SpeedPlexer Blog

Imperva, which makes software for blocking hackers, examined a list of 32 million passwords that an unknown hacker stole last month from RockYou, a company that makes software for users of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. According to The New York Times, the list was briefly posted on the Web, and hackers and security researchers downloaded it. (RockYou, which had already been widely criticized for lax privacy practices, has advised its customers to change their passwords, as the hacker gained information about their e-mail accounts as well.)

The top 10 most common passwords were:

1. 123456
2. 12345
3. 123456789
4. password
5. iloveyou
6. princess
7. rockyou
8. 1234567
9. 12345678
10. abc123

Others included words like:

Monkey
Babygirl
Lovely
Sunshine
Chocolate
Angel
FRIENDS

And number patterns such as 654321 and 111111, letter patterns like “Qwerty”, and popular first names like Jessica, Michael, Ashley, Anthony, Daniel, and Michelle were also popular.

About 20 percent of people on the RockYou list picked from the same, relatively small pool of 5,000 passwords, which means that hackers could easily break into many accounts just by trying the most common passwords, and do it with internet speed.

Experts say that ideally you would have different passwords for every web site you visit and store them in your head or, if absolutely necessary, on a piece of paper. But at least two different passwords — a complex one for Web sites were security is vital, such as banks and e-mail, and a simpler one for places where the stakes are lower, such as social networking and entertainment sites—would likely be enough to keep you safe. You could try using longer passwords, beyond the minimum, as well. But to avoid being the easy victim of a hacker, be more creative!

Is it your dream to one day be able to sit wherever you want, reading a full color, web connected, constantly updating, flexible news reader?  Walking around freely, but conveniently and fully informed with internet speed?  That day may be coming sooner than you might think. Or maybe not soon enough, depending on how attached you are to the dream.

The New York Times BITS blog spoke to Nicholas Colaneri, director of the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University. He explained that just because we have flexible displays, it doesn’t mean we will have flexible devices in the marketplace for another few years.

He said, “The display panel itself is only a small part of the battle, all the ancillary electronics, the power, transistors, and circuitry are all things today that are not yet fully flexible at large scales.”

We can expect to see flexible displays in the marketplace in the next three to five years, Mr. Colaneri said, but this is just the screen technology. The other components are a little further out.

First we can expect to see larger external screens rather than smaller readers. Colaneri said, “Flexible is a major part of the discussion because longer range there is an interest in larger area displays that can be rolled up and stored somewhere.”

If we wish hard enough, the flexible technologies continue to advance, and the correct resources are applied to research in this area, we may only have to wait another five years, at best. 

Flexible E Ink devices (the screen technology in the Kindle and Sony Reader), could be available, possibly, in the next five to seven years.

Completely flexible OLED devices (there are some interesting videos online of Sony’s full color flexible OLED displays) could be in the marketplace in the next 10 years.

Haven’t you heard of The Crunchies?  It’s like the Oscars of the Internet.  The 2009 Crunchies were the third annual competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year. Co-hosted by GigaOm, VentureBeat, and TechCrunch, the judging is like an online version of  American Idol–the internet community is invited to choose who wins.

The Crunchies award ceremony took place on Friday, January 8, 2010 at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco–an elegant, old world theater with 900 seats that helped give the awards the air of importance they deserved.

Here are some of the highlights from the list of winners (AKA those who have best utilized the magic of internet speed)

Best Design:
Animoto  - Animoto generates custom, professional-looking slideshows from user-uploaded music and photos. Once completed, videos can be emailed, downloaded and embedded into other sites. The company says no two videos are ever the same. As of June 2008, Animoto videos could be purchased on DVD or downloaded in DVD-quality formats directly from the Animoto website, and users can enjoy their videos on computers, televisions, and even large projection screens.

Best Internet Application:
Dropbox - Dropbox is a software product that makes it easy to securely share files with other people, sync them across multiple computers, access them from anywhere, and keep them safe.

Best New Startup Or Product Of 2009:
Bing (Microsoft) - Bing is a decision (search) engine from Microsoft with new algorithms and a more colorful page design, it attempts to understand the context behind the search, which Microsoft claims gives users better results.

Best Overall Startup Or Product Of 2009:
Facebook  - Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 350 million users.

To see a list of the other categories and companies nominated, go to http://crunchies2009.techcrunch.com/ .

It seems that Ford is a car company that understands how much people like to be connected while driving. So in order to reduce traffic accidents caused by people who are trying to text and tweet from behind the wheel, they’ve augmented their voice activated system known as Sync to include Tweets and Internet radio.

Ford’s Sync service, developed by Microsoft and rolled out in 2007, allowed drivers make phone calls and use GPS technology to hear turn-by-turn directions and traffic information.

Now, as Ford executives explained on Thursday, according to Yahoo Tech News, Sync will begin working with two Internet radio services, Pandora and Stitcher. It will also connect to OpenBeak, which can read your or your friends’ Twitter posts out loud. Users will need to have the Sync versions of these applications on a phone with a Bluetooth wireless link.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally told an audience at the International Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday that Sync is designed as a way for drivers to do things like chat with their kids and make dinner reservations, “all while keeping their eyes on the road and their hands on the wheel.”

Such in-car entertainment and information services are becoming popular in many makes and models, but are they safe? Paul Green, a professor at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute who studies the effects of distractions for motorists, said automakers are making a “reasonable effort” to minimize the problem.

In the meantime, Ford executives said that the company is talking with Google Inc. about bringing its services to cars as well, and that it plans to add Wi-Fi to some cars that have Sync.

So though we may not be able to drive as fast as our information travels, we can still be driving with internet speed.