Musical Fidelity M1 DAC

Musical Fidelity has released a new range of desktop sized components called the M1 Series. The series currently consists of headphone amplifier and a DAC. The M1 DAC slots in to Musical Fidelity's lineup above their entry level V-DAC, and features significant performance and feature upgrades. Coaxial, optical, AES/EBU, and USB inputs are provided, as are both balanced and single-ended outputs. The M1 DAC supports input sample rates from 32-192kHz, with front panel LEDs indicating the incoming rate.

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Combing through hundreds of blog posts and news articles daily, Dirk Klingner, our technology-trend watcher, sifts through the noise to bring you the tech news most important to consumers. If you have a tip on a story you want to share, leave a comment below.

Mercedes-Benz Financial adapts iPad for business use (TiPb)

Mercedes-Benz is providing iPads to 40 lucky dealers across the country so that they gain access to the company’s point-of-sale dealer system on the showroom floors.

Iota Flex wants to be a MiFi for voice and text (engadget)

Would you believe us if we told you that that rubber bracelet-looking thing is actually going to have a built-in SIM card and bring voice / text capabilities to Android tablets, e-readers and netbooks via Bluetooth?

Sony expands Tune Tray car audio offerings (cartech)

Back at CES 2010, we got a look at the Sony DSX-S100, a car stereo that distinguished itself with a feature called the Tune Tray--a sort of tiny, built-in glove compartment for stashing your portable media player of choice.

Barnes & Noble Hedges Its Electronic Book Bets with Intro of iPad E-Reader (IPhone.TMCnet.com)

...The bookseller says customers can in less than a minute install the eReader and sign into their BN.com accounts.

Symantec readies Norton security, storage apps for Android, iPhone smartphones (NETWORKWORLD)

Symantec's Norton division today launched its "Norton Everywhere" initiative aimed at bringing security protections and cloud-storage access to the Google Android and Apple iPhone smartphones.

Baby Reacts To Hearing For The First Time (BuzzFeed)

Click through to see a baby react to hearing his mother for the first time after cochlear implants are turned on.

Lighter side: 18 Hacked Digital Road Signs (urlesque)

...hacking into the digital road signs that warn us about traffic delays and road hazards is a whole new level of dedication to mischievous shenanigans.

While Facebook is rolling out the new privacy controls it announced yesterday, it ought to fix the gaping security flaw in its password system that I reported here two weeks ago, which lets users adopt extremely weak passwords like "circus" and "better."

Besides the above two words, which can be easily cracked by password-cracking software, Facebook still lets people use 8 more common words that I reported here two weeks ago. Note: Facebook itself rates all of these as "weak" but inexplicably still lets you use them:

• orphan 
• higher 
• medley 
• valued 
• secure 
• social 
• hijack 
• victim

So what’s the risk in using such words? Once someone cracks them, the next thing you know, all your Facebook friends are getting messages from you saying you’ve been robbed in London and need money wired immediately.

Still, two weeks after I revealed this significant flaw in Facebook’s password system, they haven’t fixed it.

Why? Is the hole too small to be worth patching?

No, and the hole is bigger than I initially thought. Turns out there are more extremely weak passwords that Facebook allows that could too easily get your Facebook account hijacked. Here are 10 of them:

• easily
• hardly 
• fairly 
• height 
• weight 
• beside 
• inside 
• afford 
• inform 
• lawyer 

That makes 20 in all.

How many more do we need to know before Facebook fixes this security problem?

Let me know what you think. Meanwhile, follow these tips to secure your Facebook account.

—Jeff Fox

The ampguts.com site has officially been launched!
This new forum is a member contribution site that has thousands of images of naked 12 volt amplifiers. Everything 12v geeks love to see!

With nearly every 12 volt amplifier brand from the last 25 years recognized, www.ampguts.com has the largest collection of amplifier porn anywhere!

Click this link to check out the Amp Guts gallery here:

To help drive some traffic to the site, Ampguts.com is holding a logo design contest. A $250 prize will be awarded to the person the designs the winning logo. If the winner so chooses, they can also claim a $400 gift card to the Second Skin automotive sound deadening website.

For more information, check out this Ampguts.com thread in the new amp forum.

Good luck to all of you graphic designers out there!