Week in Geek: IPv6 Capable Smartphones Compromise User Privacy Edition

This week we learned how to "clone a disk, resize static windows, and create system function shortcuts", use 45 different services, sites, and apps to help read favorite sites, add MP3 support to Audacity (for saving in MP3 format), install a Wii game loader for easy backups and fast load times, create a Blue Screen of Death in any color, and more.

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This Week in Geek History: HAL Goes Live, First Alien Moon Landing, First Fighter Jet Ejection Seat

Every week we bring you interesting facts from the annuals of Geekdom. This week in Geek History saw the birth of HAL, the first landing on an alien moon, and the first real-world test of a fighter jet ejection seat.

HAL Goes Online

HAL, the sentient computer aboard the fictional Discovery spacecraft in Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, is one of the best known fictional representations of artificial intelligent in the literary and cinematic world. HAL made such an impression as the egomaniacal nemesis in the film that it was ranked 13th on AFI’s list of greatest movie villains. Per the timeline in the movie HAL became operational on January 12th, 1992—and then spent the next 9 years simply waiting to utter the words “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Huygens Lands on Titan

On January 14th, 2005 the European Space Agency’s probe Huygens landed on Titan (one of Saturn’s moons) after a nearly 8 year journey. The landing marked the first time scientific equipment had directly placed on an alien moon and the first landing on any planet or moon in the outer solar system. Although Huygens was intended to be merely a probe and not a lander it continued to transmit data back to the Cassini orbiter for relay back to Earth for a full 90 minutes.

First Ejection Seat

In January of 1942 a German test pilot, Helmut Schenck, became the first person to test an ejection seat under duress. His Heinkel He-280 jet fighter was being towed behind a conventional air craft when his wings iced up, rendering his engines useless. He popped the canopy and fired off his compressed-air powered ejection seat. Later models would trade compressed air for small explosive charges to achieve a faster and safer escape.

The 50 Best Ways to Disable Built-in Windows Features You Don’t Want

Over the years, we’ve written about loads of ways to disable features, tweak things that don’t work the way you want, and remove other things entirely. Here’s the list of the 50 best ways to do just that.

Updated Google Goggles Scans Faster; Solves Sudoku Puzzles

Google Goggles, the popular scan-the-real-world mobile app, has updated to include some great improvements and a novel trick–the ability to solve Sudoku puzzles at a lightning pace.

The barcode scanner is now significantly faster. Just hold the barcode in view of the phone and it will vibrate when it has captured the barcode. No fussing with button pushing necessary. Goggles also rocks a print-to-web identification tool; snap a picture of an ad in a major newspaper or magazine published after August 2010 and you’ll be linked to web results related to the product.

The most novel update, however, is the lightning fast Sudoku solver. Check out the demo video below:

The improved barcode scanning is only available for the Android version, the iPhone version (part of Google Mobile Apps on iPhone) still gets the print-ad recognition and Sudoku solver. Visit the link below for additional information or simply update your existing Google Goggles install to start using the new features.

Google Goggles Gets Faster, Smarter, and Solves Sudoku [The Official Google Blog]

Open Doors [Game]

Open Doors - How-To Geek Arcade

Did You Know Facebook Has Built-In Shortcut Keys?

I was spending some time browsing around Facebook today (translation: wasting time), when I noticed that they have some shortcut keys for navigating around the site using the keyboard, so I put together a list for everybody.

Note: for each of these shortcut keys, if you’re using Firefox, you’ll need to use Shift+Alt instead of just Alt, and for Internet Explorer you’ll need to hit the Enter key after the shortcut to trigger it. If you’re using a Mac, you’ll need to use Ctrl+Opt instead of Alt.

New Message: Alt + M

This shortcut key doesn’t seem to work in Internet Explorer at all, but if you’re using Google Chrome or Firefox, it should work fine, though Firefox will use Shift+Alt+M instead.

Search Box: Alt + ?

This shortcut key is the same in Chrome and Internet Explorer, but is Shift+Alt+? in Firefox—it’s really a very useful shortcut, since the search box gets you access to all your friends easily.

Home Page: Alt + 1

This shortcut takes you to your home page—if you’re in Firefox it’s Shift+Alt+1 and IE is Alt+1 and then Enter.

Your Profile: Alt + 2

This shortcut takes you to your profile page—if you’re in Firefox it’s Shift+Alt+2 and IE is Alt+2 and then Enter.

Friend Requests: Alt + 3

This shortcut is somewhat useless unless you’re the most popular person in the world, as it opens up the friend requests page. If you’re in Firefox it’s Shift+Alt+3 and IE is Alt+3 and then Enter.

Messages: Alt + 4

This shortcut opens up the Messages dialog. If you’re in Firefox it’s Shift+Alt+4 and IE is Alt+4 and then Enter.

Notifications: Alt + 5

This shortcut opens up the Notifications dialog. If you’re in Firefox it’s Shift+Alt+5 and IE is Alt+5 and then Enter.

There’s a couple of other shortcut keys, for Alt+6 through 0 on the keyboard, which take you to the settings, privacy, about, terms, and help pages.

Via How-To Geek