Google Earth Pro Is Now Free

In a recent announcement that was made last Friday, via a blog post, Google stated that the professional version of their mapping app, Google Earth, will now be available to all at no charge. The professional version can now be used, with all of the features simply be obtaining a free key and downloading the Google Earth Pro application. Existing users will still be able to use the tool, but Google hasn’t yet stated whether or not they will be refunded for the remainder of their subscription.

The Pro version has all the same, now standard, features as the normal version of Google Earth, but it also comes with added tools, which help users to measure 3D buildings and print high-resolution images. The app also allowed users to record HD footage of their journey in Google Earth.

Google Earth is available to everybody, and it can be used for all sorts of purposes. The average users may use the app when planning a trip. A business might use it when planning to erect a new building. Scientists may even utilise the precise features of Google Earth Pro to conduct experiments or gather data.

Google hasn’t said say why they had opted to make the pro upgrade free. There are other services that are available for free, such as Apple’s Maps app, but it doesn’t have precise measuring or indeed the filming tools of Google Earth Pro.

Google Earth Pro, which had a price tag of $399, is now available for free. Why not head over to Google Maps and Earth Enterprise and get started now?

[Image via freeweird]

SOURCE: http://google-latlong.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/google-earth-pro-is-now-free.html?m=1

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New Android Malware Simulates Shutdown and Mines Your Data

If you have an Android phone and have purchased third-party apps from outside of the more well-known app stores, you may have put your device at risk from an ingenious new malware that makes it look like you’ve shut off your phone, but instead has only simulated the shutdown with identical shut off animations.

Once the screen goes black and you forget about it, the malware kicks in and roots around through your device, accessing your data. Even scarier, the malware can use your phone to make outgoing calls, take pictures, and utilize a host of other features.

This malware, called the PowerOffHijack, was first spotted by AVG, who explained how it worked on their blog post. Their team believes it originated in China and is spreading via apps that originated within the country, estimating that as many as 10,000 devices have already been infected.

There are a couple of ways to know if you’re safe, even if you don’t have a clear way to know if your phone is infected. If you’re running a version of Android that’s at least v.5, you should be all right; at the same time, if your phone has not been modified (jailbroken) to allow different forms of functionality, then you’re probably okay, too.

The only issue is some retailers sell their phones with this level of functionality already in place, so you may not be aware of the potential danger. Finally, if you’ve only downloaded apps from the Google Play store, you’re probably safe as well since that app store is not available in China.

For now, there’s no patch to combat the PowerOffHijack’s capabilities. Experts are currently recommending users physically remove their batteries when they power off their phones, at least until a patch can be made available.

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Now the NSA is in your hard drive, says Kaspersky

Recently, it seems that you can’t go two days without finding out some new piece of information which somehow relates to the NSA’s spying program, and with every day that passes it becomes more and more clear that the scope of the program, and the abuse of privacy which it involves are of an incredible magnitude and inescapable pervasiveness.


Now, in yet another part of the elaborate plot that is the illegal NSA spying program, Moscow based firm Kaspersky has uncovered software hidden deep within the firmware of computers’ hard drives’ that is designed to spy on the user. According to Kaspersky, this method of espionage would allow the ‘sophisticated threat actor’ (which Kaspersky calls the ‘Equation group’)  to spy on PC’s worldwide, and may have been going on for as long as 15 years (since around 2001.)

In its report, Kaspersky (the firm that was responsible for breaking the Stuxnet story), discovered that the ‘Equation group’ has the ability to hide spyware in hard drives of important manufacturers such as Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, IBM, Micron Technology Inc and Samsung Electronics.

According to information released to Reuters, the Russian firm found evidence of this spyware in the hard drives of 30 nations, but found that these were most prolific in the hard drives of countries such as Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria.

Talking to Reuters about where the spyware was found to be most prolific, Kaspersky said,
‘The targets included government and military institutions, telecommunication companies, banks, energy companies, nuclear researchers, media, and Islamic activists’

Although NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines refused to pass comment on the new revelations, a former NSA employee told Reuters that what Kaspersky had uncovered was indeed true, and that the NSA valued its ability to get spyware into sensitive locations as highly as it does viral spyware such as Stuxnet (a worm computer virus the NSA used to mount a cyber attack on Iran’s nuclear power plant.)

Peter Swire, (a member of the US Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology) said that these new revelations about how the NSA carries out its espionage could have a seriously negative impact on diplomatic relations and trade agreements, and urged Obama’s administration to think hard about how they sought to proceed with their spy programs in the future, lest they face serious international backlash and loss of faith.

