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100 articles, 2016-03-11 18:00 1 Amazon Web Service's Ts & Cs upgraded for zombie apocalypse AWS EULA keeps all bases covered,Cloud and Infrastructure,Software,Applications ,Amazon,Lumberyard,AWS,EULA,zombie 2016-03-11 18:00 2KB www.computing.co.uk 2 RSA 2016: Data compliance beyond the firewall Vigitrust's Mathieu Gorge reports from the RSA 2016 conference where a key discussion was storage and compliance in an age where data doesn't necessarily live within the firewall 2016-03-11 18:00 2KB www.computerweekly.com 3 A look inside the SAP IQ column-oriented database The SAP IQ 16 column-oriented database can be used to deploy decision support, business intelligence, data warehouse and data mart implementation. 2016-03-11 18:00 1KB searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com 4 Never learnt to program your Spectrum, Amstrad or BBC? Step this way... Publisher Usborne re-releases 15 computer coding books from the 1980s as free PDF downloads,Software ,software,BBC 2016-03-11 18:00 1KB www.theinquirer.net 5 Blockchain: not the Messiah Blockchain is an ingenious technological development, but it's far from being the saviour many are looking for,Business Software ,Internet of Things,GBG,authentication,encryption,blockchain,identity and access management,Bitcoin,GDS,Fintech,Tom Loosemore,in-depth 2016-03-11 18:00 1KB www.computing.co.uk 6 Virtual reality on the rise as HTC Vive nets 15,000 pre-orders The Vive was sold at a rate of 25 per second despite its hefty cost ,Gadgets,Hardware,Software ,HTC,connected devices,Valve,video games 2016-03-11 18:00 2KB www.computing.co.uk 7 Sir Clive Sinclair talks ZX Spectrum, electric cars and the UK tech scene "Yes, we've certainly gone backwards",Software,Hardware ,ZX Spectrum,Sinclair 2016-03-11 18:00 740Bytes www.computing.co.uk 8 Microsoft offers free-to-use SQL Server Express on Azure cloud platform Monitoring for Azure Data Factory also thrown in,Cloud and Infrastructure,Software ,Cloud,Cloud and Infrastructure 2016-03-11 18:00 2KB www.theinquirer.net 9 Big data in big numbers - it's time to forget the 'three Vs' and look at real-world figures The term 'big data' has lost its meaning, says Sean Jackson, who offers some numbers to explain its impact in the here and now,Business Software ,Big Data and Analytics,Exasol,in- memory database,Gartner,Moore's law,Google,Facebook,Analytics,Internet of Things 2016-03-11 18:00 1KB www.computing.co.uk 10 Canonical to bake OpenZFS into Ubuntu 16.04 'Perfect' file system for containers to be fully supported in April's Ubuntu release,Software,Operating Systems,Cloud and Infrastructure ,Ubuntu,Canonical 2016-03-11 18:00 2KB www.computing.co.uk

11 Microsoft tempts Oracle customers with free SQL Server 2016 licences Microsoft says firms can save by switching, but they must be signed up for Software Assurance licensing,Applications,Licensing,Big Data and Analytics ,Microsoft,Oracle,SQL Server,databases,SQL,licence 2016-03-11 18:00 4KB www.computing.co.uk 12 Microsoft unveils Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection service for enterprise customers Microsoft to add a post-breach layer of protection to the Windows 10 security stack,Software,Security ,Microsoft,Cyber security,Azure,Cloud,Windows 10 2016-03-11 18:00 3KB www.computing.co.uk 13 Office 365 suffers European outage due to 'high resource utilisation' So - lag, basically,Business Software,Appliances ,Microsoft,Azure,Azure outage,Office 365 outage,SMB Spotlight,smb-services 2016-03-11 18:00 2KB www.computing.co.uk 14 Windows 10 Mobile gets another update, Windows Insiders get to taste a new ring Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 10586.107 delivers another bunch of bug fixes,Software,Mobile ,Windows Mobile,Microsoft 2016-03-11 18:00 2KB www.theinquirer.net 15 Oracle’s 'traumatic' licensing methodology works, so it won’t change, says Specsavers global CIO It took Specsavers nine months to renegotiate a licensing deal with Oracle, but it didn't have to, says Phil Pavitt ,Licensing,Leadership ,Oracle,software licensing,SMB Spotlight,smb-services 2016-03-11 18:00 3KB www.computing.co.uk 16 U. S. Attorney General defends FBI case against Apple on Stephen Colbert’s show As the iPhone unlocking case becomes more heated, United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch went on late night television to defend the Federal Bureau of.. 2016-03-11 18:00 3KB techcrunch.com 17 Amazon eyes up education, plans a free platform for learning materials Back in 2013, Amazon acquired (and continued to operate) online math instruction company TenMarks to gain a foothold in the online education space. Now it.. 2016-03-11 18:00 5KB techcrunch.com 18 New app Tagly bets on connecting consumers with brand content Tagly claims to be the first social platform dedicated to exclusively showcase content created by brands. Its goal is to allow users to discover, share, and.. 2016-03-11 18:00 4KB techcrunch.com 19 Kodak tries its hand at social with new “Kodak Moments” storytelling app The saying "Kodak Moment" is a holdover from another era where camera owners had to be thoughtful about which snapshots deserved to be taken, due to the.. 2016-03-11 18:00 3KB techcrunch.com 20 GM buys self-driving car kit startup Cruise, plans to use tech to make driverless cars General Motors (GM) announced today it plans to snap up Cruise Automation, a San Francisco-based startup making sensors that turn regular vehicles into ones.. 2016-03-11 18:00 2KB techcrunch.com

21 Saving Green: Computer Program Saves Nurseries Water, Plants and Money A web-based irrigation system saved 21 percent in water use without reducing growth of container-grown landscape plants, a new study shows. 2016-03-11 17:43 3KB www.sciencedaily.com 22 Scrape Away From KimonoLabs Programming book reviews, programming tutorials,programming news, C#, Ruby, Python,C, C++, PHP, Visual Basic, Computer book reviews, computer history, programming history, joomla, theory, spreadsheets and more. 2016-03-11 17:37 5KB www.i-programmer.info 23 Powerful tool predicts wave behavior at all depths of sea A new harbor or windmill park at sea will continuously undergo the forces of breaking water waves. Those waves have, on their way from the deepest ocean to more shallow coastal waters, undergone lots of changes. Researchers developed mathematical models for very fast calculation of the wave behavior, for each... 2016-03-11 16:18 2KB www.sciencedaily.com 24 Government invests £175m to upgrade military communications tech MoD will use the money on an overhaul of the Bowman tactical communications system 2016-03-11 16:10 2KB www.v3.co.uk 25 FileHippo News - powered by FeedBurner The allegations were made using Google’s Google+ social networking platform, and also on Google Maps. When the reviews claiming that infants were not safe in the nursery were found by the small business, the owners originally approached Google and asked them to remove the offensive and untrue content. But the... 2016-03-11 09:25 24KB feeds2.feedburner.com 26 Microsoft's Lumia 650 is now available to pre-order for $199 in the US and Canada Following its launch last month in various European markets, Microsoft has now quietly opened pre-orders for its newest Windows 10 Mobile handset, the Lumia 650, in the United States and Canada. 2016-03-11 14:44 1KB www.neowin.net 27 Tim Sweeney: Microsoft's UWP needs to emulate the open nature of Win32 Epic games co-founder expands on his idea of what Microsoft should and shouldn't do with the distribution model of Universal Windows Platform apps, and how it should be more like Win32. 2016-03-11 14:28 2KB www.neowin.net 28 How to fix Microsoft Edge's worst problems Microsoft is definitely on the right track with Edge -- its new browser is a big improvement over Internet Explorer, but there’s still a long way to go until it’s good enough to challenge the likes of Firefox and Chrome. Extension support is still missing, although I hear from a... 2016-03-11 14:15 4KB betanews.com 29 Upstream oil and gas companies spend smarter on digital technologies to drive value, reduce costs in downturn, Accenture and Microsoft survey finds HOUSTON — March 9, 2016 — As upstream oil and gas companies scrutinize every dollar invested, they’re spending smarter today on digital technologies, seeking to drive value and reduce costs amid low oil and gas prices, a new survey by Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) reports. Respondents to the... 2016-03-11 14:54 6KB news.microsoft.com 30 Microsoft delivers enterprise-class ERP to the cloud REDMOND, Wash. — March 9, 2016 — Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday announced that its next-generation cloud ERP solution, Microsoft Dynamics AX, built on and for Microsoft Azure, is now available in 137 markets in 40 languages. The enterprise-class business application brings the power, speed and intelligence of cloud computing to... 2016-03-11 14:54 7KB news.microsoft.com

31 Google glitch translates 'Russian Federation' into 'Mordor'; it has a ring to it Irony alert: Google Translate bug brands Russians as occupiers when translating from Ukrainian 2016-03-11 14:55 3KB www.v3.co.uk 32 Pay What You Want for this Hardcore Game Dev Bundle valued at $1,601 Pay What You Want via Neowin Deals for this Hardcore Game Dev Bundle. Consider coding your Call of Duty: 10 courses (108+ hours) on Unity3D, JavaScript, SpriteKit and more. 2016-03-11 14:02 2KB www.neowin.net 33 Dell releases new XPS 13 Developer Edition, launches Linux-based Precision laptops worldwide On the laptop side, Dell may be best known for its Windows devices, but, as some of you may already know, it also offers some killer Linux-based alternatives for prosumers. It all started out nearly four years ago with Project Sputnik, which led to the release of the first- gen XPS 13 Developer... 2016-03-11 13:56 3KB betanews.com 34 Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Review The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is an excellent phone and easily gets my recommendation for those wanting to purchase something this early into 2016. Samsung has addressed many of the Galaxy S6 issues while adding or improving features that make this year's flagship an extremely compelling choice. Samsung Galaxy S7... 2016-03-11 12:41 7KB www.techspot.com 35 Three weeks after launch, Lumia 650 UK price begins to fall; now available from £149.99 Microsoft launched the Lumia 650 in the UK last month for £159.99. Three weeks later, the country's top device retailer has cut its price by £10, and similar reductions are available elsewhere too. 2016-03-11 13:46 2KB www.neowin.net 36 UK government launches a fast online identity verification service A new service has launched in the UK, which will allow the country’s citizens to easily verify their identity online. Called CitizenSafe, it is the brainchild of global specialists in identity data intelligence, GBG. A new service has launched in the UK, which will allow the country’s citizens to easily verify their identity online... 2016-03-11 13:34 2KB betanews.com 37 Nest introduces family accounts and a new way to track your activity Nest, a company now owned by Google, makes products that home automation enthusiasts sometimes salivate over. What began with a thermostat has expanded somewhat to include such things as smoke detectors. Nest, a company now owned by Google, makes products that home automation enthusiasts sometimes salivate over. What began with... 2016-03-11 13:21 2KB betanews.com 38 Fighting censorship: Edward Snowden, Amnesty International, AdBlock and Pussy Riot Online advertising is incredibly divisive, and for World Day Against Cyber Censorship, AdBlock is opting to replace banner ads that would normally be blocked with links to Amnesty International. The human rights group is fronting an anti-cyber-censorship campaign, joined by Edward Snowden, Pussy Riot (famous for rubbing up Russia's President... 2016-03-11 12:55 2KB betanews.com

39 Microsoft slashes 58% off LG Lancet Windows Phone, now priced at just $74.99 Microsoft has been selling the LG Lancet for $179 - considerably more than the handset's $119.99 price at Verizon - but it has now slashed $104 off the device, significantly undercutting the carrier. 2016-03-11 12:22 2KB www.neowin.net 40 67 percent of enterprises will increase spending on software defined infrastructure Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI) involves the virtualization of all hardware resources, combined with elastic scaling and management automation, server virtualization is usually the starting point for SDI, but additional approaches have emerged in recent years, including software-defined networking (SDN) and software-defined storage (SDS). Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI) involves the virtualization... 2016-03-11 12:10 2KB betanews.com 41 Best Windows apps this week One-hundred and seventy-one in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows 8.x and Windows 10 in the past seven days. One- hundred and seventy-one in a series. Welcome to this week’s overview of the best apps and games released for Windows 8.x... 2016-03-11 11:59 4KB betanews.com 42 Inkjet printer fools smartphones with fake fingerprints In a new proof of concept attack, a team from Michigan State University has demonstrated an ability to successfully spoof fingerprints and gain access to two flagship Android smartphones. 2016-03-11 10:48 2KB www.neowin.net 43 Microsoft Cloud strength highlights second quarter results REDMOND, Wash. — January 28, 2016 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended December 31, 2015: During the quarter, Microsoft returned $6.5 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends. “Businesses everywhere are using the Microsoft Cloud as their digital platform to... 2016-03-11 09:40 8KB news.microsoft.com 44 E-School for Girls partners with NYU and Microsoft for entrepreneurship event NEW YORK — Feb. 4, 2016 — Pre-college entrepreneurship program E-School for Girls partnered with New York University, Microsoft Corp. and Natalie Zfat for an inspirational and educational event, What It Takes to Be a Successful Entrepreneur, on Feb. 3, 2016, at the NYU Stern School of Business. “Microsoft is... 2016-03-11 09:39 3KB news.microsoft.com 45 Microsoft and Wistron deepen collaboration with Android patent licensing renewal REDMOND, Wash., and TAIPEI, Taiwan — March 7, 2016 — On Monday, Microsoft Corp. and Wistron Corp. announced a renewed Android patent licensing agreement covering Wistron’s tablets, mobile phones, e-readers, and other consumer devices running Android and Chrome platforms under Microsoft’s patent portfolio. This deal extends and expands a prior... 2016-03-11 09:39 2KB news.microsoft.com 46 Dynamics AX is switching to be a cloud service on Azure – or Azure Stack Microsoft is now using Azure Stack as a way to bring SaaS on-premise 2016-03-11 10:30 4KB www.techradar.com 47 Contactless payments are starting to gain traction in Europe The future of payments in Europe is contactless, a new survey suggests. According to the report by digital security firm Gemalto, 90 percent of business leaders in Europe have already invested in a contactless project. The other 10 percent are planning to do so. The future of payments in Europe... 2016-03-11 10:17 3KB betanews.com

48 Meet the 707-HP, Hellcat-powered Jeep Trailcat If a Jeep was ever to get a Hellcat engine transplant, the obvious recipient would be the performance-minded Grand Cherokee SRT (it's happening next year, by the way). With 475 horsepower on tap and four drive wheels, the SUV is… 2016-03-11 10:15 1KB www.techspot.com 49 Adobe issues emergency patch as more security vulnerabilities are found in Flash If you’re one of the few people still using Flash Player, then you should heed Adobe’s advice and update it ASAP. The company is urging users to patch its web platform after 23 security vulnerabilities were identified in the current… 2016-03-11 09:30 2KB www.techspot.com 50 GM buys software company to speed autonomous car development DETROIT— With hopes of speeding development of self-driving cars, General Motors has acquired a small software company that's been testing vehicles on the streets of San Francisco. Cruise Technology, along with Google, is among the few companies with permits from the state of California to test the cars, said Kyle... 2016-03-11 09:03 2KB www.cnbc.com 51 GitHub Project of the Week: Meteor This week’s big project is Meteor, a full-stack JavaScript platform changing the app development world 2016-03-11 09:00 2KB sdtimes.com 52 Autodesk settles with activist investors, appoints 3 directors March 11- AutoCAD design software maker Autodesk Inc said on Friday it had reached a settlement with activist investors Eminence Capital LP and Sachem Head Capital, and appointed three directors to its board. Autodesk named Scott Ferguson, managing partner of Sachem Head, Tessera Technologies Inc Chairman Rick Hill and Kodak... 2016-03-11 08:49 1KB www.cnbc.com 53 Hackers stuff up $800 million bank heist over spelling error Hackers attempting to steal nearly a billion dollars have had their plans mostly foiled by a basic spelling error, which occurred when they attempted to transfer money to a bogus company in Sri Lanka. 2016-03-11 08:30 2KB www.techspot.com 54 UPDATE 1-SunEdison names successor to CFO Brian Wuebbels March 11- SunEdison Inc said Ilan Daskal would take over as chief financial officer when Brian Wuebbels moves to its units, TerraForm Power Inc and TerraForm Global Inc, as chief executive and president. Daskal, currently the interim CFO of engineering services and software company Aricent, will join SunEdison by April... 2016-03-11 08:14 1KB www.cnbc.com 55 Need machine learning? HPE just launched a new service with more than 60 APIs If 2015 was the year analytics tools became ubiquitous in enterprise software, 2016 is shaping up to do much the same for machine learning. 2016-03-11 07:58 2KB www.techworld.com.au 56 Ubisoft says 'Tom Clancy's The Division' broke first-day sales records Tom Clancy's The Division launched earlier this week on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PCs. First announced at E3 2013, the highly anticipated game got off to a rocky start early Tuesday morning as hoards of players swamped Ubisoft's… 2016-03-11 07:15 2KB www.techspot.com

57 The new Trackmania Turbo trailer shows off the game's many multiplayer modes If you long for a racing game that does away with simulation and concentrates on arcade- style fun, then you should check out the upcoming Trackmania Turbo, the latest in the series of Trackmania titles. The racer’s creator, Ubisoft, may have… 2016-03-11 06:15 2KB www.techspot.com 58 Two-year-old Java flaw re-emerges due to broken patch A patch released by Oracle in 2013 can be easily bypassed to attack the latest Java versions, security researchers said 2016-03-11 06:14 3KB www.infoworld.com 59 This Week in Linux News: Microsoft to Release SQL Server for Linux, Linux Mint Tightens Security, & More | Linux.com This week in Linux news, Microsoft is releasing an SQL server for Linux, Linux Mint tightens its security after major vulnerabilities were exposed last month, and more! Get your fill of the latest Linux and open source headlines below. 2016-03-11 06:00 1KB www.linux.com 60 JavaScript founder Brendan Eich: WebAssembly is a game- changer In his speech at the O'Reilly Fluent conference, he also endorsed the Service Workers mobile app technology, WebGL, and Decorators for JavaScript 2016-03-11 05:04 3KB www.infoworld.com 61 Justice Department slams Apple's 'corrosive' rhetoric in its latest court filing The DOJ accuses Apple of a 'technological fiat' for resisting a court order to brute-force the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone 2016-03-11 04:36 5KB www.infoworld.com 62 Disney's IT layoffs fuel Trump, Rubio H-1B attacks at debate Republicans, unlike the Democrats, are talking about the controversial visa program 2016-03-11 04:30 5KB www.infoworld.com 63 Government websites best Amazon, Google in user satisfaction New gauge of citizen satisfaction gives government high marks for catching up with the private sector in online presence 2016-03-11 04:24 4KB www.infoworld.com 64 Distribution Release: ClearOS 7.2.0 | Linux.com Devin Johnson has announced the release ofÂ ClearOSÂ 7. 2. 0, the latest stable version of the project's CentOS-based distributions designed for servers: ClearOS 7. 2. 0 final for all editions has 2016-03-11 03:43 1KB feedproxy.google.com 65 Microsoft Visual Studio adds R support The release includes an R editor, code auto-completion, debugging, built-in GitHub support and other features. 2016-03-11 03:18 2KB www.computerworld.com 66 The 11 highest-paying tech jobs in America Software developers and architects rule, according to latest Glassdoor study 2016-03-11 03:00 1KB www.infoworld.com 67 Visual Studio Taco spices up Cordova error-reporting Version 7 of the Apache Cordova package features improved error reporting and updated project templates 2016-03-11 03:00 2KB www.infoworld.com 68 Qubes OS 3.1 Linux Distro Introduces Salt-Based Qubes Management Infrastructure | Linux.com Joanna Rutkowska from the Qubes OS project has had the great pleasure of announcing the release of Qubes OS 3. 1, along with its immediate availability for download. Qubes OS 3. 1 appears to be a 2016-03-11 00:52 1KB spd.rss.ac

69 Ultimate Unconference Survival Guide | Linux.com If there is one area in which open source has never suffered it is a lack of events. From your big professional conferences right down to your friendly, local meetups, there is just something so 2016-03-11 00:22 1KB opensource.com 70 Facebook wants more creepy two-faced in your photos Social networking giant buys up face swapping app MSQRD to make your news feed a more unsettling place. 2016-03-11 00:00 2KB www.alphr.com 71 Supporting EJB Transactions in Your Java App - Developer.com Explore the concept of EJB transaction management in a Java EE framework. 2016-03-11 00:00 6KB www.developer.com 72 Kodak Moments app seeks to separate precious photo memories Kodak, a brand once synonymous with photographic memories, is creating an app meant for highlighting special moments such as birthdays. 2016-03-11 00:00 1KB phys.org 73 Android smartphone data spies exposed like bank robbers When a bank is robbed, the loot will often contain a wad of manipulated banknotes. These will explode en route and release a colorful dye, marking the money as stolen. Researchers use a similar principle to identify spyware on smartphones. Computer scientists from the Center for IT Security, Privacy and... 2016-03-11 00:00 4KB phys.org 74 RTÉ leans on satellite broadband to cover Irish general election Irish TV network RTÉ turned to satellite ISP Europasat to support its coverage of the country’s general election. 2016-03-11 00:00 2KB www.computerweekly.com 75 Ofcom data breach highlights insider threat That a former employee of communications regulator Ofcom stole data should act as a warning about the insider threat in every organisation, say experts 2016-03-11 00:00 2KB www.computerweekly.com 76 Europe’s CIOs examine impact of new data protection regulation Belgian IT leader group Beltug is joining other organisations across Europe in preparing for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 2016-03-11 00:00 2KB www.computerweekly.com 77 Payments regulator makes progress in introducing competition UK payments regulator has slashed the time it takes for finance firms to join and use real- time payments system. 2016-03-11 00:00 3KB www.computerweekly.com 78 Technology and new finance firms will test banking industry UK bankers now think fintech is a bigger issue than regulatory change, according to a study. 2016-03-11 00:00 2KB www.computerweekly.com 79 The Christie speeds up SPC charts to improve clinical processes Cancer specialist NHS trust implements statistical process control chart creation tool in data visualisation software Tableau to improve processes and save money. 2016-03-11 00:00 3KB www.computerweekly.com 80 Using the Basic UI Controls in Android: Buttons, Texts, Checkboxes, Radio Buttons, Toggle Buttons, and Spinners (Building a Simple Android Application Demo) - Developer.com This article gives an introduction to the Android picker control that can be used to select date and time in Android applications, with a working demo. 2016-03-11 00:00 3KB www.developer.com 81 Five Years Down the Road: The Future of App Dev - Developer.com Your software development team can drive business and shift from functioning as a mere internal service to becoming creators of innovative solutions. 2016-03-11 00:00 7KB www.developer.com 82 What Do Android App Developers Gain with Android Marshmallow? - Developer.com Android is becoming a major market for mobile apps. Are you ready to develop them? 2016-03-11 00:00 5KB www.developer.com 83 Adobe chief: Mobile a huge positive for us The shift from personal computers to smartphones and tablets is a big positive for Adobe Systems, its chief executive told CNBC. 2016-03-10 23:53 3KB www.cnbc.com 84 Justice Department accuses Apple of false rhetoric, pooh- poohs privacy concerns Ahead of the hearing due to be held on 22 March, the Justice Department has lashed out at Apple in its latest response to the company's refusal to unlock the San Bernardino iPhone. Playing an emotional game, the DoJ says Ahead of the hearing due to be held on 22... 2016-03-10 22:21 2KB betanews.com 85 LG G5 and Friends to launch in US next month, with free extra battery and charging cradle LG has announced that its new G5 flagship will go on sale in the US in early April, and for a limited time, those who buy the device will get a free extra battery and charging cradle with it. 2016-03-10 21:06 2KB www.neowin.net 86 Data loss is one of the main reasons for failed mergers and acquisitions Data loss is one of the bigger reasons why mergers and acquisitions fail, losing companies millions of pounds each year. Those are the results of a new survey conducted by dedicated virtual data room provider for merger and acquisition deals, ansarada. Data loss is one of the bigger reasons why... 2016-03-10 20:23 2KB betanews.com 87 Fred Wilson to rep New York at Disrupt NY in May Fred Wilson is a name that needs no introduction, but we're going to do it anyway. TechCrunch is excited to announce that Fred Wilson will be speaking at.. 2016-03-10 20:16 2KB techcrunch.com 88 My Uber driver apparently moonlights as an underground electronics dealer Have you ever been riding in an Uber and become suddenly overtaken by the immediate need for a new Android tablet or a Dell Latitude E6420? Yeah, me.. 2016-03-10 20:16 1KB techcrunch.com 89 HPE’s Haven OnDemand developer platform hits commercial availability Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Haven OnDemand machine learning-centric developer platform has been around since late 2014, but it's only coming out of beta and.. 2016-03-10 20:16 2KB techcrunch.com

90 Apple and the Justice Department enter the ‘open hostilities’ phase of iPhone unlocking case A 43-page rebuttal from the Justice Department today characterized Apple's earlier response to an iPhone unlocking request as 'corrosive'. Shortly thereafter,.. 2016-03-10 20:16 6KB techcrunch.com 91 Apple sends out invites for March 21 event, likely for new iPad and smaller iPhone Apple has just issued for its next press event on Apple Campus in Cupertino. The event is going to happen on March 21. As usual, Apple wrote a cryptic message.. 2016-03-10 20:16 2KB techcrunch.com 92 Wikipedia’s new iOS app focuses on discovery, personalization Wikipedia today launched an upgraded version of its iOS application aimed at helping users better discover content matching their own interests, including.. 2016-03-10 20:16 3KB techcrunch.com 93 New law changes the liquidity game for tech company founders, workers and investors Late last year, Congress passed legislation that substantially improved the legal landscape for startups, early-stage companies and the stakeholders in the.. 2016-03-10 20:16 11KB techcrunch.com 94 FCC's Tom Wheeler wants to protect internet users' privacy by limiting ISPs' personal data usage The chairman of the Federal Communication Commission has put forward a set of proposals to protect internet user's privacy. Tom Wheeler wants to place limits on how ISPs are able to use customer data in much the same way that phone companies are regulated. The chairman of the Federal Communication... 2016-03-10 20:13 2KB betanews.com 95 Microsoft Band 2 updated to include Auto-Pause for tracking sessions Microsoft's Band 2 is receiving an update that will sense when the user has stopped during a tracking session through a new 'Auto-Pause' feature. It also includes character-based language support. 2016-03-10 20:04 1KB www.neowin.net 96 Apple releases tvOS 9.2 beta 6 to developers With an Apple event right around the corner, the firm is gearing up its latest software updates. Today, it released tvOS 9.2 beta 6 to registered developers who are testing the OS. 2016-03-10 19:42 1KB www.neowin.net 97 Nvidia quietly releases trio of new entry-level mobile GeForce GPUs Nvidia has quietly released three new entry-level GeForce discrete graphics cards that are destined for laptops and other low-power devices. The three GPUs – the GeForce 940MX, 930MX, and 920MX – are all based on Maxwell GM108 silicon and succeed… 2016-03-10 19:30 2KB www.techspot.com 98 Lumia 650 coming to Mexico for 4,399 pesos The Microsoft Lumia 650 will be coming to Mexico next week for 4,399 pesos, or about $246 USD. Microsoft had originally announced that the device would come to select European markets. 2016-03-10 19:16 1KB www.neowin.net

