But since its release date I’ve noticed that a big number of Starcraft 2 fans lost their Starcraft 2 CD key number and they do not know how to retrieve it without searching through torrents, warez, cracks, rapidshare, piratebay or other similar illegal websites that contain cracks, keygens etc. So, if you’re one of those Starcraft 2 owners that lost or misplaced their original Starcraft 2 CD serial key, you should go to the guys at Softsailor where you can find an excellent guide on how to retrieve your Starcraft 2 serial key without looking through illegal websites. Click here to read it.

I hope that you’ve managed to find the Starcraft 2 CD serial key and that now you can re-install the game.

Starcraft 2

Security Suite malware will start a system scan when Windows logs in and the scanning results provided by it are all fake. After Security Suite scans your system you will be shown the results and it tells you that if you want to get rid of the so-called viruses, you will have to buy the complete version of Security Suite. All the ‘infected’ files in the scanning results menu are in fact perfectly secure files and if you decided to buy it, then i’m sorry to say this, you are an idiot and you should contact immediately your credit card company and explain them that your last transaction is a virus.

If you want to get rid of the Security Suite virus, you will need to use two applications.

1. Rkill.com is the first one that you need to use. Rkill will end all the Security Suite running processes. This action is needed in order to stop Security Suite from running and so you can use the second tool to delete it completely from your PC.
2. The application that is capable of removing Security Suite from your PC is Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, aka MBAM. The MBAM tool will start searching your PC for viruses and at the end of it you will have to simply hit the ‘remove selected’ virus files and when the removal process is completed your system will be completely clean of any virus file.

This are the two applications that you need to use if you want to remove Security Suite malware from your PC.

For a more detailed removal guide on how to remove the Security Suite virus, you will need to follow this link and for sure you will get rid of it.

Security Suite Virus

Marvel Entertainment is being bought by The Walt Disney Company in a stock and cash transaction. They’ve agreed that the Marvel shareholders will receive $30 per share and 0.745 Disney shares for each Marvel share. The total transaction is $50 per Marvel share, which is allmost $4 billion.

“We believe that adding Marvel to Disney’s unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation,” said Robert A. Iger, Disney’s CEO.

“This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney’s tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world,” stated Ike Perlmutter, Marvel’s CEO.

Disney got it’s hands on Marvel’s portfolio which includes over 5,000 characters, like Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man or X-Men.

If you don’t want to get infected with this kind of  viruses you have to remember to be careful with the things you download and the pages you visit. Also there is no website that can scan your computer for viruses without you approving it.

We’ll teach you how to get rid of Windows Police Pro:

Stopping the Windows Police Pro Process

Press Start + R, type “taskmgr” and press enter. Then find Windows Police Pro.exe, select it and press “End Process”.

Removing Windows Police Pro Registry entries

Press Start + R, type “regedit” and press enter. Find the “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Windows Police Pro
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Windows Police Pro” key and delete it. Be careful not to delete other keys.

Removing Windows Police Pro Files

Find and delete the following files:

The Samsung NC10 netbook measures 10.27 x 7.3 x 1.19-inch while weighing 2.8 lbs. Nothing unusual here, netbooks are supposed to be small and lightweight and this one doesn’t make an exception. The Samsung NC10 is powered by an 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of DDR2, 160GB HDD SATA, and a 5200mAh 6-cell battery which provides up to 6 hours of battery life. Well, the specs are OK, and normal until the battery. This is just great, the battery life is excellent. Just imagine: 6 hours of continuous run – what more could you ask?

The Samsung NC10 netbook features a 10.2-inch WSVGA SuperBright widescreen with a 1024 x 600 resolution. The good thing is that it’s sunlight readable therefore you won’t damage your eyes when using the netbook outdoor. Like almost all netbooks, Samsung NC10 runs on Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3.

I must say that I appreciate the fact that the Samsung NC10 features an integrated 1.3-megapixel webcam so that you can broadcast live from an event. At the connectivity area, the netbook comes packed with WLAN 802.11 b/g, 10/100 Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, but no modem. Well, I can like without the mode, but the rest of the specs are absolutely normal and useful.

The really bad part about the Samsung NC10 is that it doesn’t feature an optical disk drive. I understand that netbook are supposed to be small / compact, and lightweight, however, I definitely need a place to introduce a CD or a DVD. Maybe it would have been better if the netbook would have featured a SSD instead of a HDD.

The Samsung NC10 netbook features a VGA port, headphone jack, microphone jack, built-in microphone, 3 x USB 2.0 port, 3-in-1 card reader, but no S-Video, HDMI, and IEEE1394 ports. The latter ports would have been useful, but they are not necessary which means that it will not affect my score.

I must praise the webcam, and all the specs of a conventional netbook. The Samsung NC10 was built to be useful and to do what a netbook does best. It shouldn’t be out of the ordinary, but I would have loved the netbook to sport an optical disk drive. I shouldn’t forget the battery which is great, and the keyboard which is amazing, however, the trackpad is small and this is another drawback. I would give the Samsung NC10 a 8.7 out of 10 score, but folks over at TestFreaks gave it a 10 out of 10 score.

