Hi-Tech

Northrop Grumman's X-47B is ready. On Friday it completed a 29 minute test flight over Edwards Air Force Base, managing to land "right on the centerline" of the runway. Without having a pilot onboard. [YouTube via Aviation Week]

The UK's foreign secretary has revealed that the Zeus data-stealing trojan was found installed on computers belonging to government employees, after they clicked on links contained within fake emails from the White House.

Mr Hague said that "a large number of emails bypassed some of our filters" allowing the trojan to install itself, although the government "experts" were subsequently able to clean the infection. No mention is made of any actual data theft—or what the White House emails contained that managed to fool so many staff members into clicking. [Guardian]

Optical specialist Carl Zeiss is joining the Micro Four Thirds revolution. The German lens maker, which produces everything from cheap bits for cell phones to medical equipment, says its first compatible product will be ZEISS HD Video lenses.

The announcement, which came via M43 backer Olympus, doesn't go into any more details regarding on sale dates—and the Zeiss optics are yet to be added to the consortium's lenses database. [Olympus via Engadget]

Following initial revelations last week, NASDAQ has today confirmed reports that one of its systems has been accessed by outsiders.

The hackers gained access to the company's web-based Directors Desk tool, which is a custom solution for allowing the boards of businesses to communicate in a supposedly secure manner. So if you're on more than $250k a year you might want to change your password from "lunch4wimps" to something else. [WSJ]

Skive is a British word. It means to knowingly and willingly evade work. To call in sick. To hide when someone wants you to do something. To skive off. New Android app Skiver lets you automate the difficult skiving process.

Coming with a variety of pre-loaded scenarios and the ability to automatically generate an email to your boss, Skive also includes explanations of the common symptoms of your chosen illness—just in case there's an awkward follow-up disciplinary hearing upon your return. [Android Market via Into Mobile]

We will never see official LEGO versions of Resident Evil, Modern Warfare, Max Payne, Gears of War, Final Fantasy or Killzone. That being the case, we'll have to make do with Andy Pescovitz's customised renditions instead.

Pescovitz has amassed an impressive collection of figures that he's both painted and in many cases scultped to look like miniature versions of some video game favourites.

There's a selection of some of the better figures here, including those from Halo: Reach and Uncharted 3, with plenty more at the link below.

[pecovam's photostream] [thanks Chris!]

By virtue of the fact they're old, game cartridges are normally filthy as hell. Which means sometimes they won't work! Not to fear. If blowing on them won't get them up and running, a chemical fix probably will.

This handy instructional vid shows that all you need — provided the problem is dirt and not something more technical — is a little rubbing alcohol and some cotton swabs to get those filthy, grubby old game cartridges good as new.

I've actually done this before with alarming regularity in a previous job working childcare, where our Nintendo 64 games seemed to be there solely for kids to drip honey, juice and pieces of fruit gunk down. And can report that while it works just fine for cleaning the insides of the cart, I actually found them more useful for cleaning the outside, which on cartridges that aren't black (like the N64) tend to get a lot dirtier and grimier than the insides.

[via Go Nintendo]