Internet Explorer associated with an exploit? Color us shocked. Facetiousness aside, it's seriously about time you switched over to Chrome or Firefox (as a mitigation tool; not a foolproof solution), and if you're a desktop user relying on Flash Player, well... it's about time you updated that, too. Adobe has just released a security update for Flash Player 11.2.202.233 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, Adobe Flash Player 11.1.115.7 and earlier versions for Android 4.x, and Adobe Flash Player 11.1.111.8 and earlier versions for Android 3.x and 2.x. We're told that these updates "address an object confusion vulnerability (CVE-2012-0779) that could cause the application to crash and potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system." Adobe specifically mentions an exploit that targets Flash Player on Internet Explorer for Windows, where a user is duped into clicking on a malicious file delivered in an email message. Hit up the source link for more information on getting your system out of The Danger Zone. Which, conveniently, can be looped as you update with a click after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Adobe issues security update for Flash player, warns against IE exploit

Adobe issues security update for Flash player, warns against IE exploit originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 May 2012 00:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Back when we reviewed HP's latest Envy 15, we found a glaring issue with its otherwise spectacular 1080p IPS display -- namely, its less-than-pleasing color reproduction. Making good on a promise it made back in March, HP has finally released its On-Screen Display Utility software for the machine in hopes of quelling user complaints. If you'll recall, HP stated that the displays are of a higher quality than other laptop panels, which can make colors look odd in comparison. That said, while this gesture is certainly welcome, at least one tipster wrote into complain that he "wasn't able to get a satisfactory change. It's basically just gamma adjustment and r/g/b sliders." Of course, we've only cited one anecdote here, so if you've got an Envy 15 you'd like to test this on, hit up the source link below. Be sure to let us know your results in the comments.

[Thanks, Anthony]

HP's On-Screen Display Utility released, aims to alleviate Envy 15 screen color complaints originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 03:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Although Google's had its +1 button all over the web for some time now, helping folks show their allegiance to things they like, it's lacked a dedicated button just for sharing content. That's now changed, as the Google+ development team recently let loose the Share button. The button is similar in appearance to its +1 sibling, but rather than just being a shortcut for quickly slapping content with a virtual high-five, it gives you a way to easily share pages on your Google+ profile. (Yes, you could share through the +1 button, too, but consider this one a bit more focused). Best of all, the Google+ Share button is ready to roll, so move your cursor to the source link below if you'd like to put it on your site or find out more. Happy Liking sharing!

Google+ Share button gives you another option aside from plain 'ol +1s originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Apr 2012 16:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A lens that can look behind itself -- the very idea of it nearly boggles the mind, but it's what the Fisheye-Nikkor 6mm f2.8s claims to be able to do, delivering a viewing angle of 220-degrees. This gargantuan fisheye lens was introduced in 1972, and was reportedly only available through special order. The price of getting your hands on one today? Oh, only about £100,000 ($161,210 American) for a lens in mint condition, and only from Grays of Westminster, a London Camera shop that deals exclusively in Nikon products. It isn't the first time this prodigious piece of glass has shown up, two years ago an identical lens hit eBay to the tune of $34,020 -- a veritable bargain, by comparison. Check out the source link below to peek at the sale. Wallet can't take the damage? Scope out "more coverage" for a bit of Nikon history.

Vintage Nikon fisheye lens aims to dwarf your DSLR, for sale at 100,000 quid originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Apr 2012 02:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Skype's fledgling Windows Phone app broke out of beta today, adding contact searching and landline calling to it's VOIP repertoire. The update comes just shy of two months of the Beta's introduction in February, and boasts a handful of minor improvements that should keep your calls connected. You'll still be making those calls yourself, however, as the full version doesn't yet have support for receiving calls in the background -- if the app isn't running, your phone isn't ringing. Hit the source link below to update.