100 articles, 2016-03-11 18:00

1 Amazon Web Service's Ts & Cs upgraded for zombie apocalypse People frequently complain about software and cloud EULAs - end-user licence agreements - but think about it from the side of the company: especially with cloud, it has to take account of every last stupid thing someone might be motivated to do with its software and/or services. That, perhaps, partly accounts for the latest changes to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Ts and Cs. It has just thrown open its games development platform Lumberyard - based on Crytek's CryEngine so it ought to be good - and updated its Service Terms accordingly. "The Lumberyard Materials are not intended for use with life-critical or safety-critical systems, such as use in operation of medical equipment, automated transportation systems, autonomous vehicles, aircraft or air traffic control, nuclear facilities, manned spacecraft, or military use in connection with live combat," it states. Fair enough. It continues: "This restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the US Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to re-animate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organised civilisation. " Some might argue that's already occurred, citing the US Presidential Election as proof, with all that's missing the certificate from the CDC. 2016-03-11 18:00

2 RSA 2016: Data compliance beyond the firewall At RSA Conference 2016 in San Francisco, the main issues for storage and compliance included data encryption and the idea that security of data where it resides is key rather than securing the infrastructure. In this podcast, Computer Weekly’s storage editor Antony Adshead talks with CEO of Vigitrust Mathieu Gorge. They discuss RSA 2016 and what organisations need to do to manage threats to compliance in an environment characterised by the proliferation of data across multiple platforms. Antony Adshead: RSA 2016 recently took place. What topics related to data storage and compliance were covered? Mathieu Gorge: RSA 2016 was a lot bigger than RSA 2015 for a start, which was a good sign with regard to the appetite the market has for anything to do with data, cloud, compliance and security. Of course, there was a lot of talk about the challenge between the FBI and Apple to get access to encryption keys on mobile phones. That dominated discussion at some of the sessions at RSA. Really, what that means is that data encryption is one of the key topics and where data is stored, whether on-premise or in the cloud, is also something that is very important and was discussed at a number of sessions and workshops. The concept of looking at data and its lifecycle and how you can encapsulate data – perhaps using encryption, tokenisation or digital fingerprints – to manage the data, rather than where the data is stored, was also an area discussed at some of the keynotes. So, I think one of the key differences between this year and last year at RSA is that there was a lot more talk about how we deal with the data and where we store the data, versus securing the infrastructure that the data might transit through – whether at rest, in use or in motion. 2016-03-11 18:00 Antony Adshead

3 A look inside the SAP IQ column-oriented database SAP IQ is a relational column-oriented database management system that can be used to implement highly scalable data warehouses. The high-performance column store technology of SAP IQ can deliver high-speed compression and ad hoc analysis without complex tuning. This DBMS includes additional functionality for managing data warehouses and business intelligence applications, including analytics, multilingual client application performance interfaces, federation and Web enablement. SAP IQ 16 runs on multiple operating systems including Windows, Linux x86, Linux POWER, HP-UX , AIX, Solaris x86 and Solaris SPARC. SAP IQ can be deployed either on-premises or in the cloud. 2016-03-11 18:00 Craig S.

4 Never learnt to program your Spectrum, Amstrad or BBC? Step this way... Educational publisher Usborne has re-released 15 of its top computer programming titles from the 1980s - and made them available as free PDF downloads. The initiative was made to coincide with the launch of a new range of "learn to code" titles, so that parents can finish learning to program the Sinclair Spectrum they grew up with, while their children learn something a little bit more advanced. The programming titles offer instructions and type-in-yourself game listings for classic eight-bit computers from the 1980s. In addition to the Spectrum, Usborne has also re-released titles for the Commodore 64, Commodore Vic 20, MSX standard machines, Amstrad CPC-series and the BBC Micro. The publishing house, fondly remembered for its titles as broad as French phrase books and lessons in spycraft, has emphasised that the techniques in these books are, in essence, obsolete. But if your childhood ZX Spectrum 48k has long since been consigned to landfill, you could always buy the recreated ZX Spectrum , which was released last year and proved a big hit at Maplin. 2016-03-11 18:00

5 Blockchain: not the Messiah The word "disrupt" is never far away from any mention of blockchain; "revolutionise" puts in a regular appearance too. And so does the word "save", both as in saving money ("Here's how blockchain will... 2016-03-11 18:00

6 Virtual reality on the rise as HTC Vive nets 15,000 pre- orders HTC has sold 15,000 of its Vive virtual reality (VR) headsets in just 10 minutes when the devices went available for pre-order yesterday. Selling through the popular Steam games website and its own website, the Vive sold for a hefty £689 in the UK - plus £57.80 for shipping and tax - and at a rate of 25 per second for the first minutes, indicating that there is an eager appetite for VR despite the high cost of entry. Sales of the devices via Steam were helped by the work that Valve Software, owner of Steam, did to have new games software developed to work on the device in time for launch. The Vive package currently comprises the headset, two wand-like controllers, and external sensors to map movements in a virtual space. It also comes with three VR games: Google’s Tilt Brush, Job Simulator, and Fantastic Contraption. Early-adopters would appear not to be concerned that the Vive launches with only a few games and apps immediately available that have been specifically built for it. However, given the Vive is powered by SteamVR on the software side, more games with high- production values, and apps that enable content creation are likely to be on the horizon. The current suite of apps are still a solid introduction to the type of VR that enables people to move around in a virtual environment through movements in the physical world, rather than relying on a games console controller. That being said, the Vive is a rather challenging proposition is some ways, as even if the cost of the headset is removed from the equation, a gaming-grade PC or laptop is needed to power the Vive, costing anywhere between £600 to £1,500. Then there is the problem of space; to get the most out of the Vive, users will need to have around 10ft square of free space in which to move around. In an average city flat, finding such an area may be challenging. However, when Computing ’s sibling site The INQUIRER put the Vive to the test , it was very impressed with immersion the headset offers and the level of interactivity and physicality the system allows within a virtual setting. 2016-03-11 18:00

7 Sir Clive Sinclair talks ZX Spectrum, electric cars and the UK tech scene Sir Clive Sinclair should be no stranger to Computing readers. A pioneering mind in the UK technology scene, Sir Clive Sinclair was responsible for one of the first truly mass-market personal computers... 2016-03-11 18:00

8 Microsoft offers free-to-use SQL Server Express on Azure cloud platform Microsoft has introduced a free version of SQL Server to its Azure cloud platform, enabling customers to use it for building applications, test and development, along with a monitoring and management app for the Azure Data Factory data integration service - paying only when their applications go live. SQL Server is one of the most widely deployed database management systems, and Microsoft is making it easier for developers to build apps for the cloud by making images of SQL Server Express with Tools 2014, 2012 and 2008 R2 available in the Azure Marketplace . SQL Server Express can be used at no charge for testing and development, and for web and mobile apps with lightweight relational database needs, or "micro workloads", Microsoft said. However, while licensing is free, customers will be charged for running any virtual machine instance that contains it. Microsoft advised customers to pause the virtual machine when they are not actively using it to maximise cost savings. Microsoft has also added a monitoring and management application for Azure Data Factory to make it easier for customers using the data integration service as part of a big data project to keep closer tabs on the status of the data pipelines feeding into it. Azure Data Factory is Microsoft's cloud-based data integration service that orchestrates and automates the process of ingesting, preparing, transforming and analysing data, using other services such as Azure HDInsight and Azure Machine Learning. "Based on customer feedback, we have re-imagined the monitoring and management experience in Azure Data Factory to make it more effective and intuitive for data developers and data scientists," said Gaurav Malhotra, Microsoft's Azure Data Factory programme manager, on the company's Azure Blog . The app is designed to present information in a simpler way and provide better insights into a customer's data pipelines, as well as letting data professionals enable batch processing actions in Azure Data Factory to improve developer productivity. The new Monitoring and Management App improves efficiency for new and advanced users, offering a more intuitive experience, Malhotra said. Computing's sister site V3 is hosting a Cloud and Infrastructure Live summit on 20 and 21 April discussing numerous aspects of the cloud and how to best use it in your organisation. Sign up now to find out more. 2016-03-11 18:00

9 Big data in big numbers - it's time to forget the 'three Vs' and look at real-world figures We have all heard the term "big data" but what does it mean - and what do we define as big? Many people try to define it in terms of size, although opinions vary; for some a dataset over a terabyte is... 2016-03-11 18:00

10 Canonical to bake OpenZFS into Ubuntu 16.04

Canonical is planning to build ZFS, the resilient combined file system and logical volume manager originally developed by Sun Microsystems, into its forthcoming 16.04 release of the Ubuntu operating system, codenamed "Xenial Xerus". Support for OpenZFS was added as a technical preview to Ubuntu 15.10, which was formally released at the beginning of May 2015. Users will still need to download and install the appropriate package, though - zfsutils-linux. Xenial Xerus is scheduled to be released on 21 April and will likely include the Unity 8 graphical user interface and Mir. " ZFS is one of the most beloved features of Solaris, universally coveted by every Linux sysadmin with a Solaris background. To our delight, we're happy to make OpenZFS available on every Ubuntu system," revealed Canonical product and strategy team member Dustin Kirkland in a blog post this week. "Killer" features, according to Kirkland, include snapshots, copy-on-write cloning, continuous integrity checking against data corruption, automatic repair and efficient data compression. "These features truly make ZFS the perfect files ystem for containers," he added. However, these features come at a cost in terms of memory - ZFS can be highly resource intensive, requiring 1GB of memory, as a rule of thumb, for every 1TB of storage under management. Ubuntu 16.04 will also dump the not especially well-loved Ubuntu Software Centre in favour of Gnome Software. Unlike app stores for the Apple iOS operating system and the Google Play store, the sale of paid-for apps didn't prove to be a ginormous money-spinner for Canonical and the service has slowly deteriorated. ZFS was originally developed as open-source software, although the ZFS name is trademarked to Oracle. 2016-03-11 18:00

11 11 Microsoft tempts Oracle customers with free SQL Server 2016 licences Microsoft is hoping to convince enterprise firms to migrate from other database platforms to SQL Server 2016 by offering free licenses as part of a new promotion. The catch is that they need to be signed up to Microsoft's Software Assurance licensing scheme to qualify. The new programme was disclosed at the firm's Data Driven event in New York this week, which kicked off a series of activities intended to build customer interest around SQL Server 2016 ahead of its general availability sometime later this year. Microsoft's new scheme, which aims to help more customers adopt SQL Server 2016, is billed as a programme for organisations currently running applications or workloads on 'non-Microsoft paid commercial relational database management systems' but is clearly targeted at Oracle database customers. The web page where customers can claim their free licences is headed "Break free from Oracle" and invites organisations to "Follow the leader and migrate from Oracle to SQL Server - with free licenses". On the surface, this could be a tempting proposal for many organisations, with Microsoft offering support services to kick-start their migration, plus access to its SQL Server Essentials for the Oracle Database Administrator training. Oracle's licensing has long been a bone of contention for many of its customers, not just because of high costs but with some customers claiming that licensing is often so complex that it is difficult to understand how many licenses they require. The firm is also often accused of strong-arm tactics, with Specsavers global CIO describing it as a "gun-to-the-head methodology". However, firms considering such a migration need to carefully weigh up the implications before signing up. Microsoft is making a condition of the offer that organisations must have signed up for its Software Assurance subscription licensing, under which customers pay an annual fee in exchange for the rights to new software releases and support services. Software Assurance has itself been criticised for offering poor value in some cases, especially as Microsoft does not guarantee that new versions of products will be delivered in the period covered by the subscription agreement. There are also additional restrictions, with Microsoft warning that to qualify for this offer, customers must have an SCE (Server and Cloud Enrollment) license for SQL Server. In other words, any customer that meets the criteria for free SQL Server licences will be an organisation that is already deeply committed to volume licensing of Microsoft products. It is also questionable whether the licenses are really 'free' in this case, although customers with Oracle license agreements may be able to save by switching. Meanwhile, SQL Server 2016 is expected to be a significant upgrade, bringing capabilities such as always encrypted data, expanded support for in-memory database operation, and the ability to take advantage of the increasing prevalence of cloud services in today's IT environment. "We built SQL Server 2016 for this new world, and to help businesses get ahead of today's disruptions," said the corporate vice president of Microsoft's Data Group Joseph Sirosh. "It supports hybrid transactional/analytical processing, advanced analytics and machine learning, mobile BI, data integration, always encrypted query processing capabilities and in-memory transactions with persistence. It is also perhaps the world's only relational database to be ‘born cloud-first,' with the majority of features first deployed and tested in Azure, across 22 global data centres and billions of requests per day. It is customer tested and battle ready," he added. Microsoft also disclosed this week that it is developing a version of SQL Server for Linux. This is due for availability sometime next year, after SQL Server 2016 for Windows ships. 2016-03-11 18:00

12 Microsoft unveils Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection service for enterprise customers Microsoft has unveiled details of a threat protection service it is developing that, it claims, will help organisations detect and deal with attacks on their networks. Using a combination of endpoint and cloud- based tools, it is intended to detect threats that have made it past other defences and provide response recommendations. Due to be available later this year, Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection is already being trialled by some early adopter customers as well as being used to protect Microsoft's own network, the company revealed. Full details have yet to be disclosed, but the service is likely to be incorporated into the Windows 10 Enterprise edition of Microsoft's operating system, and thus available only to volume licensing customers. The new service is being developed because of the increasing sophistication of cyber attacks mounted against corporate networks, and the damage that can be inflicted through lost productivity and loss or theft of confidential information. Microsoft claims that serious breaches cost the average organisation some $12m per incident, in addition to a broader impact on a company's reputation. "As the attackers' approaches have evolved and become more sophisticated, so too must our approach to provide security to our enterprise customers," said Microsoft's executive vice president for the Windows and Devices Group, Terry Myerson. He added that 90 per cent of IT directors responding to a survey said they needed a fully-fledged advanced threat protection solution that is capable of identifying attacks sooner and providing remediation. To address this, Microsoft is building Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection around software built into Windows 10 endpoints feeding data back to cloud-based services to provide a global view of the threat landscape. The software giant said that Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection is powered by a combination of Windows behavioural sensors, cloud-based security analytics, threat intelligence, and by tapping into Microsoft's "intelligent security graph". The latter is being developed to provide analytics on information drawn from more than one billion Windows devices. The service's security operations data provides an easy way to investigate alerts, explore the corporate network for signs of attacks, and to get detailed file footprints from across the organisation to recommend responses. It will also be able to examine the state of machines and their activities over the preceding six months for historical investigation purposes. One organisation involved in the trial is IT services supplier Avanade. "Cyber security is my biggest concern and securing all endpoints in my organisation is my current priority. Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection is unique in that it can see exactly what's going on across every endpoint, which other solutions are failing to address," said Avanade's IT security director, Greg Petersen. Because Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection is being built into Windows 10, it will be automatically kept up-to-date along with Windows itself. No on-premise server infrastructure or ongoing maintenance will be required, claims Microsoft. 2016-03-11 18:00

13 Office 365 suffers European outage due to 'high resource utilisation' UPDATE: Microsoft has issued Computing with the following statement, attributed to "a Microsoft spokesperson": "A limited number of customers in Europe may have intermittent access to email on mobile devices, or intermittent delays accessing the portal, and we're working to resolve both as quickly as possible," said the spokesperson, curiously focusing only on mobile when, to Computing 's knowledge, a number of types of device were affected. "Customers can access email via Outlook client or Outlook on the web and can visit the O365 Service Health Dashboard for updates," the spokesperson said. ORIGINAL STORY: Office 365 is experiencing a European outage, marking the second time in three months that Microsoft's critical enterprise systems are unavailable for a sustained period. The company has been quoted as attributing the problems to "high resource utilisation". Many users are unable to log into Office 365 through its front-end portal, resulting in perpetual lag, while the website promising that technicians are "working on it". If users are able to log in to services - for example Outlook - they are experiencing further lag inside the service environment when trying to open emails. Office 365 seems to have been inaccessible by those affected since around 9am this morning. Microsoft has made no formal announcement as yet, but Computing has been informed by a contact in the tech support industry that the company is blaming the problems on "high resource utilisation". Users on Twitter are reporting "multiple customers experiencing outages", and accusing Microsoft of "fix[ing] one thing and breaking another" . Computing has contacted Microsoft for a statement, and will update this story as and when we get one. Office 365's last major outage took place on 3 December 2015 , and also included Azure services. It lasted around four hours, and cloud email management firm Mimecast warned at the time that continued outages could begin to have "a detrimental impact on the country". A further outage took place on 18 December 2015 , and was attributed more directly to Microsoft's Azure functions. 2016-03-11 18:00

14 Windows 10 Mobile gets another update, Windows Insiders get to taste a new ring Microsoft has delivered the latest update to Windows 10 Mobile, Build 10586.107, which is now available to Windows Insiders in the Slow Ring and features a fresh batch of bug fixes amid a number of new features. The company has also added a third ring to its Windows Insiders programme, called Release Preview, enabling daredevil testers to get their hands on forthcoming software earlier. Windows 10 Mobile debuted on the new Lumia 950 and 950 XL handsets from Microsoft at the end of 2015, but owners of other Windows Phone devices wanting to upgrade have had to wait. Microsoft has struggled to bring to market Windows 10 Mobile, which it had initially planned to release at the same time as full-fat Windows 10 at the end of July. A stream of preview releases have brought fixes for numerous issues brought-up by testers on the Windows Insider programme. The latest release, Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 10586.107, delivers another bunch of bug fixes. These address problems such as some users experiencing missing tiles on the Start screen, changes to the device reset process when Device Encryption is enabled, and improved support in Narrator to speak in multiple languages. Build 10586.107 was released to Windows Insiders on the Fast Ring earlier this week, but has now been rolled out to those on the Slow Ring as well. Microsoft has has also added a new Release Preview Ring to the Windows Insider programme. This applies to Windows 10 releases on both the PC and mobile platforms. The software giant is inviting Windows Insiders who want early access to updates but with minimal risk to their device to try out its newly available ring. It is targeting those who want to stay on the Current Branch, which at present is made of releases that take the Build 10586 release as their base, but continue to receive early access to application and driver updates. The Fast Ring is for Insiders who enjoy being the first to get access to builds and feature updates, and who are prepared to accept some instability. The Slow Ring was for those happy to receive previews at a less frequent pace in exchange for greater stability. * from Microsoft's Windows blog: " The 3 Windows Insider rings are : 2016-03-11 18:00

15 Oracle’s 'traumatic' licensing methodology works, so it won’t change, says Specsavers global CIO Oracle's approach to licensing has led to a 'traumatic' journey for Specsavers, according to its global CIO Phil Pavitt, who claims that the tech giant won't change the way it works. A damning report by the not-for-profit organisation Campaign for Clear Licensing (CCL) at the end of 2014 suggested that Oracle's customers are left "hostile and filled with deep- rooted mistrust" as a result of the tech giant's licensing and auditing processes - and indeed, it is an area that CIOs have been telling Computing that they're frustrated about for years, not just with Oracle, but with the likes of IBM and SAP too. According to Pavitt, Specsavers now has a good deal, but the firm had to go through six to nine months of "real trauma" to get to that deal. "We're happy with that deal, it wasn't easy to get to but we are now licensed appropriately. But at the end of the day, the journey was overly dramatic and traumatic and didn't need to be," Pavitt told Computing. "It is a real shame that their products are really good and unfortunately you can't do without them. But unfortunately the way they operate, it's just not a customer-focused way at all; their approach to the customer is minus the customer," he stated, adding that SAP and Oracle are both difficult to work with. Last year at Oracle Openworld in San Francisco, the then CTO of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), Iain Patterson, suggested that the way Oracle licensing worked was about to change - as long as customers took a different approach to how they handle their licences. But despite both the DVLA and Specsavers renegotiating deals with Oracle, Pavitt doesn't believe that Oracle will change. "I don't believe that [Oracle will change]. At the end of the day they are a transaction-based organisation, they act like it, they sell like it, the gun-to-the-head methodology is selling. It's very powerful for them, there is no other methodology they've been trained in using and you have to get to very senior levels in the UK or the US to get any reasonable conversation about a reasonable deal - and that's not about discounting necessarily, it's about the right deal for the organisation," Pavitt said. This accords with Patterson's account that Oracle CEO Safra Catz was personally involved in the conversation to get DVLA a better deal. Pavitt believes that the likes of Oracle and SAP should really be coming to their customers to help them, but said because of their size, customers have to approach them instead. So what could force a change? "It won't stop; it hasn't changed for 20 years so why would it change? If the customers jointly stand up then perhaps they'll do something, but it'll never happen," he said. 2016-03-11 18:00

16 U. S. Attorney General defends FBI case against Apple on Stephen Colbert’s show As the iPhone unlocking case becomes more heated, United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch went on late night television to defend the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s stance. During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert this evening, Lynch said that though the Department of Justice and Apple have disagreed publicly in court, with the DOJ accusing the tech company of “corrosive” and “false” rhetoric in a court filing earlier today , she’s “had a number of great discussions with Tim Cook on the issues of privacy.” “What I’ll say about this, though, is that I understand why this is important to everybody, because privacy is an important issue for everyone,” she added. “It’s important to me as the attorney general, it’s important to me as a citizen.” The case revolves around an iPhone (see TechCrunch’s full coverage here ) used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the two shooters who attacked a social services center and killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, last December. Apple is currently fighting against a court order from the government to create special software so law enforcement can unlock the device. The company says this would not only compromise the security of all iPhone users, but also set a dangerous precedent for civil liberties. Many other tech firms—including Google, Facebook, and Microsoft—have publicly taken Apple’s side. Lynch told Colbert that the iPhone in question was already the property of the government, not a private citizen, since Farook was employed by San Bernardino County and given it as a work phone. Colbert stated that Apple chief executive officer Cook “says it’s a slippery slope if they invent this backdoor, this cracking of security, then y’all can use it for anything else. He said you can use it to turn on my iPhone and spy on me if you wanted to once you had access.” “First of all, we’re not asking for a backdoor, nor are we asking anyone to turn anything on to spy on anyone. We’re asking them to do what their customer wants. The real owner of the phone is the county, the employer, of one of the terrorists who is dead,” Lynch replied. “What we’re asking them to do is to help us disable the password erase function, that basically wipes the phone if you guess the password wrong after ten times. We will try to enter the phone and extract the evidence under the court order we have gotten that is very narrow and very focused.” 2016-03-11 18:00 Catherine Shu

17 Amazon eyes up education, plans a free platform for learning materials Back in 2013, Amazon acquired (and continued to operate ) online math instruction company TenMarks to gain a foothold in the online education space. Now it looks like Amazon is taking those learnings to the next level. The e- commerce giant plans to launch a free platform for schools and other educators to upload, manage and share educational materials. Signs indicate that the platform will be based around open educational resources (OER) and will come with a ratings system and interface that will resemble the commercial Amazon.com many of us already know and use. Earlier this month , Amazon Education quietly opened an “ Amazon Education Wait List ,” where educators could sign up to get an alert for when a new, free platform opens for business. “The future of education is open,” the landing page for the wait list reads. “Someday soon, educators everywhere will have free and unlimited access to first-class course materials from a revolutionary platform. Get on the wait list to be notified when the platform is available for all schools and classrooms!” The development comes at an interesting time, with companies like Apple and Google also sizing up how their own platforms and hardware can play a bigger role in education services (and where they might not ). Amazon has made a point of noting that its OER platform will be free and unlimited, but it comes amid a wider education play that is more revenue focused. The wait list may be linked to another project that Amazon has been quietly promoting called “Amazon Inspire”. The name looks like it was first made public by Amazon in February at the National Conference on Education of the AASA (the U. S. school superintendents’ association), and reported on by Education Week . At the event, Andrew Joseph, who was the cofounder of TenMarks and is now VP of strategic relations for Amazon Education, described Inspire during a session entitled “Transitioning to OER.” He said the program was already being tested in a closed beta with select school districts and would soon be opening up to more users in the coming months. Judging by the description, Inspire looks like it may be same service that is being offered by way of the wait list. We’ve contacted Amazon for more details, but we have not had a reply. For now, what we know are the general points described by Joseph in his presentation: The Inspire platform is in beta and will be released publicly in the next two to three months. It will include the ability to self-publish learning materials and give schools the ability to upload the entirety of their digital libraries. People will be able to use the interface to manage their own materials as well as use those uploaded by others, with users able to rate and review materials as they go along. “We’ve made a commitment that we will never charge for this,” Joseph said in his presentation. It’s not yet clear are how features like the free digital libraries will work in tandem with other Amazon Education products, some of which have a more commercial bent. These include Whispercast to manage e-books, textbooks and apps (Whispercast coincidentally was given a big education-focused upgrade last year ); AWS access; Kindle direct publishing for education; and “School Lists” and Amazon Business to buy supplies; and of course physical products like the Kindle e-reader and the Fire tablet. But one answer might lie in the basic Amazon site itself. You can see what might be a preview of the interface on the right side of the photo here: It’s early days for Inspire, but there are some in the education community already questioning what Amazon’s financial incentives (and therefore long term efficacy) might be for offering an OER platform for free learning materials. “Textbooks cost too much, and everyone knows it,” writes Audrey Watters (whose Tweet about the Amazon Education wait list is what first caught my attention). “But that inflated price tag is just one of the problems that OER purports to solve.” She notes ‘the ability to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute work’ as key aims. “It remains to be seen if Amazon Inspire will support these activities or if the ‘problem’ that Amazon really seeks to solve here is a stronger foothold in the education market.” Indeed, Amazon itself is not yet answering this question publicly, either. “Amazon is a big commercial entity and we have to make this sustainable over time,” Joseph said in his presentation. “[But] this piece we have committed to making absolutely free forever.” Whether this is free or not, the wider e-learning market is massive, and something that Amazon, a bookseller at its heart that already has students and teachers as customers, cannot ignore. One researcher estimates that by 2022, it will be worth $244 billion globally, up from $165 billion in 2014. 2016-03-11 18:00 Ingrid Lunden

