FlishFun.com

I recently did a review on the iTech Bluetooth keyboard for Neowin… here’s a taste:

For years now I’ve been using the same keyboard at home, a Microsoft Wireless Desktop Elite Keyboard. It’s not a bad board, thought it has seen better days. While looking around for a replacement I came across what appears to be the Keyboard of the Future! Not only is it small, compact and connects via Bluetooth, but it has no physical keys! This “keyboard” is actually a laser projection that will display a “virtual” keyboard on any flat surface.

The “geek” part of me instantly decided this would be the best keyboard ever, but the logical part of me had some hesitations. How well would it work? Would it be able to handle a very fast typing speed with accuracy? Would it be comfortable to use? Well, thanks to our good friends at ThinkGeek, I was able to get a hold of one of these devices to try out and give you all a taste of what it’s like to live in the future of computing.

Click here to read the whole thing, and stay tuned for my next review!!  Oh, and here’s a nice pic of it in action:

Coool!

Last night at about 3:00am Obama sent out his text messages delcaring that Joe Biden would be his running mate.  See below:

So I guess the bumper stickers were a pretty big hoax (as it was picked up by Drudge and Time), but now we have an answer. Biden is an odd choice… for a man preaching change, playing up McCain’s age, and needing to snag swing states, picking someone who’s been in Washington for 30 years, is 65 years old, and isn’t from a swing state is a very weird thing. to do. Some more info:

WASHINGTON (AP) – Barack Obama named Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate early Saturday, balancing his ticket with a seasoned congressional veteran well-versed in foreign policy and defense issues.Obama announced the pick on his Web site with a photo of the two men and an appeal for donations. A text message went out shortly afterward that said, “Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee.”

Biden, 65, has twice sought the White House, and is a Catholic with blue-collar roots, a generally liberal voting record and a reputation as a long-winded orator.

Across more than 30 years in the Senate, he has served at various times not only as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee but also as head of the Judiciary Committee, with its jurisdiction over anti-crime legislation, Supreme Court nominees and Constitutional issues.

In selecting Biden, Obama passed over several other potential running mates, none more prominent than former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, his tenacious rival in dozens of primaries and caucuses.

Obama’s campaign arranged a debut for the newly minted ticket on Saturday outside the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill.

Obama’s decision leaked to the media several hours before his aides planned to send a text message announcing the running mate, negating a promise that people who turned over their phone numbers would be the first to know who Obama had chosen. The campaign scrambled to send the text message after the leak, sending phones buzzing at the inconvenient time of just after 3 a.m. on the East coast.

So where does this leave McCain?  Most likely he’ll be declaring his running mate soon, to make the news not focus solely on Obama (in my opinion).  So, there you have it… let’s see what skeletons they can dredge up from Biden’s past…

Indian-Americans
While speaking to a group of Indian-Americans in Delaware, Biden stated, “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.” His comment was caught on C-SPAN.

“My state was a slave state”
In August of 2006, Biden was on Fox News Sunday and said “You don’t know my state. My state was a slave state. My state is a border state. My state is the eighth largest black population in the country. My state is anything from a northeast liberal state.”

Barack Obama
Talking about his fellow Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama he said, “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, … I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

Uh-oh… that was quick…

Just saw this hit the net (from KMBC):

LENEXA, Kan. — After weeks of speculation and days of intense rumors, the answer to who Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama would name as his running mate may have come down to a bumper sticker printed in Lenexa.

KMBC’s Micheal Mahoney reported that the company, which specializes in political literature, has been printing Obama-Bayh material. That’s Bayh as in U.S. Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana. Word leaked out about the material as it was being printed up by Gill Studios of Lenexa. The Obama campaign had said it would make the announcement by text message on Friday.

Gill Studios would not confirm information about the material. They would not deny it either.

“We’re very disappointed that you would spread this rumor,” Gill Studios President Tom Carrico said.

“You didn’t print it here?” Mahoney asked.

“I didn’t say that. But I’m very disappointed that you would come out and interview us and ask for confirmation and we said we would not confirm,” Carrico said.

“Or deny,” Mahoney said.

“That’s correct,” Carrico said.

Mahoney reported that at least three sources close to the plant’s operations reported the Obama-Bayh material was being produced.

Bayh has a reputation as a fiscally conservative Democrat. Bayh endorsed Hillary Clinton and it is believed that he could help the Obama ticket by delivering a key battleground state.

Obama has arranged a joint appearance for Saturday with his running mate at the state Capitol in Springfield, Ill.

Interesting stuff… if this is true heads could roll, as it kinda blows the wind out of Obama’s sails when it comes to the “big reveal,” but if it’s false, that makes you wonder why it was done. Interesting, as it notes in the article, Bayh was a huge Clinton supporter.  I wonder (if this is true) that it could be part of trying to bring the party back together.  Here’s a shot of the sticker itself:

More as it develops!

This week at the Black Hat Security Conference two security researchers will discuss their findings which could completely bring Windows Vista to its knees.

Mark Dowd of IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS) and Alexander Sotirov, of VMware Inc. have discovered a technique that can be used to bypass all memory protection safeguards that Microsoft built into Windows Vista. These new methods have been used to get around Vista’s Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and other protections by loading malicious content through an active web browser. The researchers were able to load whatever content they wanted into any location they wished on a user’s machine using a variety of scripting languages, such as Java, ActiveX and even .NET objects. This feat was achieved by taking advantage of the way that Internet Explorer (and other browsers) handle active scripting in the Operating System.

While this may seem like any standard security hole, other researchers say that the work is a major breakthrough and there is very little that Microsoft can do to fix the problems. These attacks work differently than other security exploits, as they aren’t based on any new Windows vulnerabilities, but instead take advantage of the way Microsoft chose to guard Vista’s fundamental architecture. According to Dino Dai Zovi, a popular security researcher, “the genius of this is that it’s completely reusable. They have attacks that let them load chosen content to a chosen location with chosen permissions. That’s completely game over.”

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