Update on last week’s North Korea story. Pyongyang denied allegations of hacking Sony Pictures in retaliation to the new Seth Rogen movie, The Interview, where he and costar James Franco attempt to assassinate supreme leader Kim Jong Un.
North Korea asserts that the hacking was, rather, “a righteous deed of the supporters and sympathizers” of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The statement continues in a coy tone. The North stated that it does not know where Sony Pictures is, nor does it care about their “wrongdoings.”
Looking to thwart North Korean hackers (really, hackers of any ethnicity) is Google with their new technology that doesn’t solely rely on users deciphering a warped image of a word. CAPTCHA, over the years, has become much easier to breach.
“Our research recently showed that today’s Artificial Intelligence technology can solve even the most difficult variant of distorted text at 99.8% accuracy,” the company says.
Now, Google will be looking at users’ IP addresses, cookies, and mouse movement in order to ascertain whether the user in question is actually human. If the previous tests remain inconclusive reCAPTCHA — as it’s called — will still require a user to decipher a CAPTCHA proper.
Users on tablets and cell phones will have to play a picture matching game, where the computer for example will show a user a picture of a dog, and the user will have to click a picture of another dog.
Speaking of new things to do on your phone and tablet, Amazon and Proctor and Gamble are targeting tablet and phone users in new location, the public toilet. The new “Stall Mall” campaign urges customers to “Sit, Shop, and Save.”
Currently being tested in LA, New York, Philadelphia, and Seattle, the campaign is posting materials on bathroom walls: instructions on how to create an Amazon account and coupons for toiletries.
Newser states “A Charmin survey recently found that one-third of Americans prefer to be “productive” while heeding nature’s call, and 13% of those respondents who’ve shopped online while taking care of business picked up household goods.”
What will they think of next?!