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Have you ever thought that a Simple USB Drive can be used as a Destructive Tool for Hacking Passwords? Today I will show you how to hack Passwords using an USB Pen Drive.

We know that NVIDIA's Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix (VDPAU) works very well for exposing PureVideo capabilities on Linux. We have benchmarked VDPAU and found it to perform very well in that under Linux it's possible to play HD videos with a $20 CPU and $30 GPU thanks to this video acceleration method. VDPAU is the best video acceleration / decoding API on Linux and is widely adopted by various multimedia applications, which is all in contrast to AMD's XvBA and their troubled implementation. But how does VDPAU work on mobile devices? With the ASUS Eee PC 1201N that is built on NVIDIA's ION platform we ran a new set of VDPAU video playback tests.

A Chinese group has created an Ubuntu Linux clone that looks, um, just like Windows XP. Two big questions: First, do customers want a Linux release (called Ylmf OS) that looks like Windows? Second, is Microsoft willing to allow a group of Ubuntu renegades to mimic Windows XP’s look and feel? Some thoughts here.

For the Linux fans out there, today is a great day! Up until now, blu-ray playback support in Linux has been very complicated and quite an aggravating experience. First you would have to hope you had the right BD-ROM drive and that there was a hacked firmware for you to flash it with. Then you had to hope the correct AACS keys were out on the interwebs for the blu-ray disc you wanted to watch. Once you had the right drive and the right keys, you had to dump the entire blu-ray disc to your hard drive and play it from there.

I have had this idea for a Virtual Darpa Grand Challenge for a couple of years now and I’m starting to shop it around to angel/venture capital people. But I thought I’d also put this out there to the Linux community and see what they think of it. I’ve never done anything like this before so I’m not even sure if I should take on this idea, but I’d be interested in hearing what people think of it and any advice on how to make it happen.

OpenStreetMap Founder Steve Coast has announced that the OpenStreetMap (OSM) Project now has more than 200,000 registered users. The project, originally started in August of 2004, has become increasingly popular in recent months. The new milestone comes less than ten months after the project reached 100,000 registered users back in March of 2009. OpenStreetMap is an open source project, run by the OpenStreetMap Foundation, that builds free online maps, not based on any copyright or licensed map data.

Like some other desktop environments, GNOME comes with a set of pre-configured defaults to open files and launch applications, depending on the type of file. For instance, URLs will open by default in a Web browser, emails will open in a mail client, text files will open with a text editor. Depending on the applications installed and what distribution you are using, these defaults may vary and, more importantly, they may not be the defaults that you want. Configuring default applications and associations in GNOME is easy. To change the global default application, go to System | Preferences | Preferred Applications. Here, you can set your preferred default browser, mail reader, multimedia player, various accessibility programs, and the default terminal application that you want to use. So if you prefer Thunderbird to the GNOME default of Evolution, you would make the change here.

Linux may no longer have the largest share of the netbook market, the way it did a couple of years ago. But you could still say that if the community isn't dominating in sales, it's taking the lead in interface choices. Recently, everybody seems focused on the netbook market. The communities that develop lightweight desktops like Xfce and LXDE or nimble distributions like Slax are promoting their work as ideal for netbooks. Debian has a project focused on tweaking the distribution for netbooks, while Mandriva offers Sugar and Moblin as netbook interfaces. The race is so competitive that some choices are already dropped out of the running, such as the HP Mi Edition, which a year ago was receiving rave reviews.

Lenovo has announced the Skylight sub-notebook which uses Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip, runs Linux rather than Windows and will sell for around $499 (£308) when it goes on sale in April. Using the ARM chip architecture, Lenovo's Linux device represents a significant move away form the common Intel/Microsoft Windows model for computers. Lenovo in the US is using the increasingly common term 'smartbook' to describe the device – which is smaller than a netbook but bigger than a smartphone – although in Europe there remains a copyright dispute over the use of that name. Weighing in at around a kilogram, the Skylight will apparently boast 10 hours of battery life, has a 10 inch screen and has Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.

There aren't a ton of open source apps available for the iPhone, but the ones that are out there are real gems. Here's four of our favorites..

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, the next major release of Ubuntu, code-named Lucid Lynx, will reportedly include a new "complete beginners manual for Ubuntu". According to the Ubuntu Wiki, the Ubuntu Manual Team are currently working on the new manual which will feature a number of comprehensive guides, how-to's and information on anything a user might need to know after first installing the open source operating system.

Skiff LLC announced a Linux-based e-book reader optimized for newspaper and magazine content, delivered via Sprint's 3G network. The Skiff Reader's display is claimed to be the largest (11.5 inches) and highest-resolution (UXGA) among e-readers, and the first to offer LG Displays' stainless-steel foil display technology, touted for greater durability.

Wayan Vota and I are agreed that Nicholas Negroponte is crazy. What divides us is the question whether Nicholas is crazy enough. (I am indebted to Niels Bohr for making this distinction early in the 20th century in the context of quantum mechanics.)

Norwegian software specialist Opera has released an early test version for Linux of its 10.5 browser.

In our efforts at Groklaw to explain the General Public License, or GPL, over the years, we've used many words. But the other day I asked if anyone could think of a way to show it graphically, and PolR has done it.

On a regular basis, we at OStatic round up our ongoing collections of open source resources, tutorials, reviews and project tours. These educational toolkits are a big part of the learning mission we try to preserve at the site. We regularly collect the best Firefox extensions, free online books on open source topics, free tools for developers, resources for working with and enjoying online video and audio, Linux tutorials, and much more. In this post, you'll find an updated set of almost 50 collections and resources. Hopefully, you'll find something to learn from here, and the good news is that everything found in this post is free.

Many Internet users have turned to web-based email and use it as their primary means of electronic communication. Some corporations have even adopted “cloud computing” solutions, where their email delivery and retrieval is handled by an outside company. Nevertheless, there are many reasons why a user might still prefer a traditional email client. Because of that, even the aforementioned web-based email services often still offer POP3 and/or IMAP service.

The tablet device market is as busy as the Android phone market these days, with new contenders entering daily. The latest entrants? Freescale and the Hearst Corporation. Yes, a chip vendor and a publisher. Freescale on Monday kicked off the new year with a new tablet reference design. Hearst, publisher of 15 daily newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, plus 49 periodicals, including Cosmopolitan, unveiled Skiff, an eReader that displays print exactly as it would be seen when printed and laid out on paper.

Processor manufacturer Freescale Semiconductor has announced a reference design for tablet PCs that the company believes will make products feasible at a cost of $200. The first demo devices are to be exhibited at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, which is due to start on Tuesday. They offer a 7-inch display, run on Freescale's i.MX515 ARM processor, and include Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth. UMTS and an external keyboard which clips onto the tablet PC are to be available as optional extras. The devices are to use Linux-based operating systems such as Android. According to Freescale, the tablet PCs could be on the shelves by mid 2010 if suitable manufacturers come forward.

The big story to me today wasn't the launch of the Nexus One phone, which looked nice enough, but the fatally flawed web-only distribution system