The new technology relies on “swept frequency capacitive sensing” capable of processing far more information than current touch sensors that monitor a single frequency to detect single and multiple finger movements. Touché can monitor multiple frequencies, allowing it to understand hand grasps, complex finger gestures, and body position such as when a user is covering her ears or uses his elbows to lean on a table.

Touché can be used in almost any object imaginable because it requires just a single electrical conductor embedded into the object and then a wired or wireless connection to a sensor controller. Disney imagines you could have a Touché-enabled living room where you sit down on your sofa and the TV automatically turns on. As you get more comfortable and lean back to enjoy the show, your living room lights would dim. And if you become so comfortable that you fall asleep, the sensors in  your sofa would recognize this and shut down the TV for better rest. You could also put touch sensitivity into a doorknob that would lock based on how firmly you grasped the door handle, or even unlock with a “gesture password,” a feature in use today in Android smartphones and upcoming Windows 8 PCs.

Touché’s wireless component can turn your own body into a touch sensor by attaching electrodes to your wrists and relaying your hand gestures to a sensor controller via Bluetooth. Disney predicts eventual interface-free MP3 players and smartphones that can be manipulated by a series of gestures such as tapping two fingers in the palm of your hand for volume control. “It is not inconceivable that one day mobile devices could have no screens or buttons and rely exclusively on the body as the input surface,” according to a Disney video demonstrating the technology.

Another novel capability of Touché is turning water into a touch surface. Disney’s demonstration video shows a home aquarium with an electrode placed at the bottom of the tank. In the video, Touché’s sensor can tell whether a user is touching the water with a finger or hand, and can even distinguish between touches on the water’s surface and a submerged hand or finger.

Disney researchers are presenting their new technology on Monday at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Austin, an event produced by the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI).

According to researchers at eleven, a German security firm, the new drive-by spam automatically downloads malware when an email is opened in the email client. The user doesn’t have to click on a link or open an attachment — just opening the email is enough.

“The new generation of email-borne malware consists of HTML e-mails which contain a JavaScript which automatically downloads malware when the email is opened,” eleven says in a news release.”This is similar to so-called drive-by downloads, which infect a PC by opening an infected website in the browser.”

The current wave of drive-by spam contains the subject “Banking security update” and has a sender address with the domain fdic.com. If the email client allows HTML emails to be displayed, the HTML code is immediately activated.

The user only sees the note “Loading…Please wait,” eleven says. In the meantime, the attempt is made to scan the PC and download malware.

Aside from updating their anti-spam and anti-malware tools, users can fight the new attack by deactivating the display of HTML e-mails in their email client, eleven advises. They can choose the option of displaying emails in pure-text format only.

Netgear today announced the availability of the Netgear R6300 WiFi Router; the first 802.11ac dual band gigabit WiFi router enabling 5th generation WiFi (5G WiFi) at gigabit speeds. The router is also backwards compatible with 802.11a/b/g/n which provides optimum interoperability with legacy WiFi devices.

The NETGEAR R6300 WiFi Router, powered by Broadcom’s 5G WiFi IEEE 802.11ac chips, is up to three times faster than today’s 802.11n routers. With an elegant new design that fits perfectly in consumers’ living spaces, the router increases the coverage area for HD streaming in the home. The NETGEAR R6300 WiFi Router has speeds of up to 1300 Mbps on 5GHz and 450 Mbps on 2.4GHz enabling consumers to download web content from any device in the home in a fraction of the time it would take on a similar 802.11n device.

The upcoming 802.11ac wireless standard is the world’s fastest WiFi, providing gigabit WiFi speeds allowing for web content to download faster, and large video or music files to synch more quickly. The increased speed of 802.11ac technology is ideal for mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, by providing three times the performance for a similar amount of battery consumption of devices utilizing the current 802.11n WiFi standard.

