also suggests that this mid-sized Mango may have Canada squarely within its sights. With the utter absence of Windows Phone at Bell and Rogers, and merely the Optimus 7 at Telus, the arrival of some tropical fruit up north seems long overdue, indeed.

Samsung Omnia W slides through FCC with North American 3G support originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/16/samsung-omnia-w-slides-through-fcc-with-north-american-3g-suppor/

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Facebook's porn and gore attack: Who gets the blame?

msnbc.com

By Helen A.S. Popkin

Some of it was just funny ? an image of Justin Bieber passionately singing into a man's ... um ... appendage pasted where the microphone should be.

Other hardcore porn images were of the banal fare so easily found outside Facebook's gated Internet community. But there was also the Newsfeed spam featuring child pornography reported by some. The bloody dead dog and decapitated corpses were also among the shocking fare Facebook users found themselves subjected to when the week began and the world's largest social network battled "a coordinated spam attack that exploited a browser vulnerability."

"XSS, as I suspected," Jay Ashworth, this computer geek I know from Facebook, said following confirmation of the days-long debate by security experts and civilians alike over what caused ? and who was behind ? the gore and porn spreading across the social network. An XSS scam ? or cross-site scripting ? is as common as Facebook scams come, spread largely because of uneducated and/or insatiably curious Facebook users tricked into copying and pasting offending JavaScript into a vulnerable browser.

Here's Facebook's official statement:

Live Poll

Who's at fault for the Facebook porn n' gore scam?

  • 167979

    Users who pass this junk along!

    25%

  • 167980

    Facebook and its Swiss cheese security!

    20%

  • 167981

    The lunks behind the spam!

    16%

  • 167982

    All of the above, plus my neighbor's dog!

    38%

  • 167983

    Other! (Explain in comments.)

    1%

VoteTotal Votes: 3948

Protecting the people who use Facebook from spam and malicious content is a top priority for us, and we are always working to improve our systems to isolate and remove material that violates our terms. Recently, we experienced a coordinated spam attack that exploited a browser vulnerability. Our efforts have drastically limited the damage caused by this attack, and we are now in the process of investigating to identify those responsible.??

During this spam attack users were tricked into pasting and executing malicious JavaScript in their browser URL bar causing them to unknowingly share this offensive content. Our engineers have been working diligently on this self-XSS vulnerability in the browser. We've built enforcement mechanisms to quickly shut down the malicious Pages and accounts that attempt to exploit it. We have also been putting those affected through educational checkpoints so they know how to protect themselves. We've put in place backend measures to reduce the rate of these attacks and will continue to iterate on our defenses to find new ways to protect people.

Oh, and you can bet they are. While many users threatened to quit the site and made accusations that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg couldn't care less about the ick that might very well have caught the eye of Grandma and/or all those 11-year-olds parents allow to lie about their age to be on the social network, Facebook wants the nude splatter-fest out of your News Feed even more than you do. Because it's a business. Businesses are customarily not fans of outside influences that drive away customers. And therein ? as the much-abused Hamlet quote goes ? lies the rub.

While Facebook points to a flaw in a browser, it won't identify which browser allowed the malicious code to?spam violated Facebook accounts.?While naked people and blood splatter grabs the headlines, less sensational XSS and clickjacking scams such as tricking Facebook users into clicking on "Why were you tagged in this video?" or pasting code into browsers in the hopes of getting a free meal at Olive Garden are so quickly forgotten they're often repeated.

"The bigger question is what motivated the attackers to use this flaw in such a strange way?" Chester Wisniewski?of Sophos writes in the security company's Naked Security blog.?"We investigate lots of Facebook scams here at Naked Security, and I would guess that nearly 100 percent?of them lead to some financial payout for the scammer." Usually, scammers earn money when Facebook users are tricked into viewing advertising.

The latest outbreak "seems to be a purely malicious act," Wisniewski writes. "Facebook has a reputation for maintaining a reasonably family friendly environment and most Facebook users don't expect dead dogs and penises showing up on their wall."

The lack of monetary motivation has led security experts and others to speculate whether this was an attack by the hacker collective Anonymous, but there are no clues or confirmation. Facebook is letting it be known that it's on the case.

"In addition to the engineering teams that build tools to block spam we also have a dedicated enforcement team that has already identified those responsible?and is working with our legal team to ensure appropriate consequences follow," Facebook said in an email statement. The site cited two prominent anti-spam legal victories.

