Inside Edition Investigates Power Bracelets

They've worn by some of the most successful athletes in the world. Basketball superstar Kobe Bryant wears one, and Shaquile O'Neal swears by them.

Celebrities wear them too. Trendy wristbands and bracelets that supposedly increase strength, balance, and even improve health.

Mark Wahlberg wore one at the Golden Globes and when he appeared on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson.

And Kevin Dillon, from the hit show Entourage, says his bracelet works so well he won't even take it off during filming.  When INSIDE EDITION caught up with him on the red carpet, he showed off the wristband he was wearing and said, "If I go somewhere without it, my neck is going to hurt."

So what's the secret? The companies say they're made from special materials like mysterious holograms or unique metals that can make you feel better. But is it really a bunch of baloney?

One of the most successful companies is Power Balance, selling $35 million worth of their hologram bracelets last year.

Former President Bill Clinton wore one. Even the future princess of England, Kate Middleton has been seen wearing one.

And reality star Audrina Patridge thought the wristband would give her an edge on Dancing With the Stars.  "I thought it would help me stay balanced while I was dancing. I think it really works," she said.

But does it? We asked Dr. Steven Novella, a clinical neurologist at the Yale University School of Medicine to review the claims made by Power Balance.

INSIDE EDITION Chief Investigative Correspondent Lisa Guerrero read him one of those claims. "The hologram incorporated into the bracelet is designed to respond to the natural energy field in your body and it helps you perform to the best of your ability. Do you believe that?"

"Not for a second. That is based upon nothing. That is literally made up marketing hype," Novella said.

So how do you explain the impressive demonstration the company shows. During a balance test, the subject, standing on one leg with their arms outstretched, easily falls over when someone presses down on one of their arms without power balance. But after the bracelet is put on, his balance appears much stronger!

Dr. Novella showed Lisa Guererro how he believes they do it.

"I'm going to show how easy it is to push you over by putting a little bit of pressure. I'm barely pushing you, you go right over," he explained

Next, instead of giving her a power balance bracelet to wear, Dr. Novella had something else in mind. "You can use my magical car keys."

With Guererro holding a set of car keys, Novella can push very hard and she's not falling over.

"These are magic car keys.  How did you do that?" asked Guerrero

"Very simple," Novella said.  "It's all physics.  When I want you to fall over, I push straight down. When I don't want you to fall, I just push slightly inward.  Now I'm pushing (at an angle) towards your feet. It's just physics. You're not going to fall over. It looks very compelling if you don't know what's going on."

Power Balance insists there are no tricks involved and that their products work.

Company executives wouldn't agree to an interview, so INSIDE EDITION went to a Power Balance sponsored event in New Orleans to try to talk to a representative.

Sure enough, they were doing that same balance test to impress potential customers. But before Guerrero could even ask a question, she and her crew were kicked out.

"Please stop filming," said a company representative.

The bottom line, according to Dr. Novella: "They can't work and in fact there is no evidence that they do work."

Recently the makers of Power Balance admitted to Australian authorities that there is no credible scientific basis for their claims. But, the company told INSIDE EDITION the bracelets do work and they stand behind their products.

All the manufacturers say their customers are very satisfied and they offer a money back guarantee.

Most IT Departments Will Support IPv6 by 2013

In a new NetworkWorld survey of 200 IT pros, 70 percent said their Web servers would be upgraded to IPv6 within the next two years. In addition, 65 percent say they will upgrade their internal networks to the new protocol within the same timeframe.
The survey also found that 86 percent of those surveyed had already begun investigating whether their existing hardware and software supports IPv6. Although only 16 percent said that "all" of their current hardware and software are IPv6-ready, 46 percent said that "most" of it is.

Microsoft Releases Windows Phone 'Mango' to Manufacturing

Software giant Microsoft may be slow to bring the first major update to its entry into the smartphone sweepstakes to market, but Tuesday afternoon it announced that update -- codenamed "Mango" -- has now been released to mobile handset makers. Public availability is not far off.
"The Windows Phone development team officially signed off on the release to manufacturing (RTM) build of 'Mango' -- the latest version of the Windows Phone operating system [which] marks the point in the development process where we hand code to our handset and mobile operator partners to optimize Mango for their specific phone and network configurations," Terry Myerson, corporate vice president of Windows Phone engineering, said in a post to the Windows Phone Blog Tuesday afternoon.
The first edition of Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Windows Phone 7 (WP7) first shipped on new smartphones last November.
WP7 has gone through a couple of minor updates since then, but nothing on the scale of Mango, which Microsoft has claimed adds as many as 500 new and updated features, including a native version of Internet Explorer 9.

Meantime, as Microsoft's hardware OEM partners ready, test, and build new and updated Mango-based Windows Phones to debut this fall, the software titan's own minions are hurrying to get the update ready to deploy to existing Windows Phones already in users' hands.
”Here on the Windows Phone team, we now turn to preparing for the update process. The Mango update for current Windows Phone handsets will be ready this fall," Meyerson's post added.
Microsoft so far does not have any other major updates publicly scheduled after Mango, although it's a cinch they are in work. Microsoft is desperate to make significant headway in the smartphone marketplace, going so far as to ink a deal last winter with Nokia to use Windows Phone exclusively on the Finnish phone makers' smartphones.
Earlier this month, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer quipped at the company's annual partner meeting that, since it shipped less than a year ago, Windows Phone's share has gone from "very small to very small."

