Announcement

100 articles, 2016-02-28 12:01 1 Microsoft trashes plans to bring Android apps to Windows 10 Firm pulls the plug on Project Astoria 2016-02-28 07:37 2KB www.theinquirer.net

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2 Advanced Malware Protection: A Buyer’s Guide To have any chance of effectively defending against modern-day attacks, the solution must use continuous analysis and big data analytics to track 2016-02-28 12:00 983Bytes www.itworldcanada.com 3 Addressing Advanced Web Threats: Protect Your Data and Brand Some of the most sophisticated web-based threats are design to hide in plain sight on legitimate and well-trafficked websites. Once an organization’s 2016-02-28 12:00 928Bytes www.itworldcanada.com 4 Quantitative Analysis of a Prefabricated vs. Traditional Data Centre This white paper identifies two key cost drivers that influence the comparison -- space costs and average power density. The greater the 2016-02-28 12:00 1KB www.itworldcanada.com 5 Classification of Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) Tools Today, multiple management applications across the principle domains of IT room management, building control, security, and power address various parts of the 2016-02-28 12:00 1KB www.itworldcanada.com 6 Preventive Maintenance Strategy for Data Centres A data centre power and cooling systems PM strategy ensures that procedures for calendar-based scheduled maintenance inspections are established and, if appropriate, 2016-02-28 12:00 1KB www.itworldcanada.com 7 Cisco 2016 Annual Security Report The Cisco 2016 Annual Security Report -- which presents research, insights, and perspectives from Cisco Security Research -- highlights the challenges that 2016-02-28 12:00 889Bytes www.itworldcanada.com 8 Think 5G wireless is speeding to your phone? Hold your horses 5G will deliver real benefits and expand what mobile networks can do, but you'll have to be very, very patient. And today's hype could even mar 5G's arrival. 2016-02-28 07:48 4KB www.cnet.com 9 Imagination Announces PowerVR Series8XE Family - Entry- Level GPUs Get Smaller With Mobile World Congress 2016 now in full swing, we’ll see a slew of announcements this week. Among the crowd is Imagination Technologies, who is using the show as a backdrop to discuss their latest generation of GPU technologies. To that end, today the company is announcing the latest iteration... 2016-02-28 11:04 6KB www.anandtech.com 10 AMD Releases Radeon Software Crimson 16.2 Drivers It didn't take long at all, but AMD has come in with another driver update full of performance enhancements, compatibility fixes, and bug fixes. With continued efforts on their latest commitment to improve their drivers let's look at what Crimson 16.2 bring to the table. This release continues what has... 2016-02-28 11:04 2KB www.anandtech.com

11 Samsung Announces 256GB UFS Embedded Storage Solution Interestingly enough, we’re seeing something of a division in the mobile storage space, as it seems that some OEMs are focusing their efforts on UFS for internal storage, while others are moving towards NVMe over mobile PCI-E. Samsung Electronics seems to be staying with UFS for now, and recently announced... 2016-02-28 11:04 2KB www.anandtech.com 12 Samsung Announces the Gear 360: Consumer VR Content Creation In addition to the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge, Samsung is also announcing a camera for VR content. Rather than the extreme setups that we see with some of the current players in this space, Samsung is focusing on bringing VR content creation to the masses with the Gear... 2016-02-28 11:04 1KB www.anandtech.com 13 AMD Expands G-Series Embedded SoCs with Excavator Microarchitecture Back in October 2015, AMD’s embedded business unit announced the first SoCs from AMD using DDR4 , combining AMD’s Excavator cores found in the Carrizo notebook platform but fully integrated solutions focused at digital signage, medical, military, and other verticals. These were essentially Carrizo laptop parts validated slightly differently, in... 2016-02-28 11:04 3KB www.anandtech.com 14 Early Exynos 8890 Impressions And Full Specifications While I didn't have the time to run too many benchmarks, I did manage to run a few of our basic browser tests as well as GFXBench. We haven't had the opportunity to benchmark the Snapdragon 820 Galaxy S7 yet, therefore I included the score numbers of the MDP/S platform... 2016-02-28 11:04 2KB www.anandtech.com 15 Price Check: Price Gap Between DDR3 and DDR4 Memory Almost Gone Around a year ago DRAM manufacturers ended up pinning a lot of their hopes on DDR4 as a way to improve their profit margins. In the cutthroat and highly cyclical DRAM industry, the launch of DDR4-capable systems was seen as encouraging new sales while also serving as an opportunity to... 2016-02-28 11:04 17KB www.anandtech.com 16 Hands On With the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge If you've followed our reviews for the past year, it was probably evident that the Galaxy S6 was one of the best phones launched last year. With one of the better designs in terms of camera, the first 14nm SoC, and a great AMOLED display, there was a lot to... 2016-02-28 11:04 11KB www.anandtech.com 17 Hands-On With the Xiaomi Mi5 - High-End at a Mid-Range Price It’s been over 18 months since Xiaomi announced the Mi 4 back in June 2014 , and today the company is finally ready to release the sucessor in the form of the Mi 5. The western launch here in Barcelona was presented by VP of Global, Hugo Barra, and we were... 2016-02-28 11:04 9KB www.anandtech.com 18 ARM Announces Cortex-A32 IoT and Embedded Processor Today ARM announces the new Cortex A32 ultra-low power/high efficiency processor IP. For some readers this might come as a surprise as it's only been a few months since we saw the announcement of the Cortex A35 which was presented as a replacement for the Cortex A7 and A5, so... 2016-02-28 11:04 3KB www.anandtech.com 19 MSI Rolls-Out CUBI 2 Plus SFF PCs Featuring Intel’s Mini- STX Platform MSI this week introduced its all-new CUBI 2 Plus and CUBI 2 Plus vPro miniature personal computers based on Intel’s mini-STX motherboard form-factor. The new PCs are slightly larger than Intel’s own NUC systems, but they support CPU upgrades and are generally more powerful. It is not a secret that... 2016-02-28 11:04 4KB www.anandtech.com

20 Radeon Crimson 16.2 drivers are ready for Ashes of the Singularity AMD has just released its Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.2 hotfix drivers. This version comes with optimizations for the Ashes of the Singularity Benchmark 2.0. The company points out that this benchmark uses multiple DirectX 12 features , including asynchronous shaders, multi-threaded command buffers, and command buffer reordering. The Crimson... 2016-02-28 11:02 1KB techreport.com 21 Samsung wins the latest round in Apple patent battle In 2014, a San Jose federal court issued a verdict that ordered Samsung to pay Apple $119.6 million for infringing three of Cupertino's patents. Samsung appealed that decision, and today, a U. S. appeals court overturned the ruling. The full text of the decision is available here. The federal court... 2016-02-28 11:02 1KB techreport.com 22 In the lab: a case, cooler, and power supply from be quiet! TR has covered news of various products from be quiet! for some time now, and I'm pleased to welcome a raft of the company's hardware into our labs for testing. The company sent us its Silent Base 800 case , its Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU cooler , and its... 2016-02-28 11:02 2KB techreport.com 23 Ashes of the Singularity's second beta gives GCN a big boost with DX12 Ashes of the Singularity is probably the first game that will come to most people's minds these days when we talk about DirectX 12. That title has been the source of a bunch of controversy in its pre-release lifetime, thanks to an ongoing furor about the game's reliance on DirectX... 2016-02-28 11:02 6KB techreport.com 24 Fallout 4 mod support arrives on the PC in April Fallout 4 players, rejoice. In an interview with GameInformer , Bethesda's Todd Howard revealed that official mod support for Fallout 4 is coming in April. Until now, players looking to add features to Fallout 4 or make it suit their style a little better have had their work cut out... 2016-02-28 11:02 2KB techreport.com 25 US authorities used students to hack into Tor Court confirms that Department of Defence funded Carnegie Mellon 2016-02-28 11:05 3KB www.theinquirer.net 26 Ofcom holds back from ordering BT Openreach break-up but tells firm to share network with rivals Competitors to be given access to BT's poles and ducts to roll out their own fibre 2016-02-28 11:05 5KB www.theinquirer.net 27 Google Updates: AMPed up, F.luxed up and Project Astoria canned There'll be no Android on Windows 10 2016-02-28 11:05 2KB www.theinquirer.net 28 HP Inc accelerates job cuts as Windows 10 and Skylake cause slump in earnings Cuts will be three times as quick 2016-02-28 11:05 2KB www.theinquirer.net 29 Exclusive: All-Flash Array Vendor Kaminario Targets SaaS Channel Partners Kaminario says its all-flash storage arrays, which are designed to handle multiple workloads, give partners an in when it comes to targeting the SaaS market. 2016-02-28 11:04 2KB www.crn.com

30 5 Companies That Came To Win This Week For the week ending Feb. 26, CRN takes a look at the companies that brought their 'A' game to the channel. 2016-02-28 11:04 1KB www.crn.com 31 Report: Nutanix May Delay IPO Hyper-converged infrastructure leader Nutanix, which had been expected to debut early this year on the public market, may be putting that move off because of stock market volatility and the poor showing some of its peers have had recently, according to CNBC. 2016-02-28 11:04 3KB www.crn.com 32 Channel Beat: HP Inc. To Lay Off Thousands In 2016 In other top stories from this week, Salesforce crushes its fourth-quarter numbers. Also, Microsoft's new acquisition has been a long time coming. 2016-02-28 11:04 1KB www.crn.com 33 Nutanix Launches Tech That Lets VMware Customers Switch To Its Hypervisor, Partners Say Interest Is Growing Nutanix may be a startup, but it's aiming to pressure VMware with new technology that lets customers switch from VMware's ESX hypervisor to its homegrown KVM alternative. 2016-02-28 11:04 3KB www.crn.com 34 Report: Banks Close To Finding Investors For Dell-EMC Acquisition Debt The institutions that are underwriting the deal have lined up investors for more than $7 billion of the $10 billion in loan exposure they expect to take on as part of the transaction, according to a Thomson Reuters report. 2016-02-28 11:04 3KB www.crn.com 35 20 People Channel Chiefs Look To For Inspiration As part of the 2016 Channel Chiefs, we asked the over 300 executives to share the people whom they look to for inspiration in work and in life. 2016-02-28 11:04 1KB www.crn.com 36 Why American Manufacturing Is Crucial To U. S. Technology Growth Rich Breault spoke on the partnerships between manufacturing firms and technology companies from the perspective of 30 years in electronics manufacturing. 2016-02-28 11:04 2KB www.crn.com 37 Updategate: Microsoft splashes Tomb Raider ad over Windows 10 lock screens Reality bytes 2016-02-28 07:37 2KB www.theinquirer.net 38 Firms running Oracle and VMware may breach Oracle software licence agreements Companies face big fines if software auditors catch them virtualising without a licence 2016-02-28 07:25 2KB www.theinquirer.net 39 Apple's iPhone 5SE will look just like the iPhone 5S (Apple Byte Extra Crunchy, Ep. 27) Apple vs. the FBI continues as this year's biggest story and now Apple wants Congress to make a decision. Plus, the latest iPhone 5SE details and the Apple Pencil to get back its navigation functionality. 2016-02-28 11:05 1009Bytes www.cnet.com 40 Watch a 120-year-old 'Millionaire' machine do some astounding calculations Astronomer Clifford Stoll shows off a big, beautiful mechanical adding machine from 1895 in a new Numberphile video. 2016-02-28 06:47 1KB www.cnet.com

41 How well do you know your strange Oscars moments? Take our quiz The Academy Awards can get pretty long and tedious, which is why unexpected moments stand out so much. See how well you remember the most bizarre happenings in Oscars history. 2016-02-28 05:42 1KB www.cnet.com 42 The five people you'll meet at every Oscars party Going to a party to watch the Academy Awards Sunday? Be prepared to encounter one of these characters while you're trying to endure 20 unnecessary musical tributes. 2016-02-28 05:42 4KB www.cnet.com 43 The 10 best seasons of Netflix original shows Netflix a global provider of streaming movies and TV series has been making these since 2013 with their first big original series “House of Cards.” According to Business Insider, they managed to pull out data reviews from “Metacritic” to find out which seasons of Netflix had the best ratings, from... 2016-02-28 07:00 4KB pctechmag.com 44 Rocket League reaches 12 million players, as dev explains sales breakdown The hit soccer-with-cars game continues to grow following its Xbox One release. 2016-02-28 05:58 1KB www.gamespot.com 45 IS supporters threaten Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey Angry threats over anti-terror talk tactics 2016-02-28 08:26 2KB www.theinquirer.net

46 Tim Cook compares iPhone unlocking to cancer He's confusing security with rhythm and dancing 2016-02-28 08:26 2KB www.theinquirer.net 47 Microsoft launches experimental Hub keyboard for Android Another chest burster from the Hurt locker 2016-02-28 08:26 2KB www.theinquirer.net 48 Boston Dynamics unveils, and clobbers, a terrifying new robot Atlas thugged 2016-02-28 08:26 2KB www.theinquirer.net 49 Linux users campaign after Microsoft 'neglects' Skype with a week of downtime Characteristic of a systematic decline, claim campaigners 2016-02-28 05:21 2KB www.theinquirer.net 50 5 amazing things you'll be able to do with 5G The superfast wireless technology promises a lot, and eventually it will happen. Think virtual reality, telemedicine and more. 2016-02-28 08:26 3KB www.cnet.com 51 Gigabyte Announces New 17.3” Gaming Laptops with Intel Skylake Processors GIGABYTE has introduced its new family of desktop replacement gaming notebooks with Intel’s Skylake microprocessors. The new laptops not only feature new CPUs, but also add support for technologies like USB 3.1, M.2, HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 and some other improvements. The GIGABYTE P57 laptops are powered by the... 2016-02-28 04:10 3KB www.anandtech.com 52 Samsung Portable SSD T3 Review The last few years have seen rapid advancements in flash technology including planar 1x nm NAND, TLC, and 3D V-NAND. External high-speed interfaces such as USB 3.x have also become ubiquitous. The advent of Type-C has also enabled device vendors to agree upon a standardized connector for their equipment (be... 2016-02-28 04:10 6KB www.anandtech.com

57 Man builds world's longest selfie stick, takes awful selfie Technically Incorrect: A British man is determined to be a world record holder. And what a record to aspire to. 2016-02-28 04:01 2KB www.cnet.com 58 How Ubisoft is preparing for (possible) Vivendi hostile takeover French company meeting with investors and even Canadian government as part of "fight to preserve our independence. " 2016-02-28 04:04 2KB www.gamespot.com 59 Bugatti Chiron leads a wealth of performance cars at next week's Geneva motor show The annual Geneva motor show is upon us, with a press preview next week followed by public days, and along with the Bugatti Chiron, we expect to see the Mercedes-AMG C43, McLaren 570GT, Lexus LC 500h and many other high performance cars. 2016-02-28 03:56 3KB www.cnet.com 60 Bloomberg believes better electric vehicles will cause another oil crisis, and relatively soon Of course, the oil industry doesn't see eye to eye with the media in this instance. 2016-02-28 03:50 2KB www.cnet.com 61 Drug dealer who cursed at judge on Facebook sent to jail after all Technically Incorrect: A Brit who received a suspended sentence with his brother and then mocked the judge on Facebook is called back to court for resentencing. 2016-02-28 03:30 2KB www.cnet.com 62 AMD says new G-Series SoCs offer 64-bit x86 performance for a 32-bit ARM price AMD brings Excavator core to embedded chips and adds a new low-end LX family 2016-02-28 06:08 5KB www.theinquirer.net 63 BBC Music app for Android and iOS delayed at 11th hour by 'glitch' BBC Music's all gone a bit Pete Tong 2016-02-28 06:08 2KB www.theinquirer.net 64 Microsoft releases updated Windows 10 preview builds for desktop and mobile users The countdown to Redstone continues 2016-02-28 06:08 3KB www.theinquirer.net 65 Galaxy S7 specs, release date and price Everything you need to know about pre-ordering Samsung's latest flagship handset 2016-02-28 06:08 6KB www.theinquirer.net 66 Child tracking firm calls out security researcher on 'hack' uKnowkids says that Chris Vickery knows too much 2016-02-28 06:08 3KB www.theinquirer.net 67 BlackBerry buys Encription to beef up cyber security credentials Unit will include focus on automotive and IoT offerings 2016-02-28 06:08 2KB www.v3.co.uk 68 Spotify gets the Googleys with plan to move entire operation to Mountain View Cloud It could be the start of something even bigger 2016-02-28 06:08 2KB www.theinquirer.net 69 Apple tipped to launch 9.7in iPad Pro alongside iPhone 5SE next month RIP iPad Air 3 2016-02-28 06:08 2KB www.theinquirer.net 70 Comparing MWC 2016 Smartphone Standouts: Samsung Galaxy S7 vs. LG G5 We compare the new Samsung Galaxy S7 smartphones and LG G5 handsets to help buyers determine which alternative might best fit their needs. 2016-02-28 06:06 1KB www.eweek.com 71 Breach Levels Subside but Still Affect Millions Fewer organizations reported breaches in 2015 than in the prior year, but the numbers are still large, new research shows. 2016-02-28 06:06 1KB www.eweek.com 72 Ashes of the Singularity Revisited: A Beta Look at DirectX 12 & Asynchronous Shading We’ve been following DirectX 12 for about 2 years now, watching Microsoft’s next- generation low-level graphics API go from an internal development project to a public release. Though harder to use than earlier high-level APIs like DirectX 11, DirectX 12 gives developers more control than ever before, and for those who... 2016-02-28 05:01 4KB www.anandtech.com 73 Huawei Enters The PC Market With The MateBook Convertible Tablet Move over Microsoft. One of the world’s largest smartphone makers has decided to enter the PC marketplace with the launch of the MateBook 2-in-1 tablet. Well, maybe not, but they have certainly taken a page out of the Microsoft playbook with their first tablet. This is a 12-inch tablet with... 2016-02-28 03:03 3KB www.anandtech.com 74 CAT Announces S60 Rugged Smartphone with integrated FLIR Thermal Camera CAT, that company that is usually associated with heavy machinery, actually makes/sells smartphones too. It has announced a new flagship smartphone, which combines the ruggedness you might expect from such a company with up-to-date functionality (Android 6.0) as well as an integrated thermal camera made by FLIR. The CAT S60... 2016-02-28 03:03 4KB www.anandtech.com 75 Samsung’s Gear S2 Classic 3G and 4G Smartwatches with eSIM to Hit the Market in March Samsung has revealed that its Gear S2 Classic 3G and 4G smartwatches, which were formally introduced last September, will be available in the U. S. on March 11, 2016. The new wearable gadget will be able to connect to the Internet without a smartphone nearby and will no longer be... 2016-02-28 05:01 3KB www.anandtech.com 76 Intel Announces XMM7480 LTE Modem: 4x DL CA, 256QAM At MWC 2016, Intel announced their latest modem, the XMM7480. While to some extent Intel’s cadence isn’t quite as aggressive as others in the modem space, Intel’s modems are still a relevant part of the modem ecosystem. At a high level, the XMM 7480 platform introduces a number of new... 2016-02-28 05:01 2KB www.anandtech.com 77 Sony Unveils New Xperia X Smartphones This week at Mobile World Congress 2016, Sony has introduced their new high-end Xperia X series smartphones. The new smartphones feature similar designs across the entire series and all sport 5” displays, but each is based on a different SoC and offers slightly different functionality. The Xperia X smartphones represent... 2016-02-28 05:01 5KB www.anandtech.com 78 MediaTek Announces New Helio P20 Yesterday MediaTek announced the successor to last year's Helio P10. The Helio P10 was announced back in June with devices being announced and released in the following months. Even though the SoC is only 8 months old it still looks like MediaTek is keeping up the pace and looking forward with... 2016-02-28 05:01 2KB www.anandtech.com 79 MWC 2016: Xiaomi Media Preview Live Blog Additional: Will go on sale (in China most likely) next week. 04:32AM EST - OK, looks like a wrap. Devices are outside, so we'll have a look. 04:28AM EST - The chinese prices below include 17% tax 04:27AM EST - The cheapest model uses the 1.8 GHz bin of the... 2016-02-28 05:01 10KB www.anandtech.com 80 Lenovo Launches New MIIX 310 Tablet, Yoga 510 And Yoga 710 Convertibles At MWC 2016 The Yoga brand has permeated much of Lenovo’s laptop lineup, and they offer some of the best convertible device experiences out there. It should really be no surprise then that Lenovo is expanding this brand further, with the new Yoga 510 and Yoga 710 models. In addition, they are launching... 2016-02-28 05:01 3KB www.anandtech.com 81 Microsoft Acquires Cross-Platform C# Toolmaker Xamarin In what has to be the most obvious acquisition Microsoft has made in some time, today the Redmond company announced that they have signed an agreement to purchase Xamarin. Xamarin creates tools to allow mobile developers to write code in C#, and have it run as native code on iOS,... 2016-02-28 05:01 2KB www.anandtech.com 82 Mushkin Impact 256GB and Atom 128GB USB Flash Drives Capsule Review Flash drives are a dime a dozen these days, and most of them carry uninteresting specifications. In particular, flash drives advertising smaller physical footprints have tended to carry disappointing performance numbers. At CES 2016, Mushkin had two USB Flash Drives (UFDs) on display belonging to the 'small footprint' club, the... 2016-02-28 03:03 7KB www.anandtech.com 83 HTC Vive Will Be Launching In April Priced At $799 Today HTC confirmed both the release date and price for the HTC Vive VR headset. Vive has gone through a couple of delays at this point, with an April release date being stated back in December of last year. Not only has the April date been solidly confirmed this time,... 2016-02-28 03:03 2KB www.anandtech.com

84 Samsung doubles the speed and capacity of its UFS flash chips Samsung has had great success in the SSD market with its 3D V-NAND flash memory. Now, the conglomerate is combining that technology with a new memory controller to mass- produce 256GB embedded flash chips that use the high-performance Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.0 standard. Samsung says the new 256GB memory package... 2016-02-28 06:05 1KB techreport.com 85 Deals of the week: Mushkin's Reactor 1TB SSD for $220 and more Greetings! We have been tasked to inform you of the excellent selection of computing hardware deals offered by online purveyors. It is our solemn duty to separate wheat from chaff, a function which we believe we have performed admirably. Behold this week's deals. Gentlemen and ladies, it was a pleasure... 2016-02-28 06:05 1015Bytes techreport.com 86 Zotac's speedy Sonix drive joins the NVMe SSD field When solid-state drives started to hit the performance ceiling of the SATA interface and the AHCI protocol, manufacturers started looking to PCIe and the NVM Express protocol to open up a new vista of performance. A few PCIe SSD options, like Intel's 750 Series and Samsung's 950 Pro , have... 2016-02-28 06:05 2KB techreport.com 87 iOS 9.3 update fixes iPhones borked by date change bug Latest beta release will also prevent problem happening again 2016-02-28 05:01 2KB www.theinquirer.net 88 Asus and Federal Trade Commission settle case of the flawed routers Firm will have gear inspected for the next 20 years 2016-02-28 05:01 2KB www.theinquirer.net 89 China's Baidu browser damned as a user privacy nightmare And you thought Microsoft and Google were bad? 2016-02-28 05:01 2KB www.theinquirer.net 90 UK Android users were whacked with ransomware during 2015 And a lot of them paid up 2016-02-28 05:01 2KB www.theinquirer.net 91 Nvidia reveals Iray cluster server for complex graphics renders Borrow extra GPU from the cloud to do spectacular things 2016-02-28 05:01 2KB www.theinquirer.net 92 Nissan Leaf cars are susceptible to hacking Electric car drivers get a shock 2016-02-28 05:01 3KB www.theinquirer.net 93 Apple takes steps so El Capitan doesn't look like a dick in public We tried to post a dinkle joke here but we couldn't get it up 2016-02-28 05:01 2KB www.theinquirer.net 94 Canonical chooses Dragonboard 410c as reference for Ubuntu Core x64 Core blimey! 2016-02-28 05:01 2KB www.theinquirer.net 95 Yahoo donates CaffeOnSpark deep learning software to open source My friend Flickr 2016-02-28 05:01 2KB www.theinquirer.net

96 10 Virtual Reality Products That Took Us To Another World At Mobile World Congress 2016 Consumers looked beyond smartphones this year at Mobile World Congress to a new, emerging technology -- Virtual Reality. Here are 10 groundbreaking virtual reality headsets we saw at the show. 2016-02-28 03:00 1KB www.crn.com 97 Verizon Backs Apple In Encryption Debate With FBI Congress should be the one to decide where the line should be drawn between privacy and national security, says Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. 2016-02-28 02:48 3KB www.crn.com 98 Apple's March media event pushed back one week: Report Apple's rumored media event has been pushed back one week, according to reports from often-correct sources. The company is expected to debut a new iPad and iPhone. 2016-02-27 23:18 795Bytes www.zdnet.com 99 You may see the iPhone SE on this new launch date A slight change of plans for the 4-inch iPhone and new iPad 2016-02-27 21:32 2KB www.techradar.com 100 Top iOS news of the week: iPad shipments, Apple Watch shipments, Siri on the desktop This week in iOS was news about Apple Watch shipments, we heard that iPad shipments are expected to be the worst ever this year, and Siri is coming to OS X. 2016-02-27 15:00 1KB www.zdnet.com Articles

100 articles, 2016-02-28 12:01

1 Microsoft trashes plans to bring Android apps to Windows 10 (2.00/3) MICROSOFT HAS pulled the plug on Project Astoria, a tool that enabled developers to port Android apps to Windows 10. Instead, it will focus its efforts on tools to migrate iOS and existing Win32 desktop applications into Windows Store apps. The company detailed its ‘Bridges' strategy at the Build 2015 developer conference ahead of the Windows 10 release. Microsoft said that as part of its overall developer strategy it will introduce toolkits that let developers reuse existing application code by porting mobile apps from Android and iOS to the Windows Store, as well as existing apps written with. Net and Win32 APIs. Microsoft has now revised this strategy and is ditching the Windows Bridge for Android, otherwise known as Project Astoria, while pushing ahead with the Windows Bridge for iOS (Project Islandwood) and Project Centennial to migrate existing Win32 and. Net apps to the Windows Store. "We received a lot of feedback that having two Bridge technologies to bring code from mobile operating systems to Windows was unnecessary, and the choice between them could be confusing," said Kevin Gallo, director of programme management for the Windows Developer Platform, on the Building Apps for Windows blog . "We have carefully considered this feedback and decided that we will focus our efforts on the Windows Bridge for iOS and make it the single Bridge option for bringing mobile code to all Windows 10 devices, including Xbox and PCs. "For those developers who spent time investigating the Android Bridge, we strongly encourage you to take a look at the iOS Bridge and Xamarin as great solutions. " The Xamarin reference is to Microsoft's announcement this week that it will acquire Xamarin , a developer of cross-platform mobile development tools that enable programmers to build native iOS, Android, Mac and Windows apps using the C# language. Gallo explained that this is all part of Microsoft's vision to make Windows the best development platform regardless of which technologies are used. "Developers can not only reach all Windows 10 devices, but with Xamarin they can now use a large percentage of their C# code to deliver a fully native mobile app experience for iOS and Android," he said. "Xamarin's approach enables developers to take advantage of the productivity and power of. Net to develop mobile apps and to use C# to write to the full set of native APIs and mobile capabilities provided by each platform. " 2016-02-28 07:37

2 Advanced Malware Protection: A Buyer’s Guide To have any chance of effectively defending against modern-day attacks, the solution must use continuous analysis and big data analytics to track file interaction and activity across the network, in physical and virtual environments, and on protected endpoints and mobile devices. Download this guide as it identifies the essential capabilities you need in an advanced malware protection solution, the key questions you should ask your vendor, and shows you how Cisco combats today’s advanced malware attacks using a combination of four techniques: 2016-02-28 12:00

3 Addressing Advanced Web Threats: Protect Your Data and Brand Some of the most sophisticated web-based threats are design to hide in plain sight on legitimate and well-trafficked websites. Once an organization’s network is compromised, it can take weeks, months, or longer for an advanced persistent threat enabled through web malware to be detected in the network. To address web security challenges effectively, enterprises need a comprehensive solution. Download this paper to learn how Cisco web security provides: 2016-02-28 12:00

4 Quantitative Analysis of a Prefabricated vs. Traditional Data Centre This white paper identifies two key cost drivers that influence the comparison — space costs and average power density. The greater the brick and mortar shell cost, and the higher the average density requirement, the more likely it is that the prefabricated approach offers financial benefits. On the contrary, if you had a building with existing vacant space, the cost analysis would clearly favour the traditional approach. Download this white paper as it focuses on quantifying the capital cost differences of a prefabricated versus traditional 440 kW data centre, both built with the same power and cooling architecture, in order to highlight the key cost drivers, and to demonstrate that prefabrication does not come at a capex premium. 2016-02-28 12:00

5 Classification of Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) Tools Today, multiple management applications across the principle domains of IT room management, building control, security, and power address various parts of the enterprise suite, but no one application does it all. By sharing key data points, alarm notifications, historical data, and asset tracking information, data center facility and IT infrastructure management software allows users to make informed decisions based upon real- time power and cooling capacity and redundancy data. Download this white paper as it divides the realm of data centre management tools into four distinct subsets, and compares the primary and secondary functions of key subsystems within these subsets. 2016-02-28 12:00

6 Preventive Maintenance Strategy for Data Centres A data centre power and cooling systems PM strategy ensures that procedures for calendar-based scheduled maintenance inspections are established and, if appropriate, that condition-based maintenance practices are considered. The PM strategy should provide protection against downtime risk and should avoid the problem of postponed or forgotten inspection and maintenance. Download this white paper to explore the types of PM services that can help safeguard the uptime of data centres and IT equipment rooms. Various PM methodologies and approaches are discussed. Recommended practices are suggested. 2016-02-28 12:00

7 Cisco 2016 Annual Security Report The Cisco 2016 Annual Security Report — which presents research, insights, and perspectives from Cisco Security Research — highlights the challenges that defenders face in detecting and blocking attackers who employ a rich and ever-changing arsenal of tools. Data compiled by Cisco researchers show changes over time, provides insights on what this data means, and explains how security professionals should respond to threats. Download this report as it examines: 2016-02-28 12:00