In 2009, Facebook successfully sued "Spam King? Sanford Wallace for spamming users' Facebook walls in a lawsuit that resulted in a $711 million judgment in the social network's favor and possible jail time for Wallace. In 2011, Facebook was awarded more than $360 million in statutory damages from spammer Philip Porembski, who grabbed the login info of at least 116,000 accounts, which he used to spam 7.2 million users.

Meanwhile, Facebook users can do a lot to prevent spam simply by not clicking on suspicious links. Viral scams persist on Facebook?because Facebook users continue to click malicious links.?Over the last year, Facebook stepped up its defenses?against these seemingly unstoppable pests by launching a variety of new security tools to help prevent spam and educate users.

To review, here are some things you can safely assume you won't see via Facebook: Osama bin Laden's body, that video of that thing Justin Bieber did to that girl, what happened when that girl's dad walked in on her, an app that reveals?who has?been looking at your profile, or any "authentic" message from Facebook WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS.

If you do get sucked into this or any Facebook spam scam, it's easy to remove the application, using Facebook settings, so that it no longer accesses your profile.?Here's how:

  • Remove any content the rogue app may have posted on your Facebook wall.
  • Go to the Account Settings drop-down menu in the upper right side of your screen.
  • From the Account Settings drop-down menu, choose Privacy Settings.
  • On the bottom right side of the Privacy Settings Page, click the Apps & websites link "Edit your settings."
  • On the App page, next to "Apps you use," select edit settings.
  • There you will see the third-party apps that have access to your Facebook profile. Delete any rogue applications. (It's a good idea to check this setting regularly, anyway.)
  • Send an apology to all your Facebook friends who may have been tagged, and advise them to do the same.
  • Join Facebook's Security page as well as the Sophos security page on Facebook to stay up-to-date on the latest security issues.

?More on the annoying way we live now:

?Helen A.S. Popkin?goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook.?Also, Google+.

Source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/16/8838807-facebooks-porn-and-gore-attack-who-gets-the-blame

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'Christmas creep' annoys, but sadly, it works

Sonny Hedgecock / AP

Kmart's holiday decorations were on sale by early October.

By Allison Linn

Christmas decorations hit some store shelves while many people were still wearing shorts, and hot holiday toy lists came out just as many families were crossing off the final items from?their back-to-school shopping lists.

Now there?s?news that Black Friday, that national frenzy of holiday shopping,?is going to be starting as early as Thanksgiving evening, with big store chains like Wal-Mart and Toys 'R' Us opening their doors even as many families are still finishing their pie and coffee.

The widening of the holiday shopping season,?sometimes referred to as ?Christmas creep,??may leave some people grumbling, but don?t expect it to go away anytime soon.

?Until there are really people outside stores picketing I don?t think the trend will abate, and I don?t think there?s a whole lot of downside for the retailers,? said Ted Marzilli, global managing director of BrandIndex, which tracks the public perception of brands.

Retailers are so desperate for your holiday shopping dollars after years of economic woes that they?ll try just about anything to get a bigger chunk of your limited budget, Marzilli and other analysts say.?Offering deals earlier and earlier just may give some of those retailers a leg up on the competition.

?Is it really working? Too soon to tell. Can it work? The answer is clearly yes,? said Marshal Cohen, retail analyst with NPD Group.

Many?shoppers?already are on the lookout for deals.

A survey done in late October by?YouGov BrandIndex found that nearly one-third of shoppers had already started shopping for holiday gifts. Nearly half expected to start before Thanksgiving, according to the survey, to be released this week.

That?s similar to results BrandIndex got in 2008, the last time the firm asked the question, Marzilli said.

Retailers aren?t necessarily going to squeeze much more money out of consumers by trying to get them to buy holiday gifts along with Halloween candy. Amid a weak economy and a high unemployment rate, the National Retail Federation is expecting holiday sales to increase a modest 2.8 percent this year over?year-ago levels.

Retailers are?hoping an early jump on promotions will allow them to steal some business from competitors who aren?t yet offering similar deals or?at least snag some of their holiday shopping dollars earlier in the season, experts say.

?If the retailer can get some people thinking about Christmas sooner than they otherwise would ? then (they?ve) locked up the $10 or $20 or $50 or $100 that the consumer was going to spend,? Marzilli said.

That?s one reason Black Friday has gradually expanded, with holiday-themed deals starting days or even weeks before the day after Thanksgiving.

Call all diehard Black Friday shoppers!

C. Britt Beemer, head of the consumer research firm America?s Research Group, said?early Black Friday-type promotions also may be aimed at people who want a good deal but don?t want to endure the ever-earlier wake-up call for Black Friday (so named because retailers can?get into the black with strong sales).

