3d illusion arts: Walyou

Walyou

USBs Can Now Ruin Your Life With Undetected Malware
Awesome Springfield Recreation With Lego
tinyTesla Puts a Singing Tesla Coil on Your Desk
Timex Ironman One GPS+ Is a Watchmaker’s Take on Smartwatches
Real warfare: fill up 100 water balloons in less than one minute

USBs Can Now Ruin Your Life With Undetected Malware

Posted: 08 Aug 2014 06:00 AM PDT

As a new program demonstrates, USB sticks are no longer as safe as we thought they were.

Let's think back to just a few short moments ago, to the time before you clicked on the link to this article, a more peaceful time where we all rather naïvely believed that our USB sticks were safe from the scourge of computer viruses. Many of us use USB sticks every single day, from transferring music or movies (legally obtained, I would think) or beautifully lit photos of precious memories between computers to simply getting some mundane work file off your computer because your boss 'doesn't trust email' and will tell you as much as he sits at his desk, tin foil hat and all. But the point is, this is big and it's scary and USB malware can effect every single one of us.

The discovery was made Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell who put together some 'proof of concept' malware to demonstrate the idea that yes, not only can malware lurk on our USBb sticks undetected, it can also do some serious damage before it's too late for us to even think about installing McAfee protection. Nohl and Lell say that not only can it take over your entire computer, this type of malware can hijack your web browser’s DNS settings and if it makes its way onto a connected mobile device then that's free game for hacking too.

As if the concern for our computers and mobile devices wasn’t enough, the pair even say that it's not just USB sticks (or thumb-drives, depending on what you like to call them) that can put our gadgets at risk either, as anything that connects to our technology via USB could be hacked. Even things like USB keyboards can be hacked which is peculiar, odd and most of all, it's terrifying. Lell and Nohl also add that reformatting the USB device in question won't rid it of any secret malware but that the best option is to avoid USBs altogether if they've come into contact with anyone else's computer.

Source: Wired

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories, NES Style Plush USB Controller: It Actually Works!, New USB Standard Could be on Your Next Phone

Awesome Springfield Recreation With Lego

Posted: 08 Aug 2014 05:00 AM PDT

After we saw the Master Builders in The Lego Movie and the Brick Like Me episode on The Simpsons, it’s only natural we’ll get a perfect recreation of Springfield in brick form.

Matt De Lanoy is obviously a fan, and he took the town (or city?) of Springfield, somewhere USA, and turned it into a complete Lego set.

We have Homer (in the Nuclear power plant after probably doing something wrong) and Bart hugging the statue he once decapitated with a saw, and most importantly we have every landmark – from Moe’s Tavern to the elementary school and the Kwik-E-Mart among other important spots that make Springfield and The Simpsons such a wonderful place.

Hat Tip: Shortlist.com

For some more Lego coolness, check out 33 Lego showing the history of Hollywood, or these Superheroes in their Lego form.

tinyTesla Puts a Singing Tesla Coil on Your Desk

Posted: 07 Aug 2014 01:50 PM PDT

Tesla coils have been modified and used as musical instruments for quite some time now, but it looks like nowbody has thought of making a miniature version that people could place on their desks. tinyTesla is a crowdfunded gadget that achieves that.

When Nikola Tesla invented the Tesla coil generator around 1891, he surely didn’t think that a modified version of it would someday be used for creating music. Now, the name of this brilliant inventor is on many lips every single day, most of the times because of the Tesla electric vehicles, and on other occasions because Tesla coils get used for singing various themes.

In those clips, however, the singing Tesla coils are gigantic, and couldn’t possibly fit on a desk. tinyTesla isn’t anything like that. As even its name suggests, this gadget has small dimensions, fact that makes it more than adequate as an office accessory.