According to lead Kaspersky researcher Costin Raiu, putting spyware in the firmware of the hard drives is perfect for the NSA’s espionage efforts because,

‘The hardware will be able to infect the computer over and over’
Although spokespeople from both Seagate and Micron have made statements denying that they know anything about foreign code appearing in the firmware of their hard drives, Vincent Liu, a partner at Bishop Fox and former NSA analyst, explains that if a company wants to sell a product to the Pentagon they are asked to cooperate with security auditing for those products by handing over the source code,

‘They don’t admit it, but they do say, “We’re going to do an evaluation, we need the source code,”  It’s usually the NSA doing the evaluation, and it’s a pretty small leap to say they’re going to keep that source code.’

Although the link to the NSA is currently only circumstantial, according to Kaspersky’s report, the Equation group’s obvious links to Flame and Stuxnet make it almost inevitable that these hacks and spyware installations are coming from a position of wealth and authority that is unlikely to be anything but a large and well organized intelligence agency. In the report Kaspersky lays it out like this,

‘There are solid links indicating that the Equation group has interacted with other powerful groups, such as the Stuxnet and Flame operators–generally from a position of superiority. The Equation group had access to zero-days before they were used by Stuxnet and Flame, and at some point they shared exploits with others.’
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Icy blast hits South as winter spreads its reach

Salt trucks rumbled and traffic jammed as a massive new storm brought snow, freezing rain, ice and frigid temperatures to a large swath of the United States on Monday.

"It's dangerously cold," Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser told CNN's "The Situation Room," warning that the nation's capital was bracing for up to 8 inches of snow. And federal government offices in the area will be closed on Tuesday.

But the snow isn't the only thing to worry about.

"We are going to see high snowfall amounts, but the ice is what is going to be the big story," CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray said, pointing at North Carolina.

Raleigh, North Carolina, could see up to a half-inch of ice, which could knock out power and "makes travel nearly impossible," she said.

The bitter cold is coming from several fronts. This weekend, the Northeast weathered its fourth snowstorm in three weeks, and extremely low temperatures are predicted to hang around for two more weeks.

A winter storm stretching across the Midwest and Southeast is bringing freezing rain and ice accumulation, especially from Arkansas to Tennessee.

Late Monday, Tennessee declared a state of emergency as road conditions quickly deteriorated and power outages spiked.

Temperatures across the eastern half of the United States will be below average for the entire week, and that's a big deal as winter fatigue sets in.

In Boston, where 95 inches of snow have already been recorded this year, the latest storm was expected to skirt by and bring a few more inches, Gray said.

This February is the city's snowiest month ever.

Frank Ippolito, the owner of a snow removal business operating in Boston, said his staff was weary from lack of sleep.

At this point, his snowplow drivers are putting snow "anywhere and everywhere there's an open piece of land that won't obstruct the view safely of the driver or prevent someone from getting out of a doorway or moving a car," he said.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said one man died after suffering a heart attack while shoveling snow.

"Please stay close to your home today -- shovel in short stints," he said.

Mounting "snow rage" is pitting drivers and neighbors against each other as the winter weather shows no sign of letting up, CNN affiliate WFXT reported.

"We've been noticing a little frustration out there on the roads," Massachusetts State Police trooper Kathryn Downey said. "I think people are getting pushed to their limits."

Margo Souza of Charlestown, Massachusetts, told CNN's iReport she was trying to take the snow in stride, even though it has doubled her commute. Her golden retrievers, Logan and Copley, love to bound around in it.

Margo Souza and her pup, Logan, overlooked the Boston Harbor Monday morning. The snow is taller than Logan and the top layer of the bay is frozen.  

Still, she said she was hoping her city's baseball team might bring something with them when they head south for spring training.

"Send the snow to Florida," she said, "along with the Red Sox equipment."

One New York resident, Max Guliani, posted photos on Twitter of the frozen fountain at Bryant Park in New York City.

A pipe burst at the city's iconic Empire State Building, forcing one of its observatories to shut down, a spokeswoman said.

In Ithaca, in upstate New York, temperatures have gotten so cold that even the city's tourism website is telling people to head to the Sunshine State.

"That's it. We surrender," the website says. "Winter, you win. Key West anyone?"

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The Department of Defense Must Plan for the National Security Implications of Climate Change

The responsibility of the Department of Defense is the security of our country. That requires thinking ahead and planning for a wide range of contingencies.

Among the future trends that will impact our national security is climate change. Rising global temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, climbing sea levels, and more extreme weather events will intensify the challenges of global instability, hunger, poverty, and conflict. They will likely lead to food and water shortages, pandemic disease, disputes over refugees and resources, and destruction by natural disasters in regions across the globe.