Impressive PC Case Mods

1. Weighted Companion Cube (via)

2. Overflowed Toilet (via)

3. CompuBeaver (via)

4. Toaster PC (via)

5. Tire PC (via)

6. Wrestlemania (via)

7. Wii PC (via)

8. Whiskey Bottle PC (via)

9. Wall Socket PC that actually fits into a wall socket (via)

10. Volcanus (via)

11. Victorian PC (via)

12. Underwood No. 5 (via)

13. Trashcan PC (via)

14. Table PC (via)

15. Stained Glass PC (via)

16. Scooter PC (via)

17. PC-O-Lantern (via)

18. The PicoCube (via)

19. Piano PC (via)

20. Optimus Prime (via)

21. Mirtus Communicus (via)

22. The Temple of Nod (via)

23. TIE Fighter (via)

24. Weapon of Mass Destruction (via)

25. Windows XP Box PC (via)

26. Pyramid PC (via)

27. Microwave PC (via)

28. The Unidyne PC (via)

29. LOST (via)

30. There’s a tiny living room in that PC! (via)

31. Creepy Leela PC (via)

32. Terrifying Kratos PC (via)

33. Half-Life 2 PC (via)

34. Gingerbread House PC (via)

35. Edelweiss PC (via)

36. Doom 3’s Mars City (via)

37. Div from Penny Arcade (via)

38. Beer Dispenser PC (via)

39. Bite this shiny metal Bender PC (via)

40. BioShock PC (via)

41. Batmobile Tumbler (via)

42. Concrete PC (via)

43. Creepy Russian PC (via)

44. PCERMINATE! (via)

45. Alien PC (via)

A Hacker Speaks: How Malware Might Blow Up Your Laptop

We depend on our computers to get work done, and so we try to safeguard them appropriately. But our trusty laptops, desktops, and tablets rely on their own internal network of sophisticated computer chips to function. These tiny chips--called microcontrollers--regulate everything from the battery in your laptop to the headlights on your car--and they aren’t always so secure.
Microcontrollers have their own CPU and enough discrete memory to run simple programs, and although they’re usually designed for a single task, they can be reprogrammed via updates to the device firmware. Typically the hardware manufacturer delivers such downloadable updates to improve the performance of your device, but there’s nothing stopping a hacker from mimicking those updates and injecting your device with malicious code.

Charlie Miller
Thankfully, hackers such as Charlie Miller are happy to demonstrate the potential pitfalls of purchasing hardware from manufacturers that don’t secure seemingly "dumb" devices like batteries. Miller is a security researcher for Accuvant Labs, and after demonstrating how a hacker could take over your iPhone with a text message at the Black Hat security conference in 2009, he went looking for a more exciting hack.
"I’d just wrapped a presentation on iPhone hacking and wanted to work on something more flashy," said Miller during an interview with PCWorld. "I wanted to know, could a remote hacker do something to cause physical damage to a computer? Like, could I set my sister’s laptop on fire?"
As it turns out, he probably could. Miller experimented with the seven or eight MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air models he had won in Pwn2Own hacking competitions over the past three years, and he found that most modern laptop batteries are part of a Smart Battery System that relays information between the battery and the laptop’s operating system to ensure that power is safely stored and discharged. If you’ve ever wondered how your laptop knows exactly how much time you have left before the battery dies, it’s because of this system.
Every laptop battery needs a microcontroller to relay information back and forth, and that microcontroller needs to run firmware independently of the laptop. That firmware is accessible through the laptop, but is not affected if you wipe your laptop’s memory or reinstall the operating system.

 

Miller paid the price for his experiments with a pile of dead Apple laptop batteries.
This arrangement is a privacy breach waiting to happen: Malicious hackers with access to your laptop could load small spyware programs onto your battery chip, where they would run--undetected by any antivirus software.
"You could inject malware [from the battery] into a laptop, you just need to find a vulnerability in the OS that would allow battery firmware to exchange code,” Miller speculates. “It’s even possible to execute a kind of denial-of-service attack on your laptop by hammering the operating system with bluff code."
Even wiping or replacing the hard drive wouldn’t catch this type of malware, and since these chips regulate critical system functions such as battery levels or charging speed, there is a potential for serious damage.
"I was able to make the battery lie to the computer about things like how charged it was or how hot it was,” Miller says. “If you changed those variables, something really bad could happen."
Thankfully, the Texas Instruments microcontrollers that Miller pulled off of his Apple batteries are password-protected. Anyone who tries to modify the firmware needs to enter two different passwords, which are set by default when the chips leave the factory. The problem is that Apple has not been changing those default passwords, which means it was child’s play for Miller to reprogram his MacBook Air’s battery using default passwords obtained from Texas Instruments’ website.
"Texas Instruments didn’t do anything wrong," Miller says. “It’s all Apple’s fault for not scrambling the passwords. Other PC manufacturers could use these chips and secure them correctly.”
In fact, many battery manufacturers are doing just that; when Miller bought a replacement battery with the same Texas Instruments chip for his 13-inch MacBook from a third-party manufacturer on eBay, he was unable to access the firmware because the manufacturer had changed the passwords.