I must warn you: the Samsung NC10 costs a little too much, but you can find at Amazon in multiple colors like Blue for $399.95, Black for $466.50, and White for $419.99.

Throughout the world there are about 8,000 Rubber Tired Gantry cranes which do a lot of damage to the environment due to huge fuel consumption, and gas emissions. In order to reduce the harmful emissions, an ECE researcher called Mark Flynn has developed a device that can be integrated in ports around the world. Dr. Flynn designed a high-speed flywheel motor controller which reduces the fuel consumption of the RTG cranes which are powered by a diesel motor.

The RTG cranes can move a shipping container in three minutes, and this requires a lot of power especially in the lift as these containers weigh 50 metric tons depending on their load. Also, considering the fact that the descent requires a special attention, then you can only imagine how much power the cranes consume. The high-speed flywheel motor controller can be integrated in RTG’s energy storage systems, and it will capture the so-called “braking energy”, and it will use it for the next crane.

VYCON Inc. is the company that produces Flynn’s device, and sea ports are among the best places to test new greener technologies. RTG cranes lose a lot of power when maneuvering containers, and instead of using it for the upcoming containers, the energy is dissipated as wasted heat. Like aforementioned, Flynn’s device captures the energy and uses it for the next load.

According to some field tests in China, the flywheel energy storage system can also lower power requirements which will save a lot of energy. The tests also showed that the fuel consumption was lowered by 38%, while NOx and PM emissions were dramatically cut down. Driven by the success of the VYCON flywheel, now data centers and hospitals are replacing industrial batteries with the high-speed flywheel motor controller.

“Industrial batteries are less expensive initially than a flywheel, but when you factor in maintenance and having to pay for more charge than you need to avoid frequent battery replacement a flywheel-based solution can be considerable less expensive. A VYCON flywheel will last 20 years and eliminates the problem of what to do with 200 large-scale toxic lead-acid batteries,” said Flynn.

You don’t have to be a genius to tell that data centers and hospitals can’t afford blackouts as many lives and businesses depend on them. Although hospitals and data back-up centers have back-up diesel generators, their energy will not be entirely utilized which means that the energy is lost forever. VYCON’s flywheel can handle most power outages, and if an outage persists then the device will absorb “energy abnormalities” and transfer power to generators.

“I am very pleased with the fuel and emissions savings results we are seeing and with additional improvements currently under research that aim to improve the savings further. Future work will investigate the feasibility of using flywheels in subway rail stations to accelerate one train with the braking energy recovered from another. Doing so will not only save energy but can be used to defer or eliminate the costs of adding utility substations as rail service grows,” explained Flynn.

The VYCON flywheel has a promising future ahead of it, we expect even more from the device. It’s not hard to tell that in the 8,000 sea ports around the world, a lot of energy is wasted while harmful emissions are released in the atmosphere damaging the entire eco-system. Maybe this flywheel energy storage system will help us save the planet, and the tests clearly show that. Expert environmentalists just have to “convince” the authorities to integrate the device in sea ports, and later in other applications.

Researchers from the New York University have developed a new multi-touch display which is cheaper and more flexible than conventional touchscreens. iPhone-like screens can be operated with only one finger, while Microsoft’s touch-surface is expensive and rigid, but this new multitouch interface is flexible, meaning that it can be sized to fit small devices, and it can also be designed to fit a wall. The New York University researchers have called it the Inexpensive Multi-Touch Pressure Acquisition Device, and they will unveil it at the Computer Human Interaction show in Boston next week.

You might be wondering what’s so special about the IMPAD – well, iPhone-like touchscreens measure capacitance changes when an object or finger touches the display; other touch interfaces like surface screens are based on cameras to check the position of the objects or fingers; other displays like Perceptive Pixel are also based on cameras, but they capture information using infrared light and pressure, and they are not practical for use with small devices. On the other hand, IMPAD consists of few layers of materials and it measures the change of electrical resistance when it comes in contact with a finger or an object.

“One of the problems that’s been endemic to multitouch sensors is . . . you’re either touching it or not touching it. A significant amount of potentially useful information is thrown away because the sensor isn’t capturing the subtleties,” said Ken Perlin, Professor of Media Research at the New York University.

Another advantage of IMPAD is that it measures the pressure that a person applies to the touchpad meaning that it can measure how hard you press it and this opens up a broad range of applications – the device can be used to control a piano keyboard or other musical instruments, or you can use it for virtual painting or sculpting.

Aforementioned, I said that IMPAD consists of few materials, and according to Ilya Rosenberg, graduate researcher and co-author at the study, the device is based on two plastic sheets which measure 8 to 10 inches, and each include parallel lines of electrodes. The lines of electrodes are spaced a quarter-inch apart, and you will notice that they form a grid, and each intersection is actually a pressure sensor. The key to the IMPAD device is the FSR (force sensitive resistor) ink which “features” tiny bumps on its surface, and which was previously used  on musical instruments.

How does the FSK ink work? Well, when you press an object coated with the ink, the microscopic bumps move along and touch each other while conducting electricity.

“The harder you press, the more it conducts,” said Rosenberg.