8 Think 5G wireless is speeding to your phone? Hold your horses Next-generation wireless networks could well make your phone dramatically more powerful and transform everything from driving to entertainment. But to hear the industry players right now, you'd think the 5G revolution is just around the corner. It's not. Today's technology industry has a remarkable success rate developing new products and services that profoundly transform our lives. You'd be well advised to make peace with your current network service, though, because the 5G revolution is years and years in the future. There are downsides to tech companies trying to build excitement for next-generation technology. First, customers might be disappointed to find they've got to wait years to join the party. The proper 5G standard is due to be finished in 2018, with the first real networks arriving in 2020. The profoundly new services will come only with widespread installation over the years to follow. We can learn from history. "Videoconferencing in 2003 was the killer app for 3G," said Forrester analyst Thomas Husson, referring to third-generation network technology that's now old-school. "We're starting to see video all over the place, but it's 12 years later. " A second downside: Releasing 5G before it's fully finished could undermine the technology's usefulness and increase how much you'll have to pay to get it. That's because all makers of chips, network equipment and phones will have to create technology for different, incompatible versions, said Matt Grob, chief technology officer of mobile-chip maker Qualcomm. Lots of small markets means products are more expensive -- and that expense could be passed on to your monthly phone bill. "A couple operators are taking the role of catalyst, and we support that," Grob said. "But on the flip side, more [5G] versions means more cost. " Another problem with building networks that use prestandard versions of 5G is that your phone might not work up to 5G's potential if you switch to a new carrier or roam on other networks when traveling. The first 5G likely won't even show up in a mobile phone. AT&T plans to use 5G technology in Austin, Texas, to connect homes with high-speed wireless broadband links this year. Verizon, which also is working on the more technically difficult problem of 5G networks for devices that aren't standing still, plans to bring 5G to market in 2017, though it's not being specific about how. The first 5G technology use in mobile phones will come around 2018 at the Winter Olympics in South Korea, where carrier KT has big ambitions to maintain its position as the earliest adopter of new network technology. It's also a chance for Korean business partner Samsung to shine by supplying phones. "We're going to be a part of that," said Woojune Kim, head of Samsung's business unit for next- generation technology. Nokia plans to launch "prestandard 5G products" in 2017 for home broadband trials, but the full commercial launch is set for 2020, two years after the standard is final, said Volker Held, head of innovation marketing at network-equipment maker Nokia. Early use of incompatible 5G technology worries Intel. "I'm very concerned about that," said Aicha Evans, general manager of Intel's Communication and Devices Group. But 5G industry alliances are sprouting like weeds, and she's optimistic those partnerships will nip problems in the bud. AT&T is aware of the risks of high expectations. "What we don't want to do is overhype and underdeliver," said Glenn Lurie, chief executive of AT&T's consumer mobility business. Not everyone is so cautious. Network-gear maker Ericsson thinks the 5G hype is good. It's created a sense of urgency and wiped out complacency, said Chief Technology Officer Ulf Ewaldsson. "It's the biggest opportunity in a long time to make networks relevant. " 2016-02-28 07:48 Stephen Shankland

9 Imagination Announces PowerVR Series8XE Family - Entry- Level GPUs Get Smaller With Mobile World Congress 2016 now in full swing, we’ll see a slew of announcements this week. Among the crowd is Imagination Technologies, who is using the show as a backdrop to discuss their latest generation of GPU technologies. To that end, today the company is announcing the latest iteration of their Rogue architecture for the entry-level SoC GPU market, PowerVR Series8XE. Throughout the lifetime of the Rogue architecture, Imagination has offered two families of designs: the XT family for high performance devices, and the XE family for cost-sensitive entry-level devices. As this is the SoC space both families are focused on power efficiency, but whereas the XT family focuses on a higher overall class of features and performance, the XE family focuses on minimizing overall die size and including a smaller, core set of features. And though both get similar Series branding (e.g. Series7), it’s perhaps more accurate to say both are separate takes on the Rogue architecture, sharing technologies where it makes sense but also being more differentiated than simply their performance targets. In any case, in a break from tradition, for their newest integration of the Rogue architecture Imagination is not announcing both the XT and XE parts at the same time this year. Rather it’s solely the entry-level Series8XE that’s getting announced at this time, making it Imagination’s sole MWC 2016 GPU announcement. With Series8XE the underlying Rogue architecture has not significantly changed from previous iterations, however Imagination has continued to optimize it for the low cost and low power markets this GPU family is targeted at. Like Series7XE , this ranges from high-end wearables and IoT devices up to midrange phones and tablets. From a technical perspective, compared to the last-generation Series7XE, Series8XE gains a couple of notable features. 8XE is OpenGL ES 3.2 capable (versus 3.1 for the base 7XE configuration), updating the GPU to support the latest feature sets required for ES 3.2 while also providing those features for Vulkan. And although Imagination doesn’t explicitly state it, that this isn’t listed as a separate, optional feature implies that tessellation and ASTC are now base features for 8XE. Meanwhile support for OmniShield, the company’s hardware security zone technology has also been added to the base feature set, and from the way Imagination has talked about it, it sounds like they expect OmniShield to be a greater differentiating feature this generation. As for optional features, 10-bit YUV is still offered as an option in the design, primarily for unencumbered HEVC Main10 playback. Also optional for 8XE is the latest generation of Imagination’s PowerVR image compression technology, PVRIC3. Imagination isn’t detailing every last change for PVRIC3, but they are noting that this generation of the technology has full integration with their video decoder and texture decoder, allowing for resources to be passed from the video decoder into the display buffer or into the texture decoders in a compressed format, whose smaller size saves power by virtue of lower memory bandwidth needs and cache pressure. But by far the biggest focus for Imagination for 8XE appears to be on the overall footprint of the GPU designs, with the company continuing to push down the size of their GPUs. Imagination tells us that their 8XE designs are around 25% smaller than 7XE designs for the same pixel fillrate, and smaller still than competing designs (which these days we’d assume to be ARM Mali). Ultimately the push here is to bring down the manufacturing costs of their GPUs, as every square millimeter saved further reduces the total SoC size and cost in what is a very competitive market for entry-level SoCs. To get there, Imagination is basing the 8XE designs around maximizing pixel fillrate, while also making fillrate the primary performance metric for their designs. Imagination tells us that they believe that pixel fillrate is the biggest resource need for entry-level devices and other low-end GPU consumers right now, as simple tasks such as web browsing and casual games aren’t making heavy use of pixel shader operations. And although the company isn’t talking about specific details here – preferring to keep their secret sauce secret - it’s implied that the company has changed the overall balance between pixel shading resources, compute resources, and pixel fillrate resources in order to hit their performance goals while still producing a more compact design than 7XE. Digging a bit deeper, 8XE’s USC and pixel co-processor are actually very similar to 7XE. A single USC pipeline still contains 4 FP16 ALUs, 2 FP32 ALUs, and a SFU ALU. Meanwhile the pixel co-processor still produces either 2 or 4 pixels per clock, depending on the specific implementation. In which case 8XE’s theoretical per-clock performance is very similar to 7XE’s, and that any rebalancing done by Imagination likely took place in the various frontend data masters and thread scheduling hardware that feed the GPU. Moving on, for today’s announcement of Series8XE, Imagination is also announcing the first two 8XE GPU designs, the GE8300 and GE8200. These designs are the successors to the 7XE- based GE7800 and GE7400 respectively, with the GE8300 implementing a whole USC (16 pipelines), while the GE8200 is essentially half of a GE8300, implementing half of a USC (8 pipelines). Similarly, pixel throughput per clock is unchanged from their predecessors, with GE8200 offering 2 pixels per clock while GE8300 offers 4 pixels per clock. Between the two GE8200 is primarily targeted at the true entry-level markets – along with the high-end wearables market – while GE8300 is for higher performance mobile devices and 4K TVs. Wrapping things up, although Imagination does not announce when to expect SoCs utilizing their designs to hit the consumer market, they are announcing that they’ve already struck licensing deals for Series8XE for TVs, wearables, and automotive designs. All of which are no doubt welcome developments for the company in what has been a highly competitive market for entry- level GPUs. 2016-02-28 11:04 Ryan Smith

10 AMD Releases Radeon Software Crimson 16.2 Drivers It didn't take long at all, but AMD has come in with another driver update full of performance enhancements, compatibility fixes, and bug fixes. With continued efforts on their latest commitment to improve their drivers let's look at what Crimson 16.2 bring to the table. This release continues what has become a steady flow of bugfixes. From AMD solving general stability issues such as TDR errors found when running a system with Intel and AMD Graphics to an HDMI monitor, to multiple fixes from Fallout 4 relating to graphics glitches and edge cases found with AMD Crossfire and AMD Freesync. The recently released Rise of the Tomb Raider has also received some attention to fix both visual glitches and a crash that occurs when running very high settings and SMAA at 4K. This latest driver also brings performance and quality improvements for Rise of the Tomb Raider and a report of the Radeon R9 390, Nano, and Fury series cards receiving VR Recommended status in Valves new SteamVR Performance Test. But what AMD draws the most attention to is Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.2 being optimized for Yesterdays release of Stardock's Ashes of the Singularity - Benchmark 2, of which we gave a thorough running as well . As always, those interested in reading more or installing the updated hotfix drivers for AMD’s desktop, mobile, and integrated GPUs can find them either under the driver update section in Radeon Settings or on AMDs Radeon Software Crimson Edition download page . 2016-02-28 11:04 Daniel Williams

12 Samsung Announces the Gear 360: Consumer VR Content Creation In addition to the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge, Samsung is also announcing a camera for VR content. Rather than the extreme setups that we see with some of the current players in this space, Samsung is focusing on bringing VR content creation to the masses with the Gear 360. In essence, the Gear 360 is a sphere slightly smaller than a tennis ball that can capture video and images from every angle around it with the use of two wide-angle f/2.0 15MP cameras to produce a 30MP image for stills, or 3840x1920 video. The Gear 360 has a 1350 mAh removable battery and microSD, a standard tripod mount, basic dust and splash resistance, and can pair to Galaxy smartphones with NFC and transfer data using WiFi Direct. A companion app on Galaxy smartphones also allows for live preview of the footage, in addition to remote settings, transfer, and editing. For control of the device without a compatible smartphone, the Gear 360 has a 72x32 0.5" PMOLED display and some rudimentary buttons to control its settings. Finally, Samsung has stated that the Gear 360 will be available starting Q2 2016. 2016-02-28 11:04 Joshua Ho

13 AMD Expands G-Series Embedded SoCs with Excavator Microarchitecture Back in October 2015, AMD’s embedded business unit announced the first SoCs from AMD using DDR4 , combining AMD’s Excavator cores found in the Carrizo notebook platform but fully integrated solutions focused at digital signage, medical, military, and other verticals. These were essentially Carrizo laptop parts validated slightly differently, in a variety of configurations using DDR4, and high performance by the R-series moniker. Today’s announcement is that the G-Series SoCs, the lower performance members of the stack, will also be transitioning to Excavator. Both the FT3 and FP4 platforms will have new pin-compatible parts with 10-year life cycles: for the FT3 package this is the lower-power G-Series LX, based on Jaguar, and in FP4 this is ‘Brown Falcon’ and ‘Prairie Falcon’, being the I-Family and the J-Family of the G-Series respectively using Excavator. The two families of G-Series are split in more ways than just performance. The I-Family use two Excavator cores (one module) and 4 GCN compute units (256 SPs) with dual channel DDR3/4 memory and 12-15W using a configurable TDP. The J- Family in contrast are lower power, using half as many GCN compute units (128 SPs), with single channel DDR3/4 but with the capacity to enable 10-bit h.265 decode. For integration into existing platforms, the R- Series and I-Family use a similar firmware arrangement but the J-Family has a different BIOS and microcode. On the memory front, the differentiator of dual channel DDR3/4-1600 on the I-Family with ECC support is above the single channel DDR3/4-1866 on the J- Family which does not have ECC support. Both SoC families will have a root complex with a single PCIe 3.0 x4 and four PCIe x1, along with two USB 3.0 and a USB 2.0, but the J-Family will only support one SATA port rather than two on the I-Family. The new G-Series LX model by contrast is a dual core Jaguar part with one compute unit (64 SPs) and aimed at a 6-15W TDP window, supporting AMD Secure and a single channel of DDR3. AMD’s aim here is to provide competitive parts to ARM’s and ARM’s partners’ offerings at a roughly similar price but are x86 compatible for software and a wider support program with that 10-year longevity. It was commented that AMD has a history of long-term support, given that Geode processors are still being manufactured and sold with no real EOL in sight, but these new LX models offer an upgrade path. Alongside the base specifications for the new embedded parts, AMD has plans down the line to introduce iTemp variants of at least the I-Family that have a wider validated temperature window. 2016-02-28 11:04 Ian Cutress

14 Early Exynos 8890 Impressions And Full Specifications While I didn't have the time to run too many benchmarks, I did manage to run a few of our basic browser tests as well as GFXBench. We haven't had the opportunity to benchmark the Snapdragon 820 Galaxy S7 yet, therefore I included the score numbers of the MDP/S platform to represent a best-case scenario for the Snapdragon 820 until we can get apples-to- apples scores based on Samsung's browser. This still mostly due to the fact that Chrome is seemingly not yet optimized to take advantage of Kryo's new architecture, and as a result scores some rather mediocre numbers, as seen in some preliminary LG G5 numbers included in the graphs above. Some quick GPU benchmarks also put the Exynos 8890 slightly behind the Snapdragon 820 in the MDP/S. We will still have to see if actual Snapdragon 820 devices are able to deliver the same performance as the MDP/S platform as there might be some thermal limitations coming into play. Again, we can't comment too much on the scores before we get to know each device's long-term performance and if the attained numbers are sustainable for long periods of time. One observation I made today which was particularly concerning, was that both with the Snapdragon 820 LG G5 as well as the Exynos 8890 Galaxy S7 got considerably warm after running some heavy workloads. The fact that the Galaxy S7 touts having a heat-pipe thermal dissipation system is a quite worrying characteristic of the phone and should in no way be seen as a positive feature as it points to high power draw figures on the part of the SoC. The first impression is that the performance difference between the Snapdragon 820 and the Exynos 8890 doesn't seem to be very large, therefore it will be the SoC's power draws and power efficiencies which will determine if, and which one of both will represent a superior design. Hopefully in the coming weeks and months we'll be able to get a better understanding of this new generation of SoCs so that we can paint a definitive picture of the current status of the mobile SoC space. 2016-02-28 11:04 Andrei Frumusanu

15 Price Check: Price Gap Between DDR3 and DDR4 Memory Almost Gone Around a year ago DRAM manufacturers ended up pinning a lot of their hopes on DDR4 as a way to improve their profit margins. In the cutthroat and highly cyclical DRAM industry, the launch of DDR4-capable systems was seen as encouraging new sales while also serving as an opportunity to sell DRAM with higher margins, owing to the at the time substantial price premium over DDR3. Today however, the difference between prices of DDR3 and DDR4 memory is almost negligible and soon it will likely disappear entirely. What is even more important is that DRAM in general is getting cheaper, which is good for the end-user, but is not necessarily good for companies like Micron, Samsung and SK Hynix. The average price of one 4 Gb DDR4-2133 memory chip was $1.814 on Taiwanese spot market in late-February, according to DRAMeXchange , one of the world’s leading DRAM and NAND market trackers. This month was the first time when the spot price of one 4Gb DDR4 memory IC dropped below $2. In late December, 2015, a DDR4-2133 chip was priced at $2.221, while in late June, 2015, a similar IC cost $3.618. Overall, one DDR4-2133 chip became 18.4% cheaper in about two months and lost nearly 50% of its price in about eight months. Meanwhile the contract price of one 4 Gb DDR4 chip was $1.63 in the second half of January. Spot prices of DDR3 memory are also dropping. One 4 Gb DDR3-1600 chip currently costs $1.807 in Taiwan, down from $1.878 in December and $2.658 in late June, 2015. It is clear that the price of DDR3 memory ICs is decreasing slower than the price of DDR4 DRAMs - leading to the impending DDR3/DDR4 price crossover point - but the trend is obvious: memory is getting cheaper. Contract price of one 4 Gb DDR3 IC was $1.59 in the second half of January. Low prices of DRAM chips naturally influence the pricing of actual memory modules. The price of one 4 GB DDR4-2133 SO-DIMM dropped to $15.50 in the second half of January (down from $18 in December, 2015), whereas the price of one 4 GB DDR3-1600 SO-DIMM decreased to $15.25 (down from $16.75 in December, 2015). The gap between prices of 4 Gb DDR4 and DDR3 memory ICs on the spot market is now about 7 U. S. cents, leaving DDR4 just a little more expensive than its predecessor. However, if we look at the contract price of two different 4 Gb chips, we will see that one 4 Gb DDR4 IC is an even narrower, it is only 4 U. S. cents more expensive than one 4 Gb DDR3 device. Moreover, contract prices of actual DDR4 and DDR3 4 GB DIMMs, which are used today by a lot of PC makers, are nearly the same (DDR4 is about 1.63% higher, but that is insignificant). It is evident that despite Chinese New Year, a holiday that traditionally drives prices of computer hardware a little bit up because of increased demand and paused production in China, prices of DDR4 DRAM chips and modules are still falling. Let’s take a look how that affects actual retail prices of various DDR4 and DDR3 kits in the U. S. We'll start things off with Kingston’s HyperX Fury Black DDR4-2133/CL14 2x8 GB kit (HX421C14FBK2/16), a pretty typical enthusiast-class memory module set. Such modules are used by both DIYers and system integrators, hence, their prices give us a good idea about where the market is going. Right now, Kingston's kit runs for $69.94 from Amazon, according to CamelCamelCamel , which tracks prices of various items at Amazon and its partners. Just about two months ago the same DDR4-2133 HyperX Fury Black 2x8GB kit was priced at $108.99, which means that it has become 33.9% cheaper in a relatively short period of time. Since many people these days can build relatively affordable Haswell or Skylake-based PCs, it makes sense to see how much entry-level DDR3L modules cost. Kingston introduced its HyperX Fury Low Voltage 16 GB (2*8 GB) kit (HX318LC11FBK2/16) rated to run at DDR3- 1866 frequency with CL11 latency back in October at MSRP of around $96. Today, this kit costs $83.09 at Amazon. If you are willing to take some risk and use DDR3 instead of DDR3L with Skylake, there is Kingston’s HyperX Fury Black 2x8 GB DDR3-1866/CL10 kit (HX318C10FBK2/16) available for $68.58 , down from around $80 in December, 2015. Kingston also offers HyperX Savage Red 2x8 GB kit (HX321C11SRK2/16) that works in DDR3-2133 mode with faster CL11 12-12 sub- timings. The kit is available for $94.29 at Amazon and its price has not significantly changed in roughly the last half-year. Meanwhile G. Skill’s enthusiast-class Ripjaws V DDR4-3200/CL16 2*8 GB kit (F4-3200C16D- 16GVK) currently runs for $107.14 from an Amazon partner. The initial price of this Ripjaws V kit in the U. S. was $176.64 when it first hit the market in November, but it quickly dropped to $136.59 in December, knocking 22% off of its price. At the top-end of the performance spectrum, G. Skill’s blazing-fast TridentZ DDR4-4266/CL19 2*4 GB kit (F4-4266C19D-8GTZ) is available from an Amazon partner for $361.22 not including shipping, which is down from $460 in mid-December, 2015. Despite being a high-priced niche product, even the G. Skill Trident Z DDR-4266 8 GB kit has become around 22% cheaper in a couple of months’ time. High capacity kits have also come down in price as well, though perhaps by not as much as mainstream kits. The Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR4-2666/CL15 64 GB kit (CMD64GX4M8A2666C15) was among the first 8x8 GB kits from Corsair, and was specifically designed for high-end desktops running Intel Core i7 Haswell-E processors. When it was introduced in early 2015, it cost $1759.99 at Amazon, and ended the year at $679.99. Today, this kit is priced at $539.99, a further 20.5% drop. In fact, Corsair has quietly introduced a new version of its Dominator Platinum 64 GB DDR4- 2666/C15 kit (CMD64GX4M4A2666C15) consisting of 4*16 GB modules in December. The new quad-channel kit for HEDT PCs was initially priced at $631.99 , but right now, it can be acquired for $509.99 , or 20% below its original December launch price. It is obvious that retail prices of advanced non-ECC unbuffered DDR4 memory modules are dropping even faster than the prices of actual DDR4 DRAM ICs. In the last several months IC costs have continued to drop and volumes increased, while demand for all compute components in the first quarter is usually pretty low, which gives retailers like Amazon and Newegg as well as manufacturers themselves good incentive to decrease prices of their modules in a bid to keep their sales on decent levels. What is noteworthy is that DDR3-1866 and entry-level DDR4-2133 memory modules (such as Kingston HyperX Fury) today have almost reached pricing parity. Moreover, DDR3L and higher- end DDR3-2133 kits are more expensive than DDR4-2133 kits. While DDR3 has an advantage of lower latency, it will get considerably harder and more expensive to upgrade such platforms in the future after DRAM makers reduce production of previous-generation memory. The miniscule difference between DDR3 and DDR4 pricing indicates that supply of the latter is ramping up and is getting on par with the former. Meanwhile, due to slow demand for PCs in general and continuing shipments of PCs featuring previous-generation CPUs, demand for DDR4 is lower than supply. Nonetheless, since DDR4 is very affordable already, PC makers will gradually shift to the new type of DRAM. As a result, just as expected by companies like IHS and Intel, DDR4 should become the dominant PC memory standard in about a year from now. Which is not to say that DDR3 will disappear overnight. Intel’s latest Skylake platforms for desktops and notebooks support DDR4, DDR3L and LPDDR3 memory (except Core M, which only support DDR3L and LPDDR3), hence, PC makers can choose which type to install based on their requirements and prices. The vast majority of advanced desktops and high-performance notebooks featuring Skylake CPUs already utilize DDR4 memory. However, a lot of mainstream desktops and notebooks were designed for DDR3 modules because it used to have a considerable price advantage. Even if the price of DDR4 chips drops below that of DDR3 chips in the next couple of months, it will hardly be worth the effort to redesign motherboards of those PCs to accomodate DDR4. Moreover, many Intel’s partners still sell systems based on CPUs featuring Haswell and Broadwell micro-architectures, which only support DDR3. According to analysts from DRAMeXchange, until PC makers clear-out their previous-generation inventory, they will continue to consume a lot of DDR3. As a result, many PCs will continue to feature the previous-gen DRAM for quite a while. “DDR3 will still account for a large share of the PC DRAM market during the first half of 2016,” said Avril Wu, a research director at DRAMeXchange. “DDR4’s market share will not expand rapidly until the end of the second quarter, when PC OEMs finished clearing their inventories.” As Intel ramps up shipments of its Skylake processors, more and more PCs will use DDR4. Since Intel’s code-named Kaby Lake processors are rumoured to arrive only in late 2016 or early 2017, we may see a number of mainstream laptops embracing Skylake CPUs and DDR4 memory this year. Otherwise, from the standpoint of DRAM manufacturers, DDR4 will become the dominant type of PC-class memory already this year in terms of bits shipments. The server industry started its transition to DDR4 in Q4 2014 along with the launch of Intel Xeon Haswell-EP platform. The majority of new x86 server designs nowadays already use DDR4. Servers utilize considerably higher amounts of memory than notebooks or desktops (i.e., they consume a lot more DRAM bits than PCs), so memory makers have to produce more DDR4 memory to satisfy demands of datacenters. IHS and Intel expect crossover in DDR4 and DDR3 production to happen in 2016 and it seems like they are right in their prediction. The impending DDR3/DDR4 crossover is being driven by softer DRAM prices overall, which in turn is a product of weaker DRAM demand and growing inventories. Worldwide PC shipments totaled 71.9 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015, a minor 2.7% increase from the third quarter and a 10.6% decline compared to the same period in 2014, according to IDC. Sales of tablets reached 65.9 million units in Q4 2015, an increase of 35.3% sequentially, but a 13.7% drop year-over-year, the researchers claim. Meanwhile, shipments of smartphones hit 399.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015 (up 12.4% sequentially and 5.7% YoY), setting a new record. The vast majority of PCs and many inexpensive tablets use commodity DDR3 or DDR4 DRAM, while smartphones use more expensive LPDDR3 or LPDDR4 memory. Even though shipments of PCs and tablets in Q4 were higher than in Q3, actual DRAM industry revenue dropped by 9.1% quarter-over-quarter to $10.27 billion due to oversupply of commodity DRAM products, market analysts claim. By contrast, LPDDR revenue fell by only 1% to $4.499 billion in the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter, according to DRAMeXchange. Part of this drop in demands is of course seasonal, as sales of electronics are typically down in the first half of the year. For example, shipments of notebooks are expected to decline by 20% sequentially, whereas shipments of smartphones are projected to drop by around 16% quarter- over-quarter in Q1 2016. As a result, demand for DRAM is expected to be weak, which is why DRAM prices will remain under pressure. This in turn why we're seeing actual retail prices of memory modules decline faster than the spot/contract prices of DRAM ICs. “We expect notebook shipments to have a quarterly decline of 20% in the first quarter of 2016 on account of seasonality,” said Mr. Wu. “Therefore, DRAM manufacturers are under pressure to lower contract prices in order to digest inventory.” There are only three major DRAM manufacturers on the planet, but the competition between them remains tough. Nobody wants to cut-down DRAM production because nobody wants to lose market share. Moreover, Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron are aggressively adopting smaller manufacturing technologies to cut down costs. As fabrication processes shrink, so do the sizes of memory cells, increasing bit output per wafer and essentially boosting DRAM output and causing prices to decline further. Samsung began to transit its DRAM production to 20 nm fabrication technology in Q1 2014 and analysts from DRAMeXchange believe that by now their yields are very high. Meanwhile market observers anticipate Samsung will start producing memory using their 18 nm manufacturing process sometimes in the middle of 2016, which will further increase the total capacity of DRAM on the market. Smartphone manufacturers are already preparing for the jump, and DRAMeXchange claims that Xiaomi, OPPO and Vivo have already qualified Samsung’s 12Gb mono-die LPDDR4 ICs made using 18 nm technology. Opposing Samsung, SK Hynix is gradually increasing their DRAM production using their 21 nm manufacturing technology. While the company’s plans concerning smaller processes are unclear, SK Hynix is ramping up its M14 fab (which was completed in August, 2015), which will eventually have a capacity of 200 thousand wafer starts per month. Even without introducing a new process technology, SK Hynix is increasing output of DRAM by deploying the fab. Moreover, the company has not yet started high volume production of monolithic 8 Gb DDR4 ICs on their 21nm process. Once the company kicks off mass production of such chips, their bit output will increase further and will add pressure on prices. Finally, Micron started to produce memory chips using their 20 nm fabrication process in early 2015. Late last year the company said that they remained on-track with their conversion plan and yield targets for their 20 nm technology. In fact, according to a slide that Micron demonstrated at its Winter Analyst Conference this month, their 20 nm yields are better than their existing 25 nm yields. The Boise, Idaho-based company hopes that half of their DRAM bit output will be produced at 20nm by mid-2016. The DRAM maker also plans to increase production of high-margin memory products, including 8 Gb DDR4, 8 Gb GDDR5/GDDR5X, and LPDDR4. Micron has also publicized aggressive plans for their 16 nm manufacturing technology. The company’s fabs will be ready to start production of 16nm DRAM by September, which will further increase output provided that yield rate will be high enough. Otherwise, as prices of commodity 4 Gb DRAM chips are declining, makers of computer memory are now pinning their hopes on LPDDR ICs, server DRAM, and graphics/specialty memory as major profit drivers. Usage of 8 Gb DRAM ICs is also growing in servers and client PCs, so there are opportunities for memory makers to earn money in the short term, however 8 Gb chips will also commoditize over time. Thanks to its aggressive transitions to leading-edge process technologies as well as vast manufacturing capacities, Samsung has been the world’s largest DRAM manufacturer for well over a decade. It is not surprising that the company retained its leading position in Q4 2015. Samsung’s DRAM revenue for the fourth quarter dropped to $4.762 billion, or by 9.7% sequentially, according to DRAMeXchange. The company commanded 46.4% of the global memory market and is considerably ahead of the world’s second largest DRAM maker, SK Hynix. DRAM sales of the latter declined by 9.3% quarter-over-quarter to $2.865 billion, whereas its market share remained nearly flat at 27.9%. Third place Micron’s DRAM shipments deteriorated by 10.5% and totaled $1.945 billion in Q4 2015. The company’s market revenue share also decreased to 18.9%, the analysts found. By contrast, smaller memory makers (Nanya, Powerchip and Winbond), who controlled 3.7% of DRAM market share in the fourth quarter, managed to slightly increase their shipments and share mostly thanks to specialty and industrial memory. Samsung also shipped the lion’s share of mobile DRAM in the fourth quarter. The company’s LPDDR revenue totaled $2.619 billion, up 1.3% sequentially. Samsung in turn supplies mobile DRAM to Apple; its own mobile division, the world’s top maker of handsets; as well as rapidly growing suppliers from China. SK Hynix remained the distant second largest manufacturer of mobile DRAM in the fourth quarter of 2015. The company’s sales of LPDDR fell to $1.175 billion from the previous quarter, whereas its revenue share dropped to 26.1%. SK Hynix is another key supplier of LPDDR4 to Apple, which is why its shipments are still very high. Finally, Micron’s mobile DRAM sales declined by 7.7% in Q4 to $642 million, its market share shrank to 14.3%, according to analysts. Overall, DRAMeXchange expects LPDDR4 to account for 45% of mobile DRAM shipments this year, up from 18.2% in 2015. Meanwhile usage of 8 Gb DDR4 chips is also expected to increase, and if Samsung manages to kick off 18nm DRAM production in mid-2016, as analysts expect, it may again benefit from the capacity and power advantages of a leading-edge manufacturing process. Micron, in contrast, will only be ready with its 16 nm production technology in Q4 2016, so they won't be able to capitalize on the new process until late in the year. 2016-02-28 11:04 Anton Shilov