18 New app Tagly bets on connecting consumers with brand content A new app launching at South by Southwest today on iOS & Android is betting big against the trend that marketing now is all about selfies and user generated content. Tagly claims to be the first social platform dedicated to exclusively showcase content created by brands. Its goal is to allow users to discover, share, and collect the branded content they love, and brands to ramp up the amount of followers who actually get to see their posts. The team, led by serial-entrepreneur Mark Alhermizi, has $2 million in seed funding from IZI Mobile , a venture builder based in Detroit. Alhermizi is the founder of Gas Station TV, a media company recently acquired by Quicken Loans owner Dan Gilbert’s Rockbridge Ventures for $200 million. “Brands are focused on creating beautiful content that’s valuable to consumers, but most of it now is lost in our long social media feeds, alongside posts of cats and family updates,” said Alhermizi, Founder and CEO. The idea for the app came in 2014 when Facebook announced a change in its algorithm that caused a dramatic drop of organic reach in its News Feed. That meant the percentage of people who could be reached for free posts can be in a single digit. According to Brian Boland, leader of Facebook’s Ads Product Marketing team, users with lots of friends and page likes can be hit with as many a s 15,000 potential stories when they log on . And the competition for visibility will continue to become harder and harder. As a result, a great number of brand pages begun posting pleads to followers to turn on notification settings to keep their content from heading to the News Feed blackhole. Tagly is Alhermizi’s reaction to the challenge these brands now face. Just as consumers sign up for newsletters and catalogs, he believes a social channel for direct marketing is something consumers would be excited about to stay close to their favorite content. “Instead of wasted impressions, consumers select categories they actively want to follow: events, deals, news and trends. This gives all brands in the platform access to targeted engagement and 100% organic reach,” said Alhermizi. Although the initial focus is fashion and lifestyle brands, Tagly’s team says the goal is to quickly expand to other verticals. On this first version in the app store today users can personalize their feed by selecting brands, and save their favorite content. New brands can be discovered in the app’s “Daily Collections” — a mix of the best posts from the brands followed with posts from featured companies. Users are also able to chat with one another directly in the app and share saved content. Questioned about replacing the problem of a crowded social feed with another feed, Alhermizi says his goal is to prove that the social content experience can be revamped by opening control for users to filter their experience and move branded content away from family and friends stories. Instagram – the current platform of choice for most fashion and lifestyle brands – has made changes in its APIs that made unable for apps to leverage its content. As a result, the Tagly experience is at the moment limited to Facebook content. But the team has big ambitions with the app, planning to soon launch an online dashboard to lure brands and businesses to bypass Instagram altogether and create content directly on the platform. In the end, Tagly’ s future will depend on escaping the death loop of all new social media platforms: brands might flock to it if it has users, but a user base might only grow only once brands endorse it. 2016-03-11 18:00 Liz Bacelar

19 Kodak tries its hand at social with new “Kodak Moments” storytelling app The saying “Kodak Moment” is a holdover from another era where camera owners had to be thoughtful about which snapshots deserved to be taken, due to the limitations involved with running out of film. Today, the phrase has lost its meaning as mobile users take photos of everything, then curate after the fact using social media services like Facebook or Instagram. Today, Kodak Alaris is trying to breathe new life into the old saying, by launching a new, social app called “ Kodak Moments ” meant to encourage users to share important moments using photos, layouts and text. The app’s goal is not to serve as some big dumping ground for your photos, but rather a place where you slow down to think about what should be shared. As the company describes it in its announcement, Kodak Moments is meant to offer a reprieve from the “seemingly endless number of selfies, meaningless hashtags, and sponsored posts that saturate social networks today.” That sounds good in theory, but Moments misses the mark on the user experience. If you’re going to slow down and thoughtfully share select individual photos, as you do in the app, then there needs to be more than just the option to pick a photo and add a caption or some text. Even though each post is focused on telling the story around a single photo (or “moment”) there’s a surprising lack of image editing tools provided. You can crop a photo, but not rotate it, correct it or filter it. You can write text, but not make choices about font type, size or color – only choose to use a block quote or not. And even though our smartphones’ Camera Rolls now contain a number of quality photos that can be laid out in collages or combined into short clips or videos, this app doesn’t think about telling the story of a “moment” in anything but the most traditional way – a single, meaningful image. The app also supports baseline social features like following users, liking and comments, but doesn’t really push the bar in terms of re-imagining the term “Kodak Moment” for the modern era. In addition, a good portion of the app is devoted to Kodak’s old-school print business. In the “Shop” section, you can order gifts, prints, collages, photo books, and cards which can be printed and picked up in-store, or sent to your home. You can also use the app with Kodak kiosks at a number of retail locations around the U. S. For those who still print photos on occasion, the app could be useful as it’s definitely an upgrade from the Kodak Kiosk Connect App , which is dated and ugly. The Kodak Moments app is a free download on the Apple App Store . 2016-03-11 18:00 Sarah Perez

20 20 GM buys self-driving car kit startup Cruise, plans to use tech to make driverless cars General Motors (GM) announced today it plans to snap up Cruise Automation , a San Francisco- based startup making sensors that turn regular vehicles into ones that can drive themselves, for an undisclosed sum. The move is part of a big bet for GM in the driverless car industry as several of the major car manufacturers are now racing to implement this type of technology. GM recently formed an internal autonomous vehicle development team and entered into a strategic alliance with rideshare service Lyft earlier this year – adding a whopping $500 billion to Lyft’s latest funding round to help build a connected network for self-driving cars. The Cruise acquisition will help further GM’s automation goals. Though Cruise will remain operationally independent, GM President Dan Ammann tells TechCrunch the car maker intends to integrate Cruise’s technology within its fleet of vehicle brands as soon as possible. “The next step is to make sure we bring the full resources to the table to accelerate what Cruise is doing and integrate into the GM vehicle system,” Ammann said over the phone. Cruise has grown from products for semi-autonomous conversion systems since its launch in 2013 to building “full stack” driverless technology over the last year. The startup is now poised to grow and was seeking ways to rapidly scale, according to Cruise founder Kyle Vogt. That’s where GM comes in. Other vehicle companies working on autonomous technology such as Tesla and Uber have chosen to continue building on their own, but Vogt believes GM’s committed resources will help his fledgling startup get there faster. Just how much faster? GM sold close to 10 million cars globally in 2014, more than 3 million of them in the U. S. Google has said its driverless car project won’t be ready for market for five to 10 years. GM could add Cruise’s technology to its latest models and have them ready for market in the next couple of years. “We believe this is the best path forward to implement cruise tech at a massive scale…this is a ground-breaking and necessary step toward rapidly commercializing autonomous vehicle technology,” Vogt said. Neither GM or Cruise wanted to disclose terms of the deal. Cruise has so far raised close to $19 million in Series A funding from investors such as Spark Capital and Sam Altman. 2016-03-11 18:00 Sarah Buhr

21 Saving Green: Computer Program Saves Nurseries Water, Plants and Money While UF/IFAS scientists say a Virginia nursery is the only one utilizing the system so far, they hope similar businesses take advantage of the software, so they can reap its benefits in saved water and money. For now, scientists are interested in the irrigation needs of container-grown plants such as anise, gardenias, azaleas, junipers, roses and more. UF/IFAS researchers worked with other UF scientists, the Virginia nursery and an automation technology company to develop the system, called the Container Irrigation Management program (CIRRIG). The weather-based system automatically provides daily irrigation run times for sprinkler-irrigated plants. For the study, conducted at a nursery in Dunnellon, researchers integrated CIRRIG with a programmable logic controller (PLC) to automatically irrigate sweet viburnum in 10-inch diameter containers. The 24-week experiment showed water savings. "The Virginia nursery that helped us develop and test CIRRIG has been using it to successfully control more than 200 irrigation valves," said Jeff Million, a research associate in the UF/IFAS Department of Environmental Horticulture. "We are at the beginning stages of getting this technology out into the field. We have been getting a lot of interest, but only time will tell if the technology will be adopted by other nurseries including those in Florida. " Scientists liken the PLC to a "switchboard" that can be programmed to accept output from CIRRIG through the Internet and then activate irrigation valves in the field. The PLC software used by CIRRIG is currently limited to a laptop or desktop, but it could eventually run on a mobile device, Million said. "Our objective was to test out the 'daily-adjustment' technology in a nursery in Florida," he said. In general, the nurseries can save money from reduced pumping costs and increase revenue from growing plants they previously couldn't grow well, Million said. They can also reduce fertilizer, herbicide and pesticide use. Such businesses must pay to install the PLC-irrigation system and manage the CIRRIG program, but the Virginia nursery covered the cost of the irrigation system upgrade in the first year of the new system, Million said. "Every nursery will be different but that is what the Virginia nursery observed," he said. Million worked on the study with UF/IFAS Department of Environmental Horticulture Professor Tom Yeager. The study is published in the journal HortTechnology and was supported by the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association. 2016-03-11 17:43

22 Scrape Away From KimonoLabs A recent startup, KimonoLabs, established in 2014, set out to change the scraping landscape. Its recently announced takeover by Palantir will shut down its data scraping service. Kimono has produced a desktop app into which devs can import its APIs before the end of March. Picking up on the growing trend, driven in part by the growing IoT applications Kimono aimed to build web based RESTful APIs around them that would be accessible by developers and non developers alike. Its early successes included integration with the Pebble smart watch for results of the 2014 World Cup. Kimono's API's promised to take the burden off the user, who otherwise would had to write code and use tools such as Scrapy for his scraping tasks instead. In short Kimono did the scraping for you and provided the results via a standard API. But delay in establishing a sustainable revenue plan was probably the major reason for its takeover by Palantir. When the platform began operating, signing up was free and access was unlimited to everyone. The plan was to charge users for having private APIs or charge them depending on the quantity of APIs they had deployed. However, there was no premium revenue collection scheme in place, charging business for using the platform, for example. "When we started two years ago, we had a clear mission to help people everywhere structure and extract value from data. Since then, we've realized that continuing to work in isolation on a general data collection tool simply won’t allow us to make the impact we want. When we met the team at Palantir, we were instantly excited by the potential — the incredible talent and access to the world's most important data problems – even if it meant no longer working on the kimono product. " However, there was no comment as to the whys of the takeover. One can speculate that the lack of a revenue stream was a major factor. Palantir, although absorbing Kimono as an entity, will shut down its data scraping service. This of course causes a lot of grief and inconvenience to the developers already having deployed software based on Kimono's API's. To lessen the pain, Kimono has released a desktop application that developers can use to import their APIs. The importing can take place until the end of March. The app will be usable even after that date, but without official support or updates. Kimono state that the app has similar functionality to the online web based one, but unfortunately it lacks a lot. Previously we benefitted from a web based endpoint able to scrape data at predefined intervals, emits them classified and in JSON format. Data could be consumed by 'client' applications residing in a VPServer, that performed post processing and imported the resulting data into a database automatically and without user intervention. Compare that to the desktop based Windows or Mac (there's no Linux version) application, where the user has to manually start the application, whenever that is possible; kick off the scraping task, grab the exported JSON data files and transfer them from local PC to the VPS by FTPing or other clever but involved means. Even worse the desktop app would not even run on my Windows 7 machine, dying with an exception instead. Thus alternatives, new or already well established ones, are looking forward to attracting Kimono's developer client base into their platforms. One of those services is Scrapinhub's Portia that is offering a Kimono2Portia migration service where you just have to fill in your Kimono credentials and let it import your Kimono API's into their platform Import.io which taken the initiative of setting up a page Great alternatives to every feature you'll miss from Kimono Labs. While it does cover a wide range of options it does point to the its own offerings of an entry level automatic extraction as an online API, and its more 'advanced' point and click one as a desktop app, which is therefore prone to the same difficulties as the KimonoLabs app. Other alternatives include Parsehub, Diffbot or Apifier. All offer more or less the same functionality, something that makes choosing the right one a task decided on the points. In this arena however, Import's free Udemy course on How to extract data from the web using import.io does gve it a competitive edge. At least there are plenty of alternatives that will hopefully render Kimono's absence a bit more bearable. To be informed about new articles on I Programmer, sign up for our weekly newsletter,subscribe to the RSS feed and follow us on, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Linkedin. 2016-03-11 17:37 Written by

23 Powerful tool predicts wave behavior at all depths of sea The waves we see at a surface, at full sea or at the coast, consist of numerous other waves at a range of depths. From the deepest ocean waves with a long wave move at high speed, while the waves we see at the surface are short waves moving slower and differ from the deep sea waves in shape and altitude. Joint action It is complicated to capture all these changes in mathematical models, therefore often some kind of approximation is chosen. This holds, for example, for dispersion: the relationship between wave length and wave speed. Kurnia does not use an approximation but the exact relationship. He doesn't choose a numerical approach, that uses strongly simplified equations for a series of times. Instead, he wrote an accurate description of the combined action of the wave at different depths, using the kinetic energy. Fast calculation Thanks to this, the model is applicable for any water depth. Furthermore, Kurnia is capable of introducing abrupt changes: a quay, a sloping coastline, a ship. Despite the added complexity, the models can be calculated very fast -- minutes instead of days -- by using the so-called Fast Fourier Transform, decomposing any mathematical description in several sinus waves. Kurnia's model calculations have already been compared with the many experiment in 'wave tanks' of the Technical University of Delft, MARIN in The Netherlands and the Indonesion Hydrodynamic Laboratory. The models are also very useful to make precalculations of the desired wave in the thank, thus reducing the expensive experimenting hours. Via LabMath Indonesia, Kurnia's software is available named HAWASSI: Hamiltonian Wave-Ship-Structure Interaction. Ruddy Kurnia (Bandung, 1987) did his PhD research in de Applied Analysis group (faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science EEMCS). His supervisor is Professor Brenny van Groesen. The research had financial support of the Dutch Technology Foundation STW. Kurnia continues working on the models, partly as a postdoc researcher in Twente, partly in his home country Indonesia 2016-03-11 16:18

24 Government invests £175m to upgrade military communications tech The government has allocated £175m for investment in military communications across the Army, Royal Navy and RAF. The majority of the investment has been awarded to the UK’s primary military contractor, General Dynamics UK, and will be used to provide communications hardware and software from 2018. Some £75m will be used to provide 12,000 data terminals for military headquarters and wearables for use on ships, aircraft carriers and other military vehicles. Around £23m will be used to fund software upgrades for the Bowman tactical communications equipment used when carrying out operations. This is to ensure that the system will last for another 10 years. Brigadier Richard Spencer, head of the MoD’s battlefield and tactical communications and information system delivery team, explained that the investment will give the military the best possible tactical communications equipment for the foreseeable future. “This contract will replace the data terminals and update software across the Bowman system to ensure ease of use, more rapid and robust data services and improved interoperability,” he said. The government is generally looking to shift spending on technology away from single suppliers, but the agreement with General Dynamics UK indicates that exceptions can be made when dealing with specialised equipment. Another example is the MoD bypassing the government's IT spending limit in a £1.5bn deal with the Atlas consortium . It could be argued that the MoD is not part of the public sector, where technology innovation is rife, given the secrecy and rigorous requirements of the military when it comes to technology. However, the MoD is fairly active in looking at ways to embrace digital transformation, as seen with the introduction of defence-as-a-platform created with Microsoft to accelerate the delivery of new digital systems. The MoD has also run a deep web hacking event designed to develop new technologies that could boost the UK’s national security. 2016-03-11 16:10 Roland

25 FileHippo News - powered by FeedBurner The allegations were made using Google’s Google+ social networking platform, and also on Google Maps. When the reviews claiming that infants were not safe in the nursery were found by the small business, the owners originally approached Google and asked them to remove the offensive and untrue content. But the search titan refused to do so, using the argument that the posted material came under the auspices of freedom-of-speech, and therefore they were not obliged, or could find a justification for removing them. The unnamed nursery’s lawyer told TechCrunch that: “The judge balanced the interests of privacy against the interest of reputation (of this nursery). However, it considers the interests of protecting the reputation more important than the interests of Google to the interest of privacy of the Google Reviewers.” Speaking after he made his ruling, the judge in the case, CM Berkhout, differed substantially with the US firm’s point of view, instead finding that the reviews were indeed fake and damaging. He ordered Google take down the reviews. Berkhout also made a provision in his ruling that Google would have to provide details about the reviewers so that the nursery could, if it so wished, face the posters of the reviews and allegations in court. He said afterwards: “In my opinion, it was stunning that Google allowed this, as the practice of using someone else’s profile picture without consent is unlawful and infringing on portrait rights… and it only helps fake reviewers to hide behind a ‘trusted face.’ Hopefully, this decision will make Google rethink their own policies and the way they enforce their policies.” Google’s response was characteristically brief , utilizing their normal brevity in matters that have gone against them: “We’ve received the ruling and are currently reviewing it.” The post Dutch Court Orders Google To Hand Over Fake Reviewers IP Addresses appeared first on FileHippo News . It seems like you can’t do anything these days without dealing with the bureaucracy of it all. Forms to fill out, regulations to follow, miles and miles of red tape…and of course, the ever- present and usually outdated technology. Everyone from schools to retailers to even the government has to suffer under the weight of policies and procedures. Unless you’re a terrorist organization, in which case you can apparently toss all your information on a memory stick and leave it lying around an office somewhere. That’s the case with an ISIS faction, at least, and the end result was the loss of 22,000 registration forms for its members after a memory stick with the information was taken from the office of their head of security. These forms contained names, addresses, birth dates, phone numbers, even blood types on individuals who’d been recruited or volunteered for the terror organization. According to the Guardian , “The documents, thought to be from a border crossing into Syria , are questionnaires of each would-be recruit. There are 23 questions, including names, date and place of birth, hometown, telephone number, education and blood type.” Two different sources both claim to have possession of the information. A German intelligence agency acquired the forms, and Sky News reports being given the unencrypted memory stick after it was stolen by a former member who became disillusioned with the terror network’s practices. While security watchers were aware of a number of the names on the registration forms, there were also more than a few surprises. What is known is there were specific numbers of US, UK, and Canadian citizens who’d signed on to join ISIS’ efforts. Members from more than forty different countries were included in the leaked data. As with any data breach, the real concern now is what happens with the information. In a standard consumer data breach, citizens have to worry about monitoring their credit reports for any signs of suspicious financial activity; it’s not hard to imagine what the repercussions will be after handing over the names and addresses of known ISIS members and their families to the government. The post ISIS Struck By Internal Data Breach appeared first on FileHippo News . At more than a trillion dollars and what sometimes seems like a trillion glitches, and a trillion bad headlines, the latest issue with the F-35’s software has been found in the software responsible for the Radar it uses. The solution however is quite simple and straightforward, and one that IT Support staff have relied upon for years to solve problems in first line troubleshooting: Turning it off, and then on again. In the latest publicly released report on the joint strike fighter, US Air Force major general Jeffrey Harrigian states that: “What would happen is they’d get a signal that says either a radar degrade or a radar fail— something that would force us to restart the radar.” The latest report into the troubled development of the new fighter jet has been described as damning, listing as it does a multitude of deficiencies that seem to routinely being found as development of the fighter plane creeps ever closer to deployment. Many of the failures causing headaches for the US military and its designers is the fact that many of the issues are primarily due to buggy software. Not as crazy as it sounds It really isn’t. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, built by Lockheed Martin, is currently one of the most advanced and heavily software-driven warplanes ever designed and built. It is therefore also one of the most complicated and difficult IT projects ever undertaken. But it’s not just the software and onboard computer systems that Lockheed Martin have struggled with. The plane has also struggled with its apparent vulnerability to lightning strikes, landing gear issues, weight issues, and bomb bay door faults, depending on climatic issues in the hotter areas of the world. Hacker proof? Apparently not. The F-35 has yet to undertake any serious cyber security testing, something that could be a real possibility with cyber warfare an increasing threat across the world. something that has caused concern among buyers who have the joint strike fighter on back order, including branches of the US military, and the United Kingdom The latest Pentagon report quoted above stated that glitches were found … “…in fusion, electronic warfare, and weapons employment result in ambiguous threat displays, limited ability to respond to threats, and a requirement for off-board sources to provide accurate coordinates for precision attack.” Speaking to the Guardian newspaper , Keith Joiner, the man responsible for the final evaluation for procurement by the Australian Defence Force, said that “the only system that has done cyber security, vulnerability and penetration testing is the logistics software. So ordering spares. And it didn’t go very well.” The post F-35 Radar: Have You Tried Turning It On And Off Again? appeared first on FileHippo News . Google’s DeepMind division has pulled off an unforeseen victory that goes far beyond the rules and strategies of any game. Its AI software AlphaGo, which made headlines for its pending match-up against the reigning world champion of the ancient Chinese strategy game Go, has now defeated its human opponent in the first of five scheduled games. South Korean Lee Sedol has long been considered the world’s Go master, even from his prodigy status as a professional player at age twelve. His loss on Wednesday was a shock to both game fans and AI experts, who’d originally predicted that the complexities and required human emotional aspect of the game would mean artificial intelligence would require years of fine tuning in order to beat a human opponent at this level. Interestingly, the factor that may have most helped AlphaGo defeat Sedol could be those same human emotions that critics argued are vital to winning the complex game. Reportedly, both the software and the human player made critical mistakes early in the game, but unlike a human opponent, AlphaGo was unhindered by its error and (oversimplifying things, here) simply readjusted its strategy. That ability to remain emotionally detached from a mistake–something that could easily cause a human player to overadjust or question every further move–could have played a role in the software’s strategies moving forward. While Sedol has been very gracious about what many experts predicted would be a non-event, Google’s DeepMind has got to be ecstatic. Its “reinforcement learning” concept has meant that AlphaGo has a mechanism other AI attempts haven’t had, and that’s the ability to teach itself through intense trial and error. That innovation has certainly proven itself worthy for now, but there are still four more Go matches ahead of it. The post Game-Changing Victory For Google’s AI Software appeared first on FileHippo News . “Today I’m excited to announce that I’ve joined Google.” Commonly known as “moot” online, Poole began building the 4chan site in 2003 at the tender age of just 15. In the 12 consecutive years, he turned his bedroom enterprize into a 22 million active user image-sharing community with topics that were as diverse as pictures of cute kittens to hardcore porn. The idea behind the channel was that it was all anonymous. While 4chan was a winner for online freedom of expression, it also led to the common association with 4Chan and offensive and abusive material. It was also widely credited as being the epicentre of 2014’s leaking of images of nude celebrities following the now famous hack of Apple’s iCloud service. The incognito 4Chan however also served as a focal rallying point for online activism from groups such as Anonymous, and others. RickRolled The diverse and often anarchically themed 4chan community was also responsible for some the web’s more memorably popular and creative memes over the years, including both LOLcats, and the it was funny once, Rickrolling phenomenon that at one point seemed to dominate virtually every YouTube video going. In September 2015, 4chan was sold to a Japanese entrepreneur. Impressed “When meeting with current and former Googlers, I continually find myself drawn to their intelligence, passion, and enthusiasm — as well as a universal desire to share it with others. I’m also impressed by Google’s commitment to enabling these same talented people to tackle some of the world’s most interesting and important problems.” Chris Poole retired as administrator of 4chan back in January 2015. While no details of his actual job role have been released or confirmed, other than that he has been hired by Google, he is expected to be involved with the social networking side of Google, an area where the browser giant has failed to compete with the likes of Facebook, et al. “I can’t wait to contribute my own experience from a dozen years of building online communities, and to begin the next chapter of my career at such an incredible company.” The post Google hires 4chan Creator appeared first on FileHippo News . A spokesperson for the Raytheon Company, Mike Doble, where Tomlinson still worked as a principal scientist said that Tomlinson was a… “true technology pioneer… the man who brought us email in the early days of networked computers.” Tomlinson was one of the early inductees to the Internet Hall of Fame, with his biography on the site stating that his invention of the modern style email program was: “…a complete revolution, fundamentally changing the way people communicate, including the way businesses, from huge corporations to tiny mom-and-pop shops, operate and the way millions of people shop, bank, and keep in touch with friends and family, whether they are across town or across oceans. Today, tens of millions of email-enabled devices are in use every day. Email remains the most popular application, with over a billion and a half users spanning the globe and communicating across the traditional barriers of time and space.” Tomlinson created and amended the protocols that allowed him to send the first email in 1971, on the ARPANET system. ARPANET was a computer network created for the US government that is widely considered as an essential forerunner to the internet. “I chose to append an at sign and the host name to the user’s (login) name. I am frequently asked why I chose the at sign, but the at sign just makes sense. The purpose of the at sign (in English) was to indicate a unit price (for example, 10 items @ $1.95). I used the at sign to indicate that the user was ‘at’ some other host rather than being local.” Ray Tomlinson was the recipient of several awards for his work and held electrical engineering degrees from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and MIT. He is also ranked number 4 on the MIT list of the top 150 innovators to have studied at MIT. He began work for Bolt Beranek and Newman, known as BBN, in 1967. When the company was later aqquired by Raytheon Co, Tomlinson stayed on. The post Ray Tomlinson, Inventor Of Email, Passes Away @ 74 appeared first on FileHippo News . You know what’s missing from your workday? Losing access to a number of your key files after accidentally downloading some ransomware. Nothing makes the day go smoother than receiving a message, telling you to pay the Bitcoin ransom if you want to get your files back. Unfortunately, that was the reality for some users who’d downloaded Transmission BitTorrent Installer. This software for MacOS X (Linux version available, bundled with Ubuntu) doesn’t take up a lot of space so it runs in the background to install torrents quickly. It can even be operated remotely via the web. Sadly, versions of the software that were downloaded anytime on March 4th and 5th may have also been infected with KeRanger ransomware. First discovered by Palo Alto Networks, this ransomware was found on two versions of Transmission 2.90. Since Transmission is a fully open-source project, the researchers have speculated that the download website itself was compromised. According to their post on KeRanger by Claud Xiao and Jin Chen, the ransomware encrypts individual files to lock you out of them, a process that they’ll undo for a fee. The encryption process itself is pretty slick: “To encrypt each file, KeRanger starts by generating a random number (RN) and encrypts the RN with the RSA key retrieved from the C2 server using the RSA algorithm. It then stores the encrypted RN at the beginning of resulting file. Next, it will generate an Initialization Vector (IV) using the original file’s contents and store the IV inside the resulting file. After that, it will mix the RN and the IV to generate an AES encryption key. Finally, it will use this AES key to the contents of the original file and write all encrypted data to the result file.” But be warned: further investigation into the mechanism behind KeRanger uncovered an alarming feature, namely that it looked like there were processes involved that hadn’t been completed. Undetected, it’s possible these features could have been activated at a later date. “It seems like KeRanger is still under development. There are some apparent functions named ‘_create_tcp_socket’, ‘_execute_cmd’ and ‘_encrypt_timemachine’. Some of them have been finished but are not used in current samples. Our analysis suggests the attacker may be trying to develop backdoor functionality and encrypt Time Machine backup files as well. If these backup files are encrypted, victims would not be able to recover their damaged files using Time Machine.” Fortunately, Transmission’s developers have released a new version that fixes this vulnerability. For those who may already have been infected, Palo Alto Networks has complete clean up instructions here. The post Transmission Installer Update Fixes Ransomware Flaw appeared first on FileHippo News . With near-daily headlines about hacking events, data breaches, and new forms of internet scams, it’s a wonder anyone can go online anymore. Sadly, data is already showing that the majority of tech users have resigned themselves to the fact that their identities will probably be compromised, which is backed up by the reports that show most individuals’ identifying information is already floating around “out there.” Fortunately, there are steps individuals can take to minimize the impact of any compromising internet activity. While groups like the Identity Theft Resource Center push vigilant account and credit card monitoring and a number of software developers promote strong tech protections against malicious software, Avira Scout is working to keep your everyday internet activity from causing you further harm. According to the company’s plan for its secure browser, “Scout is built with your security and privacy as a central focus. Our award-winning technology, directly integrated into the browser, automatically blocks infected and phishing websites for you.” By calling on its extensive database of suspicious websites, Scout warns users before entering a potentially malicious site or phishing scam. Even more interesting than just warning you of scammy-looking websites, Scout automatically forces websites to use the https protocol. That’s especially important for one of the other warnings that security experts give: using public wifi. While internet users have long been warned not to connect in a coffee shop or airport for anything more sensitive than downloading an update for Candy Crush, Scout rewires your internet activity to help you safely take advantage of available public connections. Best of all, the privacy protections this browser affords you means no more tracking and no need for an add-on ad blocker. While it stops major-name tech giants from gathering up your activity data to see what you shop for and what you’re searching online, the browser itself is one of the few that does not gather and store any user data. The overall stated purpose is to produce a cleaner, worry-free web experience that protects your privacy and secures your internet use. The post Avira Scout Browser: Provides A Safer Web Experience appeared first on FileHippo News . This is the news that all Locally stored data on Amazon Fire devices using the latest Fire OS is no longer encrypted, and hasn’t been since last year. Anyone upgrading a Kindle Fire, or any Fire OS device to Fire OS 5 will be left really vulnerable to attacks from hackers. As well as this, any information left by users on their Fire device will be stored in plain text. While Amazon’s Fire OS 5 garnered generally positive reviews and was praised for its refreshing new look and extra features, it now seems that Amazon also removed device encryption support. Amazon contend that it has maintained security features between Amazon’s cloud service, and also device communication, but that will come as scant consolation for anyone concerned about the protection of their own personal and private data stored on Fire devices themselves. Amazon have responded to recent criticism with the following statement: “ In the fall when we released Fire OS 5, we removed some enterprise features that we found customers weren’t using. All Fire tablets’ communication with Amazon’s cloud meet our high standards for privacy and security including appropriate use of encryption.” Users do not, unfortunately, have many options available to them if they want to keep their Fire devices encrypted. They can if they want, not update to Fire OS 5 and retain device encryption, something that will not help anyone who has already upgraded. But this then leaves them vulnerable as they will not receive security updates. Another option is to, well, just upgrade, and hope that nothing bad happens. And of course, users could just stop using Fire devices. I appreciate this last option won’t help anyone who actually has a Fire machine. Amazon’s move seems to have gone against the current grain considering that almost all of its competitors are moving in the other direction and are making encryption on their devices as standard, and available as default. However, drawing a connection with Fire OS 5, and the current Apple and FBI iPhone legal battle, as several other websites have, would be wide of the mark, as Amazon released the OS a good few months before Apple fell foul of the FBI. Amazon’s decision to remove encryption protocols may however seem somewhat ironic given that Amazon has answered Apple’s call to arms against government intrusion, though unlike Google, and Microsoft, has itself failed to file an amicus brief in support of the iPhone maker. The post Amazon Disabled Encryption For Latest Fire OS appeared first on FileHippo News . Social media photo and video site Snapchat has had its share of headline-grabbing, embarrassing security issues over the years, some intentional and some due to its own inability to plan. When a hacker warned and then exposed nearly 5 million users’ accounts because of a bug that left the info vulnerable, that was bad enough. But when 100,000 or so shared videos and photos were accessed and released online (despite the company insisting that it doesn’t store the messages its users send, while forgetting that the cellular providers’ servers do store that information) some experts wondered if that might have been enough to seal Snapchat’s fate as an untrustworthy platform. But the news last week that Snapchat has experienced a whole new data breach only highlights what too many companies refuse to accept: your biggest security threat may very well be someone on your payroll. In an apology post on February 28 , Snapchat admitted that an employee had willingly handed over highly sensitive information on the company’s employees–everything needed to steal their identities–because of a phishing attack. The email appeared to come from the company’s CEO Evan Spiegel, requesting the payroll records of all employees. Unfortunately, at this time of year, that’s not an unheard of request since the tax filing deadline for individuals is next month. The recipient dutifully submitted the information; four hours later, Snapchat was on the phone with the FBI to report the breach. If Snapchat can take any consolation from this, it’s that human error is behind an increasing number of breaches, especially now that more and more companies are realizing (and believing) the need for tighter antivirus and anti-malware software across their entire networks. This is largely why “boss phishing” is becoming more and more common; as low-level hackers find themselves blocked at every turn, what’s easier than masquerading as the boss and getting an hourly-wage employee to hand over the information they want? A phishing email was behind one of the most infamous recent data breaches, the Target retail chain breach that affected as many as 121 million customers. The source of the bug that infected the store’s POS credit card system (thereby stealing credit card information) was spread via a link in a malicious email sent to one of Target’s air conditioner repair companies. Who needs to worry about pesky security protocols and tightened cybersecurity when you can get a secretary to install the bug for you by clicking on a link to a cat video? Unfortunately, the response in these cases is almost always the same: we’re shocked…we don’t know how this happened…we never thought one of our employees would do this. But that begs the question: Why not? Why don’t more companies realize that their workforce is made up of individuals who may or may not have the necessary training to prevent an attack or the right motivation to keep company data secure? More importantly, why are companies still surprised? The post Snapchat Breach And The Biggest Security Flaw Ever appeared first on FileHippo News. 2016-03-11 09:25