Skype for Windows Phone sheds beta title, graduates to v1.0 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Apr 2012 16:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's been almost exactly a year since Zodiac Pool Systems last expanded its line of Polaris-branded pool-cleaning robots, and it's now back with two more additions that fill out the top and bottom end of its lineup. That includes the company's most advanced robot to date, the $1499 Polaris 9400 Sport (pictured above), which adds four-wheel drive for the first time, as well as the company's new accelerometer-enhanced ActivMotion Sensor technology -- something Polaris says allows the robot to continually sense where it is in the pool and optimize its cleaning action accordingly. The 9100 Sport, on the other hand, gets neither of those new additions, but it'll "only" set you back $799, and will still clean pools up to 40 feet long in about two hours. You can get a closer look at those, as well as the company's existing offerings, at the source link below.

Continue reading Polaris' pool-cleaning robots get updated with added intelligence, four-wheel drive

Polaris' pool-cleaning robots get updated with added intelligence, four-wheel drive originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Apr 2012 07:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since breaking ground in Western North Carolina some 16 months ago, Facebook has been running at full speed to get its newest data center online. This week, Zuckerberg & Co. flipped the switch. The new facility, located in Forest City, touts the "first major deployment" of the outfit's Open Compute Project web servers and will be the first "live test" of the OPC's outdoor air-cooling design. It tends to get pretty warm around those parts and humidity levels are a bit outside of ideal data center conditions. The Carolina facility will mirror the projected power utilization effectiveness (PUE) of FB's Oregon data center at just a smidge above 1 - somewhere between 1.06 and 1.08 to be exact. In other words, this means the ratio of power used by the structure and the actual power sent to the hardware is almost perfect with minimal energy loss. No matter, it'll still be using plenty of power. A second identical building is slated to open on the site later this year, but for now, hit the source link for a bit more info on the initial launch.

Continue reading Facebook flips the swtich on its North Carolina data center, cooled with balmy mountain air

Facebook flips the swtich on its North Carolina data center, cooled with balmy mountain air originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Apr 2012 03:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are all those ambassador games crowding your 3DS' home screen? Sit tight, Nintendo's got a fix. During the outfit's Nintendo Direct conference livestream, head honcho Satoru Iwata announced that folder organization is coming to the 3DS. Fastidiously organized gamers can expect the firmware update to land on April 25th, bringing with it the joy of creating directories, stuffing them with up to 60 items and ascribing them fitting names. Iwata also detailed a handful of upcoming titles, including New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Tobidase Doubutsu no Mori (or, "Leap out Animal Crossing") for the 3DS and a Kirby compilation for the Wii. Follow the source link below for a full playback of Iwata's spiel, or check out Joystiq's coverage of the event for more details.

3DS firmware update promises folders, less cluttered home screens on April 25th originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A promised upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich this is not, but who are we to scoff at fresh software that improves battery life? Per Droid-Life that's exactly what Motorola has in store for the Droid 4 with its first official update -- née 6.13.219. Hitting the airwaves in the coming week, there's more than just longevity tweaks, with a new MotoCast widget, improved WiFi connectivity and fixes pertaining to "sluggishness and blank screen lockups." Time will tell if that'll tide you over until Motorola unleashes Google's latest, but until then, placate yourself by reading more at the source link below.

Droid 4 gets first official update, better battery life and sluggishness fixes in tow originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Apr 2012 01:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Faraday bags? Oh, yeah. For the sleuthing shyster in your life, Escape the Wolf has a new range of gadget cases that are engineered with one primary purpose: to avoid technical surveillance, mobile phone tracking and remote digital exploitation. As it turns out, these guys have been lurking undercover for just over a month now, but it looks as if they're now on sale to the masses -- civilians included. The Zero Traces line can hold both laptops and phones alike, with each piece capable of shielding GSM / CDMA, WiFi and Bluetooth devices from being "remotely exploited." The pain? Between $24.99 and $199.99, and you can part ways with varying levels of cash right there in the source link.