16 Hands On With the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge If you've followed our reviews for the past year, it was probably evident that the Galaxy S6 was one of the best phones launched last year. With one of the better designs in terms of camera, the first 14nm SoC, and a great AMOLED display, there was a lot to like, and consequently it's no surprise that it was one of the best selling Android phones for 2015. With six iterations of the Galaxy S behind them, Samsung has done a lot over the years to improve the line, however even the S6 wasn't perfect, and there were still issues that kept it out of the running from being the best possible phone that it could be, which Samsung is looking to address head-on with the new S7. For many, these issues included the lack of expandable storage, a perceived lack of battery life, and a reduction in dust and water resistance. Samsung Pay also had the potential to be a selling point for the Galaxy S6 at launch, but due to delays early adopters had yet to see the benefits of Samsung Pay. Even if I never found the camera hump to be an issue, a number of people complained about this issue as well. With the Galaxy S7, it’s clear that Samsung has taken many of these criticisms to heart as the Galaxy S7 extends the Galaxy S6 design in many areas while resolving many of the criticisms that were leveled at it. To understand the full extent of the changes seen in the Galaxy S7, we can start with some of the basic specs. At a high level, almost everything outside of design has seen some major changes. For the US variants, the 2.15/1.6 GHz Snapdragon 820 represents a return to a custom Kryo CPU architecture and a new GPU with support for Vulkan. For most regions, the Exynos 8 means a move to Samsung Systems LSI’s first custom CPU architecture in a shipping mobile SoC. In both cases, we’re looking at Samsung’s 14nm LPP process node which should provide an appreciable increase in circuit-level performance as the taller fin means better control over the channel to reduce leakage and improve drive strength, and improved silicon straining should also result in higher maximum clock rates at the same power draw due to improved carrier mobility. The Galaxy S7 also bumps RAM from 3GB to 4GB which should help reduce the rate at which applications are evicted from memory and improve multitasking performance. In a move to address all of the criticisms mentioned at the start of the article, Samsung has re- introduced microSD on the Galaxy S7, the battery size has jumped 18% from 9.82 to 11.55 WHr, Samsung Pay is now truly ready for users from day 1, the camera hump has been reduced by making the phone roughly 1mm thicker, and the Galaxy S7 is now water and dust resistant, rated at IP68 which means it is completely dust tight and can be submerged in at least 1m of water for an indefinite period of time. The IP68 rating is also accomplished without the use of any port covers, which is really quite a feat of engineering. I wasn’t able to test this water resistance in depth, but placing the phone in some shallow water and sprinkling water into the USB ports and headphone jack didn’t noticeably affect the device. In addition to the laundry list of changes above, we see a move to better WiFi with support for MU-MIMO, and a refinement of the industrial design first introduced with the Galaxy S6. Instead of flat glass leading to a metal edge on the display, the display is now covered with 2.5D rounded glass edges which improves the feel of the device when doing edge swipes. The back glass of the phone is also 3D with curved edges as well to improve the in-hand feel which helps to make the phone feel thinner than it really is. However, I definitely noticed that the Galaxy S7 is easier to slide around on tables, so I suspect a case and screen protector will probably be necessary for those that intend to keep this device for long term use. While all of this is great, the single biggest change from the Galaxy S6 to S7 is going to be the camera. With the Galaxy S6 review it was hard to avoid wondering why Samsung didn’t bother to integrate a camera with larger pixel size to improve low light performance, especially when camera was such a significant part of the Galaxy S6 design story with the noticeable camera hump. With the Galaxy S7, Samsung is taking a rather bold step with a move from the 16MP, 16:9 aspect ratio sensor of the Galaxy S6 to a 12MP 4:3 aspect ratio sensor in the Galaxy S7. While sensor format is roughly unchanged at 1/ 2.6”, the pixel size is now 1.4 micron which should significantly increase the number of situations where the image quality is limited by shot noise rather than image sensor noise. Interestingly enough, Samsung Mobile has elected to forgo a move to RWB color filter array, which replaces the green subpixels of the RGBG Bayer array with clear/white color filters, despite the 3.5dB sensitivity gain promised by Samsung Systems LSI, although it might just be that such a move would entail too much risk from an image processing standpoint at the moment as Bayer color filter arrays are much more mature and well-understood from an image processing standpoint. The units we were able to get a hands-on were sporting Sony's IMX260 image sensor, which might be a Samsung contracted unit. Galaxy S5 PDAF sites, Chipworks The sensor also incorporates dual pixel technology for dramatically improved PDAF usability. For those that are unfamiliar with how dual pixel PDAF works, in essence this is an extension of PDAF from just a few pixels on the sensor to every pixel on the sensor. At the CMOS image sensor level, in essence a light barrier is set up across each pixel with two photodiodes per pixel to allow for phase difference measurements while combining the output for the two photodiodes when capturing a photo. I suspect that the 1.4 micron pixel size here may not be entirely due to a desire to improve low light performance though, as a smaller pixel split in half may encounter strange quantum effects that affect image quality. As a result, due to the sheer amount of information collected for focus on the sensor, it becomes possible to have the same speed of focus no matter where you tap to focus on the frame, and in low light rather than falling back to contrast detection it remains possible to use phase detection AF up to the limits of what the image sensor is capable of capturing. In my experience while the Galaxy S6 focuses quickly the Galaxy S7 feels like it jumps to the exact focus every time in almost an instant. The other change to the camera is an increase in aperture size from f/1.9 to f/1.7, which should improve low light performance. I’m a bit less effusive here as while increasing aperture size does improve the amount of light captured, there is a lot of potential for distortion to get out of hand here. As the z-height of the sensor is mostly unchanged and the focal length appears to be held relatively constant it will be important to see how resolution/MTF falls off from the center and what sorts of distortions appear towards the edges in our full review. I definitely noticed that detail towards the edges wasn’t nearly as good as the center of the frame, but without a relative comparison it’s hard to say whether or not it was a problem. Of course, the Galaxy S7 edge also brings some extra features that set it apart from the Galaxy S7. Rather than a 5.1” 1440p display the display is a 5.5” 1440p edge display. Of course, due to the subpixel layout there will be some noticeable color shifting that results on the edges of the display but this isn’t anything that wasn’t noticeable in the Galaxy S6 edge. Whether any of these OLED displays have changes in emitter chemistry, display driver IC, or TFT backplane configuration is hard to say at this time. The Galaxy S7 edge also gains a much larger battery at 13.86 WHr which should make for a significant boost in battery life over the Galaxy S7, but at the cost of more weight and a larger device. There are also some changes to the edge features that allow for more useful information to be displayed like news and weather, but I suspect the main draw here is going to just be the neat aesthetic that comes from the edge display. Along the same lines of the edge display, Samsung is adding extra software features like Always-On Display, which allows for display of simple things like a wallpaper, clock, or calendar along with notifications even when the phone is locked. This appears to run off of a very low power microcontroller of some sort, as the main application processor remains in sleep mode, and the only other work being done to enable this feature is a check to the proximity sensor to disable the display if something is covering it and the ambient light sensor to make sure to set brightness appropriately. The average picture level of these modes are very low as well so functionally speaking the power consumption of this feature is relatively low. The other feature that was worth mentioning was game mode, which provides a floating button and various options like disabling notification alerts, capacitive keys, along with the ability to minimize the game without losing state and the ability to screenshot or record gameplay. This is a relatively low-key feature, but it’s nice to see nonetheless. Subjectively, although software isn’t 100% complete the Galaxy S7 felt relatively smooth, but there were some noticeable hitches here and there which could suggest that there’s still some need to optimize TouchWiz/Samsung UX for lower touch latency and fewer resource-intensive operations relative to AOSP/GPe/Nexus Android. Finally, Samsung is also introducing a number of neat accessories for the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge that include interchangeable lenses mounted to a case and an extended battery that charges the device with wireless charging. I’m not sure whether these will be commonly available, but they were interesting nonetheless. Overall, the Galaxy S7 fixes many of the issues that consumers had with the Galaxy S6, while continuing to improve upon the strengths that it had. I’m definitely happy to see that Samsung has kept some sanity with regard to screen size, and I look forward to seeing how it stacks up against the competition. The Galaxy S7 will be available in Black Onyx and Gold Platinum. The Galaxy S7 edge has the same colors as the Galaxy S7, but also adds Silver Titanium. Both models at launch will only have a 32GB storage SKU. In the US, pre-orders will begin 8AM EST on February 23 2016 and the device will go on sale beginning March 11 2016 for AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile USA, US Cellular, and Verizon. Within the US, those that buy a Galaxy S7 or S7 edge between February 23 and March 18 will also receive a Gear VR and a 6 game bundle while supplies last. For T- Mobile USA, those that pre-order will also receive a year subscription of Netflix. 2016-02-28 11:04 Joshua Ho

17 17 Hands-On With the Xiaomi Mi5 - High-End at a Mid-Range Price It’s been over 18 months since Xiaomi announced the Mi 4 back in June 2014 , and today the company is finally ready to release the sucessor in the form of the Mi 5. The western launch here in Barcelona was presented by VP of Global, Hugo Barra, and we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to live-blog the event and get a more in-depth hands-on later in the day. The Mi 5 is Xiaomi’s 5”-range form-factor flagship device and will be one of the main devices competing for buyer’s attention this generation. In a fashion that is very popular with Chinese vendors, Xiaomi was eager to talk about the detailed specifications of the Mi 5 during its presentation, so without much ado, let’s go over the device’s full specification overview: Continuing on with the rest of the MI 5’s specifications, we find a 5.15” 1080p IPS LCD display. I think Xiaomi did well in staying with a 1080p display as it will help with DDIC and display controller power to achieve better battery life for device. Xiaomi went one step further to improve power efficiency of the screen and disclosed that they’re using more backlight LEDs than in conventional designs – 16 instead of the usual 12-14. According to Xiaomi, this enables the Mi5 to reach up to 600nits of brightness as well as increasing overall backlight efficiency by 17%. While we still have to verify all of these claims, what I did notice is that the quality of the IPS panel that Xiaomi uses on the Mi5 is excellent. The display’s viewing angles are among one of the best I’ve seen on an LCD panel so it’ll definitely be interesting to see if Xiaomi was also able to provide accurate colour reproduction. Further hardware specifications on the internals of the device include a switch to UFS-based NAND storage which promises to reach data-rates of up to 450MB/s – a figure that I wasn’t quite able to reach as quick testing shows the NAND speed reaching only 239MB/s read and 30.76MB/s writes (AndroBench 4.0, 256/4KB buffers, 1 thread). It’s possible that Xiaomi is quoting numbers without encryption and FDE on Android 6.0 is slowing down the maximum achievable speeds by the hardware. Design-wise, this might be Xiaomi’s best device to date. The designers were able to adopt the Mi Note’s bevelled back sides to achieve excellent in-hand feel. To improve on the Mi Note's design which only curved half-way through the side of the device, the Mi5 now also curves the metal frame to try to give a more continuous feel between the metal and the glass/ceramic. Although the device sports a 5.15” screen, thanks to the design it feels more like a 4.7” or smaller device. The in-hand feel is reminiscent of the Galaxy S7 and I’m definitely happy to see that companies this year focused on improving their ergonomics. The only area where I wish Xiaomi had improved a bit more was on the front edges of the device as the lack of 2.5D glass does accentuate the rather sharp feel of the metal frame on the front. I mentioned glass/ceramic earlier, and yes, there is a distinction between glass and ceramic as the MI 5 will come in three variants with two options for the back material. The cheaper 32 and 64GB variants will come with a more traditional glass back, while the 128GB variant comes with a more premium ceramic back cover. Advantages of the ceramic version will be that it'll be much more scratch resistant due to the hardness of the ceramic. One thing that wasn't mentioned during the presentation, but does make a large difference in the device's rather light baseline weight of 129g is that the ceramic back adds in 10g more which was definitely noticeable when holding both variants of the phone. The right side of the device sports a power button with a volume rocker above it. We find a SIM tray on the upper left side of the phone. At the top we see a IR blaster, microphone hole and the 3.5mm headphone jack. The bottom features a USB-C connector which is flanked by 4 speaker holes on each side, although similarly to Huawei’s devices only the right side contains a speaker as the opposing speaker grill serves only as a symmetrical design feature and housing for the main microphone. The MI 5 is Xiaomi's first smartphone with a physical home button. Primary reason for this is the new inclusion of a fingerprint sensor whose accuracy I found to be quite high. I was also very impressed with the implementation of the device wakeup feature: If you wake the device via the home button then it will immediately unlock the device without showing the lock-screen, not requiring a second gesture or trial & error with reading the fingerprint after the initial press. When the device is unlocked the fingerprint sensor also acts as a capacitive button so you never actually have to press the button during normal usage beyond initially waking the device up, effectively enabling full capacitive button navigation for the Mi5. Gallery: Xiaomi MI 5 - Design On the camera side, Xiaomi has made a lot of improvements to the camera module. The Mi5 sports Sony's new IMX298 16MP sensor which sports phase-detection autofocus for fast focusing and deep-trench isolation for better colour reproduction and reduced noise. We saw the same sensor employed in the Mate 8 and while I wasn't yet able to published the revisited camera evaluation of that device, I wasn't overly impressed with the results of the camera, so hopefully Xiaomi this did a better job on the image processing side of things. The MI 5's optics consist of a 6-lens system with an aperture of F/2.0 and an 35mm equivalent focal length of 28mm. A first in the smartphone industry is the introduction of a 4-axis optical image stabilization system which introduces transversal image stabilization on top of latitudinal and longitudinal stabilization. Effectively, the module is now able to move around sideways on a plane on top of correcting its pitch and yaw. The end result is quite impressive and represents one of the best OIS systems in current smartphones. The only thing missing now for a full-fledged 5-axis OIS system that can compensate any kind of shake is an added axis for rotational image stabilization. Gallery: Xiaomi Mi 5 Camera Samples Initial camera samples seem favorable to the Mi5 and are definitely a large improvement to past camera modules employed by Xiaomi. The interesting comparison here is again seeing the MI 5 against the Mate 8 as both employ the same sensor and similar optics with the same aperture - the difference being in other areas such as the image processing. In low-light situations the Mi5 performs well, but it's during the daylight where the Mi5 seems to shine as it's able to take some very good pictures. Performance was a large focus-point during the Mi5’s presentation. The Snapdragon 820 is touted to bring a lot of speedup, but this doesn’t seem to materialize as well in most situations. In browser tests, the Mi5 doesn’t seem to be able to deliver much improvement over the performance scores that we benchmarked back in December on Qualcomm’s MDP/S platform. Xiaomi’s stock browser doesn’t look like it’s been optimized for the Kryo cores and thus doesn’t represent any improvement over Chrome, which is also testing relatively low versus competing ARM cores in the Snapdargon 810 and Kirin 950. PCMark presents the same result when it comes to web-browsing, scoring lower than what the Snapdragon 810 could achieve. The writing score is an important test for overall Android performance and the MI5 performs were here, although it gets beat by the Mate 8's Kirin 950 SoC. The photo editing score is a GPU performance test and here of course the Mi5 performs admirably thanks to the powerful Adreno 530 GPU. We weren't able to install any applications on LG's G5, so the Mi 5 serves as the first consumer device to confirm the benchmark scores we got back on the MDP/S platform. Here we see the Mi 5 perform very well and even slightly outpaces the MDP device, maybe due to newer drivers. Again it's to be noted that the device can get hot and preliminary power measurements show that it's very unlikely that the Mi 5 will be able to sustain these scores for extended periods of time. The Mi 5 will be available in white, gold or black versions in three different options with either 32, 64 and 128GB for respectively RMB ¥1999 (USD~261, ~236€, ~187£) , RMB ¥2299 (USD~300, ~272€, ~215£) and RMB ¥2699 (USD~352, ~319€, ~252£), non-Chinese prices converted without taxes. Xiaomi hasn't commented on availablility outside China or cellular band compatibility, but it's expected that the Mi 5 won't be compatible with NA carriers. European users will be more lucky to see LTE compatibility although it's unlikely that we'll see support for the important Band 20. Overall I was fairly impressed with Xiaomi's new flagship device. The screen and design are definitely the highlights of the device. The Snapdragon 820 seems reasonable and represents a large improvement of Qualcomm's previous generation of SoCs. While there's still a lot more to test for the upcoming full review, in the short time I had with the device I didn't find any outstanding faults with the Mi 5 so it looks like Xiaomi was able to pull off a quite outstanding device that seems to be hard to beat in terms of price/performance ratio. Look forward to the full review in the upcoming weeks. 2016-02-28 11:04 Andrei Frumusanu

18 ARM Announces Cortex-A32 IoT and Embedded Processor Today ARM announces the new Cortex A32 ultra- low power/high efficiency processor IP. For some readers this might come as a surprise as it's only been a few months since we saw the announcement of the Cortex A35 which was presented as a replacement for the Cortex A7 and A5, so this leaves us with the question of where the Cortex A32 positions itself against both past IPs such as the A7 and A5, but also how it compares against the A35. The answer is rather simple: It's still a replacement for the A7 and A5, but targets even lower power use-cases than what the A35 was designed for. While ARM sees the A35 as the core for the next billion low-end smartphones, the A32 seems to be more targeted at the embedded market. In particular it's the "Rich Embedded" market that ARM seems to be excited about. The differentiation lies between use-cases which require a full-fledged MMU and thus able to run full operating systems based on Linux, and those who don't and could make due with a simpler micro-controller based on one of ARM's Cortex-M profile IPs. It's also worth to mention that although last time we claimed that the A35 would servce the IoT market, ARM seems to see wearables and similar devices as part of the "Rich Embedded" umbrella-term and thus now it seems more likely that it's the A32 that will be the core that will power such designs. This leads us to the mystery of what exactly is the A32? During the briefing the only logical question that seemed to come to mind is: "Is this an A35 with 64-bit ' slashed off '? " While ARM chuckled at my oversimplification, they agreed that from a very high-level perspective that it could be considered as an accurate description of the A32. In more technical terms, the A32 is an 32-bit ARMv8-A processor with largely the same microarchitectural characteristics of the Cortex A35. As a reminder to our readers out there: The ARMv8 ISA is not only an 64-bit instruction set but also contains many improvements and additions to the 32-bit profile commonly named as AArch32. Among the larger differences between the A35 and A32 is that the latter's microarchitecture has been tuned and optimized to achieve the best performance and efficiency for 32-bit. Indeed, performance wise, the A32 is advertised as being able to match the Cortex A35. The improvements lie in power efficiency: as a result of dropping its 64-bit capabilities, the new core is now able to achieve up to 10% better efficiency than the Cortex A35. Similarly to the A35, the A32 promises to achieve vastly superior performance per clock versus the Cortex A5 and A7, achieving anywhere from a 31% increase in integer workloads to a massive factor of 13x in crypto workloads, which the A32 is still capable of as they're included in the AArch32 ARMv8 profile. While only a few months ago the Cortex A35 was advertised as ARM's smallest Cortex-A core, this title has now been passed on to the A32. ARM claims the core is around 30% smaller than the A35; The decrease in size, mostly due to the slimming down of the micro-architecture due the removal of 64-bit capability, allows the Cortex A32 to scale down to 2016-02-28 11:04 Andrei Frumusanu

19 MSI Rolls-Out CUBI 2 Plus SFF PCs Featuring Intel’s Mini- STX Platform MSI this week introduced its all-new CUBI 2 Plus and CUBI 2 Plus vPro miniature personal computers based on Intel’s mini-STX motherboard form-factor. The new PCs are slightly larger than Intel’s own NUC systems, but they support CPU upgrades and are generally more powerful. It is not a secret that sales of mainstream desktop computers are stagnating or even declining these days. However, there are two types of desktops, which popularity is actually growing: gaming PCs as well as small form- factor (SFF) systems. To further stimulate demand for miniature computers, Intel in the recent years introduced a number of all-new small form-factors, hoping to improve sales of its microprocessors. Last year the world’s largest maker of CPUs introduced three new types of mini PC designs: Compute Stick, Mini Lake and 5” × 5”. The first two are fully-integrated platforms that cannot be upgraded, they should be produced completely by PC makers or OEMs, which greatly lowers their design flexibility, something that is important for numerous resellers. By contrast, the 5” × 5” platform (which Intel calls mini-STX) features a CPU socket, two SO-DIMM slots, one or two M.2 slots, SATA connectors as well as various I/O ports. For many resellers, the mini-STX platforms should be more preferable than Intel’s NUC because they allow installing different processors, depending on requirements, as well as use inexpensive standard coolers. MSI is one of the first companies to offer SFF PCs featuring mini-STX form-factor motherboards. The MSI CUBI 2 Plus based on the Intel H110 platform controller hub (PCH) will target mainstream users, whereas the MSI CUBI 2 Plus vPro featuring the Intel Q170 PCH are designed for business and enterprise customers, who will take advantage of Intel’s latest- generation vPro technology with Intel Authenticate feature. The systems can be powered by Intel’s Core i3-6100T, Core i5-6500T or Core i7-6700T processors with 35W TDP and integrated graphics. The systems feature two SO-DIMM slots for up to 32 GB of DDR4-2133 memory, one M.2 slot for a Wi-Fi module, one M.2 for an SSD as well as one SATA port for storage devices. I/O capabilities of the MSI CUBI 2 Plus PCs are pretty rich: one USB 3.0 type-C (5 Gbps), two USB 3.0 type-A, four USB 2.0 (including one with charging capabilities), one DisplayPort, one HDMI, one Gigabit Ethernet connector. In addition, the system is equipped with one TRRS mini- jack and an SD card reader. Both versions of the MSI CUBI 2 Plus will use Microsoft Windows 10 Home operating system, which is somewhat strange, given positioning of the version featuring Intel’s vPro technology. It is interesting to note that at present Intel does not offer Skylake-S CPUs with higher-end integrated graphics. The highest-performing integrated GPU inside Intel’s socketed desktop chips is the HD Graphics 530 with 24 execution units (EUs). Meanwhile, Intel already offers its NUC systems with its Core i7-5557U CPU featuring the Iris 6100 graphics (48 EUs) or the Core i5-6260U with the Iris 540 graphics (48 EUs, 64 MB eDRAM). While such CPUs will offer lower general-purpose performance compared to Intel’s socketed Skylake processors because of lower number of cores and lower clock-rates, their performance in graphics-intensive workloads will be higher. Moreover, Intel also offers mobile CPUs with the Iris Pro 580 graphics (72 EUs, 128 MB eDRAM), which can be integrated into NUCs and rival current-gen Skylake-S chips in all types of workloads. As it turns out, at present it is impossible to get a mini-STX system with proper integrated graphics, which means that if you want to get maximum graphics performance out of an SFF PC, you should wait for Intel's Skull Canyon NUC. While small form-factor systems are not expected to run demanding games, it does not hurt to have a performance headroom. Exact prices of the MSI CUBI 2 Plus SFF systems will depend on their actual configurations. 2016-02-28 11:04 Anton Shilov

21 Samsung wins the latest round in Apple patent battle In 2014, a San Jose federal court issued a verdict that ordered Samsung to pay Apple $119.6 million for infringing three of Cupertino's patents. Samsung appealed that decision, and today, a U. S. appeals court overturned the ruling. The full text of the decision is available here. The federal court had awarded Apple $98.7 million for infringement of a patent that "covers software to detect 'structures', such as a phone number, in text and to turn those structures into links. " The appeals court ruled that "Apple failed to prove... that the accused Samsung products use an 'analyzer server' as we previously construed that term," and that Samsung therefore did not infringe the patent. The other two patents in dispute—one that covers the iPhone's slide-to-unlock feature, and another that describes auto-correct software that automatically fixes typing errors on a phone— were both ruled invalid by the appeals court due to prior art. The two mobility giants have been sparring over patents for some time now. A separate dispute between the two companies culminated in Samsung forking over $548 million in damages to Apple last December. 2016-02-28 11:02 by Morgan

22 In the lab: a case, cooler, and power supply from be quiet! TR has covered news of various products from be quiet! for some time now, and I'm pleased to welcome a raft of the company's hardware into our labs for testing. The company sent us its Silent Base 800 case , its Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU cooler , and its Dark Power Pro 11 850W PSU for evaluation. Let's take a quick look at these in turn. First up, we're looking at the Silent Base 800 full-tower in black and silver with a windowed side panel. This is a big, distinctive-looking case that's full of silencing features, including a unique double- glazed side window on the left panel and thick foam behind the drive door, front fan cover, and right side panel. At $150 on Newegg right now , this case isn't cheap, but its distinctive feature set might make it worth the price. We'll have to find out in our review. Next, have a gander at the Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU cooler. This huge dual-tower heatsink draws air through its front face using a 120-mm Silent Wings fan, and the two towers hide a second, 135-mm Silent Wings spinner inside. At 2.6 pounds (1.2 kilograms), the Dark Rock Pro 3 is a massive thing to hang off a motherboard, but its dark nickel plating and brushed-aluminum cap will probably class up any build. We strangely can't find a retail price for this monster online right now, but be quiet! says the Dark Rock Pro 3 carries a $90 suggested price. Finally, we have be quiet!'s Dark Power Pro 11 850W PSU. My case-and-cooling test rigs needed a PSU upgrade, and be quiet! had just the thing. Not only can this PSU provide more power than one could conceivably need for anything short of a multi-GPU setup, the Dark Power Pro 11 is also built with the same 135-mm Silent Wings fan as the Dark Rock Pro 3 above. This unit comes stock with rubber isolators on its front and rear edges to minimize vibration transfer. Even though it doesn't have a semi-silent mode, I can't imagine the Dark Power Pro's fan will ever need to spin up much past idle thanks to its 80 Plus Platinum rating. We'll have to see how it performs when it's actually plugged in, but I have high hopes for this unit. At $180 right now , this PSU is a bit spendy, but high power and Platinum certification don't come cheap. Our thanks to be quiet! for this cool hardware. Stay tuned for our reviews of the Silent Base 800 and Dark Rock Pro 3. 2016-02-28 11:02 by Jeff

23 Ashes of the Singularity's second beta gives GCN a big boost with DX12 Ashes of the Singularity is probably the first game that will come to most people's minds these days when we talk about DirectX 12. That title has been the source of a bunch of controversy in its pre-release lifetime, thanks to an ongoing furor about the game's reliance on DirectX 12's support for asynchronous compute on the GPU and that feature's impact on the performance of AMD and Nvidia graphics cards alike. Ashes of the Singularity will be getting a second beta with a new benchmark ahead of its March 22 debut, and several outlets have been given early access to that software in advance of its official release. AnandTech , ExtremeTech , and Guru3D have all benched this new beta in both single and multi-card configurations, including the kinds of Frankenstein builds we saw when developer Oxide Games previewed support for DirectX 12's explicit multi-adapter mode. Explicit multi-GPU support is being added to the game's public builds for this beta release, too, so more of the press has been able to put Radeons and GeForces side-by-side in the same systems to see how they work together. Performance highlights While all three reviews are worth reading in-depth, we want to highlight a couple things. Across every review, Radeon cards tend to lead comparable GeForces every step of the way in single- card configurations, at least in the measure of potential performance that FPS averages give us. Those leads widen as resolution and graphics quality settings are turned up. For example, with Ashes ' High preset and the DX12 renderer, the Radeon R9 Fury X leads the GeForce GTX 980 Ti by 17.6% at 4K in AnandTech's testing , going by average FPS. That lead shrinks to about 15% at 2560x1440, and to about 4% at 1080p. Ashes does have even higher quality settings, and Guru3D put the game's most extreme one to the test. Using the Crazy preset at 2560x1440, that site's Fury X takes a whopping 31% lead over the GTX 980 Ti in average FPS. Surprisingly, even a Radeon R9 390X pulls ahead of Nvidia's top-end card with those settings. As we saw last year in an earlier Ashes benchmark series from PC Perspective , switching to DirectX 11 reverses the Radeons' fortunes. Using that rendering path causes a significant drop in performance: 20% or more, according to AnandTech's results. The new Ashes benchmark lets testers flip asynchronous compute support on and off, too, so it's interesting to examine what effect that has on performance. AnandTech found that turning on the feature mildly harmed performance on GeForce cards. Radeons, on the other hand, got as much as a 10% boost in frame rates with async compute enabled. Nvidia says it hasn't enabled support for async compute in its public drivers yet, so that could explain part of the performance drop there. In the "things you can do, but probably shouldn't" department, the latest Ashes beta also lets testers turn on DX12's Explicit Multiadapter feature in unlinked mode, which we'll call EMU for short. As we saw the last time we reported on performance of cards in an EMU configuration , the feature does allow for some significant performance scaling over single-card setups. It also allows weirdos who want to throw a Fury X and a GTX 980 Ti in the same system let their freak flags fly. AnandTech did just that with its Fury X and GTX 980 Ti. Using the red team's card as the primary adapter, the site got a a considerable performance increase over a single card when running Ashes at 4K and with its Extreme preset. The combo delivered about 39% more performance over a GTX 980 Ti and about 24% over an R9 Fury X. With the GTX 980 Ti in the hot seat, the unlikely team delivered about 35% more frames per second on average. EMU does come with one drawback, though. Guru3D measured frame times using FCAT for its EMU testing, and the site found that enabling the feature with a GTX 980-and-GTX-980-Ti pairing resulted in significant frame pacing issues, or "microstutter," an ugly problem that we examined back in 2013 with the Radeon HD 7990. If microstutter is a widespread issue when EMU is enabled, it could make the feature less appealing. Caveats As with any purportedly earth-shattering numbers like these, we think there are a few caveats. For one, this is a beta build of Ashes of the Singularity. AnandTech cautions that it's "already seen the performance of Ashes shift significantly since our last look at the game, and while the game is much closer to competition now, it is not yet final. " For two, each site tested Ashes with the Radeon Software 16.1.1 hotfix, AMD's latest beta driver. After the results from each site were published, AMD released the Radeon Software 16.2 hotfix , which contains some Ashes -specific optimizations. We're curious to see what effect the updated driver has on the performance of the game on AMD hardware, and it's entirely possible that the effect could be positive. For three, as we mentioned earlier, Nvidia says that it still hasn't enabled support for asynchronous compute in its public drivers. GeForce software product manager Sean Pelletier took to Twitter yesterday to point this out , and he also noted that Oxide Software's statement that asynchronous compute support was enabled in the green team's public drivers was incorrect. Given how heavily Ashes appears to rely on asynchronous compute, the fact that Nvidia's drivers apparently aren't exposing the feature to the game could partially explain why GeForce cards are lagging their Radeon competitors so much in this benchmark. Still, if these numbers are any indication, gamers with AMD graphics cards could see a big boost in performance with DirectX 12, all else being equal. It's unclear whether other studios will take advantage of the same DX12 features that Oxide Games has with Ashes of the Singularity. Just because a game claims DirectX 12 support, that gives us no insight about the number of API features a particular title includes. Even so, we could be on the threshold of some exciting times in the graphics performance space. We'll have to see how games using this new API take shape over the coming months. 2016-02-28 11:02 by Jeff

24 Fallout 4 mod support arrives on the PC in April Fallout 4 players, rejoice. In an interview with GameInformer , Bethesda's Todd Howard revealed that official mod support for Fallout 4 is coming in April. Until now, players looking to add features to Fallout 4 or make it suit their style a little better have had their work cut out for them. First, they needed to hit a site like the venerable NexusMods. They then had to use a third-party mod manager or do the dirty installation work on their own, with varying degrees of success. Integrating Fallout 4 with the Steam Workshop would make things a lot easier for everyone involved, as happened with Skyrim. There's yet no official word as of yet, though, so it's still possible (but unlikely) that Bethesda will restrict mod delivery to their own store. Bethesda previously said that consoles would also get mod support, and now Howard has established an accurate timeline for when that will happen. He unsurprisingly says it's "far easier to update and iterate on PC," so it makes sense that plaform will get mod support first, after the first piece of DLC for Fallout 4 hits the market. Mod support for the Xbox One should follow roughly a month afterwards, and PlayStation 4 support is expected to come another month after that. Now, carry on. Preston Garvey needs you to help another settlement. UPDATE 2/24/16, 5:35 PM: edited to note there's yet no official word on Steam Workshop support. 2016-02-28 11:02 by Bruno