26 Microsoft's Lumia 650 is now available to pre-order for $199 in the US and Canada With none of the excitement and buzz of a launch event, Microsoft unveiled the Lumia 650 last month in a blog post. But the company has kept its North American launch even more low-key than that, quietly opening pre-orders for the device on its site with no announcement. You can now pre-order the Lumia 650 SIM-free and off-contract from the Microsoft Store in the United States for $199 USD ; and in Canada, where it will cost $199 CAD . Its key specs include: The Lumia 650 will begin shipping in both the US and Canada on April 1. Details of carrier availability in North America have not yet been revealed, but it seems likely that in the US at least, it will be joining Cricket's range. Microsoft also revealed this week that the device will soon be available in Mexico, priced at 4,399 pesos. Meanwhile, over in the UK, the 650 went on sale three weeks ago, but its price has already started to drop . Source: Microsoft Store - US / Canada | via Windows Central 2016-03-11 14:44 Andy Weir

27 Tim Sweeney: Microsoft's UWP needs to emulate the open nature of Win32 Last week, Epic Games co-founder Tim Sweeney wrote an editorial in The Guardian, in which he was very critical of Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform , claiming that it is only a step in a broader strategy to lock down the desktop ecosystem. Microsoft's Xbox head Phil Spencer took to Twitter to defend UWP, pointing out a blog post in which he explains the company's efforts to create more developer opportunities regardless of the store used for distribution, including a "broad range of tools", referring to Xamarin and a number of software bridges such as Project Islandwood and Project Centennial . Tim Sweeney responded yesterday in a new piece on VentureBeat, in which he appreciates Microsoft for being "courteous, level-headed, and free from corporate PR-speak" in how it took his criticism, which is helpful towards a constructive discussion that also keeps the public in the know when it comes to what is going on behind the scenes of UWP. The Epic Games co-founder goes on through the history of UWP, recognizing the merits of its technical implementation, explaining how sandboxing, removing the backwards-compatibility layer, and a new set of more simple Windows APIs can offer a more secure environment for consumers. While he agrees with these core ideas of the UWP model, he thinks that the Redmond giant has introduced some unnecessary additional steps in Windows 10 for publishing apps to the Windows Store, as well as side-loading them, raising the question of whether or not Microsoft really made UWP as open as it should have. Tim Sweeney thinks this is too big a departure from how the Win32 distribution model worked, explaining that UWP needs to emulate that Microsoft really wants to make it an open ecosystem, as well as offer the ability to use Windows Store services in other stores, such as Valve's Steam and Adobe's Creative Cloud . He offers several bullet points arguing in favor of using PKI ( Public Key Infrastructure ) for signing UWP apps, easier app side-loading for consumers, not requiring Microsoft's approval and Windows Store DRM, as well as ceding control over software updates and payments to developers: Be sure to let us know your thoughts on this in the comment section below. Do you think Microsoft should open up UWP more, and why? Source: VentureBeat via WinBeta 2016-03-11 14:28 Adrian Potoroaca

28 How to fix Microsoft Edge's worst problems Microsoft is definitely on the right track with Edge -- its new browser is a big improvement over Internet Explorer, but there’s still a long way to go until it’s good enough to challenge the likes of Firefox and Chrome. Extension support is still missing, although I hear from a Microsoft source that it will be coming to a Windows 10 Insider Preview very, very soon (and to the rest of us when the Redstone update for Windows 10 rolls out in June/July). If you’re using the new browser and having problems, here are some solutions for the most common Edge issues. SEE ALSO: How to fix Windows 10's most annoying problems Can't change the default search engine You’re not alone. Microsoft has made moving away from Bing as difficult as possible. It can be done, but the process for doing so is far from obvious. To do it, you firstly need to go to the search site you want to set as the new default, like www.google.com , and click or tap the ellipses (…) in the top right corner of the browser and select Settings . Scroll down and select View advanced settings . Scroll down to Search in the address bar with , select Bing (www.bing.com) and then Add new . Google should appear in the list of search engines. Select it and click/tap Add as default. Can’t find or clear browsing history Tap on the Hub button at the top (three lines) and click on the clock icon. The standard keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+H works in Edge too. You can browse your history, and wipe it entirely by clicking the Clear all history link at the top. You’ll be given the option to remove Browsing history, Cookies and saved website data, and Cached data and files (all three are selected by default), as well as optionally clearing Download history, Form data, and Passwords. Click Show more and you’ll also be able to clear Media licenses, Pop-up exceptions, Location permissions, Full screen permissions and Compatibility permissions. Text in Edge appears too small You can increase the size of text on a page using the Ctrl+ and Ctrl- key combinations, or click the ellipses and use the zoom there. To change the size in Reading View, click the ellipses and select Settings. Scroll down to Reading and change the font size. Edge is running slowly Try clearing out cached data and loading the site again. Click the ellipses (…) and go to Settings. Click Choose what to clear under Clear browser data and delete your browsing history and cached files. Restart Edge and see if that fixes the issue. It’s also worth trying to open the problem page in InPrivate mode. Websites won’t load Try loading the same sites in a different browser. If that works, it’s not your internet connection that’s at fault. Follow the same steps listed for the previous problem and clear browser history and cached data, then restart your browser and try again. Flash content isn’t playing Edge comes with Flash Player installed. You can check it’s enabled by clicking the ellipses and opening Settings > Advanced Settings You’ll see Use Adobe Flash Player listed. Make sure it’s set to On. Can’t change downloads location Changing the default downloads location is done not in the browser -- where you'd expect -- but in File Explorer. Launch it and you’ll see a Downloads folder on the left. Right-click it and select Properties. Click the Location tab, and enter the new path where you want downloads saved to. Click Apply. If you want to move the existing folder (taking any completed downloads with it), click on Move , choose a new folder location and say Yes. Image Credit : alphaspirit / Shutterstock 2016-03-11 14:15 By Wayne

29 Upstream oil and gas companies spend smarter on digital technologies to drive value, reduce costs in downturn, Accenture and Microsoft survey finds HOUSTON — March 9, 2016 — As upstream oil and gas companies scrutinize every dollar invested, they’re spending smarter today on digital technologies, seeking to drive value and reduce costs amid low oil and gas prices, a new survey by Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) reports. Respondents to the “ 2016 Upstream Oil and Gas Digital Trends Survey” included international oil companies (IOCs), national oil companies (NOCs), independents and oilfield services firms. Over the next three to five years, 80 percent of upstream oil and gas companies plan to spend the same, more, or significantly more (30%, 36%, and 14%, respectively) on digital technologies as they do now, according to the survey, now in its fifth edition. This continued investment in digital is due to respondents’ confidence that digital technologies can continue to help them drive leaner, smarter organizations. More than half (53 percent) of respondents said digital is already adding high to significant value to their businesses. Cost reduction was identified as the biggest challenge that digital technologies can most address today, respondents said. In addition, respondents reported that making faster and better decisions was the greatest benefit digital technologies can deliver (56 percent) and that one of the biggest barriers to realizing value is the lack of a clear strategy or business case, not the technology itself. Today’s digital investments focus more on mobility, with almost three-fifths of respondents (57 percent) reporting having invested in mobile, compared to 49 percent of the respondents in last year’s survey. Next is investing in the Internet of Things (IoT) (44 percent) this year vs. 25 percent in 2015 and the cloud (38 percent), up 8 percent from last year. Over the next three to five years, these investments are expected to shift more to big data and analytics (38 percent), IoT (36 percent) and mobile (31 percent). “In the current challenging environment, the upstream oil and gas industry is focusing digital technologies on areas that help them work smarter and deliver significant efficiencies and savings in the short term while enabling them to make better decisions faster,” said Rich Holsman, global head of Digital in Accenture’s Energy industry group. “So, in the short term we expect these companies will continue to invest in areas that help lower operations costs through technologies like increased worker productivity with mobility, lower infrastructure costs through the cloud and drive better asset management through analytics.” Respondents said digital’s biggest impact to date on the upstream oil and gas workforce has been increased employee productivity and engagement followed by better training and reskilling opportunities. They see the greatest impact from IoT in enabling connected field workers, with 60 percent of respondents planning to have field workers and assets digitally connected with smart devices. The use of the cloud, respondents said, has shifted from being used primarily for infrastructure to an enabler of mobile tools. This trend is expected to increase in the next three to five years, as companies keep using the cloud to get faster and more value from other digital technologies. “By taking advantage of the intelligent cloud, greater use of analytics and IoT go hand in hand with what we are seeing in our business today — the advent of the industrial Internet enabling the power of digital across the oil and gas landscape,” said Craig Hodges, general manager of the Gulf Coast District at Microsoft. “You can see this trend gaining traction from connected wells and intelligent pipelines to highly- efficient digital refineries.” While two thirds (66 percent) identified analytics as one of the most important capabilities for transforming their company, only 13 percent felt their firm’s analytical capabilities were mature. Almost two-thirds (65 percent) plan to implement more analytic capabilities in the next three years to help address this need. The “2016 Upstream Oil and Gas Digital and Technology Trends Survey,” sponsored by Accenture and Microsoft and conducted by PennEnergy Research in partnership with the Oil & Gas Journal, surveyed upstream professionals worldwide, including engineers, geologists and mid-level and executive management. About Accenture Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately 373,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com. Accenture Digital , comprised of Accenture Analytics , Accenture Interactive and Accenture Mobility , offers a comprehensive portfolio of business and technology services across digital marketing, mobility and analytics. Learn more about Accenture Digital at www.accenture.com/digital . About Microsoft Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. 2016-03-11 14:54 By Microsoft

30 Microsoft delivers enterprise-class ERP to the cloud REDMOND, Wash. — March 9, 2016 — Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday announced that its next-generation cloud ERP solution, Microsoft Dynamics AX, built on and for Microsoft Azure, is now available in 137 markets in 40 languages. The enterprise-class business application brings the power, speed and intelligence of cloud computing to people and organizations to achieve more. “Customers from around the world are using the cloud in incredible ways to accelerate and transform their business,” said Scott Guthrie, executive vice president, Microsoft Cloud and Enterprise. “Today’s release is an exciting milestone extending Microsoft’s business cloud offerings. It’s now possible for organizations to run their entire business in the cloud with Microsoft — from productivity with Office 365, to business analytics with Power BI and Cortana Analytics Suite, customer engagement with Dynamics CRM and business operations with Dynamics AX.” Customers across the globe are already using Dynamics AX to run their business processes in the cloud — from single domains like human resources and manufacturing to end-to-end business. Companies already live in production include Hagler Systems , Haldex , Icon , Renault Sport Formula One Team , Priva , Smiles , Travel Alberta and Umbra Group. The new Dynamics AX moves beyond traditional business solutions and brings ERP, business intelligence, infrastructure and database services together in a single offering, empowering organizations to run industry-specific and operational business processes that are extendable with specific solutions from partners. Wednesday, Microsoft announced more than 50 ISV solutions that are available on the Azure Marketplace. These Microsoft-curated, pre-configured industry and vertical solutions help customers discover and implement the solution they need quicker than ever before and, like Dynamics AX, enable fast consumption of updates and improvements. In addition to the 50-plus solutions already available, hundreds are in development today. The new Dynamics AX takes the capabilities of Lifecycle Services (LCS) to the next level. Businesses will be able to combine the best practices for their mission-critical apps with the flexibility and simplicity of upgrade via the cloud. With LCS, Dynamics AX will formalize the concepts of development, test and production, making the ongoing upgrade quicker to implement and deploy and easier to manage. “Lifecycle Services represents a shift in how companies manage the life cycle of an ERP system in a way that’s never really been done before,” said Josh Greenbaum, principal analyst, Enterprise Application Consulting. “The ability to test in the cloud and use the cloud’s natural elasticity and functionality to take the test, flip a switch and make it the actual production environment, that truly is magic.” Harnessing the power of the Azure cloud, Dynamics AX provides enhanced security along with global availability and scale, enabling businesses and people to work more safely anywhere, anytime while respecting the data sovereignty requirements of global customers no matter where in the globe they operate. “We do everything through Dynamics AX now; we manage virtually all of our operations,” said Thomas Mayer, chief operating office, Renault Sport Formula One Team. “Having what I need to run my business available anywhere in the world is invaluable.” “We are bringing massive amounts of data into our business to help control building climates and horticulture environments. That is a huge business transformation, and the cloud was the only way forward for us to make that real,” said Paul Ossewold, vice president, Digital Operations, Priva. “To manage our company with 10 offices around the world, we need systems that are fast. That is what Dynamics AX in the cloud is giving us, and we couldn’t be more excited to be one of the first customers on board to take advantage of this new solution.” Modern solution for modern businesses Dynamics AX delivers a simple, beautiful, and modern user interface that is touch-enabled for the devices people use today. People can interact with the system with ease, as Dynamics AX works like other Microsoft applications that people are used to, increasing adoption and usage. The new intelligent user experience is also optimized to deliver value to organizations through the ability to make smarter decisions with increased speed. “ERP is core to our business operations and critical to building and delivering products to our customers,” said Ben Hagler, co-founder, Hagler Systems. “We chose Dynamics AX because of its robustness. The UI is amazing and available anywhere. It makes us device-independent. We can get work done everywhere with increased speed.” Dynamics AX delivers the proven business logic of a complete business suite, enhanced with new constructs such as Workspaces that provide a collaborative canvas unifying key performance indicators, business intelligence, views of critical data, processes and actions to power business user productivity. The Financial Period Close Workspace, for example, dramatically streamlines this critical, complex process. Software vendors that partner with Microsoft have expressed their excitement over the potential this new solution offers the industry, representing a turning point in the ERP industry as cloud ERP solutions are adopted by customers to run their business-critical operations. “This release is further proof that Microsoft is leading the charge with innovations not just in ERP but in cloud,” said CEO Peter ter Maaten from Microsoft partner HSO. “Dynamics AX will be a game changer for enterprise customers.” Customers can sign up for the service today as the new release is available as a monthly subscription in three simple versions that include a self-serve user, a Task user and an Enterprise user. Businesses can get up and running quickly and match their business growth easily by adding business processes and users with this simple and transparent pay-as-you-go model. More information can be found by visiting the Dynamics AX website. Those who want to see the product in action and the impact it is having for businesses can view the Dynamics AX virtual launch event. Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://news.microsoft.com. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts . 2016-03-11 14:54 By Microsoft

31 Google glitch translates 'Russian Federation' into 'Mordor'; it has a ring to it As a fan of Cossack dancing, Eastern Bloc architecture, vodka and pervasive government oppression, Sneak loves Russia. And while he accepts that Siberia is a vast and mostly empty land mass, capable of killing the unwary in numerous ways, he would not liken it to Mordor, the dark, ash-covered, orc-infested land in the south-east of Tolkien's Middle Earth. But, according to multiple reports, the all-seeing, all-knowing Sauron Google believes that Russia is in fact Mordor. Or more accurately a bug in the Google Translate tool translated the Ukrainian word for 'Russian Federation' into 'Mordor'. Not content with effectively calling Russia a nation of twisted, down-trodden creatures ruled by a brutal dictator, Google Translate went one step further by translating 'Russians' into 'okkupanty' meaning ‘occupiers' in Sneak's second language, that being English. C++ is his mother tongue. Then to pour a granary of salt into the virtual wound, Google translated the surname of Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov into the Russian for 'sad little horse', according to The Telegraph. Sneak thinks that's rather cute in a slightly Eeyore way. Yes he knows Eeyore is a fictional donkey. Please don't write in. Now, that noise you're hearing is Sneak's irony alarm going off at full pelt, given that Ukraine is not exactly having the best time with Russia and pro-Russian rebels at the moment, particularly as in 2014 Russia annexed the Crimea region from Ukraine, simply because it could. Google has apologised for the error and blamed the automated aspect of Translate, but Sneak is not convinced that it was a bug and, to indulge the conspiracy theorist in him, believes that a disgruntled pro-Ukraine programmer decided to tweak Google Translate to offer this slight at Russian users. Back in his early years as an IT chap at Northern Rock, Sneak ended up dating a lovely Russian systems analyst called Natasha. She had a mononym. Next thing he knew she disappeared one evening after a heady mix of vodka and Kerplunk! and disappeared with Sneak's server room key card. Then the banking crisis happened, Northern Rock went under and Sneak took indefinite sick leave. The moral of the story is that annoying the Russians might not be wise, otherwise the road to Google's Mountain View HQ could end up being blocked by Soviet-era tanks with president Putin straddling a turret, topless and declaring "You shall not pass" to befuddled Google engineers. Or perhaps they will take it in good humour. After all as the video below explains: Russians love to boogie. 07 Jan 2016 2016-03-11 14:55

32 Pay What You Want for this Hardcore Game Dev Bundle valued at $1,601 Today on offer via our ELearning section of Neowin Deals, you can Pay What You Want on a Hardcore Game Dev Bundle. Consider coding your Call of Duty : 10 courses (108+ hours) on Unity3D, JavaScript, SpriteKit and more. With the Pay What You Want bundles, you can get something incredible for as little as you want to pay while making the world a better place. And if you beat the average price, you’ll receive the fully upgraded bundle! Included in this Pay What You Want deal, are the following courses: The bundle represents an overall retail value of $1,601 but you can Pay What You Want. Please note that as of writing, a minimum of $10.50 is required to unlock the full bundle , any amount under (which is also possible) unlocks the last two courses noted above with an asterisk. Make the Top of the Leaderboard at ANY point during the sale and gain five entries to win a chat with New York Times Best-Selling author Ramit Sethi and take control of your personal finances! Make it onto the leaderboard at ANY point during the sale and gain one entry to the giveaway! 10% of the profits from your purchase will go towards the charity S ave the Children , which invests in childhood – every day, in times of crisis and for our future. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. By transforming children's lives now, we change the course of their future and ours. Full terms for each package in the bundle and above giveaway can be found here. That's OK. If this offer doesn't interest you, why not check out other giveaways on the Neowin Deals web site? There's also a bunch of freebies you can check out here. We also have a Makerbot 3D Printer giveaway or a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 9.7" giveaway you can enter for a chance to win. If you aren't a Samsung fan, try your luck on the $1000 Apple Store giveaway over on Neowin Deals! How can I disable these posts? Click here. Disclosure : This is a StackCommerce deal or giveaway in partnership with Neowin; an account at StackCommerce is required to participate in any deals or giveaways. For a full description of StackCommerce's privacy guidelines, go here. 2016-03-11 14:02 Steven Parker