In our defense strategy, we refer to climate change as a “threat multiplier” because it has the potential to exacerbate many of the challenges we are dealing with today – from infectious disease to terrorism. We are already beginning to see some of these impacts.

A changing climate will have real impacts on our military and the way it executes its missions. The military could be called upon more often to support civil authorities, and provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in the face of more frequent and more intense natural disasters. Our coastal installations are vulnerable to rising sea levels and increased flooding, while droughts, wildfires, and more extreme temperatures could threaten many of our training activities. Our supply chains could be impacted, and we will need to ensure our critical equipment works under more extreme weather conditions. Weather has always affected military operations, and as the climate changes, the way we execute operations may be altered or constrained.

While scientists are converging toward consensus on future climate projections, uncertainty remains. But this cannot be an excuse for delaying action. Every day, our military deals with global uncertainty. Our planners know that, as military strategist Carl von Clausewitz wrote, “all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight.”

It is in this context that today I am releasing DoD’s Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap. Climate change is a long-term trend, but with wise planning and risk mitigation now, we can reduce adverse impacts downrange.

Our first step in planning for these challenges is to identify the effects of climate change on the Department with tangible and specific metrics, using the best available science. We are almost done with a baseline survey to assess the vulnerability of our military’s more than 7,000 bases, installations, and other facilities. In places like the Hampton Roads region in Virginia, which houses the largest concentration of U.S. military sites in the world, we see recurrent flooding today, and we are beginning work to address a projected sea-level rise of 1.5 feet over the next 20 to 50 years.

Drawing on these assessments, we are integrating climate change considerations into our plans, operations, and training across the Department so that we can manage associated risks. We are considering the impacts of climate change in our war games and defense planning scenarios, and are working with our Combatant Commands to address impacts in their areas of responsibility.

At home, we are studying the implications of increased demand for our National Guard in the aftermath of extreme weather events. We are also assessing impacts on our global operations – for instance, how climate change may factor into our rebalance to the Asia-Pacific. Last year, I released the Department of Defense’s Arctic Strategy, which addresses the potential security implications of increased human activity in the Arctic – a consequence of rapidly melting sea ice.

We are also collaborating with relevant partners on climate change challenges. Domestically, this means working across our federal and local agencies and institutions to develop a comprehensive, whole-of-government approach to a challenge that reaches across traditional portfolios and jurisdictions. Within the U.S. government, DoD stands ready to support other agencies that will take the lead in preparing for these challenges – such as the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

We must also work with other nations to share tools for assessing and managing climate change impacts, and help build their capacity to respond. Climate change is a global problem. Its impacts do not respect national borders. No nation can deal with it alone. Today, I am meeting in Peru with Western Hemisphere defense ministers to discuss how we can work together to build joint capabilities to deal with these emerging threats.
Politics or ideology must not get in the way of sound planning. Our armed forces must prepare for a future with a wide spectrum of possible threats, weighing risks and probabilities to ensure that we will continue to keep our country secure. By taking a proactive, flexible approach to assessment, analysis, and adaptation, the Defense Department will keep pace with a changing climate, minimize its impacts on our missions, and continue to protect our national security.

Chuck Hagel is the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

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Blizzard warnings, travel bans, closures storm the East Coast

Travel bans, flight cancellations, power outages and school closures are being issued throughout the northeast coast. Here's a look at what's going on in each state:

NEW YORK

• Blizzard warning and coastal flood watch issued by the National Weather Service.
• No cars on the streets, outside of emergency vehicles, after 11 p.m. Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. Violation of this will count as a misdemeanor calling for a $300 fine, he said.
• Public transportation and commuter transportation out of Port Authority Bus Terminal shuts down at 11 p.m., Cuomo said.
• Free cab rides: Greater New York Taxi Association offered free cab service in NYC for emergency responders trying to get to work, and disabled and elderly residents who become stranded.
• Cuomo urged commuters to stay home Monday and warned that mass transit and roadways could be closed before the evening rush hour, even major highways such as the New York Thruway, Interstate 84 and the Long Island Expressway.
• All flights in and out of LaGuardia Airport on Tuesday are cancelled, Cuomo said. Flights in and out of John F. Kennedy Airport will be minimal, the governor said.
• Knicks vs. Kings: Monday night's New York Knicks game against the Sacramento Kings at Madison Square Garden is rescheduled for March 3.
• Nets vs. Trail Blazers: Brooklyn Nets' game against the Portland Trail Blazers at the Barclays Center is rescheduled for April 6.
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