Zero Trace gadget bags dodge 'digital exploitation,' schadenfreude originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Apr 2012 01:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah, Acer's Olympics-themed Iconia Tab A510. If you'll recall, after months of staying quiet about its A500 successor -- which was already viewable in public -- Acer finally made the 10.1-inch (1280 x 800) slate official when it went up for pre-order last month. Fast forward to today, and the company's US website is now listing the tablet as in-stock and ready to ship. Notably, the A510 is Acer's first tab loaded with NVIDIA's quad-core Tegra 3 SoC and Android Ice Cream Sandwich (slightly modified) -- a duo of delicacies seldom found together in tablets up for grabs as of late. To refresh your memory, its $450 price tag also gets you 32GB of storage with 1GB of RAM, your choice of a white or black bezel and other goodies, including a 1-megapixel front-facing camera and an auto-focusing 5-megapixel shooter on back. Not too shabby for device that can reportedly handle 12 hours of video playback. Sweet tooth tingling? Hit up the source link below for all the details.

[Thanks, Daryl]

Acer Iconia Tab A510 now available, 10.1 inches of Olympian ICS and Tegra 3 for $450 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ever consulted a crowdsourced review for a product or service before committing your hard-earned funds to the cause? Have you wondered how legit the opinions you read really are? Well, it seems that help is on the way to uncover paid opinion spamming and KIRF reviews. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have released detailed calculations in the report Spotting Fake Reviewer Groups in Consumer Reviews -- an effort aided by a Google Faculty Research Award. Exactly how does this work, you ask? Using the GSRank (Group Spam Rank) algorithm, behaviors of both individuals and a group as a whole are used to gather data on the suspected spammers.

Factors such as content similarity, reviewing products early (to be most effective), ratio of the group size to total reviewers and the number of products the group has been in cahoots on are a few bits of data that go into the analysis. The report states, "Experimental results showed that GSRank significantly outperformed the state-of-the-art supervised classification, regression, and learning to rank algorithms." Here's to hoping this research gets wrapped into a nice software application, but for now, review mods may want to brush up on their advanced math skills. If you're the curious about the full explanation, hit the source link for the full-text PDF.

Researchers out faux product review groups with a lot of math and some help from Google originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Apr 2012 19:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Netflix CEO Reed Hastings let loose a mini rant on Facebook Sunday, setting his sites squarely on Comcast and its data accounting practices. Highlighting one of the arguments for net neutrality, Hastings pointed out that viewing streaming videos using the Comcast Xfinity app on his Xbox doesn't count against his monthly cap, but other services do. "If I watch last night's SNL episode on my Xbox through the Hulu app, it eats up about one gigabyte of my cap, but if I watch that same episode through the Xfinity Xbox app, it doesn't use up my cap at all." It's slightly odd that different rules would apply to the same device using the same connection to stream the same content from different sources -- and exactly the sort of preferential and self-promoting behavior that net neutrality advocates are afraid will become the norm in an unregulated market. Of course, Hastings is also irate because his own company would love the same preferential treatment, but hasn't been able to close any deals. For the full rant hit up the source link.

Reed Hastings takes Comcast to task for skirting net neutrality originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nouveau, the open source graphics driver for NVIDIA GPUs is finally taking off the stabilizers, wandering out from the staging area, and being accepted as part of the standard stable kernel set-up. The project began nearly six years ago, so it's been a long road, but one that has earned it favor in certain corners of the Linux world. Things started gaining traction in the last three years as more and more distros started adopting, and Mr Linux himself, Linus Torvalds, suggested it be part of the kernel. Want to see how it performs? Head on down to the source link where the gents at Phoronix have kindly given it some comprehensive benchmarks.

Nouveau open source NVIDIA driver goes stable, gets benchmarked originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Flashback OS X trojan continues to cast a rainy shadow over Mac owners' sense of security, and even though a fix has been released, this was only for what Apple considered "the most common variants." Users of Lion, who don't have Java installed, weren't included in that initial run, but there is a new removal tool just for them. So, if you're running 10.7 and never installed Oracle's virtual machine, make sure you point your browser at the source link below.

Apple issues Flashback removal tool for 10.7 Lion systems not running Java originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 14 Apr 2012 09:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, Google's previous Coachella stream ran about as smoothly as Woodstock 1999's final hours, but that's no reason to abandon the idea. Mountain View has decided to give it another go, streaming 2012's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Youtube and to properly equipped devices. Looking to get your rock on? Hit the source link below.

PSA: Watch Coachella on YouTube, Google devices for free this weekend originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mozilla tests out opt-in system for plug-ins in latest Firefox nightly build originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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