Shoppers who go?to Walmart for one of its pre-holiday Super Saturday deals may pay?slightly more for a flat-screen TV, Beemer said, ?but they didn?t have to get up at 3 a.m.?

Still, Beemer is predicting that this year?s Black Friday will be bigger than ever.

To some Americans, getting up at dawn on Friday to go shopping is bad enough, but going shopping on?Thanksgiving night is inexcusable. The activist group change.org has even started a petition to try to force retailer Target to change its plans to open at midnight on Thanksgiving rather than a few hours later early Friday.

A Target spokeswoman told msnbc.com the company still plans to open at midnight.

Cohen said the advent of social media could get the backlash effort some attention, but he doesn?t expect?complaints about Christmas creep to have much effect on retailers? plans.

?Right now we?re more concerned about getting the (European) debt crisis resolved and getting a jobs bill,? he said. ?There?s so much more for people to be worried about than opening a store.?

When do you start your holiday gift shopping?

?

Source: http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/15/8803791-christmas-creep-annoys-but-sadly-it-seems-to-work

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Kobo Vox unboxing and hands-on (video)


Kobo is something of a perpetual underdog. That may well change, after Rakuten acquisition of the company goes through, but for now, it's still a small organization battling giants like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and, to a lesser extent, Sony. With that in mind, the timing for the Vox's release certainly could have been better -- the tablet has to go head to head with the Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire, both on sale this week. Well, we just received ours, and with that in mind, we immediately did what any other geek would do -- we started playing with it alongside its bigger-named competitors. We'll be back with a full review soon enough, but for now, join us for an unboxing and some early impressions.

Continue reading Kobo Vox unboxing and hands-on (video)

Kobo Vox unboxing and hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 12:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mexico asks US to extradite weapons suspects (AP)

MEXICO CITY ? Mexico's attorney general says she has asked the United States to extradite six people suspected of providing guns to drug cartels.

Marisela Morales tells Congress that three people are being held in Texas and three in California.

She says two U.S. citizens were being held in Mexico on similar charges. She provided no details in Wednesday's statement and did not mention Operation Fast and Furious, in which U.S. officials followed suspected "straw" buyers of guns heading to Mexico instead of immediately arresting them.

She said one of the cases originated in Madera, California. US officials said this month that two men were being held on suspicion of smuggling .22-caliber rifles into Mexico in a case unrelated to drug cartels.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/latam/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111116/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_mexico_us_guns

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Stocks fall broadly as oil tops $100 a barrel (AP)

NEW YORK ? Stocks slid in early trading Wednesday as the price of oil topped $100 a barrel for the first time since July. The jump in oil prices could dampen the already fragile economy by cutting into spending.

Oil futures rose 2.2 percent to $101.56 a barrel. The Dow Jones industrial average fell nearly 125 points shortly after the opening bell. All 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 index lost ground.

Concerns lingered about Europe's debt crisis as well. Greece's new prime minister, Lucas Papademos, faces a confidence vote later Wednesday. His government must pass unpopular austerity measures to receive the next round of emergency loans.

The vote comes one day after reports that the European Union economy grew by just 0.2 percent between July and September, a sign that Europe may be headed for a recession. Together, the countries in the European Union are the world's largest economy and a key source of revenue for companies in the Standard and Poor's 500 index.

The Dow was down 121 points, or 1 percent, to 11,969 at 9:45 a.m. Eastern. The S&P 500 fell 10, or 0. Percent, to 1,247. The Nasdaq composite lost 19, or 0.7 percent, to 2,667.

In corporate news, Target Corp. gained 2.2 percent after sales growth and an improvement in its credit card business helped the retailer beat Wall Street's profit estimates. Abercrombie & Fitch Co. plunged 12.5 percent after the company reported earnings that were well short of Wall Street's expectations. The company said rising costs for cotton and other commodities cut into profits.

Dell Inc. dropped 2 percent after the company said late Tuesday that its revenues will be held back by an industry-wide shortage of hard drives.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/stocks/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111116/ap_on_bi_st_ma_re/us_wall_street

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Trident Case Aegis iPod touch Case Review

Being the case hound that I am, I’ve scoured the web and found zillions of cases, but I’d never heard of Trident Case. ?My first thought was that, although the basic design is similar to many other cases out there, it has a cool style and some interesting features. ?I asked my 8-year-old son if [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/11/15/trident-case-aegis-ipod-touch-case-review/

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Mountains limited Fukushima fallout

A map of radioactive contamination across Japan from the Fukushima power plant disaster confirms high levels in eastern and northeastern areas but finds much lower levels in the western part of the country, thanks to mountain ranges, researchers say

The mountains sheltered northwestern and western parts of Japan as radioactive cesium-137 emerged from the power plant and blew downwind, the scientists said.