A typical Smart Battery System. In this case, the system host is your laptop.
“It’s so easy to change these passwords. Apple should definitely do it, but they can’t safely update existing models," Miller notes. Although Apple and other laptop manufacturers could immediately scramble the passwords with a firmware update, malicious hackers could just reverse-engineer that update to figure out the new password. "They need to start scrambling the passwords before these laptops leave the factory."
To date we’ve heard no reports of privacy breaches or malware attacks via device firmware, but since batteries and other "dumb" devices are ignored by traditional security software, it’s impossible to know whether their failure is natural or engineered.
"There's definitely a risk that malware could brick your battery so it never works again," Miller warns. "I don’t know why someone would do that, except just to be mean."
We contacted Apple for comment on this article, but received no response. Miller has already notified both Apple and Texas Instruments of his findings, and will be presenting his research at the 2011 Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas this weekend. There he will also release CaulkGun, a program he wrote that you can use to scramble the passwords on your laptop battery.
"The good news is that malware won’t be able to brick your battery," Miller claims. "The bad news is that Apple won’t be able to update your battery firmware."

A key fell off the laptop keyboard. Fixing the problem.

One or more keys fell off the laptop keyboard and you are not sure how to put them back? Don’t worry, most likely you can fix the keyboard and it’s not necessary to buy a new one. There is no universal repair guide because all keyboards are different. Here’s what I usually do in this case.
Situation 1. The key cap and key retainer fell off the keyboard and you cannot figure out how to assemble them back.




Carefully remove the cap from any other working key so the key retainer stays connected to the keyboard.

Take a closer look at the key retainer, it’s connected to the keyboard at four different points.

Assemble the disconnected retainer the same way as one on the keyboard and put it back in place.

Put the key cap on the retainer and snap the cap back in place.

Situation 2. The key fell off the keyboard and you lost the cap or the retainer. In this case you can purchase a single key here, just search for it. (Search examples: “Dell keyboard key”, “Toshiba keyboard key”, “HP keyboard key”, etc… )
After you found a new key, put it back in place the same way as I described in the situation 1.
Installing the space bar key.
The space bar key is connected to the keyboard a little bit differently then any other key.

There is a metal retainer connected to the space bar key (on some keyboard models). Separate the retainer from the space bar key with a flat head screwdriver.

Install the retainer back in place as it shown on the picture. You have to engage the retainer with the small hooks on the keyboard.

Put the space bar key back in place and gently press on it with fingers until it snaps back in place.

That’s it. The space bar key is installed back in place and should work as before. If you still cannot fix your keyboard, then you’ll have to find a new one and replace it.
Here’s another technique you can use to fix a broken keyboard key.
As you see on the picture below the keyboard is missing the U key. The key cap, retainer and even silicone membrane were lost. Let’s see if it’s possible to temporarily fix the U key without buying any spare parts.
Personally, I cannot use keyboard without U key but I can live without a key located on the side from the right ALT – the “Right clicker” key. In the following guide I will remove one key I never use and install it in the place of missing U.

Carefully remove the key cap with your fingers.

Remove the retainer. The retainer has two pieces connected to each other. If one piece got disconnected from the other, connect them back together.

The silicon membrane is glued to the keyboard. Very very slowly separate the membrane from the keyboard with a sharp knife. While creating this disassembly guide I damaged one membrane because I wasn’t careful enough.
Again, you have to be very careful removing the membrane.
If you damage the membrane you’ll end up with two broken keys instead of just one.

The silicon membrane has been removed.

Now apply some superglue on the bottom edge of the membrane, just enough to keep the membrane in the place.

Carefully place the membrane in the center of the U. Make sure the membrane is positioned correctly. Wait until the glue cures.

Install the retainer.

Position the key cap above the retainer. Gently press on the key cap until it clips in and connects to the retainer.

Now you can use the U key again.

Troubleshooting. Why the key will not clip on.

Turn the key upside down and take a closer look at the locking clips. It’s possible that one of the clips is damaged and because of that the key will not clip on the retainer. If that’s the case, you’ll have to purchase a new key.

On the next picture you can see that one of the clips is missing, it’s broken. This key will not stay connected to the retainer either. If that’s the case, you’ll have to purchase a new key.

It’s possible that the key is fine, but the retainer itself is broken. On the next picture you can see that one of the tips is missing on the retainer. The left tip is OK, but the right one is missing. If that’s the case, you’ll have to purchase a new retainer.

Here’s one more picture. In this case two parts of the retainer will not stay connected to each other. It happens because one of the tips is broken. The left tip is OK, but the right one is missing. If that’s the case, you’ll have to purchase a new retainer.