25 US authorities used students to hack into Tor THE US COURTS have confirmed that the Department of Defence is not immune to employing students, and used a gaggle of them from Carnegie Mellon to find a way to crack into privacy alternative Tor. We would expect students to be against this kind of thing, but who knows these days? People like a challenge and there are plenty who would support efforts to crack Tor. The Russians are rather keen , for example. A report on The Guardian said that the recently released court papers show a clear trail between the government and the research. The students were successful in some cases, and at least one was able to stumble on someone related to the infamous Silk Road swap shop. It appears that Tor was aware that something was going on, and made an effort to hide the identity of Tor users, according to The Guardian . Vice magazine's Motherboard is a bit more blunt in its report , saying that Carnegie Mellon admitted that its students did some work on the side, and that it has nothing more to say on the subject. We reported last year that the FBI was accused of funding such activity. "The Tor Project has learned more about last year's attack by Carnegie Mellon researchers on the hidden service subsystem," said Tor in a blog post at the time . "Apparently, these researchers were paid by the FBI to attack hidden services users in a broad sweep, and then sift through their data to find people whom they could accuse of crimes. " The university said at the time that it does have some relations with the authorities, but that news reports were inaccurate. "Carnegie Mellon includes the Software Engineering Institute, which is a federally funded research and development centre established specifically to focus on software-related security and engineering issues," the university said. "One of the missions of the Institute's CERT division is to research and identify vulnerabilities in software and computing networks so that they may be corrected. "In the course of its work, the university from time to time is served with subpoenas requesting information about research it has performed. The university abides by the rule of law, complies with lawfully issued subpoenas and receives no funding for its compliance. " Carnegie Mellon is sticking to this line, according to Motherboard. Tor was more communicative, telling reporters that the authorities just cannot peel its skin back despite their best efforts. "The Tor network is secure and has only rarely been compromised. The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon compromised the network in early 2014 by operating relays and tampering with user traffic," the organisation said. "That vulnerability, like all other vulnerabilities, was patched as soon as we learned about it. The Tor network remains the best way for users to protect their privacy and security when communicating online. " µ To hear more about security challenges, the threats they pose and how to combat them, sign up for The INQUIRER sister site Computing's Enterprise Security and Risk Management conference , taking place on 24 November. 2016-02-28 11:05

26 Ofcom holds back from ordering BT Openreach break-up but tells firm to share network with rivals UK TELECOMS WATCHDOG Ofcom has called for more reform at BT in its Strategic Review of Digital Communications, but has stopped short of recommending the break-up of BT's Openreach infrastructure arm. The regulator called for BT to open up its network so that competitors can more easily connect fibre to homes and offices directly, rather than just calling for the formal separation of Openreach from BT to create an independent company. "Openreach will be required to open up its telegraph poles and ‘ducts', the small, underground tunnels that carry telecoms lines. Using these, rival providers will be able to build their own fibre networks connected directly to homes and offices," said Ofcom in its conclusion. "Openreach must make it much easier for competitors to access this network, and provide comprehensive data on the nature and location of its ducts and poles. " Ofcom also called for an industry structure that will give the watchdog more power to intervene and regulate. The organisation claimed that this approach would "promote large-scale rollout of new ultrafast broadband networks based on cable and fibre lines as an alternative to the partly copper-based technologies currently being planned by BT". Ofcom described its proposals for deeper regulation instead of fundamental change as a "new model for Openreach", despite its admission that "the evidence from Ofcom's review shows Openreach still has an incentive to make decisions in the interests of BT, rather than BT's competitors, which can lead to competition problems". "Openreach's governance lacks independence from BT Group. The wider company has retained control over Openreach's decision-making and the budget that is spent on the network, and other telecoms companies have not been consulted sufficiently on investment plans that affect them," the report said. "For these reasons, Ofcom has decided it is necessary to overhaul Openreach's governance and strengthen its independence from BT. In future, Openreach needs to take its own decisions on budget, investment and strategy, such as the deployment of new networks. "Openreach management should be required to serve all wholesale customers equally, and consult them on its investment plans. There will also be greater transparency over how costs and assets are allocated between Openreach and the rest of BT. " Ofcom will prepare proposals later this year to outline how these changes will be implemented. The new model might require Openreach to become a ring-fenced, wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group with its own board members. "If necessary, Ofcom reserves the right to require BT to spin off Openreach as an entirely separate legal entity with its own shareholders," the regulator said. Not surprisingly, BT was fast out of the trap with a statement that "welcomed" the alternatives to splitting off Openreach, after the firm had grovelingly promised "reform" of Openreach in September . "Ofcom has today explained why breaking up BT would not lead to better service or more investment and that structural separation would be a last resort. We welcome those comments," said BT. "The focus now needs to be on a strengthened but proportionate form of the current model and we have put forward a positive proposal that we believe can form the basis for further discussions with Ofcom and the wider industry. " Others in the industry weren't quite so effusive. Alastair Masson, a client partner at NTT Data UK, was unusually forthright in his response, describing it as "little more than a list of low-impact measures to stimulate high-cost competition, rather than tackling the issue of Openreach and BT's influence on the wider market". He added: "Not only does it neglect to address the imminent competition decision on Three's takeover of O2, it misses a huge opportunity to move away from the stovepiped view of communications too often used in the UK. When it comes to analysing market movements, context is everything. "High-speed broadband should not just be offered by industry giants BT and Virgin Media. Smaller operators should provide it too. They should also be able to do it without having to commit to unnecessary physical infrastructure rollouts. The whole point of unbundling was to avoid the need for competing infrastructure. " MPs may also be disappointed. Many had called for BT to be formally broken up, blaming the company for not rolling out high-speed internet access comprehensively or fast enough. Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone had also called for firmer action from Ofcom. µ 2016-02-28 11:05

27 Google Updates: AMPed up, F.luxed up and Project Astoria canned AFTER NOTING the arrival of fF.lux as a rooted Android app earlier this week, news now reaches the Week in Google desk (you can call us TWIGgy) that an upcoming version of the Android Support Library includes a day/night mode that allows developers to use the same technology we've already seen in Google Play Books to turn the screen to a more gentle hue. Meanwhile, over at Nostromo, Microsoft has officially confirmed what we had predicted for a while: there are to be no Android App ports for the Windows Universal 10 app Metro platform runtime window thing. Project Astoria has failed to find a suitable way to implement Android Bridge to port apps, and has put the kibosh on the hope of rescuing Windows Mobile 10 by offering rebundles of the apps that people want. Get your sad face emoticon out and prepare for more John Hurt apps. There have been two big updates for media outlets this week. First up is the expansion of Project Shield , which protects news outlets, particularly those with dissident voices, from DDoS hacks. It has now been rolled out to a wider range of websites and is available free of charge. The launch of Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages initiative is finally here after being previewed last year. AMP is already in use at several major news outlets, such as the BBC and Metro , to provide instant news feeds through a code plug-in. Finally this week, there are updates for Google+ for Android, which now pre-renders pages (possibly using AMP) so that all six readers get a better experience. There's some tweaks in Google Docs et al too. Now, in addition to being able to voice dictate into documents, you can give commands, making Google Docs a potentially worthwhile alternative to commercial products like Dragon. S'all she wrote, Holmes. µ 2016-02-28 11:05

28 HP Inc accelerates job cuts as Windows 10 and Skylake cause slump in earnings EVEN MORE job cuts are expected at HP Inc after the company reported some fairly shocking Q1 results that saw revenue down 12 percent on the previous quarter year on year. The $12.2bn revenue in the three months to the end of January represent a five percent real-terms drop even allowing for the recent currency fluctuations. The Personal Systems group was down 13 percent year on year with a 3.1 percent operating margin. Total units sold were down 13 percent, eight percent in laptops and 13 percent in desktops. Sales of hardware have fallen across the board owing to a perfect storm of fluctuating exchange rates and the launch of Windows 10, and the Intel Skylake chip range, the latter two causing many potential buyers to wait before purchasing . So says a report out of TrendForce, which claims that the of Windows 10 in the third quarter and Intel's Skylake CPU in Q4 may have influenced a delay in purchases of notebooks, compounding falling exchange rates which have made laptop upgrades an expensive treat in Europe and emerging markets. That said, the forecast now that these two factors are realised is set to improve. TrendForce analyst Anita Wang said: "HP and Lenovo will still be rivals for the top spot in the notebook market during 2016. HP has a good chance of holding the most market share this year and maintaining its leadership position because of the relatively stronger US market. " Printing revenue was down 17 percent, hardware down 20 percent and supplies down 14 percent, despite growing criticism of the printing industry for the huge profit margins on printer supplies. Printing supplies represent 80 percent of the unit's profits. HP Inc confirmed as part of the announcement that 3,000 people will now leave the business by the end of the 2016 fiscal year, instead of over three years as originally predicted. The old HP business before the split predicted that 33,300 jobs would go over three years, 1,200 of which would be in the new HP Inc during 2016. Hewlett Packard Enterprise , the other side of the new business, is expected to report figures on 3 March. µ 2016-02-28 11:05

29 Exclusive: All-Flash Array Vendor Kaminario Targets SaaS Channel Partners Dani Golan All-flash storage array vendor Kaminario is strengthening its channel focus with several new initiatives planned throughout 2016. Among the changes that solution providers working with Needham, Mass.-based Kaminario can expect are programs for new partner types including those with a focus on Software-as-a-Service, along with increased spending and training to go with those new programs. The expanded program comes from a realization that the future of the data center lies in all-flash storage architectures that allow enhanced performance with new applications while letting customers continue to leverage past storage investments, said Kaminario founder and CEO Dani Golan. [Related: The 10 Coolest Flash Storage And SSD Products Of 2015 ] The traditional approach to flash storage has been to add flash as a performance tier, or to run a single high-performance application on a flash storage array, Golan told CRN. "When we approach customers, we don't tell them to put one or two applications on our systems," he said. "We tell them, put all your mission-critical applications on us. On-line transaction processing, virtualization, analytics, all of it. " That has made the SaaS market a big focus for Kaminario in 2016. "SaaS companies need affordability and performance along with the flexibility to do analytics and reporting on the same data set," Golan said. "We provide scalability, cost efficiency, and the ability to host mixed workloads. This lets us shine. " Kaminario's K2 family of all-flash storage solutions are unique in their ability to independently scale out for performance and up for capacity while applying such storage services as deduplication, Golan said. "And we're the only company with adaptive block performance that allows the storage to be tuned to an application in real time," he said. "This allows customers to host any application. " Kaminario is a channel-led company, with almost all of its sales going through indirect channel partners, said Dror Friedman, senior director of global channels for the vendor. 2016-02-28 11:04 Joseph F.

30 5 Companies That Came To Win This Week The Week Ending Feb. 26 Topping this week's roundup of companies that came to win is Dell, whose deal to acquire EMC for $67 billion cleared a significant regulatory hurdle this week. Also making this week's list are HP Inc. for its plans to turn about 1,500 direct customer accounts over to channel partners, Microsoft's acquisition of cross-platform development vendor Xamarin, Nimble's aggressive move against EMC and Pure Storage with a new all-flash storage array, and a trio of companies that launched partner programs this week. Not everyone in the IT industry was making smart moves this week, of course. For a rundown of companies that were unfortunate, unsuccessful or just didn't make good decisions, check out this week's 5 Companies That Had A Rough Week roundup. 2016-02-28 11:04 Rick Whiting

31 Report: Nutanix May Delay IPO Leading hyper-converged infrastructure technology developer Nutanix may be delaying its planned IPO until financial market conditions improve, according to a new report from CNBC. CNBC this week reported that the tech IPO market is on hold, with no tech companies going public in the past three months, and with share prices of seven of the last 10 tech companies to go public falling below their IPO price. Nutanix in December filed it S-1 , and had been widely expected to debut as a public company early this year. However, CNBC, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter, reported that Nutanix is now following the advice of its bankers and waiting for the stock market volatility to dissipate. One source familiar with the matter told CRN that Nutanix is delaying its IPO until at least the second quarter of 2016, possibly even the third quarter, so long as stock market valuations and liquidity improve. [Related: Hyper-Converged Startup Nutanix Files For IPO, Had $241 Million In Revenue In 2015 ] A Nutanix spokesperson told CRN via email that Nutanix is not commenting on its IPO. Putting further pressure on Nutanix, as CRN first reported in January , Cisco Systems is preparing a new hyper-converged appliance that combines its UCS servers with technology gained from an OEM agreement with hyper-converged software startup Springpath, according to sources familiar with the vendor's plans. That hyper-converged appliance will debut next week at the Cisco Partner Summit in San Diego, sources told CRN. The stock market has not been kind to companies similar to Nutanix that have recently gone through the IPO process. The most recent, Pure Storage, the Mountain View, Calif.-based developer of all-flash storage arrays, on Oct. 8 saw its share prices debut at $16.04. Share prices quickly climbed to more than $19 that month, but have recently been in the $12 to $13-plus range. Another example, San Jose, Calif.-based all-flash and hybrid flash array developer Nimble Storage, debuted as a public company Feb. 26, 2014, at $53.69 a share. Shortly thereafter, it briefly flirted with $58 per share, but this month, slipped to as low as $5.73 per share before recovering to Friday's $7.75 shortly before the close of the trading day. A delay in Nutanix's IPO is no cause for worry, said Jeff Guenthner, director for solutions architecture at CMI, a Mill Valley, Calif.-based solution provider and Nutanix channel partner. "Nutanix is financially solid," Guenthner told CRN. 2016-02-28 11:04 Joseph F.

32 Channel Beat: HP Inc. To Lay Off Thousands In 2016 HP Inc. will cut more than 3,000 jobs this year, accelerating a plan of layoffs that previously was slated to take three years. HP Inc. released its latest earnings this week, with core printing sales down 17 percent and the PC business down 13 percent in its first quarter. HP Inc. shares were down 1 percent in after-hours trading following the numbers. Salesforce wrapped up its fourth quarter with $1.81 billion in revenue, a 27 percent year-over- year increase. CEO Marc Benioff called it the best quarter the company has ever seen, and the stock jumped above $68 in after-hours trading. Benioff credited a recent deal with Accenture for the company's continued growth. The CEO advices partners to continue selling cloud apps and take advantage of Salesforce platforms internally. Microsoft will acquire mobile application development startup Xamarin. Microsoft announced the deal this week, nearly two years after CRN first reported the companies were in talks about a deal. With Xamarin, developers can build native iOS and Android apps using Microsoft programming language. Developers can write one set of code to use for apps targeting various platforms. The technology has more than 1.3 million developers as users. Details around the deal have not been disclosed. 2016-02-28 11:04 Meghan Ottolini

33 Nutanix Launches Tech That Lets VMware Customers Switch To Its Hypervisor, Partners Say Interest Is Growing Hyper-convergence startup Nutanix, which unveiled technology last summer that converts VMware-based workloads to its own KVM-based Acropolis hypervisor format, made it available to customers for the first time in an update released last week. Nutanix may have delayed its long awaited IPO , according to a report this week from CNBC. But the scrappy startup, which has a $2 billion-plus valuation, is still aiming to convince VMware customers to dump ESX, the world's most widely used server virtualization hypervisor, in favor of Acropolis. "Right now we have the ability to do a one-click conversion of a virtual machine on VMware ESX to the Acropolis hypervisor," Howard Ting, chief marketing officer at Nutanix, said in an interview. [Related: vCloud Where? VMware Forms New Hybrid Cloud Alliance With IBM SoftLayer ] Nutanix isn't just going after VMware: It's also working on adding VM conversion capability for Microsoft Hyper-V, Ting said, without offering a time frame. Needless to say, Nutanix will face a tough challenge in getting VMware customers to switch to its hypervisor. Microsoft -- despite more than seven years in the market with its Hyper-V hypervisor, and solid market share gains during that time -- has been unable to unseat VMware as king of the data center, and it hasn't been for lack of effort. Yet Nutanix partners told CRN that at least some of their customers are looking for alternatives to VMware for cost reasons. And it's no secret that VMware's licensing costs have been increasing over the years as the vendor packs more features into each new vSphere release. While the Nutanix partners aren't seeing customers dump VMware entirely, they said customers are keen on the idea of moving noncritical workloads -- like software testing and development -- from ESX to Acropolis. "We have Nutanix clients running [Acropolis hypervisor] who have moved from VMware, and we have a line out the door with other clients wanting to talk more about it," Jeff Guenthner, director of solutions architecture at CMI, a Mill Valley, Calif.-based Nutanix partner, told CRN. "I think there is a readiness to jump from VMware -- competition and change is good," said Daniel Holm, director of enterprise solutions at InterWorks, a Nutanix partner in Stillwater, Okla. "Nutanix Acropolis makes a lot of sense and customers are seriously considering it. " A VMware spokesman declined to comment. VMware acknowledged last month that sales of vSphere, the server virtualization software that includes ESX, are slowing. But VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said sales of newer products like NSX software-defined networking are poised to pick up the slack. 2016-02-28 11:04 Kevin McLaughlin

34 Report: Banks Close To Finding Investors For Dell-EMC Acquisition Debt The banks underwriting the more than $45 billion financing package for Dell's acquisition of EMC are reportedly close to finding investors for a large portion of the loans that are expected to be part of the deal. The banks have lined up investors for more than $7 billion of the $10 billion in loan exposure they expect to take on as part of the transaction, according to a Thomson Reuters report. Still, banking sources told Thomson Reuters that debt market volatility, slumping equity markets and other economic conditions have contributed to the loans being slow to sell despite healthy demand. [Related: Dell Edges Closer To Selling Perot Systems, Enters Exclusive Negotiation With NTT] Stephen Monteros, vice president of sales operations at Sigmanet, an Ontario, Calif.-based Dell partner, told CRN that messages Dell is providing to partners indicates that the merger, slated to close between May and October, could be complete at the early end of that schedule, a prospect he called "great news. " The loans are known as pro-rata loans, which typically include a mix of fixed-term debt and revolving credit. Dell's package includes a $3.5 billion, three-year term loan; a $3.5 billion, five- year term loan and a $3 billion, five-year revolving credit facility. The banks had been expected to commit to the financing by Feb. 10, but pushed that date back as they tried to reduce their exposure. The Dell deal is being underwritten by JP Morgan, Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and RBC Capital. On Tuesday, the merger cleared a mandatory waiting period under the federal Hart-Scott- Rodino Antitrust Improvement Act of 1976. The proposed $67 billion deal must still win the approval of EMC shareholders and other regulatory clearances. The acquisition, originally pegged at $67 billion when it was announced in October, would be the largest in the history of the technology industry, and would create an $80 billion global IT industry powerhouse. But the value of the deal has been driven down by VMware's declining share price, which has dropped more than 40 percent in the last four months. EMC owns 80 percent of VMware. Dell recently pushed back against reports that claimed the acquisition had hit a snag with the group of banks arranging financing. Dell said it expects to take on as much as $49.5 billion in debt to make the deal happen, and plans to begin paying down that debt aggressively in the first 18 to 24 months after the transaction closes. Part of that debt pay-down includes selling off business units, and Dell is close to unloading its Perot Systems unit. Dell is in an exclusive, 30-day negotiating period with Tokyo-based NTT for Perot, which Dell bought in 2009. 2016-02-28 11:04 Matt Brown

35 20 People Channel Chiefs Look To For Inspiration Inspiration Comes In Many Forms The over 300 members of CRN's 2016 Channel Chiefs project have risen through the ranks to lead channel efforts at today's biggest and most innovative technology companies. Getting to this position of channel power takes a certain kind of drive and given the nearly 27,000 years of combined channel experience among this year's Chiefs, it's safe to say they've found quite a few sources of inspiration along the way. As part of the 2016 Channel Chiefs, we asked the executives to share the people whom they look to for inspiration to fuel that drive. To see the complete list of the top channel executives and what they've been doing to ready their channel programs for 2016, check out the 2016 Channel Chiefs database . 2016-02-28 11:04 CRN Staff

36 Why American Manufacturing Is Crucial To U. S. Technology Growth Rich Breault, president of Haverhill, Mass.-based electronics manufacturing contract company Lightspeed Manufacturing, explained to a crowd at the Massachusetts State House why firms like his are key to the growth of technology companies across the country. Beault has been in the electronics manufacturing game for quite a while. “My first manufacturing job was at Apple building the original Mac Classics. So yes, we’ve seen a lot change over the years,” he said. Today, Lightspeed partners with small and large technology companies to closely engineer hardware solutions. Because of its domestic presence, Lightspeed can have a hands-on approach with startup technology companies, like Bounce Imaging, which has developed a solution for first responders. The Bounce Imaging Explorer is a heavy-duty ball equipped with six cameras, which first responders can toss into a room before entering it themselves. The camera transmits immediate images and data about the environment, so SWAT, police and FBI members know exactly what they’re walking into. “We could toss a ball like this in, at a very low price point, under a couple thousand dollars. We can record the images, and actually watch what’s happening in the room,” Beault said. The Explorer, which was developed in Massachusetts, continues to be manufactured just miles away in Haverhill. Lightspeed also offers services in electronic prototype development, so young technology companies can have in-person meetings to test out early product designs. 2016-02-28 11:04 Meghan Ottolini

37 Updategate: Microsoft splashes Tomb Raider ad over Windows 10 lock screens MICROSOFT IS giving the world more reasons to hate Windows 10, as another batch of lock screen advertising appears on computers worldwide, this time advertising the latest version of Tomb Raider. It's not the first time that Windows 10 has shown its Windows 10 'freeware is adware' chops on the lock screen after an advert for Minions appeared last month to a limited number of users. But this time, it's more widespread. So the good news is that, whatever you think of this behaviour, and from where we're standing Microsoft is not in a position to piss people off, you can turn it off. You can uncheck the box marked 'Get fun facts, tips, tricks and more on your lock screen' in your settings, because the 'more' is actually adverts. Microsoft isn't doing anything wrong as such. We knew that serving adverts was going to be part of the deal, although it wasn't quite as explicit as we'd have liked. Redmond isn't the first either. Amazon has been using its Kindle lock screens as billboards for a couple of years, charging a premium for a device without ads. So why is this news? Because this has been biting reality for a lot of users. The seemingly widespread nature of this ad campaign has exposed a lot more people to the true nature of Windows 10 for the first time. It may not cost anything, but it sure ain't free. There's nothing wrong with monetising your product through advertising, and we'd be a bit hypocritical to say otherwise, but Microsoft has become insidious under Nadella, seemingly harmless and well intentioned on the surface but stomach exploding alien beneath. Nadella said of Windows 10 that he wanted people to go "from using Windows to loving Windows" (and we warned you at the time that it sounded like something Mr Burns would say). The problem is that actually we're going from 'being forced to use Windows 10, to hating what Windows 10 represents'. µ 2016-02-28 07:37

38 Firms running Oracle and VMware may breach Oracle software licence agreements ORACLE DATABASE users running applications in a virtualised environment using third-party virtualisation software could be in "serious breach" of Oracle's software licensing rules and potentially on the hook for millions in fines and extra software licences. This is according to Carl Davies, managing director at Tmaxsoft, which provides a "drop-in replacement for the Oracle database". So not entirely impartial in the matter, then. "Nobody is suggesting that Oracle users, be they ISVs or end users, are intentionally running in breach. It is simply not clear what Oracle's contractual position is in reference to virtualised hardware," said Davies. "Oracle permits some partitioning technology as a means of limiting the number of software licences required in virtualised environments, but it can be unclear which methods are approved and it's easy to misinterpret and fall into non-compliance. "But ignorance is no defence once Oracle decides to audit an organisation's estate. The one sure result for non-Oracle Virtualisation Machine users such as VMware will be significant cost and disruption. Once the audit is complete they will be given 30 days to become compliant again. " Complaints about software vendors' licence auditing programmes have increased as new software licence sales have fallen in recent years. It is not just Oracle that has been the target of user ire, but Microsoft and SAP, among others. "To be clear, Oracle does publish an Oracle Partitioning Policy which makes a distinction between hard and soft partitioning," said Davies. "It prohibits the use of many of the most common virtualisation technologies as hard partitioning in order to limit the number of licences required, including Solaris 9 resource containers, AIX workload manager and VMware. " However, Davies pointed out that this document has not been widely publicised and that it states, confusingly, that none of these prohibitions can be included in any contract. "Despite the fact that Oracle goes to great lengths to describe its partitioning policy, it goes on to suggest that this very policy will not form part of any agreement or contract," he said. "This is obviously very perplexing and it isn't surprising that some customers are accusing Oracle of promoting misuse of its software to then report that same customer to be out of compliance. " µ 2016-02-28 07:25

39 Apple's iPhone 5SE will look just like the iPhone 5S (Apple Byte Extra Crunchy, Ep. 27) Apple vs. the FBI continues as this year's biggest story and now Apple wants Congress to make a decision. Plus, the latest iPhone 5SE details and the Apple Pencil to get back its navigation functionality. Subscribe to the Apple Byte Podcast Extra Crunchy Show Notes: Social Networking: With contribution from Stephen Beacham. 2016-02-28 11:05 Brian Tong

40 Watch a 120-year-old 'Millionaire' machine do some astounding calculations Long before transistors and other electronics came along, calculators were large mechanical machines that performed mathematics through a series of gears and cylinders turning inside their boxy exteriors. The YouTube channel called the Numberphile got its hands on one such device called the "Millionaire," and released a video Tuesday showing how it works. Stoll says he bought two Millionaire machines about 35 years ago at an auction for a bank that was going out of business in Buffalo, New York. He paid $75 for them. It doesn't take a machine to calculate that that was a pretty good deal. 2016-02-28 06:47 Michael Franco

41 How well do you know your strange Oscars moments? Take our quiz The Academy Awards might be a tightly scripted show, but that doesn't mean mischief and mayhem don't sneak in. Every year, it seems there's at least one moment on the red carpet or during the actual ceremony when some carefully planned moment goes off course or a celebrity or two gives the tabloids yet another good reason to put them on the front page. Who knows what could happen this year? The bear from "The Revenant" could barge its way into the theater and demand that Leonardo DiCaprio give it the award for doing most of the "heavy lifting. " Comedian Chris Rock could tell a joke that actually makes the most humorless actors in the audience crack a grin. 2016-02-28 05:42 Danny Gallagher

42 The five people you'll meet at every Oscars party If you can't make it to the Academy Awards on Sunday because you can't afford the limo fees, you'll have to settle for watching the ceremony at a party. That's where you're bound to run into one of these five classic Oscars party characters. Study them. Remember them. Be prepared to deal with them. The envelopes, please. 1. The Old Timer Remember when films only had two shades of color and didn't allow big Hollywood stars to use naughty words or show even an inch of side-boob or butt cheek? This person does and he'll remind you of that fact every time he sees something that offends him. Usually, he just averts his eyes from the TV screen or heads to the kitchen for another bite of artisanal cheese, but eventually, he'll crack. He'll start ranting about how cursing in a movie is akin to federal treason and no one ever showed a millimeter of skin on screen. The only thing that shuts him up is the reminder of his mortality and how much life he's wasted by complaining so much every time the "In Memoriam" segment starts. 2. The Quiet One Who Ends Up Dominating the Oscars Pool It's too bad Academy Award parties don't hold a separate pool to guess who's going to win the actual Oscar pool because you could really rake in some money by betting on this person. The quietest one at every Oscar party who actually watches the broadcast and barely completes a full sentence all night always walks away with all of the money. She may seem shy and unassuming, but don't let that fool you. She's a lion when it comes to picking the winners. How does she do it? Is she a Hollywood insider? Does she have a master's degree in film? Does she have telekinetic abilities? Maybe it's because she always saves her winnings to actually buy tickets for the nominated movies instead of guessing by picking the snootiest- sounding name in every category. 3. The "I Saw That" Guy By the end of the night, you'll know every movie this person has seen. That's because he'll announce it at the presentation of every movie during the broadcast as if everyone else is playing some kind of "What Movies Did This Guy See? Bingo. " Best picture nominee "The Revenant? " He saw it. Best cinematography nominee "The Hateful Eight"? He saw it in HD and the 70mm version. Best live action short film nominee "Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)"? He saw that as well, even though the nearest art-house movie theater is 200 miles from where he lives. It doesn't matter how obscure the movie sounds. If it pops up on the screen, he will point at it and scream like Donald Sutherland at the end of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers. " 4. The "That's Not Funny" Person Doing comedy at the Academy Awards is hard. You have to make a global audience laugh by placating a theater full of people who couldn't take a joke if it was stapled to their palms. So imagine just how much harder such a gig would be if someone in the audience just kept saying, "That's not funny" over and over again at the end of every joke. She does that at the screen every time the host or a presenter tries to tell a joke that doesn't make her comedy barometer spin like a merry-go round being pushed by a kid with a blood sugar imbalance. Thankfully, the communication channels for television only move in one direction (unless that's a new feature on the smart TV Apple is developing). Otherwise, James Franco and Anne Hathaway's cringeworthy co-host performance in 2011 would have looked like two people being tortured by the voices in their heads for three straight hours. 5. The Handicapper You don't have to know anything about movies to enjoy an Oscars party or even appreciate the experience of watching the Academy Awards. It's not about impressing your friends with your knowledge and opinions. Someone should tell that to this guy. The 88th Academy Awards ceremony airs Sunday on ABC at 5:30 p.m. PT, with the red-carpet show starting at 4 p.m. 2016-02-28 05:42 Danny Gallagher

43 The 10 best seasons of Netflix original shows Netflix a global provider of streaming movies and TV series has been making these since 2013 with their first big original series “House of Cards.” According to Business Insider, they managed to pull out data reviews from “ Metacritic ” to find out which seasons of Netflix had the best ratings, from the likes of “House of Cards,” to “Orange is the New Black,” to Love and so on. Qualifying to be in this list, Business Insider only considered Comedies or Dramas and have at least four critic reviews. Each was ranked on how every season was critically received. Here are the best 10 Netflix’s original shows: 10. Hemlock Grove Season 2 Average critic score (4 critics): 37/100 Audience score: 7.5/10 Netflix description: A quaint town links a mangled corpse to a dark outsider with a carnivorous secret. But monsters come in many forms. 9. Grace and Frankie Season 1 Average critic score (27 critics): 58/100 Audience score: 8.1/10 Netflix description: Grace and Frankie think their lives in retirement are all set. Then their husbands declare their love for each other. 8. Sense8 Season 1 Average critic score (23 critics): 63/100 Audience score: 8.1/10 Netflix description: Their gift of telepathic communication made them targets for extermination. But it’s the one thing keeping them alive. 7. Love Season 1 Average critic score (27 critics): 72/100 Audience score: 7.4/10 Netflix description: It’s awkward. It’s impossible. It’s infuriating. And it may just be the best thing that’s ever happened to them. 6. Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp Season 1 Average critic score (23 critics): 74/100 Audience score: 6.7/10 Netflix description: Sex. Booze. Rock-n-roll. Assassins. Feathered hair. Welcome to summer at Camp Firewood. 5. Daredevil Season 1 Average critic score (22 critics): 75/100 Audience score: 8.7/10 Netflix description: A boyhood accident blinded him. But now he can “see” even better. And he doesn’t like what’s going on in Hell’s Kitchen. 4. House of Cards Season 2 Average critic score (25 critics): 80/100 Audience score: 8.7/10 Netflix description: Is it true that absolute power corrupts absolutely? Congressman Frank Underwood absolutely intends to find out. 3. Orange Is the New Black Season 2 Average critic score (31 critics): 89/100 Audience score: 8.4/10 Netflix description: Piper Chapman doesn’t deserve her prison sentence. Of course, every one of her fellow inmates thinks the same thing. 2. BoJack Horseman Season 2 Average critic score (7 critics): 90/100 Audience score: 8.7/10 Netflix description: He’s a half-horse, half-man, has-been TV star who drinks a bit too much. He’s really got a lot going on right now. 1. Master of None Season 1 Average critic score (31 critics): 91/100 Audience score: 7.7/10 Netflix description: Dating, career, finding a great taco — it’s all hard. But becoming a mature adult is a whole other degree of difficulty. [ Business Insider ] 2016-02-28 07:00 PC Tech