33 Dell releases new XPS 13 Developer Edition, launches Linux- based Precision laptops worldwide On the laptop side, Dell may be best known for its Windows devices, but, as some of you may already know, it also offers some killer Linux- based alternatives for prosumers. It all started out nearly four years ago with Project Sputnik , which led to the release of the first-gen XPS 13 Developer Edition, a Ubuntu-flavored version of the popular ultrabook, in late-2012. Fast forward to today and Project Sputnik is more than just a one device effort, as Dell has expanded the reach of the program to also include some of its professional-grade laptops. Now, the company steps it up a notch by introducing the Intel Skylake refresh of XPS 13 Developer Edition, and making the Ubuntu-toting Precision laptops available worldwide. What are the highlights of the new XPS 13 Developer Edition? Well, Project Sputnik lead Barton George says that it can be had with sixth-generation Core i7 processors, with a Core i5 option also on the cards, solid state drives with up to 1 TB of storage, up to 16 GB of RAM, InfinityEdge display (with fullHD and QHD+ versions), Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Long Term Support) and all the "necessary hardware drivers, tools and utilities" one might need. If you are not familiar with what LTS actually means, it is a branch of Ubuntu which Canonical supports for five years from its release. In contrast, the standard version of the operating system is guaranteed to receive updates for at least nine months. LTS is, therefore, a better option for Project Sputnik devices, because such laptops are aimed at professionals who seek reliability over cutting-edge software features. George notes that Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (codenamed Xenial Xerus) will make its public debut in April, but there is no "date for when factory installation will become available" although support is planned. Those who wish to upgrade are advised to follow Canonical's instructions, which are available here. Among the changes that Ubuntu 16.04 LTS brings are Linux 4.4, Python 3.5 and Golang 1.6. When I first talked about Project Sputnik, I noted that Dell made a popular choice by opting for Ubuntu. This distribution is still among the most popular, currently ranking third on Distrowatch.com , behind Mint and Debian. The new XPS 13 Developer Edition can now be purchased in US , with Canadian and European availability "being ready for launch as we speak", according to George. Prices start at $1,549 for a sixth-generation Core i7-6560U version with 8 GB of RAM, a 256 GB SSD and the QHD+ InfinityEdge display. Regarding the worldwide availability of Ubuntu-based Precision laptops, Dell says that we are looking at Precision 5510, Precision 3510, Precision 7510 and Precision 7710 workstations. These devices can all be customized depending on the customer's needs, but only the first two are available as of right now; the other two models will be offered "within a week", according to George. George also says that customers will see a number of over-the-air patches for these systems, which were not available early enough to be included in the shipping software. 2016-03-11 13:56 By Mihăiță

34 Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Review Of all the phones announced at Mobile World Congress 2016, Samsung's Galaxy S7 Edge was the one that impressed me the most. It's clear Samsung has listened to complaints leveled at last year's flagship and have endeavored to address every one. As a result, the Galaxy S7 series is an evolutionary step, and one that has resulted in the best device ever created by the Korean giant. With both the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge retaining the key design aspects of the Galaxy S6 , the most obvious change is in the size of the two devices. The Galaxy S7 is still a 5.1-inch handset with a 1440p AMOLED display, but the dual-curved-edge Galaxy S7 Edge has increased in size to 5.5-inches. This sensibly transforms the Edge from a direct competitor to the Galaxy S6, to a device that sits between the S7 and Note 5 in Samsung’s product stack. Most of the Galaxy S7’s other changes are under the hood. Samsung has returned to a mix of Qualcomm Snapdragon and Samsung Exynos SocS, with most markets getting the speedy Snapdragon 820. The camera has changed from a 16 MP unit to 12 MP, leading to an increase in pixel size and improvements in low light performance. But the most welcome of all changes? Larger batteries, with the S7 getting a 3,000 mAh unit, while the Edge gets 3,600 mAh. On top of these improvements, Samsung has also brought back two of the most loved features in the older Galaxy S5: water resistance (sans annoying flaps), and a microSD card slot. What you’re not getting is a USB Type-C port, as Samsung wants the S7 series to maintain compatibility with the Gear VR, which uses micro-USB. Other than that though, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are filled with the latest collection of hardware available. So far I’ve had the most hands-on time with the Galaxy S7 Edge, which I’ve been using for the past few weeks. It’s an Australian model, so it’s equipped with an Exynos 8 Octa 8890 rather than the Snapdragon. I’ll have further thoughts on the Snapdragon 820 version of the S7 later on when I can test them side by side, even though Samsung likes to say the difference is negligible. There’s no denying that the Galaxy S7 Edge is a beautiful handset, and Samsung has put in a lot of effort into improving the ergonomics of the dual-edge body. Where the S6 Edge wasn’t very comfortable to hold, the new rounded metal edges of the S7 Edge make it significantly easier to hold, and it no longer feels like two thin metal strips are digging into your hands. The curved display still leads to less metal on the sides to grip, which in turn makes the S7 Edge less easy to hold than the regular Galaxy S7. Combined with a smooth glass back, and there is a chance that this smartphone may slide out of your hands more often than you’d like. However, the improvements to the S7 Edge’s sides do make a difference, even if the design is visually similar. As before, the entirety of the S7 Edge's design is made from either metal or glass. The black model I have for review looks fantastic (it’s actually black this time, rather than dark blue), with the sleek glass panels on the front and back giving this handset a premium aesthetic. The metal around the edges looks just as good as it did on the Galaxy S6, once again complementing the glass from a visual and textural standpoint. It’s immediately apparent when you hold the S7 Edge that this phone has been immaculately constructed. Unlike the somewhat sloppy and plasticky Samsung designs from several years ago, the glass and metal seamlessly meet on the Galaxy S7’s body. The slight curve to the front glass panel on all edges means you’ll never feel the metal join, while the curved glass back feels just as good here as it did on the Galaxy Note 5. The extra rounding that has been applied to the edges of the Galaxy S7 series not only improve its ergonomics, but also help hide the extra thickness of the device. To accommodate a larger battery, Samsung has increased device thickness from 6.9mm to 7.7mm, which honestly you can barely feel in your hands. The extra millimeter or so has also allowed the camera bump to shrink to a mere 0.46mm, while the 25 gram weight increase (up to 157 grams total) is mostly attributable to a larger body. Having just spent a few months with the 5.7-inch Google Nexus 6P, the Galaxy S7 Edge is a very comfortable size for everyday use. If anything, the smaller screen makes it easier to use one- handed, although in this respect it still falls behind the relatively compact 5.1-inch Galaxy S7. There’s no removable battery, but users should be extremely pleased to see the return of the microSD card slot, which is found in a tray along the device’s top edge with a spot for the nano- SIM as well. Expandable storage is still the best way to increase your device’s storage on the cheap, with 128 GB cards retailing for as low as $35 these days. Water resistance has also returned as a no fuss feature you probably won’t even realize is part of the S7 Edge’s package. There are no annoying flaps covering ports, but you’re still getting IP68 protection that allows the device to be submerged in up to 1.5m of fresh water for 30 minutes. It’s also completely protected against dust ingress. As with all IP-rated smartphones, there are some things to be wary of. The Galaxy S7 is not fully resistant against salt or chlorinated water. While you can take the phone in a chlorinated pool, it’s a good idea to wash the phone in fresh water after it’s been submerged. Also you should know that the S7 Edge may refuse to charge if the USB port is still somewhat wet, as a safety measure against any water damage. The USB port on the Galaxy S7 Edge is standard micro-B so that the smartphone is still compatible with the Gear VR. I’d have liked to see the S7 Edge support USB Type-C, like the majority of smartphones that are set for release this year, but I can definitely understand why Samsung has opted not to include it this year. Like the phones that came before it, the S7 Edge has a fingerprint sensor located below the screen, which doubles as a home button. The performance of the sensor has been improved and now it’s easily as fast as Touch ID on the iPhone 6s. As an estimate, the fingerprint reader was around 95% accurate during my time using it, which is a pretty good result. On the back of the S7 Edge is a very sleek glass panel with a slightly raised camera unit along with an LED flash and a heart rate monitor. Besides black, you can also get the Galaxy S7 Edge in white, gold or silver. The latter two are extremely reflective due a metal-like finish below the glass. Perhaps the only major downside to be found on the S7 Edge’s design is the lack of stereo or front-facing speakers. The handset has a single speaker along the bottom edge, which is reasonably loud, but it lacks the clarity and quality you’d get from dual front-facing speakers. It’s also quite easy to block the speaker while gaming, so you’ll need to watch your hand placement. 2016-03-11 12:41 Tim Schiesser

35 Three weeks after launch, Lumia 650 UK price begins to fall; now available from £149.99 Last month, Microsoft announced the Lumia 650 , with little fanfare, in a blog post on its site. In the UK, the 650 was priced at £159.99 unlocked and off-contract, and went on sale there on February 18. But while Microsoft continues to sell the device at that price , the Lumia 650's price is already starting to fall at other retailers. Three weeks after its launch, leading independent device retailer Carphone Warehouse is now selling the 650 for £149.99, and similar reductions are becoming available elsewhere too. Expansys, for example, is offering the black Lumia 650 for £150.99 , although the white version is still being sold at the full price of just under £160. Amazon's price for the black 650 is now £148.99 ; however, the device is currently out of stock from Amazon itself, but independent sellers there are also offering the device for just over £150, albeit in limited quantities. Given how quickly and frequently even the high-end Lumia 950's price was cut in the UK - dropping by 24% from its original list price in just a few months - it might be worth waiting a bit longer to see if prices fall further if you're considering picking up the new Lumia 650. The Lumia 650's key specs include: The company said in its announcement that the new Windows 10 Mobile was "built for business", although besides its sleek, ultra-thin, premium design, there's little evidence of what makes it more uniquely suited for business than other devices in its range. Notably, it lacks the PC-like Continuum feature that Microsoft has been promoting towards business customers. And while the 650's predecessors - the Lumia 640 and 640 XL - both launched with a free Office 365 subscription , there's no such offer for the Lumia 650. Other features on the 650 that Microsoft has highlighted as "the smart choice for your business" - including Office apps, Cortana and OneDrive - are available on other Windows phones, and even on iPhone and Android devices. Our full review of the Microsoft Lumia 650 is coming soon. In the meantime, check out our unboxing and first impressions of the Windows 10 Mobile device. 2016-03-11 13:46 Andy Weir

36 36 UK government launches a fast online identity verification service A new service has launched in the UK, which will allow the country’s citizens to easily verify their identity online. Called CitizenSafe, it is the brainchild of global specialists in identity data intelligence, GBG. CitizenSafe was created after a survey had shown that people expect to access government services easily and securely online, and that online identity verification was a key step. It will be integrated within the UK government's gov.uk Verify service, and GBG says it will cut the time needed to verify an identity to mere minutes. Suzy Thomas, head of CitizenSafe’s Customer Experience, commented: "Technology is changing everything around us and everything we do. Our ambition for CitizenSafe is to transform government services. Gone are the days of queuing with your passport and ID in order to prove who you are. You can now simply do everything online, whenever is most convenient". "But as the ease and speed of accessing services is prioritized, CitizenSafe is working to ensure that security and online safety are not compromised. Through gov.uk Verify, the UK government is helping to fight the growing problem of online identity theft; it’s the first of its kind in the world, stopping criminals pretending to be you", added Thomas. The survey mentioned earlier revealed that 81 percent of British citizens expect to access key government services as easily as they access banking services. Those include filing tax returns, managing pensions, and claiming redundancy pay. It also found that 80 percent of respondents already used online banking outside usual office hours. Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved. Image Credit : Gunnar Pippel / Shutterstock 2016-03-11 13:34 By Sead

37 Nest introduces family accounts and a new way to track your activity Nest, a company now owned by Google, makes products that home automation enthusiasts sometimes salivate over. What began with a thermostat has expanded somewhat to include such things as smoke detectors. One drawback with the system was the way Nest's app works. If you have a family then controlling things could be a problem, and that's something Nest has set out to solve by introducing Family Accounts. Now you, the spouse and the kids can all control the system. The company is also adding a Home/Away feature so that it knows if someone is present. It does so by tracking your phone for geolocation, though there's a bit more to it than that. For instance, if someone is home the heat may go up. If not, it will dip slightly. "Family Accounts let up to 10 people access the Nest products in your home using the Nest app with their own Nest Accounts. No more sharing logins or passwords. It’s easy to add and remove people from your Family Account. So now the whole family can control the Nest Thermostat, get notifications from Nest Protect, see what’s happening at home with Nest Cam, and get their own copy of the monthly Home Report", Nest announces. As for Home/Away, it uses more than just geofencing, which can be inaccurate -- it can assume you're home when you're down the block at a friend's house. So Nest "uses learning algorithms and activity sensors built into Nest products". All of this is available now, you just need to download and install the latest update to the Nest app. 2016-03-11 13:21 By Alan

38 Fighting censorship: Edward Snowden, Amnesty International, AdBlock and Pussy Riot Online advertising is incredibly divisive, and for World Day Against Cyber Censorship, AdBlock is opting to replace banner ads that would normally be blocked with links to Amnesty International. The human rights group is fronting an anti-cyber-censorship campaign, joined by Edward Snowden, Pussy Riot (famous for rubbing up Russia's President Putin the wrong way) and Ai Weiwei. The aim of the campaign is to promote freedom of speech online but highlighting examples of free speech being censored -- not just in obvious places like China and North Korea, but also the United States and the United Kingdom. Government control of the internet is something that many think is restricted to limiting what journalists are able to publish online, but as the campaign highlights it's a problem that can affect anyone. In order for there to be censorship of the internet, there has to be surveillance -- and this is one of the reasons Snowden is involved. The former NSA contractor succinctly says: "Even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being watched and recorded". Amnesty International explains : Governments are avidly seeking the power to control ever greater aspects of online communication. While some governments seek laws empowering authorities to carry out intrusive mass surveillance and censor what people see online, others are trying to acquire technologies that allow them to spy on people, hack their devices, or censor free expression online. The decision by AdBlock to promote the campaign by pushing through ads to its users will no doubt be seen as controversial, but CEO Gabriel Cubbage feels that it is a very worthy cause: With big names such as Edward Snowden, Pussy Riot and Ai Weiwei involved, the campaign has a lot of appeal. World Day Against Cyber Censorship is 12 March, so keep an eye out for the campaign from tomorrow. 2016-03-11 12:55 By Mark

39 Microsoft slashes 58% off LG Lancet Windows Phone, now priced at just $74.99 Last May, LG unveiled the Lancet , its first Windows handset since it abandoned the platform to focus on its Android devices, before the launch of Windows Phone 8 in 2012. LG's return to the platform wasn't exactly a full-hearted embrace of Microsoft's mobile OS - the Lancet was available exclusively in the United States, and only on Verizon, and the company soon launched an Android version of the same device as well. Verizon priced the Lancet at $119.99 without a contract, but the Microsoft Store has also been selling the device, albeit at the much higher price of $179. Microsoft has now slashed its price by 58%, making it considerably more affordable than buying direct from the carrier. Its price cut brings the Lancet down to just $74.99 off-contract - that's $104.01 less than it was previously offering the device for, and $45 (38%) less than Verizon's price . The Lancet's specs are a bit of a mixed bag - it has a very capable processor, a decent camera and 4G LTE support, but its relatively small low-res display won't be to everyone's tastes: Still, Windows Phone fans on Verizon aren't exactly spoilt for choice - the only other handsets available from the carrier with Microsoft's OS are the Lumia 735 (which Verizon released over nine months after it was originally announced ) and the ageing HTC One M8 for Windows . It's also worth noting that the LG Lancet is officially supported by the Windows 10 Mobile Insider Program - so if you're looking for an affordable CDMA device on which to test new builds, or even for testing app development on the new OS, it may well be worth a look. Source: Microsoft Store 2016-03-11 12:22 Andy Weir

40 67 percent of enterprises will increase spending on software defined infrastructure Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI) involves the virtualization of all hardware resources, combined with elastic scaling and management automation, server virtualization is usually the starting point for SDI, but additional approaches have emerged in recent years, including software-defined networking (SDN) and software-defined storage (SDS). Whatever the route taken SDI is growing in popularity. According to the latest data from 451 Research , 67 percent of enterprises will increase their SDI spending this year. Improved agility and flexibility is cited by 65 percent as the top benefit of SDI. Spending on SDN is set to increase in 37.4 percent of companies, and on SDS in 26.9 percent. Less than 3 percent are planning to curb budget allocations for these two technologies. The leading SDI vendor is VMware (66.3 percent), followed by Cisco (39.2 percent) and Microsoft (28.1 percent). "As every business becomes a digital business, decision-makers are looking to improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of their overall IT environment; this is encouraging decision- makers to explore new IT delivery models", says Simon Robinson, Vice President of Research at 451 Research. Despite plans to increase spending, just 21 percent of organizations surveyed have implemented SDI in their environments today, and there are hurdles to broader adoption. For senior management, low maturity is the top barrier to SDI adoption while for non-senior management, lack of internal skills tops the list. "To achieve successful implementation, decision-makers should first conduct an audit of their internal skills and look to fill any gaps," says Nikolay Yamakawa, Senior Analyst at 451 Research. "Meanwhile, vendors should aim to play a more proactive role in communicating requirements and presenting case studies to help overcome these barriers". You can find out more about the findings in a webinar to be held on March 22. Photo Credit: wavebreakmedia / Shutterstock 2016-03-11 12:10 By Ian

41 Best Windows apps this week One-hundred and seventy-one in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps and games released for Windows 8.x and Windows 10 in the past seven days. A solid selection has been added to Windows Store this week. Games do dominate the Windows landscape currently, and it shows when you go through this week's listing. No release stuck out enough though which means that we have not handed out an "app of the week" award this time around. As always, if I missed an app or game that has been released this week that you believe is particularly good, let me know in the comments below or notify me via email instead. Discounts This Week The following discounts are provided by Red Stripe Deals, a weekly changing list of offers, and the Deals Hub application. The following is this week's selection: App of the week None this week Other apps Chimpact Run This jump and run game shares several similarities with Donkey Kong Country but it is lighter than the Nintendo classic when it comes to gameplay. All you do is tap, double-tap or tap and hold in the game, as your character moves on its on from left to right. Your task in the game is to reach the level exit by avoiding obstacles and collecting bananas and other extras that are scattered along the way. Corbie Corbie is a bookmark manager that supports Microsoft Edge and Twitter currently. While you can add bookmarks directly in the application, you can also share from Edge or Twitter to add new resources to Corbie this way. Corbie ships with a couple of interesting features, for instance an option to have sites automatically translated when they are opened from within the application. Elements vs. Monsters This is a classic Plants vs. Zombies style game in which you defend your position by shooting elemental fragments at onrushing enemies. You cannot move the elements that defend your base, but you can use spells that you have at your disposal to turn the tide of battle in your favor. Coins are earned while you play the game which you can invest in upgrades, for instance better base defenses or individual improvements for elements to make them hit harder or sturdier. Fire: Ungh's Quest ($9.99, no free trial) Fire: Ungh's Quest is an adventure game with puzzle elements in which you play the Neanderthal Ungh who happened to let the fire go out during his first night watch. You are banished from the village and must start a search to bring back fire to your village. FunimationNow Funimation is a subscription service that provides subscribers with a database of English- dubbed and subtitled Japanese anime shows. It offers HD shows, movies OVAs and extras, the latest simulcast shows and fast access to the latest episodes with English dubs. Please note that Funimation is only available in select regions. Grenade Madness This is a great looking 3D shooting game that is currently available as an open beta. The game uses a light RPG system in which you level up to unlock new equipment. You select up to three weapons or extras before you jump into levels, and gain access to better items while you level up. Missions are provided that grant you extra experience when you complete them, but the actual game seems to be currently limited to deathmatch against bots. ToView ToView is a live TV client that is focused on UK television currently. It features an interactive channel guide, additional information about shows, a full screen mode and live tile support to pin your favorite channels to the start menu. Includes channels such as BBC1 and BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Notable updates AutoCAD 360 is a universal application now featuring a revamped UI, canvas performance and stability improvements. NCAA March Madness Live is a Windows 10 Universal application now. Updated for the 2016 tournament with new look and improved bracket picking experience. TVPlan Beta updated with partial Xbox controller support, show scraping, full theming and a lot more. Wunderlist updated with a brand new design, Cortana support and more. 2016-03-11 11:59 By Martin

42 42 Inkjet printer fools smartphones with fake fingerprints Biometric security has progressively become a standard feature in flagship smartphones. Apple has offered Touch ID since the introduction of the iPhone 5S while Samsung, a leader in the Android space, introduced fingerprint security starting with its Galaxy S5. On Windows 10 Mobile, Microsoft opted for iris recognition for its recent Lumia 950 and 950 XL smartphones while HP included both iris and fingerprint recognition in its Elite X3 handset. However, smartphone manufacturers have had to learn some tough lessons along the way with regard to how to best implement biometric security into their devices. Back in 2011, Android developer Tim Bray refuted initial claims that the Face Unlock feature on the Galaxy Nexus smartphone running Android 4.0 could be fooled by a photo of the registered owner. Unfortunately, this was later verified on video , putting a serious dent in Google's claim to security. Since then, biometric security has continued to improve despite initial setbacks. However, a new attack demonstrated by a team at Michigan State University has shown a new way to fool the fingerprint sensor in the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Huawei Honor 7. The attack involved the creation of a spoofed fingerprint using a photograph of the owner's fingerprint and the use of a Brother MFC-J5910DW printer equipped with silver conductive ink cartridges and transparent film supplied by AgiC . AgiC, originally crowdfunded on Kickstarter, created its conductive ink and transparent film to bring printable circuits to people of all ages and experience. Given the conductivity of the ink, it made an ideal candidate for emulating a live fingerprint. As can be seen in the video above, the spoofed fingerprint allowed access to the smartphone after being applied to the fingerprint sensor. However, the MSU publication noted that the "Huawei Honor 7 is slightly more difficult to hack (more attempts may be required) than Samsung Galaxy S6. " At the very least, the research has highlighted that anti-spoofing countermeasures in biometrics must continue to evolve to thwart such threats. Even though this specific attack requires a level of skill, resources and patience, perhaps beyond that of a casual hacker, it does serve as a reminder that modern biometric security is not infallible. Source: Michigan State University (PDF) , PC Magazine | Fingerprint image via Shutterstock 2016-03-11 10:48 Boyd Chan

43 Microsoft Cloud strength highlights second quarter results REDMOND, Wash. — January 28, 2016 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended December 31, 2015: During the quarter, Microsoft returned $6.5 billion to shareholders in the form of share repurchases and dividends. “Businesses everywhere are using the Microsoft Cloud as their digital platform to drive their ambitious transformation agendas,” said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer at Microsoft. “Businesses are also piloting Windows 10, which will drive deployments beyond 200 million active devices.” The following table reconciles our financial results reported in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”) to non-GAAP financial results. Microsoft has provided this non-GAAP financial information to aid investors in better understanding the company’s performance. All growth comparisons relate to the corresponding period in the last fiscal year. “We delivered double-digit operating income growth in non-GAAP constant currency while investing in key strategic areas that position Microsoft for continued long term growth,” said Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Microsoft. Revenue in Productivity and Business Processes declined 2% (up 5% in constant currency) to $6.7 billion, with the following business highlights: Revenue in Intelligent Cloud grew 5% (up 11% in constant currency) to $6.3 billion, with the following business highlights: Revenue in More Personal Computing declined 5% (down 2% in constant currency) to $12.7 billion, with the following business highlights: “It was a strong holiday season for Microsoft highlighted by Surface and Xbox,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. “Our commercial business executed well as our sales teams and partners helped customers realize the value of Microsoft’s cloud technologies across Azure, Office 365 and CRM Online.” Business Outlook Microsoft will provide forward-looking guidance in connection with this quarterly earnings announcement on its earnings conference call and webcast. Webcast Details Satya Nadella, chief executive officer, Amy Hood, executive vice president and chief financial officer, Frank Brod, chief accounting officer, John Seethoff, deputy general counsel and corporate secretary, and Chris Suh, general manager of Investor Relations, will host a conference call and webcast at 2:30 p.m. Pacific time (5:30 p.m. Eastern time) today to discuss details of the company’s performance for the quarter and certain forward-looking information. The session may be accessed at http://www.microsoft.com/investor. The webcast will be available for replay through the close of business on January 28, 2017. Adjusted Financial Results and non-GAAP Measures During the second quarter of fiscal year 2016, GAAP revenue, operating income, net income, and earnings per share include the net impact from revenue deferrals. For the second quarter of fiscal year 2015, GAAP revenue, operating income, net income, and earnings per share include the recognition of previously deferred net revenue and charges related to integration and restructuring expenses. These items are defined below. In addition to these financial results reported in accordance with GAAP, Microsoft has provided certain non-GAAP financial information to aid investors in better understanding the company’s performance. Presenting these non-GAAP measures gives additional insight into operational performance and helps clarify trends affecting the company’s business. For comparability of reporting, management considers this information in conjunction with GAAP amounts in evaluating business performance. These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered as a substitute for, or superior to, the measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. Non-GAAP Definitions Revenue Deferrals. Microsoft recorded a net $1.9 billion revenue deferral during the three months ended December 31, 2015, primarily related to Windows 10 and Halo 5. Microsoft recognized a net $326 million of previously deferred revenue during the three months ended December 31, 2014, primarily related to sales of bundled products and services. Integration and Restructuring Charges. Integration and restructuring expenses were $243 million during the three months ended December 31, 2014. Integration and restructuring expenses include employee severance expenses and costs associated with the consolidation of facilities and manufacturing operations related to restructuring activities, and systems consolidation and other business integration expenses associated with the acquisition of Nokia’s Devices and Services business. Constant Currency Microsoft presents constant currency information to provide a non-GAAP framework for assessing how our underlying businesses performed excluding the effect of foreign currency rate fluctuations. To present this information, current and comparative prior period non-GAAP results for entities reporting in currencies other than United States dollars are converted into United States dollars using the average exchange rates from the comparative period rather than the actual exchange rates in effect during the respective periods. The non-GAAP financial measures presented below should not be considered as a substitute for, or superior to, the measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. All growth comparisons relate to the corresponding period in the last fiscal year. About Microsoft Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Forward-Looking Statements Statements in this release that are “forward-looking statements” are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially because of factors such as: For more information about risks and uncertainties associated with Microsoft’s business, please refer to the “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Risk Factors” sections of Microsoft’s SEC filings, including, but not limited to, its annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, copies of which may be obtained by contacting Microsoft’s Investor Relations department at (800) 285-7772 or at Microsoft’s Investor Relations website at http://www.microsoft.com/investor . All information in this release is as of January 28, 2016. The company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the company’s expectations. For more information, press only: Rapid Response Team, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, (503) 443-7070, [email protected] For more information, financial analysts and investors only: Chris Suh, general manager, Investor Relations, (425) 706-4400 Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news /. Web links, telephone numbers, and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. Shareholder and financial information, as well as today’s 2:30 p.m. Pacific time conference call with investors and analysts, is available at http://www.microsoft.com/investor . 2016-03-11 09:40 By Microsoft