Cesium-137 is just one of the radioactive materials that came out of the plant, but researchers focused on that because it's particularly worrisome. It lasts for decades in soils, emitting radiation and potentially contaminating crops and other agricultural products.

The research, published online Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows estimated levels of contamination. It did not investigate implications for health.

The researchers, from Japan, Norway and the United States, said the levels they estimated would severely restrict food production in eastern Fukushima Prefecture and hinder agriculture in neighboring provinces. That outcome is already recognized in Japan, where regulators monitor food products from those areas for contamination before they are cleared for shipment.

The Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, 140 miles (225 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, was heavily damaged in March when it was swamped by a tsunami triggered by an earthquake.

A second report, from a separate group of Japanese scientists, investigated levels of radioactive cesium, iodine and tellurium on the surface in east-central Japan. Such materials are airborne after a nuclear accident and fall to the ground when it rains. While the power plant incident began on March 11, the study linked ground contamination in the Fukushima prefecture to a March 15 rainfall, and contamination in Tokyo and some other areas to a March 21 rain.

Soil contamination in Tokyo has already made officials ban shipment of tea leaves grown there, and some elementary schools in Tokyo and nearby have taken decontamination steps like removing topsoil. In addition, there is growing concern about radioactive "hotspots" found in Tokyo and elsewhere outside Fukushima. The Japanese government has taken responsibility for decontamination.

AP writer Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.

For more online: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45291255/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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Murdoch lawyer says phone hacking 'shameful'

(AP) ? A lawyer for Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers said Tuesday that phone hacking was wrong and shameful, but insisted the huge criminal investigation it sparked proves journalists are not above the law.

Rhodri Davies told a judge-led inquiry into British media practices that Murdoch's News International apologized "unreservedly" for eavesdropping on cell phone voice mail messages of celebrities, politicians and crime victims.

He said the hacking "was wrong, it was shameful and it should never have happened."

"News International intends to ensure that what happened at the News of the World will not happen again and that fair compensation will be paid to those who suffered from it," Davies said.

For years Murdoch executives insisted that hacking was limited to private investigator Glenn Mulcaire and reporter Clive Goodman, who were both jailed in 2007 for eavesdropping on the phones of royal aides.

Davies said it clearly went much wider, but insisted that illegal activity had been curtailed ? if not stopped ? after the two men were caught. Police believe illegal voicemail interception continued until at least 2009.

Davies said that "lessons were learned when Mr. Goodman and Mr. Mulcaire went to jail."

He said that if phone hacking did continue after 2007, it was not "the thriving cottage industry which existed beforehand."

He also questioned a claim by the inquiry's lawyer about the scale of the illegal eavesdropping.

Inquiry counsel Robert Jay said Monday that five journalists had asked investigator Mulcaire to carry out 2,266 tasks.

Davies said News International wanted those figures checked.

He said that "2,266 taskings is 2,266 too many, five journalists commissioning them from the News of the World is five too many ... but nonetheless we think it is necessary to be accurate as far as possible."

Davies disputed a claim by actor Jude Law that his phone was hacked by the News of the World's sister paper, The Sun. Davies said he could not go into detail because of confidentiality issues.

Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old News of the World in July as the scale of phone hacking became clear. Several senior executives at his News Corp. have resigned over the scandal, which has rattled Britain's political, police and media establishments.

More than a dozen journalists have been arrested and questioned about phone hacking and police bribery, and News Corp. faces dozens of lawsuits from alleged victims.

The inquiry, led by judge Brian Leveson, is examining media ethics and could suggest a new regulatory regime for the press.

Dozens of prominent people who accuse the press of intrusion are lined up to participate including actor Hugh Grant, Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling, actress Sienna Miller and former Formula One boss Max Mosley.

News International and its rival media groups are all eager to avoid new restrictions, arguing that the current form of self-regulation through the Press Complaints Commission can be strengthened.

"Our plea is for the press not to be over-regulated," Davies said. "It is not for it to be above the law."

____

Online: The Leveson Inquiry: http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/

Jill Lawless can be reached at: http://twitter.com/JillLawless

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-15-Britain-Phone%20Hacking/id-0f89087165bf477cac8370ac5d4eaa15

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