Other advanced features of the NETGEAR R6300 WiFi Router include:
● NETGEAR Genie: This free app for PCs, Macs, iOS and Android smartphones and tablets enables home users to control, monitor, repair, and manage their home networks easily through a simple, elegant dashboard. NETGEAR customers can download the utility at http://www.netgear.com/genie or from the Google Play or App Store.
● NETGEAR MyMedia: The NETGEAR Genie mobile app feature provides the ability to find photos, video or music files anywhere on the network and play them on a DLNA media player.
● AirPrint Support: The NETGEAR Genie app enables users to print on any USB or networked printer directly from an iPad or iPhone.
● Guest network access: The NETGEAR Genie app makes setting up a guest network simple. Guests and visitors can go online through the router without the need for secure login information. The guest network also prevents users from seeing and accessing a household’s computers, printers, storage devices and other home network devices.
● ReadySHARE Printer: Makes it easy to turn any existing USB printer into a fully functional networked printer that is fully compatible with Macs and PCs.
● Media Server-DLNA: The R6300 Router is DLNA ready and can stream to any DLNA compatible device in your house, including the latest Smart TVs, Blu-ray players, media players, game consoles, handheld devices, tablets and more.
● NETGEAR Live Parental Controls: Centralized, flexible, and reliable parental control solution for all the devices on the network, including Macs, Windows PCs, smartphones and tablets, for a safe online environment for children and teenagers. No subscription is required.
● Automatic WiFi Security: Comes with wireless security turned on out-of-the-box, complete with a pre-configured network name and password, protecting home WiFi networks by default.
● Easy Installation: No CD required so users can set it up with smartphones, tablets, ultrabooks, and even MacBook Air.
● 2 USB ports: To simultaneously support USB storage and USB printer on the router.

Pricing and Availability
The NETGEAR R6300 WiFi Router will be available in May starting at $199.99.

Apple has yet to announce support for 802.11ac in its upcoming devices; however, many are hoping the rumored MacBook Pro and iMac updates will feature the new technology.

MSE veterans won’t notice a lot of huge changes in this version, but certain interface elements have changed slightly—the icons along the top are gone, and certain wordings have changed a bit to make the program easier to use. The “Real-Time Protection” setting is now an all-or-nothing checkbox, and SpyNet has been renamed to the Microsoft Active Protection Service to make a bit clearer what it actually does. Microsoft has also baked in some performance improvements and better detection powers. Microsoft Security Essentials is a free download for Windows only. You can get the new version through Windows Update.  -Via Lifehacker

The main purpose of Broomstick is to provide a simple way to hide away menu bar apps you don’t need and provide a means to reorganize them when you’re done. You can hide an app (and make it show up again) with a few clicks and if you want to customize the order you can type in the order you want the apps to appear. It only works with a select amount of apps, but Broomstick supports a lot of popular programs like Dropbox, LogMeIn, CrashPlan, and more. You can download it free from the developers site below. – Via Lifehacker

If you hear your hard drive making some weird noises, it’s possible that it might be nearing the end of its life. With Data Cent’s bank of failing hard drive sounds, you can diagnose the most likely culprit of the problem, back up your data quickly, and take it in to see if its salvageable. Whether you’ve got a Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, or other brand drive, Data Cent probably has a recording of the sound you’re experiencing, and you can move on from there. We’ve mentioned one similar database before, but this is a bit more all-inclusive, since it adds sounds for lots of different drive brands. Hit the link to check out the database. Photo by DijutalTim. Via - Lifehacker

For better results, run the test a few times. And you can compare your speeds with friends on other ISPs, or at different times of the day, to see whether you’re getting the best value you can from your broadband subscription.

Click here to find out

Even though it’s still the new kid on the block, Google’s Chrome is rapidly becoming the standard against which other browsers are measured. Use these 10 quick tips to get the most of Chrome.

Configure Multiple Homepages

Consider yourself a power user, do you? Then why rock but a single homepage? You can configure Chrome to load multiple sites every time you open your browser. Click the Wrench icon and navigate to Tools > Basics and start adding sites. Don’t overdo it though-you’ll bog down your initial load time.

Cheat at Math

The Google Suggests feature in Chrome is your key to impressing co-workers with your unlimited knowledge of numbers. Just type your math query into the Omnibar and the answer will appear without ever having to punch the Enter key. Goodbye Windows Calculator!

Have a sneaky suspicion one of your tabs is a resource pig? You can find out which sites are dragging your browser (and your system) down. Just hit Shift+Esc to open up Chrome’s built-in Task Manager to see how much memory and CPU cycles each tab is consuming.

Test Drive Multiple Versions of Chrome

If you want access to new features before everyone else, you have to subscribe to Chrome’s Beta or Dev channel, both of which replace your stable build. Not keen with that? Try Chrome’s Canary build (http://tinyurl.com/2b2jof9). It’s the most frequently updated version of Chrome, and it installs alongside whatever other version you’re running.

Convert Webpages into App Shortcuts

App shortcuts open in a dedicated window devoid of browser buttons and are handy for frequently accessed sites, like Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and, well, you get the idea. To create one, navigate to Wrench > Tools > Create application shortcuts… and punch the Create button.