Guillaume Belfiore

∞ 10-year old hacker finds flaw in mobile games

I guess DefCon participants were not waiting for this one!

From The Register :

A 10-year-old hacker has won the admiration of her adult peers for finding a previously unknown vulnerability in games on iOS and Android devices.

The young girl, who has adopted the hacker handle CyFi, discovered the timing related bug after she got bored with the slow progress of a FarmVille-style games. For example, crops in planting corn take at least 10 hours to mature.

But changing the clock time on a phone or tablet fools the game into instantly ripening crops. Some of the affected games attempt to detect such shenanigans but by changing the time by small increments or disconnecting devices CyFi managed to circumvent these counter-measures.

∞ 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web

A nice e-book written and illustrated by the Google Chrome team. Of course it makes heavy use of HTML5 and there is a downloadable version as well

∞ 12 failed apple products

For some, Steve Jobs is the epitome of awesome. For others, he is a dastardly man whose company has made some shoddy products. Yes, Apple created the iPod and iTunes and the iPhone, etc. But Apple also created the Newton Message Pad and the Portable Macintosh, both of which were utter failures. The worst offender on our list? Most likely the Apple Pippin, a gaming system you’ve probably never even heard of. Be sure to vote up whatever product you think is the worst.