Today’s Tech Sightings:
World First Bionic Eye Gives Hope to Millions
A British pensioner suffering from macular degeneration has become the world’s first person to be fitted with a bionic eye. The ground-breaking operation gave Ray Flynn, an electronic implant that works with a camera attached to his glasses to send video feeds to healthy cells in his retina.
Schooling Vietnam: How Tech Companies Are Training the Next Wave of Workers
Vietnam strives to become a leading technology manufacturer. The challenge is to provide students with the training they need after graduation to equip them with skills other than those for assembling devices. Even when that happens, years of supervision are required. Now, a host of global tech companies have launched their own training programs to educate Vietnam’s work force, in part attracted by the country’s stability, its cheap labor market and its readiness to give tax breaks to foreign firms.
Researcher Unveils New Privilege Vulnerability in Apple’s Mac OS X
German researcher Stefan Esser from the security audit company SektionEins found a privilege escalation vulnerability that affects Mac OS X 10.10 and new features in the newest iterations of the operating system. The flaw makes features based on the dynamic linker dyld and environment variable DYLD_PRINT_TO_FILE exploitable and allows hackers to create or open arbitrary files in the system.
Bug Opens OpenSSH Servers to Brute-Force Password Attacks
A security researcher known online by the alias Kingcope has discovered a UNIX bug that affects secure remote access software OpenSSH. The bug could let hackers bypass authentication restrictions and try to figure out the passwords.
Hacking Team’s RCS Android: The Most Sophisticated Android Malware Ever Exposed
Trend Micro researchers who recently uncovered that the hacked Italian firm Hacking team delivered Android spyware using Google Play apps, have now analyzed the code of that actual malware. Known as RCS Android or Remote Control System Android, the malware is capable of doing so many things and spying on so many levels that researchers consider it the most sophisticated Android malware ever exposed.
New Google Maps Feature Shows You Everywhere You’ve Been
If you had doubts about the extent of data Google has on you, here’s something else to consider: a new Google Maps feature called “Your Timeline”, which allows you to visualize everywhere you’ve been on a given day or over a month or a year.
Forever 21′s ‘Thread Screen’ Displays Instagram Pics Using Fabric
It’s called a “Thread Screen.” The gigantic display at hardware maker Breakfast New York is a screen made up 6,400 mechanical spools of multicolored threaded fabric. Each spool has 5.5 feet of fabric. The whole thing is divided into 36 colors and moves like a conveyer belt that stops at hues corresponding to the displayed photos. The Instagram project allows users to control the display until July 28 by posting a picture on Instagram using #F21ThreadScreen as a hashtag.