44 E-School for Girls partners with NYU and Microsoft for entrepreneurship event NEW YORK — Feb. 4, 2016 — Pre-college entrepreneurship program E- School for Girls partnered with New York University, Microsoft Corp. and Natalie Zfat for an inspirational and educational event, What It Takes to Be a Successful Entrepreneur, on Feb. 3, 2016, at the NYU Stern School of Business. “Microsoft is committed to empowering entrepreneurs at all stages of their lives, and excited to see more girls and women taking advantage of the rapidly changing technology landscape to bring their ideas to reality,” said Kristina Libby, consumer public relations lead at Microsoft. Speakers at the event included Teaching Garage CEO Janice Chong, Microsoft Consumer PR Communications Lead Kristina Libby, Council of Economic Education CEO Nan J. Morrison, Motivate Design CEO Mona Patel, E-School for Girls Founder and Program Director Allison Wright and entrepreneur Natalie Zfat, who gave lightning talks to a crowd of 100 decision- makers, media, faculty and students. “Over the past three years, E-School for Girls has developed into a premier pre-college program serving the community and our young women as they become female entrepreneurs and our future leaders,” said E-School for Girls Director Allison Wright. “It is my personal mission to ensure that our students get to experience entrepreneurial success, build their skills and confidence, and learn how to support themselves and each other no matter their gender or socioeconomic background. We are developing a new group of female entrepreneurs and leaders in each E-School for Girls class, and I’m excited to grow the program even further in partnership with Microsoft.” Now approaching its third year, E-School for Girls was created in partnership with NYU College Advising Corps and provides underserved high school juniors and seniors with a premier summer pre-college program. The experiential two-week program takes young women through a journey of self-exploration while developing an entrepreneurial enterprise, which includes ideation, business planning, team building, personal branding, pitching, and an introduction to a network of academics, businesspeople and mentors. Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. E-School for Girls/NYCPromise Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions to E- School for Girls/NYCPromise Inc. in the United States are tax-exempt to the extent provided by law. Note to editors : For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://www.microsoft.com/news. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts . 2016-03-11 09:39 By Microsoft

45 Microsoft and Wistron deepen collaboration with Android patent licensing renewal REDMOND, Wash., and TAIPEI, Taiwan — March 7, 2016 — On Monday, Microsoft Corp. and Wistron Corp. announced a renewed Android patent licensing agreement covering Wistron’s tablets, mobile phones, e-readers, and other consumer devices running Android and Chrome platforms under Microsoft’s patent portfolio. This deal extends and expands a prior Android intellectual property (IP) license between the companies. “We’re looking forward to continuing to enhance consumer experiences through our renewed and strengthened partnership with Microsoft,” said Eric H. Ma, head of Wistron’s Legal Division. “Combining access to Microsoft’s cutting-edge technologies with Wistron’s impressive engineering capacity is a powerful recipe for improved customer solutions,” said Nick Psyhogeos, president of Microsoft Technology Licensing. “Our partnership with Wistron highlights the kind of opportunities created through mutual respect and alignment on intellectual property.” Microsoft’s commitment to licensing IP The patent agreement is another example of the important role IP plays in ensuring a healthy and vibrant technology ecosystem. Since Microsoft launched its IP licensing program in December 2003, it has entered into more than 1,200 licensing agreements. More information about Microsoft’s licensing programs is available at http://www.microsoft.com/iplicensing . About Wistron Corp. Wistron Corporation is a Fortune Global 500 company and a Technology Service Provider supplying ICT (information and communication technology) products, services and systems to our global customers. We are devoted to increasing the value of our services through developing innovative solutions in the areas of display vertical integration, cloud and green recycling. For more information, please visit: www.wistron.com . About Microsoft Technology Licensing Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC was formed in 2014 to acquire, manage and license Microsoft’s patent portfolio. About Microsoft Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. 2016-03-11 09:39 By Microsoft

46 Dynamics AX is switching to be a cloud service on Azure – or Azure Stack The latest version of Dynamics AX, Microsoft's ERP system , doesn't just have new features like business intelligence , new tools for purchase orders, cost management and checking if you have the materials you need for orders, integration with Office, workspaces that organise the tools you need for different tasks and a new HTML5 interface that means businesses can create custom solutions using Visual Studio. It's also switching to be a cloud service that's only available on Azure – or, by the end of this year, on Azure Stack. There won't be a version of Dynamics AX 7 you can run on Windows Server , the way you can run Exchange or SQL Server – you'll have to have an Azure Stack setup for it if you don't want to use public cloud. That means Microsoft's new private and hybrid cloud system isn't just a way to get cloud-style services – including IaaS for running VMs and PaaS tools like storage, Web Apps and Service Fabric. It's also shaping up to be a way to get Microsoft cloud applications on your own server – something that Microsoft originally suggested wasn't likely. In many ways, this makes perfect sense. Microsoft is keen to shift businesses to new development patterns for building applications, and that applies to Microsoft's own applications as well. Dynamics AX is built on Azure services like SQL Azure, it includes Power BI and it integrates with Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365. As those services get updated, so will Dynamics AX; the current limit of 1,000 users per business will go up when SQL Azure can cope with that. (Microsoft won't update Dynamics AX every time an Azure service gets an update though – it will get its own updates and administrators will be able to have some control over when those are applied.) Microsoft completely rebuilt Dynamics AX as a cloud service with an HTML5 interface Just as businesses don't want to build apps that they'll have to rewrite to take them to the cloud, having built Dynamics AX 7 as a cloud service where businesses don't have to worry about buying servers and setting up infrastructure to get it running, Microsoft wouldn't want to write a different version that runs just on Windows Server and loses the advantages of cloud application design. "The old monolithic three-tier apps don't cut it anymore," points out Azure CTO Mark Russinovich. "They're not agile enough. Teams have problems getting updates into them and they can't scale out on the hardware resources that companies are paying for. " Applications built for the cloud are built out of microservices that are easier to update, and they run on cloud infrastructure that's standardised, automated and monitored (and frequently updated itself). The claim with Azure Stack is that you get the same cloud advantages of automation and standardisation and frequent, reliable updates, but on your own – likely much smaller – systems; an Azure Stack setup can be as few as four servers. Deploying new services and applications on Azure Stack will be cloud-style as well, using a marketplace in the Azure Stack Portal or Azure Resource Manager templates. That fits very well with the Lifecycle Services Microsoft has been using to help Dynamics customers get more reliable systems via a standardised setup and regularly updated services, especially for retail customers. You can work with your own data without having to move it all to the cloud, and if you have data sovereignty issues – something Russinovich says is a major concern for the UK and Germany, even though new data centres in the regions will address much of that – having your own cloud means you don't have to worry about where your data goes. Really, it's about giving customers what they want, he says: "The journey will take time and customers in the meantime have business requirements. " 2016-03-11 10:30 By Mary

47 Contactless payments are starting to gain traction in Europe The future of payments in Europe is contactless, a new survey suggests. According to the report by digital security firm Gemalto, 90 percent of business leaders in Europe have already invested in a contactless project. The other 10 percent are planning to do so. Gemalto also says that in the next three years, 10 percent of all transactions in Europe will be made through contactless payment systems. Things will not be as straightforward, though, as there are multiple contactless payment systems, all battling for dominance. Contactless payment cards, mobile, wearable devices and contactless store/loyalty cards are currently leading choices. "This highlights that a combination of several form factors are needed to address different payments moments and consumer habits", Gemalto said. Half of questioned businesses will outsource the deployment of the service to a trusted partner, while 12 percent are said to outsource the entire process. Looking at why businesses are opting for contactless payment, the results are pretty much expected, with image improvement and cost reduction being the main drivers. Faster payment is on the number one spot for 74 percent of respondents, followed by being seen to innovate (43 percent), and cost-effectiveness (42 percent). For 38 percent, it makes them look as market leaders, and for 33 percent it makes them look progressive in the eyes of their customers. "Our survey indicates that businesses are going all in on investing in contactless which is reflective of today’s consumer demand for convenience, speed and choice. And this is only going to grow with new players and new form factors that offer innovative and convenient payment solutions, coming onto the market", said Howard Berg, senior vice president, Gemalto UK and Ireland. "To get to a point in a few short years where businesses predict that 10 percent of all their payments being made via such a new channel, is remarkable. This is testament to the benefits that businesses are already experiencing in terms of operational efficiency and reputational advantage. Of course, given contactless’ relative immaturity, there are bound to be concerns to overcome, but this is where expert partners can help with security and integration expertise for businesses to take full advantage of all the benefits contactless offers", added Berg. The full study can be found on this link . Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved. Photo Credit: s4svisuals / Shutterstock 2016-03-11 10:17 By Sead

49 Adobe issues emergency patch as more security vulnerabilities are found in Flash If you’re one of the few people still using Flash Player, then you should heed Adobe’s advice and update it ASAP. The company is urging users to patch its web platform after 23 security vulnerabilities were identified in the current version of Flash, including one that’s already being used in the wild. "Adobe is aware of a report that an exploit for CVE-2016-1010 is being used in limited, targeted attacks," the company said. There are four different types of vulnerability that the patch addresses: integer overflow, use-after- free, heap overflow, and memory corruption. The exploit that is already being used in attacks, which Adobe says was discovered by Anton Ivanov of Kaspersky Lab, stems from an integer overflow vulnerability. Of the other vulnerabilities discovered, Google's Project Zero team and HPE's Zero Day Initiative found eight each, while Alibaba, Tencent, and Microsoft security teams found two each. Adobe advises users to upgrade Flash Player to version 21.0.0.182 for Windows or Mac and version 11.2.202.577 for Linux. Flash Player plug-ins bundled with Chrome, Internet Explorer on Windows 10 and 8, and Microsoft Edge browsers will update automatically. Any Windows 7 Flash users must update manually. Adobe has also released version 21.0.0.176 of AIR Desktop Runtime, AIR SDK, AIR SDK & Compiler and AIR for Android. Once found on over 800 million cell phones manufactured by 20 handset makers, the constant vulnerabilities that are being discovered in Flash - along with the move toward HTML5 - is causing the platform to slowly die off. Used by 50 percent of websites in 2011, less than 20 percent of sites now feature Flash Content (including ads). With today’s news exposing yet more vulnerabilities in Adobe’s software, you should check out our article on disabling Flash. 2016-03-11 09:30 Rob Thubron

50 GM buys software company to speed autonomous car development DETROIT (AP) — With hopes of speeding development of self-driving cars, General Motors has acquired a small software company that's been testing vehicles on the streets of San Francisco. The Detroit automaker says it purchased Cruise Automation, a 40-person firm that was founded just three years ago. The move, coupled with GM's in-house research, should help the company in its race with Google and others to have autonomous cars start transporting people on public roadways. GM wouldn't give a timetable for rolling out the technology, but President Dan Ammann said it would happen as soon as the company can demonstrate that the cars are ready. "It's our view that driverless technology will be demonstrably safer than the human driver," Ammann said in a telephone interview. Cruise Technology, along with Google, is among the few companies with permits from the state of California to test the cars, said Kyle Vogt, the company founder and CEO. The company is working to tackle the biggest obstacles to autonomous cars — seeing the lane lines in bad weather and integrating data from cameras and other sensors so the cars make the right decisions on the road, Vogt said. "I agree that's a challenge," he said. "Looking at lane markers isn't going to get you there. " Cruise reported one crash to the state Department of Motor Vehicles in which an autonomous car rear-ended a city of San Francisco parking enforcement vehicle. Vogt said the car's backup human driver had taken control of the vehicle when it crashed. GM wouldn't disclose the purchase price of deal, which was announced Friday. It said all Cruise Technology employees will join GM and work as a separate unit, and there are plans to hire more people. It's GM's third high-profile venture this year in new mobility. The company has invested $500 million in the ride-sharing company Lyft and it has started a car-sharing service in Ann Arbor, Michigan that it plans to expand to other metro areas. 2016-03-11 09:03 CNBC

51 GitHub Project of the Week: Meteor Trending like a piece of space rock falling from the sky is this open-source project called Meteor : a full-stack JavaScript platform that gives developers a way to build real time mobile and Web apps, entirely in JavaScript form one codebase. With Meteor, developers can “write apps in pure JavaScript, write apps that send data over the wire (rather than HTML), and use their choice of popular open-source libraries,” according to its GitHub page. With universal JavaScript, the same code runs from the client to the cloud, from packages to database APIs. The same code runs cross browsers and mobile devices via Meteor’s unified Isobuild system. Client GUI components provide the look, feel and responsiveness of a thick client app using Meteor’s Blaze framework or integrating with AngularJS and ReactJS. Meteor has come a long way since it first reached version 1.0 back in October of 2014. Now, some goals for the open-source project include making it a more viable option for larger apps, aligning Meteor with the rest of the JavaScript ecosystem, and making it more open to community contribution. Meteor appears to be the No. 1 Web application framework on GitHub, and it has more than 500,000 installs of its open-source JavaScript app platform. Meteor CEO and cofounder Geoff Schmidt told SD Times that Meteor is used currently by enterprises like Mazda, IKEA and Qualcomm, as well as VC-backed startups to build modern apps. “Meteor lets developers accomplish in 10 lines of code what would otherwise take 1,000, thanks to an integrated JavaScript stack that extends from the database to the end user’s screen, whether you’re developing for Web, iOS, Android or IoT,” said Schmidt. “Meteor also works with a number of other popular frameworks and projects like Angular, React, npm and Cordova to bring together the best of the JavaScript ecosystem for a great developer experience.” Meteor is 100% open source, and it works with a global community of more than 500,000 developers. The Meteor community has published more than 10,000 public packages along with core contributions. Top GitHub projects trending this week #1. Free Code Camp : Will this ever not be trending? #2. Statuspage : A status page generator that lets you host your status page for free on GitHub. #3. Leaf : The Hacker’s Machine Learning Engine. #4. image-analogies : Generate image analogies using neural matching and blending. #5. Advance : A powerful animation framework for iOS. 2016-03-11 09:00 Madison Moore

52 Autodesk settles with activist investors, appoints 3 directors March 11 (Reuters) - AutoCAD design software maker Autodesk Inc said on Friday it had reached a settlement with activist investors Eminence Capital LP and Sachem Head Capital, and appointed three directors to its board. Autodesk named Scott Ferguson, managing partner of Sachem Head, Tessera Technologies Inc Chairman Rick Hill and Kodak Chief Executive Jeff Clarke to its board. Sachem, which reported a 5.7 percent stake in Autodesk in November, had said it intended to engage in discussions with the company on issues such as management, operations, cost structure, and strategic plans. (Reporting by Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi) 2016-03-11 08:49 CNBC

53 Hackers stuff up $800 million bank heist over spelling error Hackers attempting to steal nearly a billion dollars have had their plans mostly foiled by a basic spelling error, which occurred when they attempted to transfer money to a bogus company in Sri Lanka. The whole heist started when hackers broke in to the systems of the Bangladesh Bank and started transferring money from accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to accounts in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Four transfers worth around $81 million completed successfully, but then the hackers ran into an issue. The fifth transfer they attempted to perform, with a value of $20 million, was set to go to a non- governmental (and apparently non-existent) organization called the Shalika Foundation. However the thieves failed to spell foundation correctly, instead asking transfers to the "Shalika Fandation". Staff at Deutsche Bank noticed the spelling error, and asked the Bangladesh Bank to clarify. At this point, a series of other nefarious transactions linked to the heist were spotted, and all of them were cancelled. The grand total of the remaining transactions was around $850 to $870 million. The hackers still managed to steal $81 milllion, which has not been recovered at this stage. The identity of the hackers remains unknown as well, which makes recovering any money very difficult. It's believed that the hackers had deep knowledge of the Bangladesh Bank's security systems, which allowed them to perform the heist remotely, potentially from another country. If the heist was successful, it would have been one of the largest of all time. However, getting away with $81 million is still an impressive feat, and authorities will be scrambling for answers as to how this heist managed to take place. 2016-03-11 08:30 Tim Schiesser

54 UPDATE 1-SunEdison names successor to CFO Brian Wuebbels (Adds details, background, shares) March 11 (Reuters) - SunEdison Inc said Ilan Daskal would take over as chief financial officer when Brian Wuebbels moves to its units, TerraForm Power Inc and TerraForm Global Inc, as chief executive and president. Daskal, currently the interim CFO of engineering services and software company Aricent, will join SunEdison by April 4, the U. S. solar company said on Friday. SunEdison's shares were little changed at $1.81 in premarket trading. The stock had fallen more than 90 percent in the 12 months to Thursday's close. The company said in November that the chief executives of TerraForm Power and TerraForm Global, its "yieldcos", had stepped down and Wuebbels would take charge of the units. Some analysts had seen the development as a sign SunEdison could fold its units back into it. Daskal will also be the executive vice president of SunEdison. (Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Kirti Pandey) 2016-03-11 08:14 CNBC

55 Need machine learning? HPE just launched a new service with more than 60 APIs If 2015 was the year analytics tools became ubiquitous in enterprise software, 2016 is shaping up to do much the same for machine learning. Just last week artificial-intelligence startup Nervana launched an offering that promises "deep learning on demand," and on Thursday Hewlett Packard Enterprise released a product of its own for what it calls "machine learning as a service. " Dubbed Haven OnDemand, the cloud platform offers machine-learning application programming interfaces (APIs) and services designed to enable developers and businesses to build data-rich mobile and enterprise applications. Haven OnDemand entered beta back in 2014 , and at the time it had just a few APIs, said Fernando Lucini, HPE’s CTO for big data. Today there are more than 60, along with services that deliver deep-learning analytics on a wide range of data, including text, audio, image, social, Web and video. Advanced text analysis, predictive functions, knowledge graph analysis, and speech and image recognition are all among the capabilities the service includes. A section of the product devoted to data connections makes it easy to develop applications that tap data stored in various locations, such as SharePoint or Dropbox, Lucini said. "In machine learning, one of the hardest things is to find the elements to build your model," he explained. "We have an entire section to allow you to get at corporate or personal repositories of knowledge and bring them into your analysis. " Delivered as a service on Microsoft Azure, Haven OnDemand is available as a freemium service, with commercial pricing for enterprise-class delivery. It's now used by more than 12,750 registered developers, HPE said. More about Advanced Dropbox Hewlett Packard Microsoft 2016-03-11 07:58 Katherine Noyes

56 Ubisoft says 'Tom Clancy's The Division' broke first-day sales records Tom Clancy's The Division launched earlier this week on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PCs. First announced at E3 2013, the highly anticipated game got off to a rocky start early Tuesday morning as hoards of players swamped Ubisoft's servers. If you're like me, you're probably not surprised in the least bit that a new AAA title – one that had two large betas , mind you – didn't have enough servers ready at launch. Ubisoft got the issue taken care of within a few hours but as it turns out, we may need to cut them a little slack on this one. Ubisoft has revealed that The Division sold more copies in its first 24 hours than any other game in the company's history. What's more, total digital full game sales also set new, single-day records across all launch platforms. In a blog post, Ubisoft content communications manager Giancarlo Varanini said Ubisoft now has three of the top four most successful new game brand launches in the history of the gaming industry with The Division, Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed (the other being Destiny). Yves Guillemot, co-founder and CEO of Ubisoft, described the event as a momentous day for Ubisoft but more importantly, he said it marks the start of millions of players’ enduring engagement in The Division’s game world which he said they are confident gamers will love. Have you had a chance to play The Division yet? If so, what are your thoughts thus far? 2016-03-11 07:15 Shawn Knight

57 The new Trackmania Turbo trailer shows off the game's many multiplayer modes If you long for a racing game that does away with simulation and concentrates on arcade-style fun, then you should check out the upcoming Trackmania Turbo , the latest in the series of Trackmania titles. The racer’s creator, Ubisoft, may have its hands full with The Division at the moment, but it still found time to release a trailer (below) for Turbo’s many multiplayer modes. Like most driving games, there’s the traditional split screen option; this supports up to four players, turning it into a ‘shared screen’ mode. As you may notice in the trailer, there’s the option to turn player collisions off - letting you concentrate solely on completing the course without worrying about your friends ramming into you. This feature will probably be useful for the game’s online multiplayer mode, where up to 100 people can race on one track simultaneously. There's a couple of multiplayer modes that really catch the eye; the first, called Mono Screen, brings back memories of playing the brilliant Micro Machines games from many years ago. As was the objective in that classic series, players in this mode have to stay on the screen as they race around the track or they lose a life. There’s also Stunt Mode, which gives racers a speed boost once they manage to perform a trick and land the car; a Mario Kart-style Bonus mode where players can pick up various bonuses and attacks, including a miniaturization effect, as they race around the track; and the fairly unique sounding Double Driver mode, which gives two players control over the same car. In this last mode, players must work together to steer the vehicle, which will probably lead to the end of many friendships. Trackmania Turbo will come with 200 pre-built tracks, set over four environments: International Stadium, Canyon Grand Drift, Valley Down & Dirty and Rollercoaster Lagoon. If that’s not enough, then you can build your own tracks using the game’s Trackbuilder tool. Trackmania Turbo will be available on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on March 24. 2016-03-11 06:15 Rob Thubron

58 Two-year-old Java flaw re-emerges due to broken patch The flaw, tracked as CVE-2013-5838 in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database, was rated by Oracle 9.3 out of 10 using the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). It can be exploited remotely, without authentication, to completely compromise a system's confidentiality, integrity and availability. According to researchers from Polish security firm Security Explorations who originally reported the flaw to Oracle, attackers can exploit it to escape from the Java security sandbox. Under normal conditions, the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) executes Java code inside a virtual machine that is subject to security restrictions. On Thursday, Security Explorations revealed that the Oracle patch for the vulnerability is broken. The fix can be trivially bypassed by making a four-character change to the proof-of-concept exploit code released in 2013, Security Explorations CEO Adam Gowdiak wrote in a message sent to the Full Disclosure security mailing list. Gowdiak's company published a new technical report that explains how the bypass works in more detail. The company's researchers claim that their new exploit was successfully tested on the latest available versions of Java: Java SE 7 Update 97, Java SE 8 Update 74 and Java SE 9 Early Access Build 108. In its original advisory in October 2013, Oracle noted that CVE-2013-5838 only affects client deployments of Java and can be exploited through "sandboxed Java Web Start applications and sandboxed Java applets. " According to Security Explorations, this is incorrect. "We verified that it could be successfully exploited in a server environment as well as in Google App Engine for Java," Gowdiak said in the Full Disclosure message. On the client side, Java's default security level -- which allows only signed Java applets to run -- and its click-to-play behavior can act as mitigating factors. These security restrictions can prevent automated silent attacks. In order to exploit the vulnerability on an up-to-date Java installation, attackers would need to find a separate flaw that allows them to bypass the security prompts or to convince users to approve the execution of their malicious applet. The latter route is more likely. Security Explorations has not notified Oracle about the CVE-2013-5838 bypass before disclosing it. According to Gowdiak the company's new policy is to inform the public immediately when broken fixes are found for vulnerabilities that the company has already reported to vendors. "We do not tolerate broken fixes any more," he said. It's not clear whether Oracle will push out an emergency Java update just to patch this vulnerability, or if it will wait until the next quarterly Critical Patch Update, which is scheduled for April 19. 2016-03-11 06:14 Lucian Constantin

59 This Week in Linux News: Microsoft to Release SQL Server for Linux, Linux Mint Tightens Security, & More | Linux.com This week in Linux news, Microsoft is releasing its SQL Server database management program for Linux, Linux Mint tightens its security after major vulnerabilities were exposed last month, and more! Get your fill of the latest Linux and open source headlines below. 1) Companies will soon be able to run the core capabilities of Microsoft’s SQL server on Linux. Microsoft Will Bring Its SQL Database Software to Linux - WIRED Microsoft Opens Its Corporate Data Software to Linux - New York Times 2) Linux Mint amps up security measures following a difficult February. How Linux Mint is Preventing Future Hacks and Increasing Security - PCWorld 3) First example of fully functional Mac OS X ransomware was ported from Linux. Encoder. New Mac Ransomware Ported From Linux - ZDNet 4) Microsoft to use Debian Linux for its SDN effort. Microsoft Announces Debian-Based Software for Networking - ITWire 5) Datacentre operator Equinix snaps up technology produced by Facebook's Open Compute Project. Equinix Taps into Open Compute Project to Build Open Source Datacentre Ecosystem - ComputerWeekly.com 2016-03-11 06:00 Administrator