This miniature singing Tesla coil comes as a DIY kit, so anyone buying it either knows, or will have to learn a thing or two about electronics. For all means and purposes, this works exactly as a singing Tesla coil, in that it shoots sparks, plays MIDI tracks and puts your soldering skill to a test.

tinyTesla is currently featured on Kickstarter, where its manufacturer, oneTesla, tried (and succeeded) to raise the money needed for mass producing this miniature singing Tesla coil. The initial goal was of only $20K, and now, 8 days before the campaign’s end, that goal has been exceeded more than 12 times. Since the early bird spots are long gone, backers will have to pledge $149 or more to get a tinyTesla kit. There aren’t any doubts regarding the success of this campaign, so all backers should expect their tinyTesla kits in November, this year.

The ones who aren’t happy with how small tinyTesla is should take a look at oneTeslaTS, or how the developers like to call it, tinyTesla’s bigger brother. In case it wasn’t obvious already, oneTeslaTS is a bit pricier than its smaller counterpart, but the extra pledged money is equivalent to more fun.

There’s only one stretch goal left in this campaign, but I doubt that it will reach it in such a short time frame. At $400K, oneTesla plans to release a Bluetooth Tesla coil interrupter, something we’ll probably get to see at a later point.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Tesla coil car burglar alarm, and the Mario Brothers theme sung using Tesla coils.

Timex Ironman One GPS+ Is a Watchmaker’s Take on Smartwatches

Posted: 07 Aug 2014 12:04 PM PDT

Smartwatches are typically made by companies who have a lot of experience with electronics, while not knowing much about traditional timekeeping devices. Timex is among the first watchmakers that wants to see if a long tradition will make any difference.

Timex celebrates its 160th anniversary this year, so it must have thought to do something else for a change. A watchmaker might not know that much about electronic circuits and smartphone compatibility, but then again, Tag Heuer specialists are said to help Apple make the iTime smartwatch. The lack of experience in this particular field didn’t discourage Timex from creating the Ironman One GPS+ smartwatch.

One of the most remarkable things about the Ironman One GPS+ is that its functionality is not limited when you don’t have your smartphone with you. In fact, this smartwatch works independently all the time, meaning that it wasn’t designed for displaying notifications or updates.

Ironman One GPS+ is water-resistant up to 50 meters, and packs a high-resolution Mirasol display. The built-in 3G radio handles messaging and e-mail functionality, while the GPS sensors lets you know your current location, if you’re going off the beaten path. For that purpose, Timex’s smartwatch also acts as a fitness tracker. The included heartrate monitor should give you an idea about how well you’re performing while working out.

The 4GB of internal storage isn’t that much, but combined with the included MP3 player, it’s more than enough for enjoying some of your favorite music while on the go.

Smartwatches typically have disappointing autonomy, but this is surely not the case. When GPS is turned on, the built in battery keeps the Ironman One GPS+ running for up to 8 hours. In a normal regime, the battery life should be of up to 72 hours.

Timex partnered with AT&T and Qualcomm to make this smartwatch a reality. The latter most probably provided the CPU that powers Timex’s device, while the former will probably help with distributing the smartwatch.

At $399.95, the Ironman One GPS+ isn’t for everyone. As a matter of fact, all the Android Wear smartwatches will be cheaper than that, but it’s pretty clear that the two different types address different audiences. The gadget can be pre-ordered from the Timex portal, and will be available globally sometime this fall.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about HP’s luxury smartwatch, and the VACHEN app-powered Android smartwatch.

Real warfare: fill up 100 water balloons in less than one minute

Posted: 07 Aug 2014 11:43 AM PDT

Get ready to become the ultimate warrior at your neighborhood as you up the ante with real warfare for the water balloon wars: this will give you more than enough ammo.

Ah, summer, the season of friends, family, good times… nah, scratch that. It’s the season of war, at least when it comes to water balloons. That’s why someone came up with this ingenious device capable of filling up 100 water balloons in less than one minute. The project is called Bunch O Balloons, hails from Texas (of course), and has already raised over $840.000 USD via Kickstarter, in order to become a reality.

War, war never changes. With Bunch O Balloons you’ll be sure to never be without ammunition as the balloons fill up fast and tie themselves, so you just got to throw them. It’s almost like activating easy mode! Check the video below to learn more about it.

Via Geeky Gadgets

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories at A Plants Monitor For Techy Gardeners and Easybloom Gardener Gadget.