44 Rocket League reaches 12 million players, as dev explains sales breakdown 12 million is the total number of people who have played Rocket League to date. Since Rocket League offers split-screen play, each individual PlayStation Network and Xbox Gamertag is counted. This means the figure includes people who played Rocket League, but didn't necessarily buy a copy. Rocket League's total download number has not been shared -- and it's unlikely that it will be. If Psyonix did divulge the cumulative download number, it's possible that it could be deduced how many copies were given away on PS Plus in July, a figure Sony would probably like to keep under wraps. The total number of Rocket League players will always be significantly higher than actual sales numbers because it combines individual split-screen players and those who downloaded it through PS Plus into one overall figure. 2016-02-28 05:58 GameSpot Staff

45 IS supporters threaten Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey THE HEADS of two large social networks have been threatened by Islamic State supporters with a social networking axe to grind. The supporters have levelled their threats at Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter. They are angry that the sites attempt to limit their conversations, and are attempting to effect a change. This goes down in a video, which is often the medium for this kind of thing. It's a long piece and includes images of Zuckerberg and Dorsey meeting an array of bullets. The video, entitled Flames of the Supporters, was released by a group calling itself The Sons of the Caliphate Army. It attacks the CEOs and their companies for trying to block their accounts, and warns that they will respond with hacks and create more and more accounts. The video closes with a written statement warning that the group will act if the deletion of accounts continues: "You are not in our league. If you close one account we will take 10 in return and soon your names will be erased after we delete your sites, Allah willing, and will know that what we say is true. " Twitter and others have taken steps to limit the spread of hate speak and video. Twitter warned late last year that it will not tolerate such behaviour, and we know that Zuckerberg now surrounds himself with security staff and ain't keen on the heavy stuff turning up on Facebook. "We believe that protection from abuse and harassment is a vital part of empowering people to freely express themselves on Twitter," said Megan Cristina, Twitter director for trust and safety, in December. "We're updating the Twitter rules to clarify what we consider to be abusive behaviour and hateful conduct. The updated language emphasises that Twitter will not tolerate behaviour intended to harass, intimidate or use fear to silence another user's voice. "As always, we embrace and encourage diverse opinions and beliefs, but we will continue to take action on accounts that cross the line into abuse. " µ 2016-02-28 08:26

46 Tim Cook compares iPhone unlocking to cancer VOCAL APPLE CEO Tim Cook is continuing to wring attention out of this will-they-won't-they-why- don't-they unlock the iPhone passcode story, and has begun dropping the C-bomb. Yup, like Turbo B, the MC of big in the 1990s group Snap, Cook has taken to comparing the seriousness of the iPhone unlocking situation to the serious illness that is cancer. He did this on ABC News as part of the iPhone privacy, encryption, security roadshow. "The only way to get information [from a locked iPhone], at least currently the only way we know, would be to write a piece of software that we view as sort of the equivalent of cancer," he said. "We think it's bad news to write it. We would never write it. We have never written it, and that is what is at stake here. We believe that is a very dangerous operating system. " It's a precedent, but is it like cancer? Well, that's a stretch. It's a very big deal for the industry right now and Cook's refusal to apply a 200-year-old catch-all law to a five-year-old piece of technology has vocal support and opposition. "If a court can ask us to write this piece of software, think about what else they could ask us to write. Maybe it's an operating system for surveillance, maybe the ability for the law enforcement to turn on the camera," Cook said. "I don't know where this stops. But I do know that this is not what should be happening in this country. " Why stop there, Tim? If this is as serious as cancer surely there are a whole load of other things we could compare it to? For example: 'We view this as sort of equivalent to Godzilla rampaging around, reaching into people's houses and stealing and eating their children.' Or 'We view this as sort of equivalent to stale crisps and flat cola.' The INQUIRER feels it appropriate to report that Snap compared cancer to rhythm is a dancer. You could probably argue against this too. µ 2016-02-28 08:26

47 Microsoft launches experimental Hub keyboard for Android MICROSOFT has released the latest in its line of ' John Hurt ' mobile apps designed to hide inside Android and iOS devices and burst through the chest. The keyboard app, known as 'Kane', sorry, 'Hub', is a Microsoft Garage project aimed at simplifying multitasking on devices. “I don’t like switching between apps to do different things on my smartphone,” said Steve Won, a senior designer on the Office team and the brains behind Hub. “But all these different apps on a smartphone have to conform to the rules of a keyboard and that got me thinking about the project as an interesting idea I wanted to explore. We’re giving users a wider gamut of tools.” We can't deny that it's a pretty neat idea. An extra toolbar adds direct access to contacts, translation tools and attachments. And then there's the usual rub. You can probably guess what it is. Drop in a contact, it's from your Microsoft account. Documents are from your Office 365 account. Translation is by Bing. It's yet another 'useful tool' that's actually a 'chest burster' designed to get people using Microsoft's services. There's also a big problem at this early stage: you can have text predictions or the toolbar, not both, making it difficult to recommend. But remember that this is an experimental tool and needs testers to get better, not miserable old cynics like us. What's more worrying from our point of view is that SwiftKey, by far the best keyboard app on the market , is now in the hands of the Redmond massive. It makes us wonder how long it's going to be before these little touches of Micro-megalomania start to invade there too. Windows 10 Mobile is basically now a write-off, and Microsoft's mobile ambitions are like cuckoos' eggs needing a nest. Or in Alien terms, a Kane we need like a hole in the chest. µ 2016-02-28 08:26

48 Boston Dynamics unveils, and clobbers, a terrifying new robot THE INQUIRER is happy to welcome Boston Dynamics' latest robot to the planet and is pleased to direct this new version of Atlas towards our leader. Boston Dynamics has a habit of making robots that look like they'd tear your head off, and for treating them with some disregard. This is something we would not choose to do. It looks cruel and it looks like a stupid idea. After all, one of these things needs only to be struck by lightning, or self-realisation, before it starts taking the law (no, not Asimov's laws) into its own hands. Atlas, The Next Generation is shown off in a brief video ( below ). It is able to walk through snow and survive being smashed in the back with a large pole. It can handle itself, for sure. "A new version of Atlas, designed to operate outdoors and inside buildings, is specialised for mobile manipulation. It is electrically powered and hydraulically actuated," explained Boston Dynamics in the video's introduction. "It uses sensors in its body and legs to balance, and LIDAR and stereo sensors in its head to avoid obstacles, assess the terrain, help with navigation and manipulate objects. " The short version is that it can pick up a heavy box and put it on a shelf and march drunkenly through snow. We can all do that, we just don't make a fuss about it. Same goes for Atlas, which can even bounce back from someone knocking a box out of its hands without switching into a food processor and turning the room red. Google-owned Boston Dynamics seems hell bent on pushing its drone workers to the limits, so let's hope they never set up a union, let alone tear anyone's arms off and start swinging them around. We wish them luck and continued endeavour. We just don't want one anywhere near our offices when it realises how much it hates people. µ 2016-02-28 08:26

49 Linux users campaign after Microsoft 'neglects' Skype with a week of downtime HACKED OFF Linux users have started a campaign to get Microsoft to fix the Skype VoIP platform which they claim has been in decline for some time. The open letter to Microsoft said: "It was a shitty move to not update the client for three years, which resulted in this, mostly. It was annoying that you ignored almost every tweet to @SkypeSupport about issues with Skype for Linux. But it is absolutely disgraceful that you dropped the Linux client BEFORE any alternatives are available and without telling your users. " The campaign invites people to tweet their support with the hashtag #thanksbill which, unless we're missing something, suggests that their frustration stems from 2008 when Bill Gates last held a full-time position at Microsoft. The full tweet reads: "@SkypeSupport dropped support for Skype for Linux, we can no longer accept calls. Support us by sharing: http://nickforall.nl/skype/ #ThanksBill CLICK TO TWEET. " Problems with outgoing calls began on 22 February but the campaign organisers, 'Boltgolt' and 'NickforallNL', believe that it is indicative of a long-term decline for the Linux client. "We do understand that Linux is a competitor of Microsoft's Windows. But we do not understand why this results in a lack of support for Skype," continued the letter. "Linux is actively being used by power users who cannot or do not want to use Windows because of a lack of features, and now those ($kype for business and private purposes) are dropped by Skype. " Nothing could be further from the truth, on the other hand, for users of other Microsoft 'rivals', Android and iOS, who are seeing what we lovingly refer to as John Hurt chest burster apps as the company tries to become a cross-platform bundle of love and friendship. So what's going on with Skype for Linux? We've asked Microsoft and the firm hasn't got back to us. Plus ça change. µ 2016-02-28 05:21

50 5 amazing things you'll be able to do with 5G OK, so everyone in the wireless industry is talking about 5G. Why should I care? "5G will take it to the next level," said Cristiano Amon, president of Qualcomm's chip business. "There will be "ubiquitous connectivity from all sorts of devices. " But that doesn't mean you can't dream about what's next. Here are a few things you'll be able to do with 5G. Want to play a virtual game against a friend across the world or visit a fancy beach house when you're really stuck in your basement apartment? With 5G, you can wirelessly stream that content into your virtual-reality headset. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at MWC that he hoped VR would be one of the "killer applications of 5G. " Data transfers so quickly that you won't have to wait long for virtual experience to load on your mobile VR headset. Thanks to the minute lag times, you'll be able to keep up with your gamer friend on the other side of the planet. "My son wants to do lightsaber duels," said Woojune Kim, head of Samsung's next-generation network business. "You can imagine no traffic lights in the street -- the cars are crossing, but they're not bumping into each other," said Volker Held, head of innovation marketing at network equipment maker Nokia. Once all cars have sensors and cameras, they could also capture continuous video footage, said Marc Naddell, a vice president at chipmaker MediaTek. If there's an accident, you'll be able to view video from all angles, not just from the cars involved but from all cars in the area at that time. Telemedicine becomes feasible with 5G, whose communication lag is brief enough to permit doctors to perform some procedures remotely, said Matt Grob, chief technology officer of mobile-chip maker Qualcomm. Carriers can set up 5G networks so those medical procedures get priority over someone watching YouTube videos. The lag time is so miniscule that doctors could use robots to operate on you from 1,000 miles away. People in remote regions can be treated by the specialists, even if they're halfway across the world. "You can get the best doctors in the world to work on your mother's cancer," Samsung's Kim said. "That was not feasible years ago. " Kim believes the way we communicate will become more visual. Imagine talking to your family by way of a supersharp video, with resolution so high it's like you're next to them. Or rehearsing with your bandmates -- in different homes -- via video. That seems simple, but today's networks don't offer precise real-time communications. There's always a lag, and that causes it all to fall apart. Remember in "The Amazing Spider-Man" when Peter Parker runs a Bing search (we know, Bing?) on Dr. Kurt Connors and instantly gets results? Your Web pages never load that fast. "That's Darth Vader's computer there," Ericsson Chief Technology Officer Ulf Ewaldsson quipped. Pages usually take a second or two to load, even on a fast connection. With 5G, those results will come immediately. Or if you wanted to kick back and download the movie "The Guardians of the Galaxy," it would zip to your device in 15 seconds instead of the 6 minutes it takes via 4G. CNET's Roger Cheng and Stephen Shankland contributed to this report. 2016-02-28 08:26 Shara Tibken

51 Gigabyte Announces New 17.3” Gaming Laptops with Intel Skylake Processors GIGABYTE has introduced its new family of desktop replacement gaming notebooks with Intel’s Skylake microprocessors. The new laptops not only feature new CPUs, but also add support for technologies like USB 3.1, M.2, HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 and some other improvements. The GIGABYTE P57 laptops are powered by the Intel Core i7-6700HQ (four cores with Hyper- Threading technology, 2.60 GHz default frequency, 3.50 GHz turbo frequency, 6 MB LLC cache, 45 W TDP, dual-channel DDR4/DDR3L memory controller) as well as Intel’s mobile HM170 platform controller hub (PCH). The laptop can be equipped with up to 32 GB of dual- channel DDR4-2133 memory, which should be sufficient for a gaming laptop. GIGABYTE’s P57 notebooks feature 17.3-inch IPS display with matte anti-glare coating and 1920x1080 resolution. Graphics sub-system is the key piece of technology for any gaming PC. The GIGABYTE P57K is equipped with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 965M GPU (1024 stream processors, 64 texture units, 32 raster operations pipelines) with 2 GB GDDR5 onboard. The more powerful GIGABYTE P57W comes with NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 970M GPU (1280 SPs, 80 TUs, 48 ROPs) and 3 GB of GDDR5 onboard. Both graphics adapters should deliver sufficient performance in games in 1920x1080 resolution. However, it is not completely clear why GIGABYTE decided to cut- down the amount of onboard GPU memory. The P37W DTR notebook from the company features the GeForce GTX 970M with 6 GB of GDDR5, whereas the P37K sports the GeForce GTX 965M with 4 GB of RAM. Storage sub-system of the GIGABYTE P57 is similar to that of its predecessors: the laptop features a 512 GB integrated M.2 type 2280 SSD (with PCIe 3.0 x4 interface) and comes with a Blu-ray RW/DVD RW ODD that can be swapped with a 2.5” HDD or SSD. GIGABYTE does not reveal which SSD it installs by default, but claims that it has read speed of about 2000 MB/s, which points to a rather powerful model. The new DTR notebooks also come with a new keyboard that features anti-ghosting with 30- keys rollover support as well as backlighting. Unfortunately, this keyboard does not have programmable keys, which may upset some gamers. Since GIGABYTE’s P57 are desktop replacement gaming machines, they feature the whole set of wired and wireless communication technologies, including a Gigabit Ethernet port (with traffic management software) as well as Wi-Fi 802.11 ac/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.1 controllers. The input/output functionality of GIGABYTE’s P57 is in line with modern laptops. The system features one USB 3.1 type-C port (I am not sure which controller is used, but if it is Intel’s Alpine Ridge, which GIGABYTE uses on the majority of its Intel-based platforms, then it will be just a matter of time before the port gets Thunderbolt 3 certification), three USB 3.0 type-A connectors, an HDMI output with HDCP 2.2 for playback of Ultra HD Blu-ray discs and output video to a compatible TV or display, a mini DisplayPort and even a D-Sub output. In addition, the notebooks are equipped with a HD webcam, a SD card reader, a microphone, two 1.5W speakers and even a SPDIF output. The more advanced GIGABYTE P57W comes with a 75.81 Wh battery, whereas the P57K sport a 60.8 Wh battery. The notebooks can weigh from 2.7 to 2.9 kilograms, depending on exact configuration. The GIGABYTE P57W is already available at Newegg starting at $1499 . 2016-02-28 04:10 Anton Shilov

52 Samsung Portable SSD T3 Review The last few years have seen rapid advancements in flash technology including planar 1x nm NAND, TLC, and 3D V-NAND. External high-speed interfaces such as USB 3.x have also become ubiquitous. The advent of Type-C has also enabled device vendors to agree upon a standardized connector for their equipment (be it mobile devices or desktop PCs). These advances have led to the appearance of small and affordable direct attached storage units with very high performance for day-to-day data transfer applications. There are plenty of options for high-capacity thumb drives, but the form factor brings in performance limitations. Therefore, vendors such as Samsung and SanDisk have decided to go in for palm-sized bus-powered units connecting to the host with the help of a cable. Samsung's Portable SSD T1 was released at CES 2015. The Portable SSD T3, announced at CES 2016 , builds upon the market success of the T1 and comes with four main improvements: The T3 units are slated to become available in the market towards the end of February, but Samsung provided the press with early samples. The T1 was based on the 850 EVO (same 32-layer TLC V-NAND with a full-fledged MEX/MGX controller coupled with an ASMedia ASM1153E SATA to USB 3.0 bridge). However, the T3 is a bit of a puzzle, since the only 2TB variants we have had from Samsung are the 850 EVO and the 850 PRO. These 2TB variants both use eight 16-die packages (with the only difference being the MLC V-NAND in the Pro to the TLC V-NAND in the EVO). Accommodating eight flash packages in the footprint of the T3 seems like a big stretch, but, before we get into the internals, let us take a look at the insights provided by CrystalDiskInfo. Even though CrystalDiskInfo reports TRIM as a feature, the quick TRIMCheck program pointed to TRIM availability being indeterminate. In any case, Samsung also doesn't make any claims about TRIM support. S. M. A. R. T data was not visible to most of the commonly used tools. On the USB 3.0 side, the drive supports UASP (USB-attached SCSI Protocol) that should provide increased performance for sequential transfers. Claimed transfer rates are 450 MBps for sequential accesses. We also have hardware-accelerated AES-256 encryption. In the rest of this section, we will take a look at the internal hardware followed by some usage impressions (particularly from the viewpoint of a DAS unit for an Android device). Compared to the T1, the T3 is much more easy to disassemble. This is not something that any end-user would really care about, but it definitely revealed some interesting information. The process involved peeling off two stickers and taking out four screws. Various pictures from our disassembly process (including shots of the heavy thermal protection) are available in the gallery below. The last picture in the gallery shows the ASMedia 1153E SATA to USB 3.0 bridge chip (also used in the T1), as well as the ASM1542 10Gbps signal passive switch (used to enable the Type-C interface). The more interesting components are the controller and the flash packages. While the controller (S4LN062X01) seems to be the standard MGX controller used in the 120 - 500GB 850 EVO drives, there are only four flash packages in the system. Given the 2TB capacity, it is clear that we are looking at flash packages that have not been used in any other publicly available Samsung storage device till now. Maybe a bit too much flash on the flash? The flash packages carry the marking K9DUGB8S7M. Since each package has 500 GB of flash, there are three possibilities: Without any further details from Samsung, our educated guess is that (c) looks to be the most likely option. The first clue is the pricing. At $850 for 2TB ($0.425/GB), it is not the cheapest external SSD around. The cost per GB is higher than that of the T1 (which launched at $0.60/GB and has now moved down to around $0.34/GB). This leads us to suspect that this is the latest generation TLC V-NAND. An external device like the T3 would allow Samsung to first ship the flash in a low-volume, high-profit part, and then ramp it up for consumer SSDs. There is also less concern about performance and endurance compared to the requirements in internal SSDs. Samsung had also talked about 256 Gb 48-layer TLC V-NAND mass production at FMS last August, and the flash packages in T3 look most likely to be based on that. UPDATE : Samsung confirmed that the NAND used in the Portable SSD T3 is indeed 48-layer 256 Gb TLC V- NAND. Unlike the T1 which came pre-partitioned with a 128 MB FAT32 volume and the rest of the capacity formatted in exFAT, the T3 has only one exFAT partition. Samsung's Portable SSD program can be installed on the PC to enable or disable security (the AES-256 option) as well as to enter the password for drives that have had a password set through another device. We saw in our T1 review that the encryption is done in hardware, and there is no performance penalty. Since the claimed performance numbers are also not different from the T1, we benchmarked the drive with the encryption disabled. Coming back to the usage aspects, the exFAT volume is available without installing any special programs on both Windows and Mac OS systems. Linux users might need to install an external package to get exFATsupport. Though Samsung claims Android support for the unit, it is only for the encryption aspect. The Portable SSD app allows users to enable / disable / unlock the encryption (security) on a drive. We attached the T3 to a Huawei Nexus 6P using the Type-C to Type-C cable that came along with the phone. There was no trouble accessing the drive on the phone. The only caveat is that Android doesn't support exFAT. I thought Samsung's Portable SSD app would enable exFAT support, but that is not the case currently. Anyways, the Nexus 6P force- formatted the T3 in FAT32, but, after that, there was no issue in transferring data between the phone and a PC using the T3. On the whole, the user experience with the T3 was definitely better than what we had with the T1 at launch. Android compatibility is nice to have, but we would definitely like Samsung to provide exFAT support through the Portable SSD app. In the next section, we will describe our testbed setup and testing methodology for the Samsung Portable SSD T3 unit. 2016-02-28 04:10 Ganesh T

53 MWC 2016: Sony Press Conference Live Blog 02:54AM EST - Yup that's a wrap! 02:53AM EST - Coming in the summer 02:52AM EST - That sounds like a wrap up. Xperia X series and new connected devices 02:52AM EST - The fact they said super mid suggests a MediaTek chipset? 02:51AM EST - Coming out in summer 02:51AM EST - XA model is super mid 02:51AM EST - Colors 02:50AM EST - Possible 2x increase in longevity of battery 02:50AM EST - Up to 2 days battery and adaptive charging 02:49AM EST - Tracks a scene and predicts where to focus 02:49AM EST - First time introduces predictive high rate auto focus 02:49AM EST - New Xperia X series 02:48AM EST - 'intelligence apps' 02:48AM EST - 'using intelligence to improve functions you use instead' 02:47AM EST - 'do you really need smartphones with functions you never use' 02:47AM EST - All products coming in the future 02:47AM EST - Latest weather, news, missed calls, messages 02:46AM EST - Make your life more hands free 02:46AM EST - Xperia ear coming out in the summer 02:46AM EST - To better assist people in their lives 02:45AM EST - Understanding personal behaviour and offer information 02:45AM EST - A new series of xperia connected devices 02:44AM EST - A device that welcomes you home 02:44AM EST - A projector with interactive touch 02:44AM EST - And a wearable camera 02:43AM EST - OK it looks like an ear piece 02:43AM EST - Here's the progress update on xperia 02:43AM EST - 'your personalised assistant with a natural user interface' 02:42AM EST - 'doing it passively' 02:42AM EST - 'Xperia is now more natural and uses the environment around you' 02:41AM EST - It sounds like they might announce augmented reality 02:41AM EST - Talking about not being distracted by devices and spending more time on life 02:41AM EST - 'do connected devices make us more human?' 02:40AM EST - Here's a video on the vision 02:39AM EST - 'enrich your lives' 02:39AM EST - We are exploring different ways to access information to make our lives easier 02:38AM EST - Bringing exciting and entertainment 02:38AM EST - 'Sony has always been at the forefront' 02:38AM EST - 'every MWC gets bigger' 02:36AM EST - 'even more intelligence making a difference in our products' 02:36AM EST - Some Xperia is coming, certainly sounds like it 02:35AM EST - 'Smartphones are checked 8 billion times a day in the US' 02:35AM EST - 'enriching communication' 02:34AM EST - 'pride of ownership' 02:34AM EST - 'we offer functional value and great specifications' 02:34AM EST - 'a feeling of satisfaction' 02:34AM EST - 'Sony is all about wow' 02:33AM EST - Talking football, Sony is a sponsor of the champions league 02:32AM EST - Kazuo on stage 02:32AM EST - Opening video with Sony brands 02:31AM EST - It begins 02:31AM EST - This is where tall members of the press have an advantage :D 02:30AM EST - And a press rush as we all move 3 inches closer when security moves 02:29AM EST - Should be about to start 02:22AM EST - We unfortunately never had a sample in to test 02:21AM EST - In the last year, one of the highlights of Sony's product line for me was the Z5 Premium, the first commercial smartphone with a 4K screen 02:19AM EST - If anyone is wondering, the phone being used for the live blog is a 6P, using local 4G 02:18AM EST - Made it in, I'm right at the front. Standing room only though 02:15AM EST - It starts at half past the hour. All the Sony people look calm, all the press are angsty to get a spot 02:14AM EST - Everything is still under covers 02:14AM EST - Sony's press event last year was a lot bigger for sure 02:13AM EST - As a special treat, this live blog will be given purely using a smartphone 02:12AM EST - I'm being held outside the stage area with other press. Lots of press here, not much space 2016-02-28 04:10 Ian Cutress

54 Most anticipated tech of 2016 Bizarre and amazing swag bag We have some awesome prizes, including a footrest for the bathroom (don't knock it 'til you've tried it) and a beautiful light/charger that opens up like a book. 2016-02-28 04:13 David Carnoy

55 Cook to Apple shareholders: Fighting the feds 'doesn't scare us'

But he also joked that Apple has "been in the news" over the past two weeks about its decision to fight a court order asking it to change its software so the FBI can get data off an iPhone used by one of the terrorists behind the San Bernardino, California, shootings. Before taking questions from the audience, he vowed that Apple will continue to be a "staunch advocate" of customers' privacy and personal safety. "We do these things because they are the right things to do," Cook said after receiving a standing ovation from the crowd of over 400 attendees at Apple's Cupertino, California, headquarters. "Being hard doesn't scare us. " Rev. Jesse Jackson, who's pushed the tech industry to be more inclusive of women and minorities, was in the audience as well. He praised Cook as a "man of integrity and character" and voiced support for Apple's fight with the US government, even as he denounced terrorism. "There's this tension between freedom and fear...but we oppose the unprecedented government overreach that threatens the civil liberties of all Americans," Jackson said. "We thank you for standing up, sir. " As usual, Apple didn't provide a video or audio stream of its annual meeting or a transcript of the event. Reporters weren't allowed in the auditorium with Apple's shareholders and executives, but rather were required to watch remotely via video in a separate room. Apple executives including the heads of retail and software, Angela Ahrendts and Craig Federighi, watched from the front rows. Most of the board, including former US Vice President Al Gore and Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger, were also in attendance. Each of Apple's eight board members was re-elected, with at least 93 percent of votes in favor. Apple investors also sided with the board and voted against four shareholder proposals. Those proposals included a call for the company to reach a net-zero goal for greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, a push to increase the diversity of Apple's senior management team, and efforts to produce a report outlining how it does business in regions with human rights violations. Though Apple's battle with the FBI has been front-page news for more than a week, shareholders also asked questions about the company's plans to make its retail stores more business-friendly, its efforts in China and India, and how it will handle backward compatibility of software for its devices. He also said the construction of Apple's new, circular campus nearby is "on target" and that "some number" of employees will start moving there in January. Apple's shares have fallen nearly 7 percent so far this year, though they've risen slightly since the company's fight with the government became public. The shares closed at $96.76 on Thursday. Facebook, Twitter and Google also said they'll file amicus briefs backing Apple, as will the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights group. "This is not about one isolated iPhone," Apple argued. "This case is about the Department of Justice and the FBI seeking through the courts a dangerous power that Congress and the American people have withheld: the ability to force companies like Apple to undermine the basic security and privacy interests of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe. " A hearing is set for March 22 in federal court in Riverside, California. Before closing the 75-minute meeting, Cook addressed Apple's efforts around diversity and inclusion. A yearly survey of US employees found that Apple's female employees earn 99.6 cents for every dollar paid to a male in a similar job. Underrepresented minorities earn 99.7 cents for every dollar earned by a white counterpart. Cook said Apple will continue to release the results of the survey each year so every employee of Apple knows that they're being paid fairly. 2016-02-28 04:05 Connie Guglielmo

56 Dark Souls 3's premium guide includes Estus Flask replica For those not in the know, the Estus Flask is a refillable item in the Dark Souls universe that, when used, restores the player's health. It's usually filled with a fizzling orange liquid that we imagine is just boiled Fanta. The Dark Souls 3 Estus Flash Edition includes the guide with a "Premium hardcover," a dust jacket featuring artwork from the game, a mobile- friendly download of the guide and, of course, the Estus Flask replica. This bundle is limited edition bundle and will will only be printed once, the company added: "When they are sold out, they will be gone forever! " 2016-02-28 04:04 GameSpot Staff

57 Man builds world's longest selfie stick, takes awful selfie Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives. Please don't ask why. The answer is usually: Because the Internet. Instead, try bathing in the sheer enterprise of James Ware, who had a lofty goal in life. He wanted to build the world's longest selfie stick. It comprised bits of tape and bits of pipe. The whole thing cost 44 pounds and 51 pence (around $61.75). "I'm just trying to get a new profile picture, he innocently explained to a security officer in London's Trafalgar Square. The officer didn't feel secure, so Ware went elsewhere. As he tried to maneuver his huge pole into position to capture his gorgeous features, he looked less like a selfie-taker and more like a drunk trying to hook Moby Dick. He worried that his precious iPhone would be damaged. He admitted that his pose made him look like he was "taking a slash. " This is Britspeak for urinating. Still, he got his selfie using a stick that allegedly measured 9.57 meters, or roughly 31 feet and 4 inches. You'll be wondering, though, just how poor the selfie was. Well, it captured a passing truck quite well. Ware, on the other hand, was but a small element of it. He looked like a man who was desperately trying to stop a lamppost from falling in a windstorm. Though he claims his is the longest selfie stick in the world, he doesn't get the record. There was no one from the Guinness World Records organization to witness his feat. But what is the Guinness World Record when you can get the whole world to admire you on YouTube? 2016-02-28 04:01 Chris Matyszczyk

58 How Ubisoft is preparing for (possible) Vivendi hostile takeover Ubisoft management, including founder and CEO Yves Guillemot, met this week with "a dozen potential investors" in Montreal and Toronto in an effort to "build support for the company's founders and current management. " As The Globe and Mail points out, though Ubisoft is based in France, its biggest development studio is in Montreal. That team has worked on games in the Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Watch Dogs franchises, among others. The site goes on to say that Vivendi has also made an unsolicited offer to buy Gameloft, a mobile game company based in France and run by Guillemot's brothers. It is reported that the hostile bid for Gameloft represents the "first step in Vivendi's larger ploy to force talks with the Guillemot family" about taking over Ubisoft. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Guillemot said he didn't think Vivendi would shut down Ubisoft's Canadian studios, but that they would be better protected if Ubisoft remained independent. He also pointed out that remaining independent would allow Ubisoft to have more "operational agility" instead of being forced to work on projects for Vivendi franchises. "We want to increase the number of Canadian shareholders in Ubisoft to have better control over the capital," Guillemot said. "We feel it's a good defense. " Guillemot went on to say that he recently met with Quebec Premiere Philippe Couillard and would welcome an investment from the government. Support from Ottawa would also be accepted, while Guillemot also confirmed that he met with unspecified investors in London. He and his brothers together own around 9 percent of Ubisoft's equity and 16 percent of voting rights. Two major outside shareholders, Blackrock and Fidelity, together own around 15 percent and side with current management, according to The Globe and Mail. The next Ubisoft shareholder meeting is scheduled for September. Guillemot said he needs the support of 50 percent or more of voters to stop Vivendi from making changes to its current board of directors. If Vivendi is successful in taking control over Ubisoft, it could face a "monumental challenge," according to The Globe and Mail. "If it can't coax the Guillemot brothers into a friendly deal, it runs the risk of losing not only them but employees loyal to them in an industry that depends on creative talent," it reported. 2016-02-28 04:04 GameSpot Staff