60 60 JavaScript founder Brendan Eich: WebAssembly is a game- changer When it comes to the Web's future, JavaScript creator Brendan Eich, remains bullish on WebAssembly but also gives a thumbs-up to Google's Service Worker technology. Eich, speaking at the O'Reilly Fluent conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, called WebAssembly the most exciting development he has seen in the past year. The project boosts Web performance by providing a portable code format to run in browsers at native speeds. Major browser vendors Apple, Google, Microsoft and Mozilla all are on board with the effort. The technology, serving as a binary syntax, started with the asm.js subset of JavaScript. At some point, WebAssembly "becomes the safe native format for the Web," he said, adding that it will help bring the Web equal to native applications in performance. Eich, CEO of Brave Software, also lauded Service Workers technology, which supports bootstrapping of mobile Web applications while offline and are part of Google and Mozilla's Progressive Web Apps plan. The concept of Service Workers is supported in the Extensible Web Manifesto philosophy , and Eich encouraged developers to learn about it. Eich also backs the Decorators plan by Ember.js creator Yehuda Katz. Decorators is a JavaScript proposal to annotate and modify classes and properties at design time. Additionally, Eich lauded WebGL, which provides a 3D rendering standard for Web development. During his 20-minute presentation, Eich linked development of Web standards to mobile platforms. "What we're now seeing is the co-evolution of the Web standards with the two dominant smartphone OSes -- Android and iOS. " Microsoft, meanwhile has been "kind of acting like Mozilla," with its venture into open source, Eich reasoned. "They open-sourced Chakra Core, their JavaScript engine, on GitHub. " Google's Android, meanwhile, has become Windows, but Apple remains Apple, in Eich's estimation. When it comes to JSON pioneer Douglas Crockford's Seif project to boost Web security through the use of cryptographic services and trust management, Eich is taking a wait-and-see approach. "It's not probably going to get wide adoption, this Project Seif," said Eich. More about Apple Google Microsoft Mozilla O'Reilly Reilly 2016-03-11 05:04 Paul Krill

61 Justice Department slams Apple's 'corrosive' rhetoric in its latest court filing In a conference call Thursday afternoon, Apple's SVP and chief legal counsel Bruce Sewell said, "The tone of the brief reads like an indictment," and in 30 years he's never seen a brief trying so hard "to smear" someone. "It should be deeply offensive to everyone who reads it. " "Corrosive rhetoric" could be this week's " dormant cyber pathogen ," the latest salvo in the government's attempt to paint Apple as unreasonable for refusing to craft a new version of iOS so law enforcement can brute-force an iPhone 5c used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook. On Thursday, the Justice Department filed a response to the United States District Court for the Central District of California. That's the court that issued the order for Apple to provide this assistance to the FBI, who is investigating the December 2 shooting. The filing is a response to Apple's legal arguments , the first being that the All Writs Act is inappropriate to cover this request, as it's been superceded since then by more applicable laws like CALEA. Apple will also argue that writing code should be considered speech, and since the first amendment would protect a journalist or author from being ordered to write something the government wants, the same free-speech protections should be offered Apple as a software company. Obviously, the DOJ disagrees and basically blames Apple for getting itself into this mess by encrypting its devices in the first place. The government's filing dismisses Apple's claim that executing this warrant would be an undue burden, saying, "This burden, which is not unreasonable, is the direct result of Apple's deliberate marketing decision to engineer its products so the government cannot search them, even with a warrant. " The filing also repeats the old canard that "The Court's Order is modest. It applies to a single iPhone, and…it does not compel it to unlock other iPhones or to give the government a universal ‘master key' or ‘back door.'" But when FBI director James Comey and New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance testified before Congress on February 25 (along with Apple's lead counsel Bruce Sewell and Professor Susan Landau), both Comey and Vance admitted that while this specific order is for this specific phone, the government would very likely seek to use this technique again with subsequent orders. Before launching into its legal arguments, the government's briefing starts with a strongly worded introduction swiping at Apple's motivations and rhetoric. Besides the accusation that Apple's choice to add strong encryption to iOS is about marketing, the filing charges: Instead of complying, Apple attacked the All Writs Act as archaic, the Court's Order as leading to a "police state," and the FBI's investigation as shoddy, while extolling itself as the primary guardian of Americans' privacy. (See Wilkison Decl. Ex. 1.) Apple's rhetoric is not only false, but also corrosive of the very institutions that are best able to safeguard our liberty and our rights: the courts, the Fourth Amendment, longstanding precedent and venerable laws, and the democratically elected branches of government. … That controlling precedent and the All Writs Act—not Apple's technological fiat—should determine whether Farook's iPhone will be searched. Security experts disagree that the government even needs Apple's help to access the data on Farook's iPhone. For example, the "chip off" technique would involve physically removing the flash memory from the phone and cloning it. The government currently can't brute-force Farook's four-digit passcode since iOS 9 has an Erase Data feature that, if enabled, could wipe the phone after 10 incorrect attempts. Using the chip-off method, investigators could try 10 passcodes, then try 10 more with a fresh copy of the flash storage. It's a long, delicate, and risky procedure that experts say usually results in a destroyed phone. But it does run directly counter to the government's repeated claims that its hands are absolutely tied without Apple's help. The first hearing in this case is scheduled for March 22, the day after Apple will announce its latest round of new products. Apple first received the court order on February 16, and responded with a motion to dismiss on February 26. Last week, other tech companies, organizations, and security experts filed amicus briefs and friend-of-the-court letters supporting either Apple or the government. The DOJ's full filing from Thursday is embedded below. Gov't Response to Apple by CNBCDigital 2016-03-11 04:36 Susie Ochs

62 Disney's IT layoffs fuel Trump, Rubio H-1B attacks at debate In Florida Thursday night, Republican presidential candidates took on the H-1B visa program in a way they have never done before. They said the program is being abused, needs reform, and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, in particular, seemed to recommend ending it. The attention is due to the layoff last year of Disney IT workers , most who were working in Orlando. Some of those workers had to train visa-holding replacements. Disney laid off between 200 to 300 IT workers after bringing in IT contractors that are heavy users of the visa. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has supported an H-1B cap increase , and has said little about the visa-related IT layoffs at Disney or any other place, offered an extended critique of the H-1B program. Rubio faulted, in particular, the use of visas by large IT services companies, pointing to firms based in India, in particular. He said H-1B program abuses take jobs from U. S. workers. When it was his turn to talk about the visa, Trump, the billionaire businessman, began with an admission. "First of all, I know the H-1B very well, and it's something that I frankly use and I shouldn't be allowed to use -- we shouldn't have it," said Trump. He explained himself by saying the visa is available to use and "I'm a businessman. " The frontrunner has sent out confusing signals about the H-1B program. At last week's debate, Trump said he was "softening" his position on the visa. But immediately following the debate, he issued a statement saying that his remarks were about immigration, and not the non-immigrant H-1B visa. In that post-debate statement at the time, Trump said: "I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first for every visa and immigration program. " Last night, Trump seemed more focused, certain -- even radical. He talked about ending the visa. "It's very bad for our workers and it's unfair for workers and we should end it," said Trump. "Very importantly, the Disney workers endorsed me," said Trump. "They said he is the only one that's going to be able to fix it, because it's a mess. " The Democrats, by contrast, have had little to say about the controversial program. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, is a critic of the visa program, and joined a bipartisan group of 10 senators last year seeking an investigation into its use after IT layoffs at Southern California Edison. But former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton doesn't raise the H-1B visa as an issue. In debates, both Sanders and Clinton have kept the focus on comprehensive immigration reform. On the GOP side, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said little about the visa program at Thursday's debate in Miami. But he didn't have to. In last week's debate he said that "abuse of the H-1B program has been rampant. " Cruz, as well as Trump, have issued platforms calling for H-1B visa program reforms. The Disney IT layoffs prompted U. S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) to introduce legislation seeking program restrictions. Rubio has not offered any legislation, even though the job cuts took place in his home state. At a recent Trump rally, one former Disney IT worker who took the stage, Dena Moore, said she trained a visa-holding replacement and was critical of Rubio. "What a great disappointment Marco Rubio is," she said. At Thursday's debate, Washington Times reporter Stephen Dinan asked Rubio about Disney, and said that "some of the Americans even had to train their own replacements. " "You support increasing the H-1B visa program that made it possible to bring in these foreign workers. Doesn't this program take jobs away from Americans? " asked Dinan. "If it's being abused the way Disney did," said Rubio. "It is illegal now under that program to use it to replace American workers. Under that program, you have to prove not only that you're not replacing Americans, but that you've tried to hire Americans. " In reality, the H-1B program does allow firms to easily replace U. S. workers, thanks to program loopholes. The employers bring in contractors that rely heavily of visa workers. These IT services firms are required to make a good faith effort to hire U. S. workers, but not if the H-1B worker is paid at least $60,000 or has a master's degree. Rubio, in the debate, acknowledged the problem with contractors, citing India-based firms, in particular. "What I argue is that no consulting business such as that should be allowed to hoard up all these visas," said Rubio, adding that visas "should only be available for companies to use to directly hire workers and that we should be stricter in how we enforce it. " 2016-03-11 04:30 Patrick Thibodeau

63 Government websites best Amazon, Google in user satisfaction Show of hands: Who thinks the best site on the Web is maintained by the federal government? By one measure, a well-established gauge of user satisfaction, the government actually beats out many of the top business sites on the Web, including perennial consumer favorites Amazon, Expedia and Google. "Government leaders are doing a good job in the digital channel," says Dave Lewan, vice president at the research firm ForeSee and the author of a new report measuring customer satisfaction with federal websites. "This is one area that should be highlighted. And the effort that's been put in, it's paying off, but expectations are only getting higher. " ForeSee evaluates websites on a 100-point customer-satisfaction scale, looking at a variety of factors like search, functionality and ease of navigation. The firm also focuses on outcomes, such as the likelihood that users would return to the site or recommend it to others. On that scale, 36 percent of the 101 websites ForeSee evaluated in the fourth quarter of 2015 notched scores of 80 or above, what the firm deems as the threshold where websites are "meeting or exceeding the standards of excellence for highly satisfied visitors. " That mark was up from 30 percent in the first quarter of the year. Leading the pack were four websites maintained by the Social Security Administration. Two SSA sites scored 90 on ForeSee's satisfaction index, and two others scored 89. For comparison, Amazon netted an 86 on the same index. Vanguard.com came in at 80, followed by Google (78), Pinterest (78), Expedia (77) and NYTimes.com (76). But wouldn't visitors to a site like Amazon, long hailed for its topline user experience, likely have a higher set of expectations than they would when they point their browser to a federal site? Not likely, says Lewan.. "If you think about it, we do so much online now that we do have expectations. We have expectations on how search should work. I have expectations for how I should be able to navigate a site," he says. "Citizens have the same expectations when they go to a government website as when they go to a Google or Amazon," he adds. "The federal website managers, agency leaders, they don't get a break. " ForeSee traces the improvement of e-government services back the Clinton administration, at the dawn of the commercial Internet. In the time since, there have been numerous acts of Congress, executive orders, OMB memos and agency initiatives aimed at improving the government's digital properties. One helpful trend has been the increasing tendency for agency leaders to recruit top tech talent from the private sector, helping introduce the government to some of the best practices for user experience that have taken shape in the business world. "Having that cheerleader that champion internally -- it's huge," Lewan says. In many cases, the mission for an agency's tech team is to undo the legacy work of their predecessors, who would often build a website with little regard for the user experience, instead modeling the site's navigation on the government's counter-intuitive internal organizing structure. "One of the things about government sites, often times they are built from the government's point of view -- this is the way we're organized, citizen, you figure it out," Lewan says. In aggregate, the federal websites that ForeSee evaluated scored 75.1, 5.1 points higher than the first quarterly index the firm issued in 2002. In the time since, consumers have demonstrated a clear preference for interacting with the government via the Web or, more recently, new channels like mobile apps. That's a win-win for the federal agencies that develop compelling websites that engender loyalty and trust, and keep citizens from going to more costly channels like a call center. "Most citizens want to get their data through the digital channel," Lewan says. "So delivering a great digital experience is just optimal for really both citizens and government. " 2016-03-11 04:24 Kenneth Corbin

64 Distribution Release: ClearOS 7.2.0 | Linux.com Devin Johnson has announced the release of ClearOS 7.2.0, the latest stable version of the project's CentOS-based distributions designed for servers: "ClearOS 7.2.0 final for all editions has arrived. ClearOS 7 is available in three editions - Community, Home and Business. All editions can be installed from the same ISO image, but each edition provides access to different repositories with a mix of applications, support and services to meet different environment needs. This release is the second in the ClearOS 7 series and provides primarily maintenance and bug fixes. ClearOS 7.2.0 introduces: support for LVM caching; improved VM support.... " 2016-03-11 03:43 DistroWatch

65 Microsoft Visual Studio adds R support Microsoft's Visual Studio added support for the R programming language this week with the unveiling of the open-source R Tools for Visual Studio , now available in public preview. The release includes an R editor, code autocompletion, debugging, built-in git and GitHub support and an R plotting window and R Markdown/knitr support for exporting reports to Word or HTML format. This brings Visual Studio in direct competition with the highly popular RStudio IDE for developing R code. RStudio has a significant head start in the hearts and minds of the R community, creating some of the most popular libraries for the language and employing several highly regarded and well-known R developers such as Hadley Wickham. Visual Studio appears to be competing in part on the attraction of being "multilingual"; and, for Microsoft shops, integration with other Microsoft products such as Azure machine learning. R is the third language supported by Visual Studio, following Python and Node.js. In a blog post yesterday , Microsoft's data group partner director of program management Shahrokh Mortazav called R "decidedly the most popular statistical/data analysis language in use today. " Microsoft is clearly interested in leveraging that popularity, having purchased Revolution Analytics and its enterprise version of R in January. Visual Studio's Community edition is free to developers "building non-enterprise applications" and in other non-enterprise scenarios. It starts at $45/month for professional enterprise developers. It is also free for those working on open source and academic research. For its part, RStudio has a free, open-source edition that anyone can use; there's also an enterprise desktop license and two server versions. More about Microsoft 2016-03-11 03:18 Sharon Machlis

66 The 11 highest-paying tech jobs in America If you’re not quite doctor or lawyer material but want to make a killing, you could do a lot worse than get a tech job. Which kind? That’s what online jobs and recruiting marketplace Glassdoor reveals in a new survey of the highest-paying jobs in America. We’ve filtered out the nontech jobs like physician ($180,000 median base salary) and lawyer ($144,500 median base salary), which are Nos. 1 and 2, and go from there (though really, what isn’t a tech job these days?). Anyway, you can get complete results of the Glassdoor highest- paying jobs survey here. Results are based on salary reports shared by employees with these jobs on Glassdoor over the past year. MORE: Cisco, Microsoft & other big enterprise IT firms miss Best Places to Work cut Median base salary: $106,000 Number of job openings: 147 Median base salary: $106,000 Number of job openings: 988 Median base salary: $113,000 Number of job openings: 762 Median base salary: $115,000 Number of job openings: 1,985 Median base salary: $116,920 Number of job openings: 439 Median base salary: $120,000 Number of job openings: 263 Median base salary: $120,000 Number of job openings: 2,838 Median base salary: $120,000 Number of job openings: 3,152 Median base salary: $127,500 Number of job openings: 165 Median base salary: $128,250 Number of job openings: 655 Median base salary: $132,000 Number of job openings: 3,495 2016-03-11 03:00 Bob Brown

67 Visual Studio Taco spices up Cordova error-reporting Microsoft has updated Visual Studio Taco (Tools for Apache Cordova), keying in on error-reporting and project-template improvements. Update 7 of the toolset works with the open source Cordova framework for building mobile apps via HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. Applications can be built for Android, iOS, and Windows with wrappers for each mobile platform. "In update 7 we have attempted to address [the issue of error reporting]," said Michael Braude, development manager of Apache Tools for Apache Cordova at Microsoft. In version 6.0.0, Cordova offers an API for emitting error messages; developers must install Update 7 and target version 6.0.0 or higher to take advantage of this capability. "We do not expect the error messages to be perfect," Braude said, "but we hope that they are more useful than they've been in the past. " Project templates have been updated with a modern look, including changes to some image assets and adding new icons. Update 7 also features Ionic framework templates for Blank, Tabs, and SideMenu. The templates assist with building multidevice hybrid apps. A Visual Studio extension provides Ionic with IntelliSense capabilities, which helps developers learn about code and track parameters. Update 7 includes multiple bug fixes. Microsoft also addressed problem in which adding NPM packages for a project with a name that did not match NPM's naming requirements caused the package restore capability to fail. The Taco upgrade closely follows Microsoft's accommodations for Cordova in the Visual Studio Code editor and is accessible as part of Visual Studio or via GitHub as a stand-alone download . 2016-03-11 03:00 Paul Krill

68 Qubes OS 3.1 Linux Distro Introduces Salt-Based Qubes Management Infrastructure | Linux.com Joanna Rutkowska from the Qubes OS project has had the great pleasure of announcing the release of Qubes OS 3.1, along with its immediate availability for download. Qubes OS 3.1 appears to be a normal update to the Linux kernel-based operating system, but it introduces a single major feature, the Qubes Management infrastructure, which, in fact, is a management stack based on the popular Salt management software. "In Qubes 3.1 this management stack makes it possible to conveniently control system-wide Qubes configuration using centralized, declarative statements," says Joanna Rutkowska in the announcement. "Declarative is a key word here: it makes creating advanced configurations significantly simpler. " Read more at Softpedia Linux News 2016-03-11 00:52 Softpedia

69 69 Ultimate Unconference Survival Guide | Linux.com If there is one area in which open source has never suffered it is a lack of events. From your big professional conferences right down to your friendly, local meetups, there is just something so delightfully fun about getting together in person to share ideas, learn from each other, and have fun. One of the most popular types of event are unconferences , and there are more and more of them cropping up all over the world. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, unconferences are events where the content is defined and driven by the attendees. Sound a little weird? Well, let me explain. 2016-03-11 00:22 OpenSource.com

70 Facebook wants more creepy two-faced in your photos It seems Facebook has decided to spend some of its enormous wealth on another acquisition, and while previous purchases have been strategically sensible, but a little dull (Instagram, Whatsapp, Lightbox), this latest one is a little more leftfield. Facebook has bought face- swapping and selfie filter app MSQRD for an undisclosed sum. Why? That's an extremely good question, but if I were a betting man, I'd say it's because the social network is extremely aware that while it's the defacto choice for people aged 25 and older, younger tykes aren't seeing it as the default like their digital predecessors. Think Snapchat, and even Yubl, which we recently covered. For those that don't know, MSQRD (an abbreviation of 'Masquerade', rather than a FTSE 100 stile ticker name), is an app that lets you apply wacky filters to your photos, giving you and your friends and unnervingly creepy makeover, or swap faces with your friends directly. This isn't going to be clear without a real world example is it? Fine. There is literally no way that publically being a guinea pig in this app could possibly go wrong for me, is there? Here you go: for science. Just to be clear: the one on the left is me using the never-used selfie function on my phone. The other two monstrosities come directly from the (comparatively limited) Android version of MSQRD. So look forward to images like this dominating your Facebook feed in the future. It might not stop there either: Facebook own Instagram, Whatsapp and of course Facebook Messenger. Maybe I'll just send a telegram next time I need to contact to someone. 2016-03-11 00:00 Comment Now

71 Supporting EJB Transactions in Your Java App - Developer.com Managing transactions in an enterprise application requires making a conscious decision regarding the coordinated flow of persistent data through some sort of application logic. At the low level, a persistent storage system (typically a database) manages the decision when and where to cache data, how to resolve simultaneous access of the same resource, how to resolve errors due to violation of database constraints, and so forth. But then, these issues crop up at the business tier (application server) and client tiers as well. These concerns require special implementation logic for steady performance throughout the application. A full blown EJB transaction support from the underlying framework can leverage the productivity of developers to a great extent. This article explores the concept of EJB transaction management in a Java EE framework. Java EE 7 provides Java Transaction API (JTA), specified by JSR 907 through EJBs and Managed Beans. The APIs in thee javax.transaction package define the way to demarcate transaction boundaries with the help of a set of interfaces for the application as well as for the container. It designates the code to start, commit, or roll back in a resource neutral way, implicitly as well as explicitly. In case of a distributed transactional resource, it is handled with the help of XA transactions defined in the package javax.transaction.xa. JTA has been around in the JEE framework for quite some time, but the newest update in the genre is the alignment of a Managed Bean in the transaction process. In a nutshell, keeping aside transaction handling at the database tier, transactions can not only be handled at the business tier but also in the client tier as well through a Managed Bean. The transaction management support in Java EE7 can be designated into three categories: In CMT, a container is in control and it is the default arena for transaction management. The most important part of its support in EJB is that we can almost forget the complexity involved in describing the internal structure of transaction managers or resource managers. JTA abstracts most of the intricacies and delegates the responsibility of implementing low level transaction protocols to the EJB container. The container acts as a transaction manager involving JTA as well as JTS to participate in distributed transactions with other EJB containers or other transactional resources. The session beans demarcate the transaction boundary, call entities to interact with the database, or send a JMS message in the transaction context. For example, in the following code snippet there is no visible transaction designation in the form of code. No special interface is implemented nor any annotation applied. This reason is that EJBs are, by default, transactional and the container is solely responsible for managing the transaction using JPA and JTS implicitly. As soon as the client makes a request, the container intercepts the call and verifies if any transaction context is associated with the call. The container then begins a new transaction implicitly prior to executing the method. Depending upon the success or failure of the transaction, the container commits or rolls back, respectively. This simple behaviour can, however, be manipulated using metadata expression through either annotation or XML deployment descriptor. The attributes for transaction manipulation are as follows: These transaction demarcations can be applied with the help of a @TransactionAttribute annotation, as follows: In cases where a CMT needs to roll back a transaction, we can use EJB context to intervene the container because a CMT bean is not allowed to roll back explicitly. Demarcating with a EJB context such as session context is just an indication to revert the operation and does not effect immediately while the actual rollback is at the mercy of the container that does the real work when it is time to end the transaction. A session bean with CMT demarcation is only privileged to use this method. An example is as follows: There is, however, another simple way to inform the container to abort a transaction with the help of an exception, such as: In BMT, the programmer is in control and can choose to make a pragmatic decision regarding transaction demarcation. Here, a transaction attribute can be specified by using session context to commit or exceptions to roll back a failed transaction. This is particularly useful to attain fine granularity of demarcation policy using JTA explicitly. However, CMT can be easily switched over to BMT with a simple annotation, as follows: The core interface to handle BMT is through javax.transaction. UserTransaction. This can be used as follows. BMT thus provides a manual override of the transaction scenario, contrasting the container managed transaction in CMT. With transaction support in Managed Beans, Java EE 7 extended CMT transactions beyond the EJB arena. Transaction management in Managed Beans is particularly possible due to interceptors and CDI interceptor binding. CDI provided the ability to control transaction boundaries in Servlets, SOAP, and RESTful web services beyond Managed Beans. The core annotation to provide this ability is javax.transaction. Transactional and can be used as follows in a RESTful web service. This is almost a gross detail of what transaction management is like at the application level implementation in an enterprise arena. There are many subtle aspects and finer details to it, often more than meets the eye. CMT is headache free and the simplest means of transaction management. BMT, on the other hand, provides the means to create a fine grain demarcation policy. CDI binding opened the horizon of transaction processing onto many finer levels, such as Servlets and Web Service, apart from Managed Beans. 2016-03-11 00:00 Manoj Debnath

72 Kodak Moments app seeks to separate precious photo memories Kodak Alaris, the company behind the new Kodak Moments app , believes its app can separate precious memories from everyday snapshots of lunch and commutes on Facebook and Instagram. People annotate the shots they share with a few paragraphs of text. Shots can be shared on Facebook and elsewhere, but annotations require the app to view. Kodak Alaris separated from the main Kodak company in the 2013 bankruptcy reorganization. An app for Apple devices is available immediately in the U. S. Versions for Android and the rest of the world are coming. The app will be free, without ads. The company plans to make money by selling printing services. Explore further: Kodak agrees to sell online gallery to Shutterfly 2016-03-11 00:00 phys.org

73 Android smartphone data spies exposed like bank robbers Android is the most widely used operating system for smartphones in the world, despite the fact that Android users are virtually blackmailed when installing new applications. Either they accept that the program will gain access to certain information, such as their personal contacts or Internet access details, or else they cannot use the app. The latest version of Android meanwhile allows users to reject some of these access requests during installation, but even so this gives a somewhat false sense of security. "Even if an app tells me which data it would like to use, I still have no idea what it intends to do with the data," says Oliver Schranz, who completed his PhD at the Saarbrücken Graduate School of Computer Science at Saarland University. His assessment is confirmed, for instance, by a recent study conducted by the US security firm Appthority. According to their research, more than 88 percent of Android apps developed for industry use are secretly spying on user data in some way or another. At the Center for IT Security, Privacy and Accountability (CISPA), Schranz, together with Philipp von Styp-Rekowsky and Sebastian Weisgerber, developed an app that will help individual users and companies to track what is going on in suspicious apps. The CISPA app is based on the "Taint Tracking" method, which can be compared to the colorful dye explosion triggered in a bundle of banknotes, a technique often used to track bank robbers. Hence the researchers named their app "TaintArtist". Whenever an app accesses sensitive or privacy-relevant information, the data in question is highlighted with a kind of marker. Even if the data is altered in the process, say when new calculations are performed, the marker will remain attached even to the new results. "This lets us track the flow of information from the monitored app in more precise ways," Schranz says. Whenever the data is passed on to functions, which might then send the data out from the smartphone or display other suspicious behavior as defined in a preset corpus of rules, the pertinent markers are checked. And if the CISPA app does discover data abuse, it will set off an alarm. All that users have to do is to install the tracking app and then choose which other apps they want monitored, and what exactly should be allowed or prohibited in each of them. Until now, this kind of information flow analysis would have made system modifications necessary, in ways that are hardly feasible for laymen. To make the same service available for all users with just a few simple steps, the Saarbruecken researchers made use of a novelty in the two most recent Android versions: In the newer versions, Android no longer executes the intermediate representation of the program code directly, but translates it into executable machine language on the device first. This allows Schranz and his team to edit the code that is needed for the markers while the translation is taking place. The code of the examined app would not have to be changed, but it would work at a slightly slower pace, according to the researchers. "Given the fact that smartphones today can handle virtually all processes within milliseconds, the increases in runtime will be hardly noticeable to users," says Schranz. This is why he is convinced that the app is also useful for businesses. "If employees use their own devices at work, with our app the company can make sure that certain data never leaves these devices," says Schranz. Whether their app will be embedded into a commercial product or will be available free of charge in future, is still open. Explore further: Computer scientists' anti-spyware app surpasses one million downloads More information: Towards Compiler-Assisted Taint Tracking on the Android Runtime (ART). dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2810129&CFID=590702604&CFTOKEN=44108257 2016-03-11 00:00 phys.org