In order to make it perfect, the NYU team of researchers were looking to measure the exact placement of an object touching the IMPAD, but they needed too many sensors and expensive wiring for that. The goal was to measure to a resolution of 100 dots per square inch, and instead of using something expensive, they developed a complex algorithm that calculates the input at each intersection, and inserts the exact position of a finger or object, no matter how small it is.

The algorithm also allows the touch interface to realize when you press with two fingers – it collects information, sends it to a computer which measures the intensity and the exact placement of the objects, and according to Rosenberg, the computer collects information from the multi-touch pad 50 to 200 times per second, but the researchers are still looking to improve the technology.

“The pad gives you an animated pressure picture but has only 20 connectors or so coming out of it. This sounds like it’s not a big deal, but it makes it feasible to use it on very small mobile devices such as our nanoTouch,” said Patrick Baudisch, a researcher at Microsoft which collaborates with the NYU researchers.

For the moment, the researchers would like to commercialize this technology, while in the future the NYU team predicts that IMPAD will replace conventional touchscreen in cellphones and other touch-based devices. The multi-touch interface could be used as a skin for robots giving them the possibility to detect and feel touch. Also the technology could be used in construction industry as it could measure stress on structures and buildings. Only the future will tell if this technology will have enourmous implications in various topics. Until then stay tuned, and we will come with more information next week from Boston.

The US Government is looking to deploy a Smart Grid infrastructure and this would a big step forward in the quest of “removing” our dependence on fossil fuels, and making use of clean energies. However, the Smart Grid technology has a massive flaw – cybersecurity. According to a study conducted by IOActive, these digitally-based electricity distributions systems can be hacked by almost anyone and the repercussions will be massive blackouts.

IOActive is a professional security services company and they claim that a hacker (or as many call it, some kid in a basement) with $500 worth of equipment, some knowledge in software engineering and electronics, can get himself into the Smart Grid system and then control the electricity distribution on thousand of miles. After the hacker breaks into the system, he can shut electricity down leaving thousands of homes and businesses in a massive blackout.

In the study, IOActive also confirms that hackers can increase or decrease the amount of power on a local power grid which will disrupt the power load balance and eventually cause another blackout. This would be only a so-called “localized power outage”, but it can be spread to other power grids meaning that we will face with a massive blackout. Experts say that it’s not possible to predict where this cascade of blackouts will be spread, but the consequences are very clear and very alarming.

Although people cannot wait for the Smart Grid to enter online, IOActive experts say that this will have to wait as the grids are not cyber-safe and they are very vulnerable to hackers as there are no cybersecurity standards for Smart Grids.

“There are a lot of discussions about where the requirements will come from and who will be ultimately responsible,” said a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.

Many experts back the Smart Grids as “the benefits outweigh the risks”, but none of them advise State officials to invest in this infrastructure, and the reasons are obvious. However, Smart Grids will be deployed very soon, but if they are not safe what should we do? Experts say that these security problem will have to be solved quickly, before the technology enters online. For the moment we can’t do anything about it, we just have to put ourselves in the hands of experts. I wonder how safe is that, but do we have other alternatives?

Do you remember Apple’s $99 iPhone Bluetooth headset? Of course you do. Well, it seems like this product is history now as the Apple Store clearly shows that it has been discontinued. Although I personally don’t know anybody who bought the $99 Bluetooth headset, it’s very possible that the product was sold out and Apple cannot catch up with the orders. But this would be just a dream for Apple, and it’s more likely that the company is preparing to release an update to the iPhone Bluetooth headset.

This could be a result of the iPhone OS 3.0 as Apple might be preparing for a hardware update, but who knows? The $99 iPhone Bluetooth headset was discontinued last week, but so far Apple didn’t release an official statement. All that we know is from a conversation that a MacRumors forum user had with an operator who said that “there is not anything wrong with those”  and that they “do not have any other Apple bluetooth headsets available, but we do have several other manufacturers headsets that will work great with the iPhone.”

So, what should we do? Expect another Blueooth headset in the summer? Or sooner? Did Apple admit that the Bluetooth headset was too expensive considering its rather poor quality by discontinuing this product? Well, as soon as we will know more, we will let you know so stay tuned!

Today seems to be the day when a lot of strange things happen. After Microsoft’s Notebook Cooling Case, now it seems like Sprint is testing LTE equipment. Why is this bizarre? Well, because Sprint is the last who supports Clearwire’s WiMAX equipment which is now deploying a US-wide WiMAX network. Here are John Polivka’s words in a conversation with our fellows from GigaOM:

“You know of our commitment to WiMAX as our 4G play, the only next gen technology commercially offered. … As a prudent Technology Development organization we are always collecting competitive information about various technologies/equipment to monitor and assess the competitive landscape and any potential impacts to Sprint’s plans.”

So, what Mr. Polivka is saying is that they love and that they are fully committed to WiMAX, but this doesn’t mean they cannot test other technologies. Coincidence or not, there is 4G equipment and that is LTE. Also remember the fact that Sprint and Clearwire signed a $3.2 billion deal which involves the use of LTE-compatible equipment for the Clear WiMAX network, and this means that if Sprint decides to go for LTE then they won’t have to make such a big change.

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