59 Bugatti Chiron leads a wealth of performance cars at next week's Geneva motor show Next week begins the 86th instance of the Geneva motor show, this yearly event occurring on Europe's neutral ground where automakers from around the world will reveal their latest creations. While there will certainly be new launches of everyday economy cars on hand, Geneva has become the setting for the world's supercars, the most exotic and expensive amalgams of carbon fiber, aluminum and steel in the world. Read more about the Bugatti Chiron. McLaren continues its aggressive cadence of performance cars all based on the same platform, unveiling the all new 570GT at Geneva. Where McLaren focused on race engineering in its previous models, developing a carbon fiber tub for the cabin with bolt-on suspension pieces and high-revving V-8 engines, the 570GT shows more emphasis on cabin comfort. Along with a suspension tuned for ride comfort, the 570GT features an accessible luggage under a side-opening rear window, power adjustable seats and full leather interior. McLaren's comfort focus can be seen as the second phase in its grand plan to go up against Ferrari in the supercar set. This new, high performance variant of the F-type will be available as both a coupe and roadster, like its base model, and will be somewhat more affordable than most of the exotics in Geneva, with a price point of just over $125,000. To eliminate the ropiness of typical hybrid car acceleration, Lexus adds a four speed fixed gear transmission to the LC 500h's driveline, complementing the existing electronic variable transmission. Lexus engineers insist it will deliver more satisfying sports car performance, living up to the dramatic looks of the body. Frankly, this one sounds a bit like vaporware, but Chinese company Techrules promises a supercar with 1,030 horsepower and a range of more than 1,200 miles. The company has only released a teaser photo ahead of the unveiling, and notes the car uses turbines that generate electricity for the drive motors. The turbines can run on a variety of fuels, such as gasoline, bio- diesel, propane and compressed natural gas. We will be eager to see what Techrules has in store, and whether it is wishful thinking or a true breakthrough. Beyond those five, there will be a huge assortment of new production cars and concepts, some cars that will be sold in the US and some that will only show up in Europe and other markets. 2016-02-28 03:56 by

60 Bloomberg believes better electric vehicles will cause another oil crisis, and relatively soon Electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) are steadily gaining popularity as prices come down and supporting infrastructure goes up. They're not quite comparable to gas-powered cars yet, but what happens once they are? Based on some internal data crunching, Bloomberg believes that it'll cause another oil crisis. "By 2040, long-range electric cars will cost less than $22,000 (in today's dollars), according to the [BNEF] projections," Bloomberg's Tom Randall writes. The story also posits that, in six years, unsubsidized EVs will cost the same as gas cars, thanks largely to advances in battery technology. Of course, that all involves a fair bit of assumption, and naturally, groups related to the oil industry don't exactly see things in the same light. Bloomberg points out that OPEC's operating under the assumption that just 1 percent of the global car market will be EVs by 2040, up from 0.1 percent today. And it's not like gasoline is the only thing coming from crude oil -- we still use it to create jet fuel, some plastics, asphalt, petroleum coke and aromatic fluids. Not to mention the fact that our electric infrastructure is still woefully underequipped to handle a massive influx of long-range drivers (Tesla's Supercharger network notwithstanding). Heck, even the story itself mentions that increasing demand from developing countries "could outweight" the impact of EVs on the oil industry. While this story definitely paints a picture, it's a very optimistic one. 2016-02-28 03:50 by

61 Drug dealer who cursed at judge on Facebook sent to jail after all Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives. I've thought about little else since the court case. Here was Brit Daniel Sledden being convicted of drug dealing with his brother Samuel. The brothers celebrated. Daniel Sledden, 27, went to Facebook and posted: "Cannot believe my luck 2 year suspended sentence beats the 3 year jail yes pal! " Then he added an anything- but-subtle remark about what Lunt could do with his anatomy. This seemed unwise. It also seemed somewhat pointless. Here was someone who couldn't believe his luck choosing to mock the very person who'd handed it to him. And here, too, was someone who would be called back into court for resentencing. The judge, you see, had been shown Daniel Sledden's post, along with his brother's reply (which included a slightly different, but no less anatomical, remark). "The question I have to ask myself is this: If I had known their real feelings at being in court, would I have accepted their remorse and contrition, and suspended the sentence? " she said. Her answer? "Of course not. " The judge was clearly au fait with Facebook's privacy controls. She said: "These were not private entries in a diary. They were placed on Facebook with the intention that others should and would read them and, if they wished, would share them. So it was a limitless audience. " She called the posts "boastful and jeering. " Judge Lunt's conclusion was that "the only reasonable inference was they thought they had somehow fooled and misled the court. " You can feel what happened next, can't you? The judge decided to unsuspend the prison sentences. Both men must now serve two years. Such crowing is empty. It might lead to a couple of Facebook "likes," but it also likely leads to unhappy endings. You can be sure of one thing, however: It will happen again. 2016-02-28 03:30 Chris Matyszczyk

62 AMD says new G-Series SoCs offer 64-bit x86 performance for a 32-bit ARM price AMD's G-SERIES system on a chip (SoC) products for the embedded market are being expanded at the high and low end, adding products that will enable device makers to target the Internet of Things (IoT) as well as bringing to the game its Excavator CPU core and richer media capabilities. AMD said that many trends are affecting the embedded industry, one of which is smart devices for the IoT. But devices are also becoming more interactive, and more advanced user interfaces call for demanding graphics or speech input. The expansion of the G-Series aims to address this with SoC devices that cover a range of performance levels while presenting as consistent a platform as possible from a developer standpoint. The new G-Series chips, announced at the Embedded World 2016 conference in Nuremberg, splits AMD's embedded portfolio into two pin-compatible stacks, one topped off by the existing G-Series, the other by the R-Series and aimed at greater performance. Both stacks enable hardware vendors to upgrade to a more capable chip if required, without having to redesign the entire circuit board. All the new chips also have a planned 10-year support lifecycle, a key requirement for hardware vendors looking to embed them into product lines. At the lower end of the scale, the G-Series LX family ( left side of image above ) comes in below the existing first- and second-generation G-Series chips with which it is socket compatible. Higher up the scale, the third generation of G-Series ( right side of image ) is split into an I family and a J family, both of which come in below the R-Series that AMD launched last year to target more demanding embedded applications, and which are socket compatible with it. The G-Series LX family delivers a cost-optimised solution, but still offers a decent level of performance with two Jaguar CPU cores and a single Radeon GPU compute unit. "This platform is delivering 64-bit x86 performance into price points and applications that are typically more associated with 32-bit ARM offerings," said Colin Cureton, director of product management for AMD enterprise solutions. The G-Series LX targets point-of-sale terminals, networking and communications equipment, and industrial control applications, but also so-called zero clients, endpoint devices designed to provide end user access for virtual desktops. The G-Series LX chips are specified for a thermal design power (TDP) of 6W to 15W, and have a single 64-bit DDR3 memory channel. As a SoC, they also have integrated I/O, comprising four single lane PCI Express ports, two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports, two Sata ports for connecting storage devices and dual display outputs. Meanwhile, the other G-Series chips added deliver more processing performance by using a pair of CPU cores based on AMD's most recent Excavator core design introduced last year. This new G-Series is split into the J family, which has two Radeon GPU cores and a TDP of 6W to 10W, and the I family which has four Radeon GPU cores and a TDP of 12W to 15W. The J family has a single memory channel for 64-bit DDR4 or DDR3 memory, while the I family has two channels. This makes the I family more optimised for higher performance, while the J family is better tuned for lower power consumption, according to AMD. "This brings unprecedented choice in terms of selecting an AMD embedded processor and ease of scalability and migration between the devices, allowing customers to right-size the processor they choose while reducing the number of platforms they have to build in order to scale their systems into different applications," Cureton said. The G-Series I and J families have a similar I/O complement to the LX family, but use a four-lane PCI Express port in addition to the four single lanes, two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, two Sata ports for connecting storage devices and dual display outputs capable of 4K video. The range of applications that AMD foresees for these mainstream third-generation G-Series chips includes thin client terminals, but also industrial control, automation and machine vision, and medical imaging thanks to the increased CPU and graphics performance. AMD said that the first versions of the third-generation G-Series chips are available from today, while the G-Series LX family is due to be available from March. Customers are ready to go with hardware designs, so the first devices should come to market over the coming weeks and months, according to the firm. µ 2016-02-28 06:08

63 BBC Music app for Android and iOS delayed at 11th hour by 'glitch' THE BBC has had to delay the release of its latest digital app after a last-minute problem emerged. The BBC Music app for iOS and Android was announced by the BBC Press Office on Tuesday, but it soon became apparent that it had not appeared in Google's Play store or Apple's App Store. The app builds on several disparate strands of content, offering BBC Playlister, YouTube and Spotify integration as well as performances from Glastonbury and programmes such as Later With Jools Holland . "BBC Music is full of amazing and exclusive music content, from Live Lounge sessions and intimate interviews with your favourite artists, to epic sets on the Pyramid Stage," said the announcement. "Just tell the BBC Music app what kind of music you’re into and it’ll serve your own unique stream of live sessions, interviews and playlists from your favourite presenters, programmes and events. " However, users on social media began to notice that the app had failed to appear, despite coverage in the national press. We asked Auntie what was going on and it told us: "When we submitted the app on Wednesday we encountered an unforeseen glitch. We want to ensure that the app meets the high standard and quality our audiences expect of us before making it available, and our team is working hard to make sure the app goes live as soon as possible. " The BBC has had a busy month digital-wise. Yoof channel BBC Three became an interweb-only site, and there were rumours of a similar move for Radio 5 Live, but this was denied by the corporation. The BBC Charter is due for renewal in 2017, and cash-strapped bosses are increasingly looking to the internet as a way to make its services more cost effective. But there was a ghost in the machine on this occasion. Update : both versions of the app are now live in their respective app stores. µ 2016-02-28 06:08

64 Microsoft releases updated Windows 10 preview builds for desktop and mobile users MICROSOFT HAS , for the first time, released updated preview code for Windows 10 desktop and Windows 10 Mobile at the same time, as the firm paves the way for the upcoming Redstone release. Both updates were pushed out overnight to testers on Microsoft's Windows Insider programme. Build 14271 for the PC and Build 14267.1004 for mobile were released to testers on the Fast Ring and, for the most part, largely comprised a number of bug fixes as Microsoft focuses on cleaning up the code in preparation for the Redstone release sometime in the first half of this year. Redstone will be the second major update for the Windows 10 platform on the PC, following last year's Windows 10 November Update . However, there are a couple of notable changes. Starting with Build 14271 on the PC and going forwards, the setting that governs how frequently Windows will ask for tester feedback will be locked to automatic. Gabe Aul, corporate vice president for Microsoft's Engineering Systems Team, announced the change on the Windows Experience blog , saying that the feedback is a vital part of the Windows Insider programme. "After each build upgrade or after certain activities, Windows will often ask for feedback. The answers to these questions are used by our engineering teams to understand how Windows Insiders feel about a particular experience or a particular build," he explained. "While we don't require Windows Insiders to answer these questions, we do hope they take the time to answer them so that we can better improve Windows for our customers. " Meanwhile, Windows 10 Mobile Build 14267.1004 delivers a new Visual Voicemail feature for dual-SIM devices such as the Lumia 950 XL , and fixes a serious bug in Build 14267 where users of the Lumia 550 found that their device no longer charged or connected via USB. Visual Voicemail was showcased by Microsoft last year, and provides on-screen controls that enable users to listen to and manage voicemail messages without having to dial into their voicemail system. However, users of older Windows Phone handsets will be disappointed, as Microsoft recently began making preview releases available only for devices that shipped with Windows 10 Mobile, such as the Lumia 950, 950 XL, 650 and 550. Microsoft warned of some known problems with these latest preview releases which it is working to fix. Some PCs, for example, have been found to freeze or bluescreen when resuming from hibernation, and there is there is a known driver bug that prevents some commercial antivirus tools operating as expected. µ 2016-02-28 06:08

65 Galaxy S7 specs, release date and price THE GALAXY S7 is finally official, alongside the Galaxy S6 Edge. While the smartphones offer incremental updates over last year's Galaxy S6, many likely will be wooed by the news that the handset's will offer IP68 protection against water and a microSD slot. We've rounded up everything about the Galaxy S7's availability below. Release date The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 went on sale just moments after their MWC unveiling, with the likes of Carphone Warehouse and O2 quick to start taking orders for the much-hyped smartphones before they start shipping on 11 March. What's more, as expected, those who pre-order the device will bag themselves a free Gear VR headset. Although Samsung has yet to confirm the release date, Carphone Warehouse is already allowing customers to register their interest in the phone. The retailer says that the handset will go up for pre-order "shortly after" its likely MWC unveiling. Price The Galaxy S7 will start at £569 SIM-free, while the Galaxy S7 Edge - which features a larger, 5.5in curved screen - will start at £639. Both devices can be pre-orders from Samsung's official website. Unsurprisingly, both phones will be available at all of the major operators too. Over on the EE website, you can grab a Galaxy S7 for £49.99 on a £44.99 per month tariff, including unlimited texts and minutes and 4GB data. This goes up to a £49.99 tariff for the Galaxy S7 Edge , but EE has plenty of other contracts on offer. O2 is offering the Galaxy S7 on pay monthly from £9.99 upfront on £54 per month contract which comes with 3GB data and a free Jabra headset worth £150. Oddly, the Galaxy S7 Edge is being offered on a cheaper £51 tariff , but we've been in touch with O2 to check this is accurate. Over on the Three website, you can grab the Galaxy S7 from £99 on a £35 contract, which comes with 1GB data each month, going up to £41 per month for the bigger-screened Galaxy S7 Edge . Vodafone, which is involved in Samsung's free Gear VR offer, is selling the Galaxy S7 from £44 per month with a £29 upfront cost and the Galaxy S7 Edge on a £50 tariff. Virgin Media has got in on the Galaxy S7 pre-ordering action, too. It's selling the handset for from £34 per month , albeit with just 250MB data, and the Galaxy S7 Edge from £38 per month. Naturally, you can pick up both the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge at Carphone Warehouse , which is offering the handsets across EE, O2, Vodafone and its own iD network and is also throwing in a free Gear VR. Specs Thanks to a host of online speculation, we knew almost all there was to know about Samsung's duo of smartphones ahead of their glitzy MWC reveal. As expected, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge both sport designs similar to that seen on their predecessors, boasting premium metal and glass construction with a slight bit of added curvature to the rear of the phone. Improving on last year's models, though, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge both come with IP68 certification, which means that can withstand being dunked into water for 30 minutes. The batteries have received big upgrades, now up to 3,000mAh on the Galaxy S7 and 3,600 on the Galaxy S7 Edge. Wireless charging support returns, though the microUSB port hasn't been upgraded to USB-C. The standard Galaxy S7 keeps the Galaxy S6 's 5.1in display size, although the Galaxy S7 Edge has, as mentioned, been upped to 5.5in, naturally retaining its distinctive tapered screen. Nonetheless, both devices share the same Super AMOLED tech and 2560x1440 QHD resolution, producing pixel densities of 576ppi on the Galaxy S7 and 534ppi on the Galaxy S7 Edge. Another shared feature is always-on functionality, allowing the devices to show basic status informations and widgets on the lock screen while keeping power consumption down to one percent per hour. Rumours that the Galaxy S7 family would include pressure-sensitive displays turned out to be mistaken, though the Galaxy S7 Edge does, at least, gain the Shortcuts feature previously exclusive to the Galaxy S6 Edge+ - this allows users to set custom app and contact shortcuts accessible via a tab on the phone's screen curve. One of the more surprising leaked details is the use of 12MP rear cameras, down from 16MP on previous models. However, pixel size has been increased, and the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge also feature improved f/1.7 sensors for better low-light performance, we're not too worried about their photography capabilities. The front camera is unchanged, sticking at 5MP. Another surprise is that the larger Galaxy S7 Edge is in fact the thinner device, measuring 151x73x7.7mm and weighing 157g while the Galaxy S7 measures 142x70x7.9mm and weighs 152g. In the UK, both devices will use Samsung's own Exynos 8890 SoC, which contains four 2.3GHz cores, four 1.6GHz cores and 4GB of RAM. In North America, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 is used instead. As for storage, only 32GB and 64GB internal drives have been confirmed, seemingly leaving the 128GB option of previous Galaxy S models out in the cold. With newfound support for up to 200GB of microSD storage, though, it 's not a total loss. On the software side, the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow will be the OS, although it will be customised with an updated version of Samsung's TouchWiz skin, which has been redesigned with softer, more rounded icons. Samsung Knox, a tool for creating encryption-secured private storage spaces for sensitive data and apps, is also pre-installed. The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge also include a Live Photos-style feature where photos are animated when viewed in the Gallery app via short video clips automatically recorded immediately before, during and after taking the shot. µ 2016-02-28 06:08

66 Child tracking firm calls out security researcher on 'hack' A CHILD MONITORING COMPANY is mad as heck at a security researcher for highlighting a security problem without asking its consent first. Or something. The company in question is uKnowkids and its target is a chap called Chris Vickery, a security researcher. His crime? Security research. uKnowKids.com is a kind of virtual Mary Poppins. It does not put children in danger, like Mary Poppins, but it does look out for them and keep an eye on what they do by monitoring their communications and stuff. We imagine that in some circumstance it has got some children in trouble. This week it is getting an older person in trouble, and accusing a security researcher of hacking as opposed to security researching. Vickery is an established face in the industry, and we last met him when we attempted to cover something to do with MongoDB. Vickery reported that uKnowkids was using a mis-installed incidence of the database and that this left a large number of children and their data open to abuse. uKnowKids did not exactly thank him for his efforts. Rather it got on a chair and started barking at him via a blog post. Vickery is thanked, but not thanked, if you get us. "It is with significant personal regret that I share with you the news that uKnow had a private database repeatedly breached by a hacker using two different IP addresses on February 16, 2016 and February 17, 2016," says the blog by Steve Woda, CEO of uKnow and uKnowKids. "The hacker claims to be a ‘white hat' hacker, which means he tries to obtain unauthorised access into private systems for the benefit of the ‘public good'. Although we do not approve of his methods because it unnecessarily puts customer data and intellectual property at risk, we appreciate his proactive, quick notification as it was helpful to our team. " uKnowKids isn't quite ready to accept the researcher's credentials or his findings, and said that it will return to the subject once it has completed its investigations. If we were betting people we would lay good money on Vickery not being asked to any uKnow parties in the future, at least not by Woda. "uKnowKids was built by parents hoping to help other parents protect their kids with the same knowledge and tools that we have created to protect our own families," Woda added. "If there is one lesson that has been reinforced for us with this hacker's data breach, it is this: there are bad actors out there on the internet and in our digital world that seek to exploit the vulnerabilities of our kids, our families and our organisations for their personal benefit. " Vickery's take is posted on the MacKeeper blog and continues his MongoDB installation horror story anthology. "In violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act uKnowKids.com gave public access to over 6.8 million private text messages, nearly two million images (many depicting children) and more than 1,700 detailed child profiles. This includes first and last names, email addresses, dates of birth, GPS coordinates, social media access credentials and more," he wrote. "The uKnowKids child tracking platform claims to make ‘parenting easier and keep kids safe online'. However, earlier this month I discovered they were doing just the opposite. One of the uKnowKids databases was configured for public access, requiring no level of authentication or password and providing no protection at all for this data. " Vickery added that things took a forceful turn during communications with Woda and he was encouraged not to share his findings. µ 2016-02-28 06:08

67 BlackBerry buys Encription to beef up cyber security credentials CANADIAN MOBILE MAKER BlackBerry has announced the acquisition of UK company Encription in a bid to beef up its security credentials. BlackBerry highlighted the capabilities that Encription will bring to its portfolio, including penetration testing and the fact that it is accredited with the UK government’s highest security standard CESG CHECK IT and ISO/IEC 27001 certifications. Encription's website claims a wide-ranging customer base from central and local government departments to SMEs and large corporates, financial institutions, manufacturers and charities. BlackBerry will no doubt hope to expand this customer base into other regions using its global reach and brand. The acquisition forms of a core element of BlackBerry's Professional Cybersecurity Services division that uses the firm’s brand to entice new customers, as outlined by CEO John Chen. "BlackBerry is the gold standard when it comes to security and we’re always evolving to maintain this high standard as the complexity of enterprise mobility and security increases," he said. "We recognise that security vulnerabilities are a top risk concern for public and private sector organisations alike. "The creation of our Professional Cybersecurity Services practice and acquisition of Encription reinforces our commitment to providing customers with the industry’s most secure mobility solutions and helping them to assess and mitigate risks. " BlackBerry explained that the new division will provide services and tools for a range of requirements, including best practice IT security consulting and technical hands-on security services for key infrastructure and product development. The unit will also focus on automotive and Internet of Things security services as these areas grow, as well as offer testing and analysis of networks and products to uncover problems before the hackers. Security services are core to BlackBerry's efforts to reverse its ailing fortunes in the smartphone market. The company has acquired Good Technology and WatchDox , and has started adding tools from these firms into its own products. µ To hear more about security challenges, the threats they pose and how to combat them, make sure you sign up for the Computing Enterprise Security and Risk Management conference on 24 November . 2016-02-28 06:08

68 68 Spotify gets the Googleys with plan to move entire operation to Mountain View Cloud SPOTIFY HAS announced a major partnership with Google to provide all of the music site's cloud services. The Google Cloud Platform will now host the entire Spotify infrastructure, which some analysts speculate could be a precursor to a takeover bid by the internet giant, though actual songs will continue to be housed with Amazon Web Services. Nicholas Harteau, VP of engineering and infrastructure at Spotify, explained in a statement that it had made more sense up to now to run its own data centres, "Recently that balance has shifted. The storage, compute and network services available from cloud providers are as high quality, high performance and low cost as the traditional approach," he said. "This makes the move to the cloud a no-brainer for us. Google, in our experience, has an edge here, but it’s a competitive space and we expect the big players to battle it out for the foreseeable future. " Explaining the decision to work with Google, Harteau added: "What really tipped the scales was our experience with Google’s data platform and tools. "Good infrastructure isn’t just about keeping things up and running. It’s about making all of our teams more efficient and more effective, and Google’s data stack does that for us in spades. " The change won't happen overnight, and will need to be carefully planned to make it seamless to the end user. Spotify curates a separate engineering blog which will detail the changes as they happen. Google has reported increased price cuts for its cloud services as the firm uses Moore's law as the basis for "more users, lower cost" price modelling. The huge amount of data generated by Spotify's near seven million users may even lead to price drops at Google by itself. Google boasted in January that the firm's latest round of price cuts made it cheaper than Amazon Web Services by up to 44 percent . µ 2016-02-28 06:08

69 Apple tipped to launch 9.7in iPad Pro alongside iPhone 5SE next month THE IPAD AIR 3 is apparently not a thing, according to the latest speculation which claims that Apple will launch a smaller iPad Pro tablet at its mooted 15 March launch event. These rumours come via 9to5Mac , which has heard that Apple is planning to launch a 9.7in version of the iPad Pro, not the iPad Air 3 as previously thought. The smaller iPad Pro will offer near identical specs to the bigger 12.9in iPad Pro, according to the report, which said that we can expect an A9X processor and display technology that supports the Apple Pencil stylus. Apple is also said to be prepping a downsized version of the Smart Cover keyboard attachment. We don't yet know what the 9.7in device will be called (although we're putting our money on the iPad Pro Mini), but there's also talk of the same quad speaker setup, colour range and storage options as its predecessor. There's no word on prices for the tablet just yet. Apple is also expected to announce the iPhone 5SE at its rumoured 15 March event, its first 4in smartphone since the iPhone 5C. The iPhone 5SE will apparently look similar to the iPhone 5S, according to leaked images ( below ), but will feature a curved glass front similar to that seen on Apple's latest top-end smartphones. It will be offered in the same colour options of Silver, Space Grey, Gold and Rose Gold, according to reports. We can expect the iPhone 5SE to feature the same A8 and M8 processors seen inside the iPhone 6, an NFC chip for Apple Pay, Bluetooth 4.2, VoLTE, 802.11ac WiFi, and 8MP and 1.2MP cameras complete with autofocus, support for larger panoramic images and the Live Photos feature that debuted on the iPhone 6S . 9to5Mac said that the phone will cost $450 for the 16GB model, the same as the iPhone 5S. µ 2016-02-28 06:08

70 Comparing MWC 2016 Smartphone Standouts: Samsung Galaxy S7 vs. LG G5 While many mobile device makers attended Mobile World Congress 2016, arguably it was Samsung and LG that introduced the two most interesting smartphones at the show. Although both showcased many products, including 360-degree cameras, their new, high-end smartphones received the most attention. At the Samsung Unpacked event Feb. 21, the company unveiled the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge. LG held its own event Feb. 21 to showcase the G5. All three phones represent the latest and best the Android ecosystem has to offer right now with their high- end displays, solid specs and appealing designs. But Samsung and LG tossed in some additional features to differentiate their smartphone designs. With its curved screen, the Galaxy S7 Edge offers more productive display real estate, and thanks to a new modular design, the G5 can be expanded to use accessories, such as external cameras or sound equipment. We compare the new Galaxy S7 smartphones and LG G5 handsets to help buyers determine which alternative might best fit their needs. Despite any similarities or differences in their designs, LG and Samsung made it clear they're among the best Android smartphone makers in the market right now. Here's why. 2016-02-28 06:06 Don Reisinger

71 Breach Levels Subside but Still Affect Millions While data breaches continue to occur all around the world, 2015 was actually not quite as bad as 2014, according to the latest Breach Level Index report, from security vendor Gemalto. There were more than 1,600 reported breaches in 2015, a 3.4 percent decline from 2014. Those reported breaches led to the compromise of 707.5 million records—a 39 percent year-over-year decline from 2014. Since the index was started in 2013, approximately 3.6 billion data records have been exposed as a result of breaches. The majority (58 percent) of data breaches reported in 2015 were attributed to malicious outsiders. Accidental loss represented 24 percent of 2015 breaches, while malicious insiders only accounted for 14 percent. The report found identity theft was a primary goal for 53 percent of breaches. In terms of industry verticals, government lost the most records due to breaches in 2015, accounting for 43 percent of all breached records. We take a look at some of the key highlights of the 2015 Breach Level Index report. 2016-02-28 06:06 Sean M.

72 Ashes of the Singularity Revisited: A Beta Look at DirectX 12 & Asynchronous Shading We’ve been following DirectX 12 for about 2 years now, watching Microsoft’s next-generation low-level graphics API go from an internal development project to a public release. Though harder to use than earlier high-level APIs like DirectX 11, DirectX 12 gives developers more control than ever before, and for those who can tame it, they can unlock performance and develop rendering techniques simply not possible with earlier APIs. Coupled with the CPU bottlenecks of DirectX 11 coming into full view as single-threaded performance increases have slowed and CPUs have increased their core counts instead, and DirectX 12 could not have come at a better time. Although DirectX 12 was finalized and launched alongside Windows 10 last summer , we’ve continued to keep an eye on the API as the first games are developed against it. As developers need the tools before they can release games, there’s an expected lag period between the launch of Windows 10 and when games using the API are ready for release, and we are finally nearing the end of that lag period. Consequently we’re now getting a better and clearer picture of what to expect with games utilizing DirectX 12 as those games approach their launch. There are a few games vying for the title of the first major DirectX 12 game, but at this point I think it’s safe to say that the first high profile game to be released will be Ashes of the Singularity. This is due to the fact that the developer, Oxide, has specifically crafted an engine and a game meant to exploit the abilities of the API – large numbers of draw calls, asynchronous compute/shading, and explicit multi-GPU – putting it a step beyond adding DX12 rendering paths to games that were originally designed for DX11. As a result, both the GPU vendors and Microsoft itself have used Ashes and earlier builds of its Nitrous engine to demonstrate the capabilities of the API, and this is something we’ve looked at with both Ashes and the Star Swarm technical demo. Much like a number of other games these days, Ashes of the Singularity for its part has been in a public beta via Steam early access , while its full, golden release on March 22 nd is fast approaching. To that end Oxide and publisher Stardock are gearing up to release the second major beta of the game, and the last beta before the game goes gold. At the same time they’ve invited the press to take a look at the beta and its updated benchmark ahead of tomorrow’s early access release, so today we’ll be taking a second and more comprehensive look at the game. The first time we poked at Ashes was to investigate an early alpha of the game’s explicit multi- GPU functionality. Though only in a limited form at the time, Oxide demonstrated that they had a basic implementation of DX12 multi-GPU up and running, allowing us to not only pair up similar video cards, but dissimilar cards from opposing vendors, making a combined GeForce + Radeon setup a reality. This early version of Ashes showed a lot of promise for DX12 multi- GPU, and after some additional development it is now finally being released to the public as part of this week’s beta. Since that release Oxide has also been at work both cleaning up the code to prepare it for release, and implementing even more DX12 functionality. The latest beta adds greatly improved support another one of DX12’s powerhouse features: asynchronous shading/computing. By taking advantage of DX12’s lower-level access, games and applications can directly interface with the various execution queues on a GPU, scheduling work on each queue and having it executed independently. Async shading is another one of DX12’s optimization features, allowing for certain tasks to be completed in less time (lower throughput latency) and/or to better utilize all of a GPU’s massive arrays of shader ALUs. Between its new functionality, updated graphical effects, and a significant amount of optimization work since the last beta, the latest beta for Ashes gives us quite a bit to take a look at today, so let’s get started. 2016-02-28 05:01 Daniel Williams,

73 Huawei Enters The PC Market With The MateBook Convertible Tablet Move over Microsoft. One of the world’s largest smartphone makers has decided to enter the PC marketplace with the launch of the MateBook 2- in-1 tablet. Well, maybe not, but they have certainly taken a page out of the Microsoft playbook with their first tablet. This is a 12-inch tablet with a 3:2 aspect ratio. If that sounds familiar, that’s because it’s exactly the same aspect ratio and size as the Surface Pro lineup. Just like Lenovo and others, manufacturers are seeing the relative success of the Surface Pro and want their own piece of the action. And that’s great for all of us. Rather than compete head on with the Surface Pro though, Huawei has gone for a slightly different target. The MateBook is thinner, and lighter than the Surface Pro, and it is designed around the Core m platform, so it is completely fanless. Only the base model Surface Pro can be had with Core m. Other notable internal items are 4 or 8 GB of memory, and 128, 256, or 512 GB of SSD storage. Battery capacity is 33.7 Wh, and Huawei says this gives all day battery life, but we’ll have to see if that’s true. The tablet itself is only 6.9 mm thick and weighs just 640 grams (1.4 lbs). The MateBook also comes in several hundred dollars less than the Surface Pro, with a starting price of $699, and goes up to $1599 with Core m7, 8GB of RAM, and a 512 GB SSD. The display is a 12-inch 2160x1440 LCD. You can’t compete against Surface Pro without accessories, and the MateBook has both an active pen and click on keyboard to transform it into a laptop. The keyboard has backlit keys with 1.5mm of travel, but the actual keys themselves are very much like the Surface Pro 3 keyboard rather than the much improved Surface Pro 4 design. The tablet also lacks a kickstand, and instead the keyboard dock does some clever folding to hold the display up when it’s docked. The keyboard connects with pogo pins, so you don’t have to worry about Bluetooth connectivity for the connection, or batteries in the cover. The cover will sell for $129. The other accessory is an active pen, and while we don’t know the pen technology at this point, Huawei does say that it has 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity. It also features a laser pointer in the pen for use during presentations. The pen charges over USB, and one hour of charge gives one month of use. It’s great to see a new entrance into the PC space, and Huawei has designed what looks to be a pretty nice tablet for their first attempt. The Surface Pro is definitely the inspiration for the MateBook, and that’s not a bad thing, but the keyboard has been improved a lot of the latest tablet from Microsoft, and the MateBook type cover appears to mimic the prior generation here. Also the display is a much lower resolution panel than the latest offering from Redmond, but it does match the well received Surface Pro 3 model. I’m very excited to see another entrant here though and hopefully we can get this in for review to see how it stacks up. 2016-02-28 03:03 Brett Howse

74 CAT Announces S60 Rugged Smartphone with integrated FLIR Thermal Camera CAT, that company that is usually associated with heavy machinery, actually makes/sells smartphones too. It has announced a new flagship smartphone, which combines the ruggedness you might expect from such a company with up-to-date functionality (Android 6.0) as well as an integrated thermal camera made by FLIR. The CAT S60 handset is designed for utility and construction workers as well as those, who work in harsh environments. Despite expectations, the smartphone will cost about the same amount of money as flagship devices from other manufacturers. Just like other CAT-branded smartphones designed by Bullitt Group (the company behind Cat Phones), the CAT S60 is rather bulky for good reason and is built on a die-cast stainless steel frame with carbon fiber inlays and a multitude of various details to ensure that the handset is dust- and water-proof. According to the developer, the smartphone can withstand drops onto concrete from up to 1.8 meters (MIL Spec 810G) and can even be used underwater (up to five meters depth) for one hour. The CAT S60 has special switches to block speaker and microphones when used underwater. The key feature of the Cat S60 is its miniature thermal imaging camera based on the FLIR Lepton sensor (with 80×60 active pixels). The camera, which highlights temperature contrasts, can be used to identify over-heating electrical appliances and circuitry (or just check which computer components are the hottest ones and measure their actual temperature using a special application), detect heat loss around windows and doors, spot moisture and missing insulation and even see in complete darkness. The Cat S60 smartphone is based on the octo-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 system-on- chip (one block of eight ARM Cortex A53 cores up to 1.5 GHz, Adreno 405 graphics, a single- channel LPDDR3 memory controller, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an integrated X8 LTE modem with Cat 7 baseband capabilities) and Google Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system. The handset features a 4.7” capacitive multi-touch display with 1280×720 resolution and improved brightness (540 nits), which is designed in such a way that it can be used while wearing gloves. The screen is protected with 1mm Gorilla Glass 4. The Cat S60 is also equipped with 3 GB of LPDDR3 memory, 32 GB of NAND flash storage (expandable using a microSD card), an underwater 13 MP main camera with dual-LED flash as well as a 5 MP front-facing camera, Wi- Fi, 4G LTE and Bluetooth wireless technologies, a host of sensors as well as a 3800 mAh battery. The phone can be connected to a PC or a charger using a micro-USB port. CAT will demonstrate the S60 at Mobile World Congress and will make it available later this year for $599 in the U. S. or €649 in the E. U, although this is individual pricing and doesn't reflect the expected contract arrangements that might occur with larger businesses. Considering the fact that the smartphone more resembles a working tool than just a handset, its price does not seem to be too high, especially given that the smartphone thermal camera market is starting to take off (albeit at higher than 80x60 pixed quality). The fact that it is integrated rather than an add-on means it would get lost/broken less in a work environment. All that being said, the battery is non-removable (most likely due to the water proofing) and the dimensions/weight are unknown, but from the renders it might be more akin to a size of a larger 5.5-inch device and over 200g. Source: CAT (via Tech Report) SEEK Thermal Smartphone Camera Review FLIR One at CES 2016-02-28 03:03 Anton Shilov

75 Samsung’s Gear S2 Classic 3G and 4G Smartwatches with eSIM to Hit the Market in March Samsung has revealed that its Gear S2 Classic 3G and 4G smartwatches, which were formally introduced last September, will be available in the U. S. on March 11, 2016. The new wearable gadget will be able to connect to the Internet without a smartphone nearby and will no longer be just an addition for handsets, but a completely autonomous device. It will also be one of the first devices to feature eSIM (embedded SIM) compatible with multiple operators. The US versions of Samsung Gear S2 Classic 3G/4G with eSIM are using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 SoC, and although there are many variants of the Snapdragon 400, it would seem this one is a dual-core Krait 200, although we are still waiting for confirmation on the matter. Known specifications show the device running at 1 GHz, coupled with Adreno 305 graphics and integrated baseband capabilities. The smartwatch is equipped with 512 MB of RAM, 4 GB NAND flash storage, 300 mAh battery as well as 3G/4G, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1 and NFC wireless technologies. The wearable gadget sports accelerometer, gyroscope, heart rate, ambient light and barometer sensors to enable various health/fitness tracking applications. The Gear S2 Classic features 1.2-inch circular display with 360x360 resolution (302 ppi density). Like the rest members of the Gear family, the S2 Classic 3G runs Samsung’s proprietary Tizen operating system. The 4G variant is identical to the 3G variant, but for US markets only, and so it's still just HSPA+ rather than LTE. Unlike Samsung’s contemporary smartwatches without eSIM functionality, the Samsung Gear S2 Classic with eSIM models feature a speaker in addition to two microphones. The new wearable will be able to make calls, send text messages and emails as well as receive notifications without connectivity to any smartphone. While using the phone function of the smartwatch may not be very convenient (besides, a person talking to their watch seems a little weird), quick email bylines and responses on the wrist make a lot of sense. Moreover, the integration of eSIM into a watch is another step towards integration of certain smartphone functionality into wearable devices. The eSIM is a GSMA-approved standard for embedded SIM cards that cannot be removed from a device and which are compatible with multiple operators. In theory users can choose their preferred carriers, although in this case the standard only supports one carrier at a time and it's not clear if users will be able to change the one originally stored. The Samsung Gear S2 Classic 3G in the U. S. will be compatible with AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. In other countries, there will be different operators: Samsung has worked with M1 Limited, Orange, Singtel, StarHub, Telefónica, TeliaSonera and Vodafone Group, so, the new Gear S2 Classic 3G will be available in multiple countries. The 4G variant will be available only in the US. Samsung has not yet announced an official MSRP for its flagship smartwatch, however Verizon has started taking pre-orders for the watch , pricing it at $399 off-contract, which amounts to a $50 premium over the regular Gear S2 Classic. Images by Samsung and Stolen Girlfriends Club/ Lucire.com 2016-02-28 05:01 Anton Shilov

76 Intel Announces XMM7480 LTE Modem: 4x DL CA, 256QAM At MWC 2016, Intel announced their latest modem, the XMM7480. While to some extent Intel’s cadence isn’t quite as aggressive as others in the modem space, Intel’s modems are still a relevant part of the modem ecosystem. At a high level, the XMM 7480 platform introduces a number of new features that haven’t been seen in previous Intel cellular solutions. One addition is the AmpTrack envelope tracking IC, which allows for closed loop voltage control of the power supply for the power amplifier on the transmit chain. This isn’t really a new technology per se as we’ve seen Qualcomm’s QFE1100 as early as the Galaxy Note 3, but it’s nice to see that an OEM hoping to integrate Intel’s X-Gold 748 baseband no longer needs to do the work to integrate a separate envelope tracking IC. It’s likely that the baseband is leveraging CEVA’s DSP IP, based upon a recent announcement by CEVA on Twitter. Intel has also updated their transceiver for the XMM 7480, which enables 33 LTE bands in a single SKU. Absent disclosures by other vendors in the industry, it’s hard to say whether this is record, but I suspect that other companies with announced UE Category 16 modems will be able to top that number depending upon configurations for things like carrier aggregation. Judging by stated maximum upload/download of 450/150 Mbps, it’s likely that we’re looking at UE Category 9 on the downlink and Category 13 on the uplink. The XMM 7480 also implements a number of 3GPP Release 12 features like Enhanced Voice Service, which is a new codec to improve speech quality, and enhanced Dual Sim Dual Standby, which allows for two SIMs to be on the device but only one SIM will be active at any given time. Overall, the XMM 7480 provides a solid upgrade over the XMM 7360. It should be sampling to OEMs in 2H 2016, and with any luck we should be seeing design wins by the end of 2016 or early 2017. 2016-02-28 05:01 Joshua Ho

77 Sony Unveils New Xperia X Smartphones This week at Mobile World Congress 2016, Sony has introduced their new high-end Xperia X series smartphones. The new smartphones feature similar designs across the entire series and all sport 5” displays, but each is based on a different SoC and offers slightly different functionality. The Xperia X smartphones represent the company’s new lineup, but it does not seem that Sony plans to position any of them as their flagship handset just now. The new Sony Xperia X lineup consists of three models — the Xperia XA, the Xperia X and the Xperia X Performance — which are aimed at the entry-level, mid-range, and (quasi) high-end markets respectively. In keeping with a consistent family, all three smartphones look very similar and have a lot in common from design standpoint, along with sharing some technologies and components, but each phone is built around a unique platform. Sony Xperia X, Sony Xperia XA and Sony Xperia Performance Starting things off is the Xperia XA. The XA is an entry-level model based on MediaTek’s Helio P10 (MT6755) system-on-chip with a 5- inch 1280x720 in the display. The device features aluminum frame with plastic inlays. It is arguably the most stylish product in the Xperia X family, but is also the least powerful one: it features a rather low-resolution screen, only 2 GB of RAM and only 16 GB of storage. Sony equipped the Xperia XA model with a 13 MP rear camera and a 8 MP front camera, hence, its imaging capabilities should be rather good, even though it does not support the predictive hybrid autofocus technology found on the other X series phones. Meanwhile the device features 2300 mAh battery, which I'd expect to provide decent battery life, keeping in mind the 720p display and Sony’s smart battery management. Next up, the Xperia X is the mid-range model of the new lineup. It features an aluminum body, a slightly curved 5” display as well as a fingerprint reader integrated into the Power button. The Sony Xperia X is based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 650 SoC and is equipped with 3 GB of LPDDR3 memory as well as 32 GB of NAND flash storage. The smartphone has a 5” full-HD display, a 23 MP rear camera as well as a 13 MP front camera, with the rear camera supporting Sony's all-new predictive hybrid autofocus technology, which analyzes dynamic scene and attempts to predict motion of the subject to improve quality of focus. The Xperia X is equipped with 2620 mAh battery. Sony has not released pricing information on any of these at the moment, but the combination of a mainstream SoC along with a 5” 1080p display indicates that the Xperia X5 should not be too expensive. Finally, the Xperia X Performance will be the most powerful model in the family, and will feature Qualcomm’s forthcoming Snapdragon 820 SoC, putting it into the running for one of the fastest Android-based smartphones available this year. Just like the Xperia X, the higher-end version will feature a 5” display with full-HD resolution, a 23 MP rear camera as well as a 13 MP front camera, the former of which supports Sony's predictive hybrid autofocus technology, and are presumably the same camera modules as used in the Xperia X. The X Performance will also be water-resistant, which will make it slightly larger and heavier than the Xperia X. However, Sony has mentioned that they will only offer the Xperia X Performance Asia, at least initially, so it will not be as widely available as the rest of the X series. Otherwise from a shared platform standpoint, all Xperia X smartphones feature Qnovo’s adaptive charging technology as well as Sony’s new smart battery management that promises to stretch battery life to two days. Meanwhile, like other phones launching in this timeframe, all three phones will be shipping with Google Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system. The phones will be available in four colors, including white, graphite black, lime gold and rose gold later this year. The Xperia X Performance uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 SoC, the company’s most advanced mobile processor today, and though it's not meant to be the company's flagship phone, one could argue it amounts to a second high-end phone for the company. The Xperia X and the Xperia X Performance are also equipped 1/2.3'' Exmor RS mobile sensor with 24 mm wide-angle lens that can shoot in low-light condition, which is also used on the Xperia Z5 handsets, another indicator that the new smartphones belong to the high-end of the market. However, unlike the Z5 Premium, the new models do not feature high resolution displays (either QHD or 4K) - something that has been a distinctive feature of all top-of-the-range smartphones in the recent years. What is a bit strange is that the Xperia X Performance is not set to be available in the U. S. and Europe, at least initially. As a result, Sony’s newest phone (the Xperia X with the Snapdragon 650) offered in these markets will be clearly less advanced than Sony’s Z5-series products, which are based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor and are waterproof. It remains to be seen how the new family of Sony’s smartphones fits in the company’s already dense lineup of handsets. Perhaps, Sony deliberately decided not to offer the Xperia X Performance in the U. S. and Europe so to avoid any possible competition or confusion between its own devices. Devices will be available in the summer, with prices still to be determined. 2016-02-28 05:01 Anton Shilov

78 MediaTek Announces New Helio P20 Yesterday MediaTek announced the successor to last year's Helio P10. The Helio P10 was announced back in June with devices being announced and released in the following months. Even though the SoC is only 8 months old it still looks like MediaTek is keeping up the pace and looking forward with the new P20. Going over the specifications what we see is a slight increase in frequency on the 8 Cortex A53 cores. Although we currently lack details on the clocks of the efficiency cluster, we can disclose that the performance cluster is now clocked in at 2.3GHz instead of 2.0. On the GPU side the Mali T860MP2 has been upgraded to a T880MP2 and clocks have been raised 200MHz to 900MHz. Due to the lack of a big core CPU cluster or wide GPU configuration, it seems clear that the P20 is still aiming at more conservative and low-power performance targets while trying to keep the cost of the SoC down. An interesting addition is the integration of a new memory controller which is capable of LPDDR4X memory. LPDDR4X is a new standard which was finalized late last year and represents an evolution over LPDDR4 promising to improve power efficiency. This is done by lowering the V DDQ voltage of the memory down to 0.6V, which more than halve the output driver power and cuts overall total memory power by 20%. The multimedia blocks see some enhancement in their capabilities and can now decode and encode in 4K, although the encoder is still limited to H.264 and thus lacks HEVC capability. The ISP has also seen upgrades and now has more processing power to support up to 24MP single cameras or 13+13MP dual cameras. Finally, the biggest news here is that the P20 is manufactured on a 16nm FinFET node. The last weeks has seen a flurry of mid-range FinFET SoCs announced and this now marks MediaTek as the third vendor after Qualcomm and Samsung LSI to release a mid-range product on a high- end manufacturing process. Here at MWC we were able to have a chat with Executive Vice President and Co-Chief Operating Officer at MediaTek Jeffrey Ju and we were told to expect some 'outstanding' power efficiency from the P20. Commercial devices with the P20 are reported to start shipping in the second half of 2016. 2016-02-28 05:01 Andrei Frumusanu

79 MWC 2016: Xiaomi Media Preview Live Blog Additional: Will go on sale (in China most likely) next week. 04:32AM EST - OK, looks like a wrap. Devices are outside, so we'll have a look. 04:28AM EST - The chinese prices below include 17% tax 04:27AM EST - The cheapest model uses the 1.8 GHz bin of the 820 04:27AM EST - Pricing is $354 for the high end 'Mi 5 Pro' version with top end storage and high CPU bin 04:22AM EST - Up to 4 people 04:21AM EST - Real time video effects 04:19AM EST - screen in screen video calls while doing other things 04:18AM EST - Real time Beautify on video calls 04:18AM EST - New app: MI Video Call 04:18AM EST - MIUI 7 powered by Android 6.0 04:17AM EST - Comes with MIUI 7 with 5 themes as default 04:17AM EST - 10 mins of charge gives 2.6hr video, 2.7hr navigation or 7.5hr reading 04:17AM EST - Charges 80%-90% in an hour 04:16AM EST - 200mV increments, 20% faster than QC 2.0 04:15AM EST - Does card virtualization for payments or things like bus cards 04:15AM EST - Partnership with NXP 04:15AM EST - Full-Feature NFC 04:15AM EST - It's done in hardware via DSP 04:14AM EST - Video with Sunlight Display demos 04:14AM EST - Similar to Samsung's auto brightness 04:14AM EST - 'Sunlight display' dynamically adjusts contrast for each pixel in real time 04:13AM EST - Didn't mention APL for 600 04:13AM EST - 600 nits max brightness 04:12AM EST - 17% more power efficient LEDs 04:12AM EST - Mi 5 uses 16 low power, higher brightness LEDs 04:11AM EST - 'Typical displays are 350-500 nit, 72% sRGB and 12-14 LED backlights' 04:11AM EST - that would be helpful for writing reviews on the move...! 04:11AM EST - Reading mode to reduce blues 04:10AM EST - 1400:1 ratio, as low as 1 nit, NTSC up to 95% 04:10AM EST - 'ours is ultra-thin' 04:09AM EST - 'There are no bezel free phones' 04:09AM EST - 'Borderless display?' 04:09AM EST - Sapphire glass lens, 6-element 04:08AM EST - 4MP with 2 micron pixels and a Beautify mode 04:08AM EST - Front camera has same as Mi Note 04:08AM EST - 4K video, color enhancement and low light enhancement 04:07AM EST - Mi 5 uses Qualcomm Spectra ISP 04:07AM EST - about color accuracy 04:07AM EST - cleaner light separation 04:07AM EST - DTI prevents light leaking to other pixels 04:06AM EST - 16MP, PDAF auto focus, DTI (deep trench isolation) 04:06AM EST - Same sensor as the Mate 8 04:06AM EST - Sony IMX298 sensor 04:06AM EST - The shake table was moving 1cm in each direction at about 30 Hz 04:05AM EST - Of course, it's cherry picked examples, but it looks rather good 04:05AM EST - on a shaking table 04:05AM EST - Video showing it against the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus 04:03AM EST - that's rotational and translational correction 04:03AM EST - Mi 5 has 4-axis OIS 04:03AM EST - Typical config for OIS is large device and 2-axis 04:02AM EST - 'Taken OIS to a new level' 04:02AM EST - Has OIS 04:00AM EST - f2.0 03:59AM EST - Just to clarify, the ceramic design is an option over the glass design, most likely due to cost 03:58AM EST - 3000 mAh battery, 685 Wh/L density 03:57AM EST - 14g lighter than iPhone 6s 03:57AM EST - +/- 1-2 g 03:57AM EST - 129g total weight 03:57AM EST - 5.15 inch, feels like a 5-inch 03:57AM EST - Dimensions: 69.2 x 144.55 x 7.25 mm 03:56AM EST - 'looks just right' 03:56AM EST - Speaker and camera are centered at the top 03:55AM EST - Thinner home button than the Samsung 03:55AM EST - 'We wanted a balanced design and a camera that is tucked in as well as flat' 03:54AM EST - 'Two years to design for Mi 5' 03:54AM EST - 'A shorter forehead moves the camera down on the rear' 03:53AM EST - 'Front fingerprint sensors have difficulty in implementation - slim profile and screen to body ratio can be affected' 03:51AM EST - 3D ceramic is 75% more expensive than glass 03:51AM EST - Texture of marble without the weight 03:50AM EST - Rear texture in the ceramic is micro-crystalline nano-ceramic zirconia 03:50AM EST - Steel is 4, Diamond is 10 03:50AM EST - Up to 8 on the Mohs scale 03:50AM EST - '3D Ceramic body' as an option 03:49AM EST - 5.15 inch display 03:49AM EST - Mi 5 is completely curved 03:48AM EST - Mi 5 improves this 03:48AM EST - Mi Note had OIS camera that was flush and 6.95mm thick 03:47AM EST - 'It's not a coincidence it looks like Mi Note' 03:47AM EST - The gold back has like a cross hatch texture 03:45AM EST - Holding up a pair of Mi 5 devices 03:45AM EST - speakers on bottom 03:45AM EST - ok so rear is curved, front is not 03:45AM EST - USB Type-C 03:44AM EST - Those bezels look very thin 03:44AM EST - comes in black, white and gold 03:44AM EST - 'Very thin' 03:43AM EST - First XIaomi device with a home button and fingerprint sensor on the front 03:43AM EST - Camera with dual LED flash 03:42AM EST - Mi 5 inherits design from Mi Note 03:42AM EST - ? 03:42AM EST - So kind of like the S6 edge 03:42AM EST - Back is curved too 03:41AM EST - Mi 5 visuals, shows a curved edge 03:41AM EST - Video now 03:40AM EST - Speaking Mi 4 design 03:40AM EST - Now explaining the process of design 03:39AM EST - VoLTE gets preferential treatment 03:39AM EST - 'Best performance with VoLTE on each end' 03:39AM EST - 'Call clarity improved by 100%, 1-2s quicker call connections' 03:38AM EST - Voice over LTE 03:38AM EST - 'Using the peak bandwidth, that's 30s for a 1.8GB download' 03:37AM EST - That's 3x Carrier Aggregation and high-order modulation (256-QAM) 03:36AM EST - Cat 12 LTE supports 600 MB/s 03:36AM EST - i.e. LTE-Advanced 03:36AM EST - Mi 5 supports 4G+ 03:36AM EST - UFS is based on SCSI 03:35AM EST - 450MB/s vs 250MB/s peak bandwidth on UFS vs eMMC 03:34AM EST - no longer using eMMC for flagships 03:34AM EST - UFS 2.0 high-speed flash 03:34AM EST - LPDDR4 at 1866 MHz 03:34AM EST - Hugo back on stage 03:33AM EST - 'Mi 5 is an amazing device' 03:33AM EST - '820 has been rearchitected, key IP blocks have been updated' 03:33AM EST - 'Latest and Best Experiences' 03:33AM EST - 'We have a shared vision of technology' 03:32AM EST - Derek Aberle, president of Qualcomm on stage 03:32AM EST - X12 LTE modem, Quick Charge 3.0, Hexagon 680 DSP 03:32AM EST - 50k Antutu GPU result, compared to 21k on S6 and 18.5k on Mate 8 03:31AM EST - Adreno 530 is +40% perf and +40% power efficiency 03:31AM EST - vs Snapdragon 810, it has 200% perf and 50% power 03:31AM EST - Apparently Snapdragon 820 is the best reviewed QC SoC for the past three generations 03:30AM EST - "Xiaomi is focused on innovation, or translated from Chinese as 'black magic'" 03:29AM EST - Apparently it's important in China... 03:28AM EST - 'Antutu score of 142084'. Wait, why are they quoting Antutu 03:28AM EST - So 100% faster than 810, GPU 40% faster, RAM 100% faster than LPDDR3, Flash 87% faster than eMMC 5.0 03:27AM EST - 4GB RAM, up to 128GB onboard storage 03:27AM EST - That's Qualcomm's custom Kryo cores 03:27AM EST - Snapdragon 820 03:27AM EST - 'Fast' 03:27AM EST - Hugo has been using it for a few months 03:26AM EST - So today is about the Mi 5 03:26AM EST - Mi 4 sold 16m phones worldwide 03:26AM EST - Now talking about 2016 Xiaomi flagship premiere 03:26AM EST - Basically a connected devices portfolio 03:25AM EST - Developed with Segway 03:25AM EST - Ninebot mini hoverboard as well, 22km travel on a charge up to 16km/h 03:25AM EST - Mi Bluetooth Speaker, Mi Smart Scale, Mi Air Purifier 2, Mi Bedside Lamp 03:24AM EST - Mi Power Banks is #1 power bank company in the world 03:24AM EST - E.g. Mi Band, Mi Headphones, Mi Power Banks and Yi Action Camera 03:24AM EST - 2015 was also an important year for the Xiaomi Ecosystem, a group of 50 companies to build lifestyle products with Xiaomi 03:23AM EST - 9 of 10 of the most active Android users on Tencent were Xiaomi devices 03:23AM EST - 'It's more important to track active users and revenue per user' 03:22AM EST - over 170 million MIUI users worldwide 03:22AM EST - 2015 was MIUI 7 03:22AM EST - 'Xiaomi wants to be the fastest to new software features when requested' 03:22AM EST - MIUI gets weekly software updates. 275 updates in 5.5 years 03:21AM EST - 'We support 347 different models from 96 brands' 03:21AM EST - '750 people working on it, larger than our hardware team' 03:21AM EST - Now talking MIUI, their interface 03:20AM EST - A big hit was Mi Pad 2: runs Win 10 03:20AM EST - Latest megahit is Redmi Note 3, only smartphone with Snapdragon 650 03:19AM EST - Mi Note Pro was one of the first devices with Snapdragon 810 03:19AM EST - Last year's flagship was Mi Note 03:18AM EST - #5 in the world 03:18AM EST - Xiaomi was #1 in China in 2015 at 15%, compared to 14.5% Huawei 03:18AM EST - To compare that to Huawei, who had 100-108m 03:18AM EST - 70m phones sold in 2015 03:18AM EST - Hugo Barra internally is known as 'Tiger Brother' 03:17AM EST - 'Xiaomi is still a startup in many ways' 03:17AM EST - 6th Birthday in a few weeks 03:17AM EST - Xiaomi founded April 6th 2010 03:17AM EST - MI logo stands for Mobile Internet 03:16AM EST - Event co-sponsored by Qualcomm 03:16AM EST - 'First time announcing a product on a global stage' 03:16AM EST - 'A historical day for Xiaomi, first media event in Europe' 03:15AM EST - Hugo Barra on a hoverboard 03:15AM EST - We're starting :) 03:12AM EST - Sorry, Hugo Barra is VP of International, and typically the spokesperson at these sort of events 03:06AM EST - We're expecting Xiaomi CEO, Hugo Barra, to take the stage for the announcements 03:05AM EST - I believe MWC 2016 is now officially the single event with the most Live Blogs we've ever done :) 03:05AM EST - Ian on text, Andrei on pictures 03:04AM EST - We're here, we've not slept enough, but the coffee is flowing and we're ready to go 2016-02-28 05:01 Ian Cutress,

80 Lenovo Launches New MIIX 310 Tablet, Yoga 510 And Yoga 710 Convertibles At MWC 2016 The Yoga brand has permeated much of Lenovo’s laptop lineup, and they offer some of the best convertible device experiences out there. It should really be no surprise then that Lenovo is expanding this brand further, with the new Yoga 510 and Yoga 710 models. In addition, they are launching a new Windows 10 based tablet, which is the MIIX 310. The Yoga 900 is clearly the top of the range in Lenovo’s Yoga consumer lineup, but there is a lot of room underneath that model for some other devices. The Yoga 710 will slot in as a mid-range offering, in both an 11-inch and 14-inch model. The 14-inch version is a full Ultrabook, with 6 th generation Core processors up to a Core i7 model, and the 11-inch version starts off with a quad-core Pentium but will be offered with up to a Core m5 version. The 14-inch model will also offer an optional GeForce GPU version, for those that need a bit more power for gaming or compute. Lenovo is also claiming 20% better Wi-Fi reception due to a new hinge antenna on the 14-inch 710, and up to a 256 GB SSD on this model. Both are claimed to offer up to 8 hours of battery, and the displays are 1920x1080 IPS models. Sound is courtesy of Dolby Atmos virtual surround sound. The 11-inch Yoga 710 will start at just $499, and the more powerful 14-inch version has a starting price of $799. These will be available in May. The Yoga 510 offers the same four modes as the other Yoga models, and will be offered in both a 14-inch and 15-inch version. The lower end of the Yoga family is not as thin and light as the others in the lineup, with the 14-inch model coming in at 1.75 kg (3.85 lbs) and the 15-inch version tipping the scales at 2.08 kg (4.6 lbs). Both offer up to Core i7 processors, and optional AMD Radeon R7 M460 2GB GPUs. Lenovo claims up to 8.5 hours of battery life with these models. The Yoga 510 14-inch version will start at $599, and the 15-inch model starts at $699. Both will be on sale starting in April. The last Windows device announced today is the Ideapad MIIX 310. Back at IFA in September, Lenovo announced the MIIX 700 tablet, which was a 12-inch 3:2 offering competing directly against Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablets. The MIIX 310, as you’ve likely figured out from its product name, is a less expensive offering in the MIIX family. This is a 10-inch tablet which weighs in at just 580 grams (1.27 lbs) but offers a full Windows 10 experience. It has a detachable keyboard as standard, which is pretty great, and Lenovo claims 10 hours of battery life with the optional 1920x1080 display. You can also get it with up to 64 GB of eMMC and 4 GB of DDR3L RAM. Lenovo doesn’t list the processor yet but it’s likely going to be an Intel Atom based on Cherry Trail. The MIIX 310 will be on sale starting in June for just $229. Although we all love the high end offerings, it’s the mid-range where most of the work gets done. It’s always great to see high end features like IPS displays and SSDs make their way down into the mid-range. Hopefully we can get some of these in to check them out. Source: Lenovo 2016-02-28 05:01 Brett Howse

81 Microsoft Acquires Cross-Platform C# Toolmaker Xamarin In what has to be the most obvious acquisition Microsoft has made in some time, today the Redmond company announced that they have signed an agreement to purchase Xamarin. Xamarin creates tools to allow mobile developers to write code in C#, and have it run as native code on iOS, Android, and Windows. This lets the developer use Visual Studio and keep one set of source code but have it run on all of the mobile platforms. Microsoft has been closely tied to Xamarin for some time, and have built in support for Xamarin into Visual Studio, Azure, Office 365, and their Enterprise Mobility Suite already, so really it seemed like this purchase was only a matter of when. Microsoft is acquiring the personnel in addition to the intellectual property of Xamarin and we should likely hear a lot more about their plans at Microsoft’s developer conference Build, which takes place the last week of March. At Build 2015, Microsoft introduced “bridges” which would let developers on iOS and Android be able to port their apps to Windows 10’s Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app framework, with Microsoft demonstrating support for Objective-C code within Visual Studio and having it compile directly into native UWP code, with the iOS bridge codenamed project Islandwood. The Android solution was quite different, and project Astoria would have Windows 10 Mobile actually have an Android subsystem so that it could run apps written for Android. Although Astoria was released as a limited beta, it appears that this has been axed by Microsoft, although Islandwood is still moving forward and is currently in preview form on GitHub. Xamarin is almost the exact opposite. Instead of trying to have developers port to Windows, instead they would be able to write in C# for Windows, and the Xamarin tools provide native APIs for iOS and Android and output code for those platforms, allowing a large amount of common code for apps developed for iOS, Android, and Windows. We should learn more about this at Build though. The Xamarin tools should be a focal point during their announcements at the end of March. Source: Scott Guthrie on the ASP. NET blog 2016-02-28 05:01 Brett Howse

82 Mushkin Impact 256GB and Atom 128GB USB Flash Drives Capsule Review Flash drives are a dime a dozen these days, and most of them carry uninteresting specifications. In particular, flash drives advertising smaller physical footprints have tended to carry disappointing performance numbers. At CES 2016, Mushkin had two USB Flash Drives (UFDs) on display belonging to the 'small footprint' club, the Impact 256GB and the Atom 128GB. We have reviewed the Atom 64GB version before. Though we were unimpressed with the Atom's performance, the form factor was very intriguing. Last month, Mushkin showed that they had doubled the capacity while retaining the same form factor. Along with the Atom 128GB, Mushkin also showed off one of the smallest 256GB UFDs in the market, the Impact 256GB. The industrial design of the Atom 128GB is the same as that of the 64GB version. It has a small hole at one end to secure it to a keychain or anything similar. The Impact is small too, and the picture below brings out the relative sizes. The smalled 256GB UFD that we have reviewed as yet is the Patriot Supersonic Rage 2. The Impact 256GB is of the same length, but has a slightly smaller width. It is highly improbable that the Impact 256GB might end up blocking any USB port adjoining the one it is connected to. Unlike the Atom's plastic casing, the Impact also has an aluminum housing, and despite the lightweight nature, feels solid in hand. It also has a plastic tab at one end for attachment purposes. Without opening up the unit, it is possible to identify the controller and flash inside the units. The Atom 128GB has a Phison PS2251-07 single-channel USB 3.0 flash controller and uses Toshiba TLC flash. On the other hand, the Impact 256GB comes with the dual-channel high performance Phison PS2251-08 controller and Toshiba MLC flash. Evaluation of DAS units on Windows is done with the testbed outlined in the table below. For devices with a USB 3.0 (via a Type-A interface) connections (such as the Mushkin Impact 256GB and Atom 128GB that we are considering today), we utilize the USB 3.0 port directly hanging off the Z97 PCH. The full details of the reasoning behind choosing the above build components can be found here. The list of DAS units used for comparison purposes is provided below. Mushkin claims read and write speeds of 400 MBps and 310 MBps respectively for the Impact 256GB. The corresponding numbers are 180 MBps and 40 MBps for the Atom 128GB. These are unfortunately not hit with our default ATTO benchmark settings. In any case, these access traces are not very common in real-life scenarios. Mushkin Impact 256GB Mushkin Atom 128GB Corsair Voyager GTX v2 256GB Mushkin Atom 64GB Mushkin Ventura Ultra 120GB Patriot Supersonic Rage 2 256GB SanDisk Extreme 500 240GB - USB 3.0 SanDisk Extreme PRO 128GB VisionTek Pocket SSD 240GB CrystalDiskMark, despite being a canned benchmark, provides a better estimate of the performance range with a selected set of numbers. Here, we can see things closer to Mushkin's claims - 375 MBps reads and 286 MBps writes for the Impact 256GB, and 191 MBps reads and 26 MBps writes for the Atom 128 GB. The native USB 3.0 flash controllers have always sruggled with very low IOPS for 4K random accesses (writes in particular). We see the Impact 256GB fall to 0.013 MBps for 4K random writes, while the Atom 128GB comes in at 0.071 MBps for that access trace. Mushkin Impact 256GB Mushkin Atom 128GB Corsair Voyager GTX v2 256GB Mushkin Atom 64GB Mushkin Ventura Ultra 120GB Patriot Supersonic Rage 2 256GB SanDisk Extreme 500 240GB - USB 3.0 SanDisk Extreme PRO 128GB VisionTek Pocket SSD 240GB Our testing methodology for DAS units also takes into consideration the usual use-case for such devices. The most common usage scenario is transfer of large amounts of photos and videos to and from the unit. The minor usage scenario is importing files directly off the DAS into a multimedia editing program such as Adobe Photoshop. Since these are not portable SSDs, we will be disregarding the latter use-case. In order to tackle the first use-case, we created three test folders with the following characteristics: The benchmark numbers show a wide spread - for certain use-cases such as Blu-ray folder writes, the Atom and the Impact have top numbers in their respective capacity classes, but they also come in with disappointing numbers for use-cases such as copying over lots of photographs. Further down, we will see if the pricing can act as a redeeming aspect. Yet another interesting aspect of these types of units is performance consistency. Aspects that may influence this include thermal throttling and firmware caps on access rates to avoid overheating or other similar scenarios. This aspect is an important one, as the last thing that users want to see when copying over, say, 100 GB of data to the flash drive, is the transfer rate going to USB 2.0 speeds. In order to identify whether the drive under test suffers from this problem, we instrumented our robocopy DAS benchmark suite to record the flash drive's read and write transfer rates while the robocopy process took place in the background. For supported drives, we also recorded the internal temperature of the drive during the process. Unfortunately, neither the Atom nor the Impact expose the temperature details. The graphs below show the speeds observed during our real-world DAS suite processing. The first three sets of writes and reads correspond to the photos suite. A small gap (for the transfer of the videos suite from the primary drive to the RAM drive) is followed by three sets for the next data set. Another small RAM-drive transfer gap is followed by three sets for the Blu-ray folder. An important point to note here is that each of the first three blue and green areas correspond to 15.6 GB of writes and reads respectively. Throttling, if any, is apparent within the processing of the photos suite itself. The good thing here is that neither the Impact nor the Atom suffer from thermal throttling. Mushkin Impact 256GB Mushkin Atom 128GB Corsair Voyager GTX v2 256GB Mushkin Atom 64GB Mushkin Ventura Ultra 120GB Patriot Supersonic Rage 2 256GB SanDisk Extreme 500 240GB - USB 3.0 SanDisk Extreme PRO 128GB VisionTek Pocket SSD 240GB Coming to the business end of the review, the Impact 256GB and Atom 128GB continue Mushkin's tradition of improving the performance and capacity of their USB 3.0 flash drives every year, while retaining the same physical footprint. The performance of the drives indicate suitability for write-once read-many scenarios. There are 128GB and 256GB portable SSDs (not in the same form factor, obviously) that have much better overall performance. Can the pricing save the day for Mushkin? We took a look at the online pricing of the various UFDs that we have evaluated so far and compared their cost per GB. The Impact 256GB (priced at $85 ) is simply the most economical 256GB flash drive that we have seen so far. Given the $0.33/GB pricing, it is hard to not recommend it provided the use- case is appropriate. The Patriot Supersonic Rage 2 does provide better overall performance, but it comes in at $0.55/GB. At $40 , the Atom 128GB is also the cheapest UFD in its capacity class that we have looked at in detail. Overall, the Mushkin 256GB and Atom 128GB don't impress with their benchmark numbers. However, the pricing aspect more than makes up for the average performance. 2016-02-28 03:03 Ganesh T

83 HTC Vive Will Be Launching In April Priced At $799 Today HTC confirmed both the release date and price for the HTC Vive VR headset. Vive has gone through a couple of delays at this point, with an April release date being stated back in December of last year. Not only has the April date been solidly confirmed this time, but the other key unknown, the price, has also been confirmed to be $799. At first glance, a $799 price point seems awfully expensive. However, HTC and Valve are marketing the Vive as the "full experience" and note that the $799 package will include the headset, the two lighthouse base stations for room tracking, and two controllers. In comparison, the Oculus Rift does come in significantly cheaper at $599 for the headset, but the controllers for the Rift have also been delayed until the second half of 2016, and they will be an additional cost on top of the $599 price. With the Rift coming out in March and the Vive in early April, consumers looking to be early adopters of VR are going to have to decide on whether they think the additional $200 up front is worth it for the additional hardware that the Vive includes, or if they'll be betting on the Rift and waiting for its special controllers later in the year. One other thing that HTC mentioned is something called Vive Phone Services. This is essentially a feature that integrates with your iOS or Android smartphone and allows you to receive and respond to texts and calls while using your Vive. You can also check upcoming calendar invites as well, ensuring that you don't forget about what you need to do in actual reality while enjoying a world of virtual reality Of course, on top of the cost of a VR headset is the cost of a PC powerful enough to drive it. Valve is recommending that users have an NVIDIA GTX 970 or an AMD Radeon R9 290 at minimum. With that in mind, differences in cost on the order of a couple hundred dollars may be less significant than they seem when comparing the headsets themselves. The countdown on the HTC Vive product page is now just under 8 days, and when it gets to zero preorders for the Vive will open to the public. On top of the headset, base stations, and controllers, for a limited time those who purchase the Vive will get Job Simulator by Owlchemy labs, and Fantastic Contraption by Northway games. 2016-02-28 03:03 Brandon Chester

85 Deals of the week: Mushkin's Reactor 1TB SSD for $220 and more Greetings! We have been tasked to inform you of the excellent selection of computing hardware deals offered by online purveyors. It is our solemn duty to separate wheat from chaff, a function which we believe we have performed admirably. Behold this week's deals. Gentlemen and ladies, it was a pleasure. Should you encounter any equally tasty deals today, be sure to share your findings in the comments section below. 2016-02-28 06:05 by Bruno

86 Zotac's speedy Sonix drive joins the NVMe SSD field When solid-state drives started to hit the performance ceiling of the SATA interface and the AHCI protocol, manufacturers started looking to PCIe and the NVM Express protocol to open up a new vista of performance. A few PCIe SSD options, like Intel's 750 Series and Samsung's 950 Pro , have been on the market for a little while, but the competition is starting to heat up. With its Sonix PCIe SSD , Zotac is officially entering the field. The Sonix is a 480GB SSD that uses the add-in card form factor rather than the more compact M.2 2280 design typical of other PCIe SSDs. It houses Toshiba MLC NAND and a 512MB cache of DDR3 RAM. The Sonix supports NVMe and four lanes of PCIe 3.0 connectivity, a combination that promises a lot of performance. Zotac's claimed read and write speeds for the Sonix are impressive. Zotac claims the drive can reach sequential read speeds of up to 2,600 MB/s, and sequential writes as fast as 1,300 MB/s. For comparison, Zotac claims that its Premium SATA SSDs are capable of 560 MB/s sequential reads and 500 MB/s sequential writes. That's a healthy boost for moving to the new interface. The better comparison, of course, is with other PCIe drives. Samsung's 512GB 950 Pro is specified for 2,500 MB/s sequential reads and 1,500 MB/s sequential writes, while Intel's 400GB 750 Series drive promises 2,200 MB/s sequential reads and 900 MB/s sequential writes. If the Sonix lives up to Zotac's claims, it could be quite the contender. It's a little concerning, though, that Zotac didn't provide random I/O specs at all, an unusual omission for any SSD. The Sonix PCIe SSD ships with a low-profile adapter and comes with a three-year warranty. Zotac has not yet announced pricing and availability. 2016-02-28 06:05 by Eric

87 iOS 9.3 update fixes iPhones borked by date change bug APPLE HAS RELEASED a new beta of iOS 9.3 that includes a fix for 64-bit iPhones and iPads bricked when the date was set to 1 January 1970. No, we're not sure why you'd do this either, but it emerged earlier this month that changing the date has wreaked havoc on handfuls of Reddit users who now have an expensive Apple-branded brick on their hands. iOS 9.3 beta 4, released to developers this week, means that the date on the iPhone or iPad can't be set beyond 31 December 2000 at 7pm ET, or 1 January 2001 at 12.00am GMT, putting an end to the 1970 bug, shown off in the video below. As reported at MacRumours , the update also brings bricked devices affected by the bug back to life. One of the website's commenters wrote: "This update fixed the 1970 date bug. Had two retail units stuck in boot loops to do some pricks setting the date to 1970 and restoring in DFU mode did not help. But restorting [sic] to this beta update made both devices go back to normal. " Given that the latest software isn't yet available to all, there's a quick trick to ensure you don't bork your iPhone for good if you simply can't resist changing the date to 1 January 1970. A savvy Reddit user said that letting the battery drain to zero or disconnecting it from the device will solve the problem. It's still unclear when iOS 9.3 will be made available to all, but the report claimed that the software's beta testing period is nearing the end. This suggests that it could debut alongside the iPhone 5SE and iPad Air 3 at Apple's mooted 15 March event. The latest beta release also includes small changes such as a new Night Shift icon and new star icons next to track names in the Music app. µ 2016-02-28 05:01

88 Asus and Federal Trade Commission settle case of the flawed routers HARDWARE FIRM ASUS has agreed terms with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and settled the case of the compromised routers and resulting privacy problems. This puts an end to a legal case that saw Asus in big trouble for shipping hundreds of thousands of routers (PDF) with a mile-wide security flaw. This sort of stuff does not sit well with people or the authorities, and Asus has been taken to task and told what it needs to do to make things right. A vigilante has already had a go at sorting this out. The FTC explained that Asus will have its hardware and cloud services regularly inspected for the next two decades. The FTC is not impressed with what went on, and criticised Asus for "critical security flaws in its routers [that] put the home networks of hundreds of thousands of consumers at risk". "The Internet of Things is growing by leaps and bounds, with millions of consumers connecting smart devices to their home networks," said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection. "Routers play a key role in securing those home networks, so it's critical that companies like Asus put reasonable security in place to protect consumers and their personal information. " The FTC said that Asus talks a good security game, but does not deliver on its promises. The leaky gear was marketed as having protective security features, but the firm had not taken "reasonable steps to secure the software on its routers", according to the FTC. "Hackers could exploit pervasive security bugs in the router's web-based control panel to change any of the router's security settings without the consumer's knowledge," the FTC said. "A malware researcher discovered an exploit campaign in April 2015 that abused these vulnerabilities to reconfigure vulnerable routers and commandeer consumers' web traffic. "The complaint also highlights a number of other design flaws that exacerbated these vulnerabilities, including the fact that the company set - and allowed consumers to retain - the same default log-in credentials on every router: username ‘admin' and password ‘admin'. " It doesn't even end there. The FTC is not sure about Asus router features for cloud storage called AiCloud and AiDisk. These services were supposed to be secure and private, but had "serious security flaws". We have asked Asus for its comment on the case. µ 2016-02-28 05:01

89 China's Baidu browser damned as a user privacy nightmare A web browser running on Windows and Android designed by one of China's biggest internet companies is a privacy disaster, according to an examination by Canada's Citizen Lab. "Baidu Browser, a web browser for the Windows and Android platforms, transmits personal user data to Baidu servers without encryption or with easily decryptable encryption, and is vulnerable to arbitrary code execution during software updates via man-in- the-middle attacks," warned the Citizen Lab report . "The Windows version of the Baidu Browser ... transmits a number of personally identifiable data points - including a user's search terms, hard drive serial number, model and network MAC address, URL and title of all web pages visited, and CPU model number - without encryption or with easily decryptable encryption. " The Android version of Baidu's browser is even worse as it "transmits personally identifiable data - including a user's GPS coordinates, search terms and URLs visited - without encryption, and transmits the user's IMEI and a list of nearby wireless networks with easily decryptable encryption". Furthermore, software updates are not protected by digital signatures, enabling attackers potentially to download and execute arbitrary code disguised as a browser update. In other words, the Baidu web browser could scarcely be more insecure if the company had deliberately tried to create the most insecure web browser they could think of. Baidu admitted in response to the Citizen Lab report (PDF) that most of the problems remain unresolved. The firm promised to "significantly strengthen information security and [make] complete changes to the mobile browser before the end of February and to the PC browser by early May of this year". The flaws may explain the willingness of a consortium of Chinese companies to pay way over the odds for Norway's Opera Software earlier this month. The consortium includes security company Qihoo 360 and internet firm Beijing Kunlun Tech. The deal is backed by the Golden Brick and Yonglian Investment funds. Baidu is China's most popular search engine, a position aided by the Chinese government's 'Great Firewall' which has helped to keep pesky foreign rivals like Google out of the Chinese market. 2016-02-28 05:01

90 UK Android users were whacked with ransomware during 2015 SECURITY CRYER Bitdefender has let off an alarm about UK- based Android devices, warning that they were hit by a huge array of ransomware attacks last year. The good news is that it was last year. Also positive is the fact that Bitdefender offers security that keeps this kind of thing on the other side of your door, and it is also a fall on previous years. Many Android users, presumably non-fussy safari-style downloaders and installers, have ceded to the ransom demands and coughed up. This problem is keenly felt in the UK, although other locations suffer, according to the Bitdefender Android Malware Threat Report H2 2015 ( PDF ). "Bitdefender has discovered that ransomware was the largest malware risk to Android users by a significant margin in the second half of 2015. Predominantly distributed through malicious apps, Android. Trojan. Slocker accounted for 22 percent of Android malware threats in the UK in the latter half of the year," the report said. "In total, Android ransomware accounted for 28 percent of reported Android malware in the UK for Q3 2015 and 19 per cent in Q4 2015. Bitdefender found that ransomware was 14 percent more prolific than its nearest competitor in Q3, and seven percent higher than the Q4 equivalent. " This is technology security news reporting, so of course Windows is pulled into this. Bitdefender said that Android malware is not as bad as Windows malware, but is still a pain. The Slocker ransomware tops the charts in the UK, Germany and Australia. Bitdefender reckons that we have a problem on our small island because we tend to pay the ransom demands. No- one recommends that as a good idea. "Due to the popularity of Android devices, malware developers will continue to write code specifically targeting them. Android malware is not only a lucrative business for hackers but a gateway for other malicious actions," said Catalin Cosoi, chief security strategist at Bitdefender. "Users must avoid installing applications from unofficial vendors, instead only using those found on trusted marketplaces. Non-reputable apps have a high chance of containing malware such as ransomware or data-stealing trojans, resulting in significant financial or data loss. " Bitdefender said that 44 percent of respondents to a survey had already paid out to the bad guys. µ To hear more about security challenges, the threats they pose and how to combat them, sign up for The INQUIRER sister site Computing's Enterprise Security and Risk Management conference , taking place on 24 November. 2016-02-28 05:01

91 91 Nvidia reveals Iray cluster server for complex graphics renders NVIDIA HAS revealed Iray Server, designed to allow distributed networks to pool resources to work on high-performance renders. Iray coordinates machines into WAN clusters, combining their resources to speed up the creation of images during development. Iray Server can also stream interactive rendering from the server to another machine and submit jobs to a queue for easy management, allowing users to manage the queue from any browser able to reach the network, even on mobile. Users can also modify and resubmit work without having to go back into the host application. Phil Miller, director of product management at Nvidia, said: "Iray Server is a great tool for designers and the production companies employing them because it speeds up the creative process. "Machines running Iray Server coordinate with each other to reduce the time needed to render an image. This allows you to process images in a fraction of the time it would take a single machine. " Previously submitted work is fully cached so the same data is never sent twice, and nodes can come and go from the cluster at will without stuffing up anyone's jobs. Iray Server works on machines running Nvidia GPUs , offering cloud plug-ins for industry standard applications including Autodesk 3DSMax and Maya. The idea of cluster computing is nothing new. Everything from BitTorrent to scientific research relies on it, but this is one of the first attempts to create cluster supercomputers for graphics rendering. Iray Server is available as a 90-day free trial starting today. It's simply a case of download the client, install it, run it and bosh. We don't have full details on prices yet, so for now enjoy the freeness. Nvidia launched its Drive PX 2 supercomputer for self-driving cars at the start of the year which it claims is as powerful as 150 MacBook Pros . µ 2016-02-28 05:01

92 Nissan Leaf cars are susceptible to hacking THE ELECTRIC Nissan Leaf can be blown over by hackers, according to a security researcher, who said that you could control some of its features remotely if you were so inclined. Troy Hunt, who is already a name in the security industry, has blogged about this and shaken Leaf drivers like leaves. This ain't the first time that a car has been hacked , and it isn't the most devastating. Hunt said that it is possible to sit around somewhere and play with features on the Nissan car thanks to the paper bag-like security in a Nissan app called Connect. This means that a hacker could muck about with the temperature inside the car from blooming miles away. This is just one example, and on just one car. The same trick was tried on Leafs in the wild, however, and it worked. Hunt and the hunters were able to gain access to a number of other vehicles, and presumably make their owners a bit hot around the collar and cool around the feet. Individual drivers can also be identified and tracked through access to the vehicle identification number etched on the windscreen. These things add up, of course, and hackers will find a use for them. We asked Nissan for its position on this and was told that the company has suspended the Connect software service. "The NissanConnect EV app is currently unavailable. This follows information from an independent IT consultant and subsequent internal Nissan investigation that found the dedicated server for the app had an issue that enabled the temperature control and other telematics functions to be accessible via a non-secure route," the firm said. "No other critical driving elements of the Nissan Leaf or eNV200 are affected. We apologise for the disappointment caused to our Nissan Leaf and eNV200 customers who have enjoyed the benefits of our mobile apps. However, the quality and seamless operation of our products is paramount. " The firm will release updated versions of the app soon, which is pretty much what Hunt was hoping for. "In my view, this is the sort of flaw that needs to have the service pulled until it can be fixed properly and restored. It's not a critical feature of the vehicle yet it has the potential to affect its physical function and there's the privacy risk as well. Plus, of course, it's already being discussed publicly so the risk is well and truly out in the public domain already," he said in a blog post. "I want to see Nissan secure this. I own a Nissan myself (albeit not a connected one) which I'm passionate about and am very invested in the brand emotionally and financially. But they do need to take action on this because clearly the current state is not satisfactory. " µ To hear more about security challenges, the threats they pose and how to combat them, make sure you sign up for the Computing Enterprise Security and Risk Management conference on 24 November. 2016-02-28 05:01

93 Apple takes steps so El Capitan doesn't look like a dick in public APPLE HAS unmade a dick of itself after spotting that a font suggested that the latest version of Mac OS X made you seem something of a dinkle fan. The slogan for the El Capitan release of the Mac operating system proudly announced: 'There's more to love with every click', but the spacing in the font made the claim rather, well, pendulous. The company has tweaked the 'click' now (which is what she said) with a tiny one (change that is) in the CSS code on the site, which spaces out the 'c', 'l' and 'i' less suggestively. Because before that people might have assumed it was a porn site or something, at least we can only assume that's the logic. Here's the before and after gif, currently doing the rounds on Twitter. @bathtype before & after pic.twitter.com/mcfUW3JGua — Ryan Ackermann (@naturaln0va) February 25, 2016 So a font has changed. Some will probably moan that this isn't news, but it's Friday and it's fun and it takes us back to a simpler time when web addresses were a minefield for early web pioneers who didn't think it through. Penisland.net has been around for as long as The INQ , and yet it still trades on its fine reputation of customised pens and is definitely not a tourism site for a land made of dinkles. It's worth noting that the current tagline, 'We specialise in wood', is still a bit unfortunate, although probably deliberate. Or there's Therapistfinder.com which, sadly, now diverts to a new URL but still leaves us aghast that anyone thought it was a good idea in the first place. It reminds us of the scene in Arrested Development where Tobias becomes an 'analyst-therapist' and gets business cards made up marked 'Analrapist'. And finally ... according to Snopes.com it isn't true that Powergenitalia.com was a misguided attempt by Powergen to widen its business in the European market. Nevertheless, it was the home of a real Italian battery company for a while. Alas it has now gone. µ 2016-02-28 05:01

94 Canonical chooses Dragonboard 410c as reference for Ubuntu Core x64 CANONICAL HAS announced the arrival of a 64- bit ARM developer environment based on Ubuntu Core and the Arrow Dragonboard 410c board. The board features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor, and will provide the first 64-bit development board and SoC for Ubuntu Core. The idea is to give developers a powerful platform for Internet of Things (IoT) development with scale-out capabilities. The Dragonboard is symbolic for Canonical as a reference platform for Ubuntu Core 64-bit development. This means that users will be assured of compatible updates for the long-term development of their designs. Jon Melamut, VP of commercial devices operations at Canonical, said: “Adopting the DragonBoard 410c as our ARM 64-bit reference platform is proof of our commitment to the open platform community surrounding the board. Via snappy Ubuntu Core and the DragonBoard 410c, developers will have an affordable, accessible and flexible way to create new IoT solutions. " The Dragonboard 410c has already been positioned as a standardised development board under Linaro's 96Boards programme, which offers "the first open specification to define a platform for the delivery of compatible low-cost, small footprint 32-bit and 64-bit Cortex-A boards from the range of ARM SoC vendors". As such, images of Snappy Ubuntu Core will be made available from 96Boards' website , along with documentation and support. Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, said in an interview with The INQUIRER last year : "Certified and supported Ubuntu platforms set the standard for safety and security in connected devices. "Device manufacturers who choose Ubuntu Core on certified platforms now have a popular platform that meets corporate and government requirements for security updates and management. " The board itself, which retails in the US at $75 (around £54), is available direct from Arrow in the US with free shipping internationally. Snappy Ubuntu Core was released for the Intel NUS DE3815TY board earlier this month, aimed at being the company's x86 reference platform. The INQUIRER 's sister site Computing will be holding an Internet of Things Business Summit in London on May 12. Attendance is free to qualifying end users and places are already going fast. Visit the event page to see the agenda and to sign up. µ 2016-02-28 05:01

95 Yahoo donates CaffeOnSpark deep learning software to open source YAHOO IS is to offer its CaffeOnSpark deep learning software to the community. The system was built to enhance Flickr's image recognition engine, and is now available to open source for further development adaptation and general larking about with. The team explained in a blog post : "We believe that deep learning should be conducted in the same cluster along with existing data processing pipelines to support feature engineering and traditional (non-deep) machine learning. We created CaffeOnSpark to allow deep learning training and testing to be embedded into Spark applications. " The software is available on Yahoo's GitHub repository and can be tested on Amazon Web Services' EC2 cloud or on private Spark clusters. The team added: "Our goal is to make CaffeOnSpark widely available to deep learning scientists and researchers, and we welcome contributions from the community to make that happen. " The lengthy blog post explained the concept in spectacular detail, but the short version is that it runs on Apache and complements the existing Spark MLib non-deep-learning algorithm that comes as standard. Yahoo isn't exactly a front-runner in the field but there is little question that the sophistication of the Flickr algorithm bodes well for anyone looking to take the plunge. Deep learning is becoming a next-big-thing battleground for many of the major tech players. Google has already open sourced its DreamDeep yielding Tensorflow engine with sometimes terrifying results. Apple recently poached Nvidia's deep learning director shortly after buying deep learning specialist Perceptio, and Nvidia has turned its attention to GPU-accelerated in-car deep learning. IBM's stalwart Watson supercomputer also got an injection of deep learning last year when the company acquired AlchemyAPI, and the firm has even added a 'personality' courtesy of Cognea. But don't be fooled into confusing deep learning with intelligence. CERN professor and Blue Yonder founder Michael Feindt told us in an interview last year: "We are very far away from a machine that is 'intelligent' in the very wide sense we attribute it to normally. "Even the best algorithms do not 'think', 'feel' or 'live', they have no 'self-consciousness' and no 'free will'. This is, and will stay, pure science fiction for a while. " µ 2016-02-28 05:01

96 10 Virtual Reality Products That Took Us To Another World At Mobile World Congress 2016 Breaking (Virtual) Boundaries At MWC While smartphone launches were still the highlight of Mobile World Congress 2016 , a new technology stole the show -- virtual reality. We all know the basics behind virtual reality -- users can strap on headsets like Samsung's Gear VR and enter a visually stimulating new 3-D world. But companies like Intel and Facebook are trying to push the boundaries on virtual and augmented reality, and new applications beyond consumer gaming popped up at the popular mobile show in Barcelona, Spain this year -- from social networking through 3-D virtual experiences, to using augmented reality to track fitness and health right in front of the user's eyes. Following are 10 virtual reality platforms we saw at Mobile World Congress this year. 2016-02-28 03:00 Lindsey

97 Verizon Backs Apple In Encryption Debate With FBI Telecommunications giant Verizon broke its silence on the controversy between Apple and the FBI, with Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam saying Friday that he supports Apple in the battle over encryption. Many technology company CEOs have voiced their opinions this week regarding Apple's refusal to create a brand-new operating system that would allow the FBI to unlock an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters. Many Silicon Valley executives are standing behind Apple CEO Tim Cook, saying that the existence of a so-called master key to any iPhone could carry huge security implications for all Apple users. In a statement, McAdam said, "Verizon is committed to protecting customer privacy and one of the tools for protecting that privacy is encryption. We support the availability of strong encryption with no backdoors. " [Related: Telecoms Tight-Lipped On Apple's Encryption Battle With FBI ] "I'm definitely really impressed that Verizon is maybe seeing what a slippery slope this is. In backing Apple, maybe [Verizon] is thinking that if Apple caves, who knows what's next? " said Natasha Royer Coons, managing director of San Diego-based TeraNova Consulting Group, a telecom expense and managed services provider and Verizon partner. Similar to the response Monday from Ralph de la Vega, AT&T president and CEO of its Mobile and Business Solutions unit, Verizon's McAdam said that it should be Congress to decide where the line should be drawn between privacy and national security. "The case with Apple presents unique issues that should be addressed by Congress, not on an ad-hoc basis," McAdam said in the statement. Early in the debate, carriers seemed to be the only companies not coming forward with an opinion on the encryption battle. Verizon’s support of Apple is significant as the carrier -- along with some competing telecom providers -- have cooperated with the government on similar privacy matters. Telecom provider Sprint has kept silent on the subject, and T-Mobile CEO John Legere said he "wouldn't know how to advise" Apple's Cook. Whistle-blower Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that several carriers, including Verizon, had handed over phone call metadata and emails to the National Security Agency. In the second half of 2015, Verizon, Basking Ridge, N. J., said in its biannual Transparency Report that it had received 65,663 subpoenas for customer data, including 567 wiretap orders, in 2013. Verizon may be realizing there could be a domino effect that could impact carriers down the road, said TeraNova’s Coons. If Apple caves to FBI requests, it could put carriers in the hot seat next, she said. 2016-02-28 02:48 Gina Narcisi

98 Apple's March media event pushed back one week: Report I don't want an iPad Pro, I want an OS X tablet Reports are circulating that Apple is preparing to unveil a larger, enterprise and power-user focused (and undoubtedly more expensive) iPad called the iPad Pro. 2016-02-27 23:18 Jake Smith

99 You may see the iPhone SE on this new launch date

Apple's event to unveil a new batch of products, including the smaller iPhone SE , won't be until later in the month of March, according to new reports. An event for the date of March 15 has been widely expected , however sources speaking with Re/code say the event will actually be held the week of March 21. The most likely day then for a keynote is Tuesday, March 22, though sources didn't go so far as to pin it on that date. Apple loves Tuesday launch events, almost as much it loves hiding 9:41 AM in its official product photos. Backing all of this up, Korean site UnderKG earlier reported Apple has asked employees to keep their calendars open between March 21 - March 23, as noted by AppleInsider . To recap: no event on March 15 as the likely product reveal will go down a week later. It's not clear if this was Apple's plan all along, or it revised the schedule for some reason. Perhaps it needed more time to figure out how it will sell its new iPhone two days after launch? Whenever Apple holds the event that will, per usual, capture the world's attention (or at least, the tech world's), it's expected to unveil a new 4-inch iPhone, a new iPad and another batch of Apple Watch bands. Apple's smaller handset is expected to look like the iPhone 5S , have the innards of the iPhone 6S , and possibly be called the iPhone SE. Its tablet, meanwhile, was initially thought to be the iPad Air 3 , but new reports indicate it will actually be a smaller iPad Pro. Whatever Apple unveils, we'll be right there to be bring you the latest. Article continues below 2016-02-27 21:32 By Michelle

100 Top iOS news of the week: iPad shipments, Apple Watch shipments, Siri on the desktop A report indicates that iPad shipments could hit a new low in the first quarter of this year. One major industry analyst believes Apple will only ship around 40 million iPads in 2016, a 16 percent drop from last year. Source: BNR Industry watcher IDC says Apple shipped 11.6 Apple Watches last year. This puts Apple in third place of the wearables market with just nine months. Fitbit leads the market with 21 million units shipped. Source: The Verge Apple plans to integrate Siri in OS X in version 10.12. The electronic assistant will work much the same on OS X as it does in iOS and WatchOS. Hey Siri will be implemented like on iOS if the Mac is plugged in. Source: Techradar Apple shipped 5 million watches in the last quarter of 2015, according to industry trackers. This counted for a respectable 60 percent of the smartwatch market. This was the first quarter that total smartwatch shipments exceeded those of traditional Swiss watches. Source: Benzinga 2016-02-27 15:00 James Kendrick

Total 100 articles. Created at 2016-02-28 12:01