74 RTÉ leans on satellite broadband to cover Irish general election Ireland’s main national public service broadcaster, RTÉ , used a mobile satellite broadband network to provide up-to-the-minute, comprehensive coverage of the recent Irish general election. Last year, the broadcaster signed a two-year deal with satellite internet service provider (ISP) Europasat to use its satellite newsgathering service, which is based on a KA-SAT satellite. Europasat’s engineers set up a number of antennae to enable RTÉ to transmit live coverage and interviews from counting stations and political headquarters in parts of Ireland that had no reliable access to fixed broadband services . The service covered a number of constituencies in the Cork area, as well as parts of Clare, Galway, Kerry, Laois, Longford, Meath, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo and Waterford. Europasat also managed the necessary bandwidth – guaranteed at up to 10Mbps to support live video and audio transmission in both standard and high definition – while its specialist partner, Auriga Kore, controlled the terrestrial routing of the IP signal to RTÉ’s Dublin studios via the London Telehouse North datacentre. “The Europasat service allowed our teams to cover more counting stations than ever before, in areas where it would have traditionally been more difficult and costly to report from,” said RTÉ news and current affairs technology manager Piotr Kaszynski. “During the marathon 17-hour TV Election 2016 results coverage, we had simultaneous live streams available from 15 different IP KA-band Europasat locations working alongside 17 KU- band satellite newsgathering trucks.” Europasat’s flexible and mobile service is completely IP-based and therefore adapted for rapid sending of store-and-forward files and file transfer protocol (FTP). It can also be used in combination with IP codecs for video and audio. At its heart sits a drive-away terminal with dish sizes ranging from 75cm to 120cm, which can be mounted on the roof of a car. This comes in autopointing or flyaway versions, which are designed for use in harsh outdoor environments. The firm has about 25,000 customers in Europe, both on the business and consumer side, and its broadcast customers including the BBC and CNN, as well as RTÉ. 2016-03-11 00:00 Alex Scroxton

75 Ofcom data breach highlights insider threat UK communications regulator Ofcom has revealed that a former employee offered stolen – commercially sensitive – information to his new employer, highlighting the insider threat. The man’s new employer, a major broadcaster, declined the offer and alerted Ofcom that its former employee had downloaded up to six years’ worth of data while still at the regulator, according to the Guardian . The data had been provided by TV broadcasters to Ofcom and could have been used by rivals to gain a competitive edge. Ofcom has alerted all the TV companies that were affected by the breach – the biggest known breach in the regulator’s history. “This was a breach of the former employee’s statutory duty under the Communications Act and a breach of the contract with Ofcom,” the regulator said in a statement. “Ofcom takes the protection of data extremely seriously, and we are very disappointed that a former employee has chosen to act in this manner,” the regulator said, adding that the extent of the disclosure had been “limited” and “contained”. Secuity industry commentators say the breach underlines the need for organisations to take seriously the threat of insiders wittingly or unwittingly leaking commercially sensitive data. “Spotting cyber security incidents that arise from within a company can be particularly tricky, as the perpetrator may have legitimate access to sensitive data,” said Luke Brown, vice-president and general manager for Europe at security firm Digital Guardian . “This breach shows that regardless of any defensive perimeter security, without taking steps to secure the data itself organisations can still fall victim of a significant data breach.” 2016-03-11 00:00 Warwick Ashford

76 76 Europe’s CIOs examine impact of new data protection regulation Information security across Europe just got a lot more serious. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), announced at the end of 2015, overhauls existing data laws and will have a huge impact on both CIOs and the businesses they serve. The GDPR aims to harmonise data protection laws across EU member states. The fact that it is a “regulation” rather than a “directive” means it will be directly applicable to all EU countries without requiring national implementing legislation. Danielle Jacobs, director of Beltug, Belgium’s largest association of digital technology leaders , is investigating the likely effect of the regulation. She is working closely with CIOs across Europe, who have until mid-2018 to prepare for the changes. Jacobs, who also chairs international telecoms association Intug, says the GDPR presents both challenges and opportunities for CIOs. The regulation might have been announced only recently, but the small print is already having an impact on the people running major European firms. “It is a concern for executives in all organisations – it is a very hot topic,” says Jacobs. “Two years is not that long in business terms. IT leaders must create awareness of GDPR at board level. They need to get past some of the legal uncertainties and provide answers for the other people running their business.” According to Jacobs, the good news is that CIOs are aware of the importance of the GDPR. She runs regular Beltug cabinet sessions, where 30 CIOs from across the region talk about key IT and business concerns, and says the GDPR is at the top of the CIO priority list. “It’s very, very new,” she says. “Privacy is often not taken seriously enough at boardroom level. This regulation helps to put the importance of security into context. Executives can’t avoid the risk of a data loss for ever.” The GDPR focuses on the potential financial and reputational damage of a security incident. The regulation enables data privacy authorities to impose fines of up to 2%, and possibly 4%, of a company’s annual worldwide turnover. Jacobs says the fine is a powerful instrument. 2016-03-11 00:00 Mark Samuels

77 Payments regulator makes progress in introducing competition The UK regulatory body set up to increase competition in financial payments by improving access to alternative suppliers has reported significant progress. It has halved the time – to as little as six months – it takes for finance firms to join and begin operating on the UK real-time payments system, known as Faster Payments. When the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) set out its plans in 2014, it accused banks of adding little more than resilience to the payments system, and set out to promote competition and innovation in the sector. Banks own the core UK payment schemes – Bacs, Faster Payments and Link – and the infrastructure company that runs them. These systems process more than 90% of salaries, 70% of household bills and almost all state benefits in the UK. Finance firms that are not members of these schemes – and there are many in the finance sector – must access the systems indirectly through a bank or a gateway service provided by a payment aggregator. Such indirect access costs money and suppliers have no control over the service or strategy. PSR managing director Hannah Nixon said it should be made easier for firms to gain direct access to payment systems. One success for the regulator is the fact that it now takes six to nine months for a finance firm to get up and running on Faster Payments, compared with 12-18 months before. “There is a lot of change in the consumer market and we want to make sure that as many suppliers as possible can get access to the payments system,” said Nixon. Nine banks are expected to secure direct access to the system in the coming year, said the PSR. At least four other organisations are planning to offer indirect access, and two are expanding their current services, it added. The PSR recently called for banks to sell off their ownership of VocaLink, which provides the IT infrastructure that underpins the payment system. It was seen as uncompetitive if a supplier the banks own wins the bid to run the hardware, software and communications technologies that underpin it. MasterCard has already been named as a potential buyer of VocaLink, but the PSR said it did not want a single company to have a controlling stake. Commenting on the regulator’s work so far, Nixon said: “Since we became operational a year ago, a key area of focus has been the importance of increasing access to payments systems. Having fair and open access goes hand in hand with having a vibrant and competitive economy. “Progress has been good and we are seeing some positive outcomes across the payments industry. We are opening up access so more challenger banks and building societies have a real choice between direct and indirect access, and we expect a number of them to exercise that choice in the coming year.” 2016-03-11 00:00 Karl Flinders

78 Technology and new finance firms will test banking industry Financial services technology has overtaken regulatory tightening as the most pressing trend in the banking industry, and could be fatal for banks that make the wrong decisions. Fintech, as it is known, will put bank IT departments to the test as they try to stay relevant in a rapidly changing sector, according to Temenos-sponsored research from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). “Fintech poses a potentially fatal risk and will be a severe test of banks’ IT systems and their ability to respond to rapid changes in customer expectations, short product development times and growing cyber risks,” the report said. Regulatory change has been the biggest trend for three years, but now it has been overtaken by fintech, according to the EIU. “Banks may not like the renewed regulatory focus on know-your- client and suitability, but they now have a more pressing draw on their resources – fintech,” it said. Fintech is a threat across product lines ranging from payments to loans, the report said. Banks are already reacting through activities such as investing in startup firms in the fintech space, creating startup incubators, and even trying their hand at developing new technologies in- house. The EIU study, which involved more than 200 senior retail bank executives, showed bankers expect the banking environment to be shaped strongly by technology and non-traditional competitors by 2020. Nearly two-thirds (65%) said retail peer-to-peer lending would be available via banking platforms and 64% said retail banking would be fully automated. According to 20% of respondents, tech firms could emerge as a threat to traditional banks. These firms might lack the branches and specialist financial sector skills, but they do have high- performance IT infrastructures that process huge volumes of transactions every day, and are used by millions of people each day. It makes some sense to offer financial services where most consumer online activity is already taking place. Facebook has more than one billion users and holds a lot of sensitive data, while Amazon has hundreds of million s of users. According to the report, banks are pinning their hopes on three things: they are adapting the role of the branch network, getting the right talent (35%), and modernising their technology (31%). A recent EY study of over 10,000 digitally active consumers in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK and the US found that about 3,000 had used fintech. 2016-03-11 00:00 Karl Flinders

79 The Christie speeds up SPC charts to improve clinical processes The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester has implemented visualisation software on statistical process control ( SPC ) charts to improve clinical outcomes. The Christie is Europe’s largest single-site cancer centre, treating more than 44,000 patients a year. Working with IT services company Trustmarque, the hospital’s business intelligence team has developed a software tool called Scutari that can create SPC charts on “any data set within Tableau”, says Dan Tibble, head of business intelligence and software development at The Christie. The hospital wanted to be able to create SPC charts in Tableau that would enable the trust’s staff to monitor change impact and iterative improvement projects daily. Trustmarque’s software developers came up with an automated script in C# that interfaces with Tableau, performing the calculations required to produce the charts, which have long been used in manufacturing to improve processes. Staff at The Christie say they can now generate colour-coded SPC charts in minutes, rather than the hours it took to create them manually. SPC charts apply statistical methods to analyse data in order to study and monitor process capability and performance. Tibble said the NHS is starting to use the charts to spot non-random variations which pinpoint processes that can be improved. One of the goals in a healthcare context is to maximise the efficiency of a patient’s stay, reducing the time he or she needs to occupy a hospital bed. Without the use of SPC charts, there is a tendency to “hit the panic button” if a figure does not look quite right, says Tibble. The analysis made possible by the charts puts data into a clearer, more accurate context. The trust has been using Tableau since September 2014 after choosing it ahead of QlikView, Business Objects and “the other usual suspects”, says Tibble. “It won hands-down as our tool of choice,” he adds. Tableau is popular partly because it can reduce the need to hire developers, unlike its rival Qlik, says Tibble. There are hundreds of active users of Tableau at The Christie, including Tibble’s team and the statisticians in the clinical outcomes team. They have been using the Scutari tool to generate SPC charts since December 2015. Using Scutari, staff have been able to monitor the clinical and financial impact of processes across the trust. These include monitoring patients’ lengths of stay, bed availability and discharge times. The Christie is also about to launch a new pharmacy system, and will use SPC charts to monitor the cost of pharmacy dispensing. 2016-03-11 00:00 Brian McKenna

80 Using the Basic UI Controls in Android: Buttons, Texts, Checkboxes, Radio Buttons, Toggle Buttons, and Spinners (Building a Simple Android Application Demo) - Developer.com To help provide a great user experience, Android provides ready-made dialogs to choose date or time. These dialogs are called pickers and allow users to choose each part of the date, hiding away the complexities associates with time zone and user locale. The time picker allows the user to choose the hour, minute, and whether it is AM or PM. The date picker allows the user to choose day, month, and year. To use pickers with DialogFragment, we need to: Let us create a simple Android application that demonstrates this. Fire up Android Studio and start a new Android Studio project. Figure 1: Starting a new Android Studio project Provide PickerControlsDemo as the Application Name and click Next. Figure 2: Naming the application On the next screen, leave the default values and click Next. Figure 3: Leaving the default values in place On the "Add an activity to Mobile" page, choose "Blank Activity". This creates an application with a single activity. Figure 4: Adding a Blank Activity We then are prompted to customize the activity. We will leave the default values unchanged. Figure 5: Again, leaving the default values in place Click Finish to create the project files. Right-click the Java node in the project explorer and select New -> Java class. Enter TimePicker and click OK, Figure 6: Entering "TimePickerFrag" The default implementation is shown below: We will now update this, as follows. Next, we implement the onCreateDialog method and onTimeSet methods. Similarly, we implement the DialogFragment for Date Picker. Add another Java class, called DatePickerFrag, to the project. Lastly, we add two buttons to MainActivity.xml and wire up the click events to instantiate the dialogs. In MainActivity.java, we implement the click event handlers. Our application is now complete. When we launch the application and click the buttons, we can see the pickers in action. Figure 7: Time Picker Figure 8: Date picker In this article, we learned how to work with the Android picker control. I hope you have found this information useful. You can download the sample code from here. Vipul Patel is a technology geek based in Seattle. He can be reached at [email protected]. You can visit his LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/pub/vipul- patel/6/675/508 . 2016-03-11 00:00 Vipul Patel

81 Five Years Down the Road: The Future of App Dev - Developer.com By Yousef Awad , Chief Executive Officer, Integrant Remember huge monolith apps deployed on premises with client-owned servers? Remember when speed and quality were oxymorons? Thanks to the cloud and its role as a catalyst for accelerated innovation cycles, speed and quality can work together instead of against each other. Today, we all think about ways to accelerate our deliverables without compromising on quality, performance, or security. The next generation of agile or rapid development has arrived in many forms, including DevOps, continuous delivery and microservices, to name a few. All of this is born from a need for speed and an understanding that continuous experimentation is what enables us to build better solutions. It's the accelerated speed at which businesses operate and which today's consumers expect that drives technical innovation. Where are you on the adoption curve? What makes sense for your business? Consider today's methods, trends, tools, and processes, which will surely continue to mature in the next five years. With the right teaching, training, and planning, your software development team will drive business through continuous experimentation and shift from functioning as a mere internal service to becoming creators of innovative solutions. So, what will IT as a driver look like? Start with the decision-making process for launching a new product, funding a new app, or targeting a new demographic. Speed enables continuous experimentation and testing. IT can test new features without distracting from current operations. Look to Facebook for a successful example of this approach in action. Facebook selected users to beta test its chat feature and had it running in the background for eight months before successfully releasing it to the public. With concepts like continuous delivery and integration, continuous experimentation does not and will not drain time or resources. As a result, failure becomes nothing more than a low-cost experiment. This strategy will be increasingly important in five years because more CIOs, working jointly with sales, marketing, and operations, will transition to chief innovation officers driving business growth. Here's an example: The CMO says, "I suspect there's a market for a higher-end brand. Can you help me test it? " The CIO takes it from there with a team running concurrent experiments with different designs, functionality, and offerings at little cost, risk, or impact on the mother site. So, the dynamic will move IT/engineering from executors/order takers to collaborators. This type of innovation will yield more speed, energy, insight, inspiration, and ownership with fewer mistakes. The need for scalable infrastructure and technical autonomy is the driving force behind microservices. To meet market demands for speed and responsiveness, we must change only what needs to be changed. At the same time, technical independence allows teams to experiment, leverage polyglot concepts (the right tool for the job), and inject more creativity. For example, an e-commerce business may need to change its content management and shopping- cart functionality during its busy season without altering its order processing. However, with an increase in volume and load, order processing must expand and perform. By using microservices, we can pinpoint precisely what needs to change or scale and for how long without impacting the entire application. By designing software applications as suites of independently deployable services, we allow decentralized control of languages and data. This approach results in "chunking responsibilities into manageable, ownable parts—slices instead of layers. " (http://martinfowler.com/articles/microservices.html) Microservices is an example of speed and quality working in tandem. It brings life to operational excellence and innovation. We see controlled independence balanced with accountability. It is here to stay and that will not change in five years. Microservices is a direct response to market demand for speed, scalability, disaster recovery, and cost. The question is where and how to leverage microservices within the application environment. Where and when does it make sense? In this new world of continuous experimentation, rapid development, and higher expectations of quality and performance, the role of the engineer is shifting. There will be a continuing modification of roles to allow more ownership, autonomy, and creativity. Engineers will become more specialized and take on more responsibility. For example, this shift will enable roles such as security specialist or performance specialist, where responsibility and accountability span development, operations, and the entire lifecycle of the app. So, security will be a specialty as will performance. In the future, companies will not have performance test engineers, performance IT administrators, and developers who fix the performance issue. Instead, there will be a performance engineer accountable for the entire function. The performance engineer will serve dual roles of specialist and generalist. The next generation of tools will transition processes to a model where almost everything is automated. Today, developers are able to deploy instead of just passing code to IT, and robust tools automate most of the deployment process. To keep up with accelerated dev cycles, more tests will be automated as test engineers learn to script or code. Developers will continue to take on more responsibility in meaningful, analytical ways. Because of the fast movement from IaaS to PaaS to CaaS and now to APIaaS, in five years expect the continued emergence of multi-platform programmers. It's not just about C# and JavaScript. Developers will have to understand different data stores. They will have to be able to analyze and work within a multi-platform, multi-paradigm environment. Similarly, the role of the technical architect is also expanding. Containerization will make it easier and more functional-to-use multiple platforms. So, the architect of tomorrow must be able to analyze performance, purpose, consistency, orchestration, and permissions among clouds. Many are adopting a multi-cloud approach where curated libraries are assessed for strengths/weaknesses and matched to the application. Issues such as the cost of outbound traffic and the comparison of a myriad of options must be analyzed and addressed. With so many rapid changes, a good engineer will be the one who can assess what to ignore. It is all about leadership and good people. Innovation bubbles up from your teams. With teams being more distributed and global, face-to-face meetings and strong technical leadership will remain imperative for optimal team functioning. If you are outsourcing to extend your team, it's critical to partner with a vendor that can integrate seamlessly with your tools, processes, and protocols. The vendor should make it easier to pivot, progress, and innovate. Finally, the future will demand far more qualified, well-trained, and educated coders, but where will we find them? The answer comes from a transformation in elementary education. School systems need to educate children to learn coding in the lower grade levels. It's already working for project-based learning and the same should be true for coding. Like every goal of education, we have to train our young with the right skills. This article was written by Yousef Awad exclusively for Developer.com. 2016-03-11 00:00

82 What Do Android App Developers Gain with Android Marshmallow? - Developer.com By Juned Ghanchi Android 6.0 Marshmallow is a refinement of Google's mobile operating system and most of the enhancements are quite good. Android has matured a lot in recent times with its presence on 1.4 billion devices and Google Play, featuring more than one billion active users. Android held 82.8 percent of the smartphone market and, with the advent of Android 6.0 Marshmallow, it is going stronger than ever. Android Marshmallow is not out to defy expectations but usher in welcome improvements. Background tasks now hibernate easily when they are not in use to preserve battery life. Google Now scans the screen to deliver contextual links for queries. For most of the 1.4 billion device owners, Android Marshmallow might not serve up an upgrade that would force a purchase of a new phone or any other mobile gadget. Only about 7.9 percent of Android devices are working on the platform Android 5.1, whereas a whopping 38.9 percent have their devices run on Android 4.4. The value of the latest platform version would boil down to your past Android experience. Lollipop users would not care about the minor changes, but KitKat and Jelly Bean users will surely share their curiosity with the new features. The utility of the version would depend on how much keen you are to use privacy and mobile payments. Android 6.0 Marshmallow isn't marketing its enhancements to be aeons ahead of the previous version, but it does boast some neat changes that work. Here are a few of them: Marshmallow boasts of a redesigned home screen with the Google search bar becoming a fixture above widgets, folders, and the like with a revamped Google Now interface and an overhauled app drawer. This app drawer scrolls vertically, and has an alphabetically organized list of apps with a new search bar that responds to results whenever you start typing a name. The searches also feature predictive intelligence based on time of day, overall app usage, and several other criteria. Every update after Android 4.4 will render a few Marshmallow's visual changes, especially the search bar and the app drawer. Android permissions management has changed considerably; it now has better access to personal data and security to keep it private for every app. The huge number of Android permissions that were bogging down the phones have been significantly cut down with a "phone" permissions umbrella covering several minor permissions. Apps always prompt for permission whenever required. You can allow or deny camera access and microphone data whenever there is a video call incoming to your phone. The deny action will render all other features related to the call useless because they rely on the granted permissions only. Permissions are flexible now, so accessibility to data and hardware can be withdrawn any time you choose. You can enact blanket policies to prevent apps from accessing some specific items. Google Now is Google's intelligent assistant and now it looks more powerful and better because it continues to give useful sources of information. Voice search animation and effects have changed too; they morph and dance with every voice command. There can be some back-and-forth voice interaction with Google Now with increasingly specific questions and one can only move forward with this scenario... Chrome Custom Tabs is now working on re-adressing the problem of Web links within apps because every tap on some links will leave you hanging with multiple Chrome tabs. But with custom tabs, one can choose and customize animations, diverse menu options, and the tools in the toolbar. It also includes saved passwords and payment information and will always hover on the originating app whenever they are closed. Now on Tap is essentially artificial intelligence that is pushed to the next level as it strives to interpret the items on the screen to provide relevant and context-driven results. If there is a mention of Inception , it is sure to indicate information related to Nolan's movie, its ImDB rating, the genre, and relevant pages, including the YouTube trailer and subsequent high-ranking reviews related to the film. Similarly, a search on famous bands would open a Facebook page of the music band as well as their latest gigs and videos. Now on Tap's capabilities are both textual and verbal. It can be used to suggest map directions for several addresses and even use it to guide your driving between lanes. If you show a picture on the screen, it will respond with an adequate answer and even fetch in relevant details to the picture. With the latest features of Android Marshmallow allowing some minor changes to its previous avatar, one can wait and watch before shelling out money for a new smartphone. If you are migrating from Kitkat, then definitely, it will be a whirlwind change in user experience for you. Juned Ghanchi is an Android developer and digital marketing expert. He is the co-founder of IndianAppDevelopers Company , an Android application development company that develops applications for big brands to start-ups. Juned has regularly shared his writings and ideas about Android technologies on various tech blogs and Web sites. 2016-03-11 00:00

83 Adobe chief: Mobile a huge positive for us The shift from personal computers to smartphones and tablets is a big positive for Adobe Systems , its chief executive told CNBC. While the company attracts a plethora of photographers, videographers, illustrators and animators, Adobe is best known for its image editing software, Photoshop, and for introducing the portable document format (PDF), which has become an internationally accepted medium for sharing electronic documents. Photoshop, along with several other offerings from the California-based company, are available on Apple's iOS and Google's Android systems. In an exclusive interview with CNBC's " Squawk Box ", Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said, "The whole mobility phenomenon is a tailwind for our business. " Staying at the front of the pack in a mobile environment, with millions of applications available and new ones being created everyday, can be a tall order. Adobe's image editing offerings, such as Photoshop and Lightroom, compete with hundreds of other similar applications on iOS and Android operating systems, including Instagram, VSCO and Camera360. A non-scientific survey conducted by technology news site CNET and RBC Capital Markets found that Adobe's PC-based users are not always quick to adopt its mobile apps. Their data, released last month, showed among respondents who subscribe to Adobe's Creative Cloud, 43 percent do not use any of Adobe's mobile apps. CNET said in a report only about one in four use the Photoshop Fix app to touch up images and one in five use the Photoshop Mix app to combine photos. Adobe's Creative Cloud is a collection of multimedia software available for download via the internet on a subscription basis. But Narayen said the survey findings were more nuanced. "I think there's the half empty, half full scenario there. The half full scenario is that the number of people who have now downloaded our applications and are using it as part of the workflow over the last year and a half has absolutely exploded. " "For anybody who wants to do serious content creation, we're still the only game in town. Products like Lightroom Mobile, that the survey actually talked about, as well as Photoshop Fix and Photoshop Mix, are rapidly becoming the de facto standard for high-end image editing," he said. Narayen estimated approximately 60 million downloads for Adobe's mobile apps in the iOS and Android ecosystems. Another area of growth for Adobe, Narayen said, was in its marketing cloud business, a series of internet-based software for marketers. "Every single business has to have a digital experience that they provide to their customers, whether they are in hospitality or financial services," he said, adding the market cloud business is enabling those experiences to be delivered. 2016-03-10 23:53 Saheli Roy

84 Justice Department accuses Apple of false rhetoric, pooh- poohs privacy concerns Ahead of the hearing due to be held on 22 March, the Justice Department has lashed out at Apple in its latest response to the company's refusal to unlock the San Bernardino iPhone. Playing an emotional game, the DoJ says "Apple deliberately raised technological barriers that now stand between a lawful warrant and an iPhone containing evidence related to the terrorist mass murder of 14 Americans. " It says that only Apple is able to remove the barriers that are currently in the way, "and it can do so without undue burden". Apple has already made it abundantly clear that it will not help the FBI in creating what it describes as a backdoor into the iPhone at the center of the case. The FBI has present Apple with a number of options for assisting with gaining access to data held on the phone. From allowing removing the auto-erase function from the phone to building a custom version of iOS for the handset, all of the FBI's requests have been met with refusal. In its response , the Justice Department says: The filing says that the case 'must be decided on its facts', strongly implying that Apple is peddling falsehoods: It goes on to say that the "case also does not present a 'political question' as suggested by Apple", pooh-poohing privacy arguments that have been put forward. Apple has announced a product event for 21 March -- just a day before the hearing takes place - - and it's hard to imagine that Tim Cook won’t use this as a platform to further fight the company's corner. This is a battle that looks set to rumble on for some time to come. Photo credit: Maen Zayyad / Shutterstock 2016-03-10 22:21 By Mark

85 LG G5 and Friends to launch in US next month, with free extra battery and charging cradle LG unveiled its new G5 flagship last month, and details are now beginning to emerge of its launch plans for the device. After pre-orders opened in the UK, priced at £529 GBP (roughly $750 USD), LG has now announced some details of its launch plans for the G5 in the US. The company says that "consumer anticipation... is high" for its new Android range-topper, and promises that the G5 will launch in the US in early April with support from major carriers - including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and US Cellular - and retailers such as Best Buy and B&H. For a limited time, LG will be offering US buyers a free additional battery, along with a battery- charging cradle, when they purchase the G5. LG has taken an interesting route with its new flagship, by offering 'modular' configurations that will allow owners to swap out new hardware features - such as high-end audio components from Bang & Olufsen, or a camera module with shutter button and extra battery capacity - by inserting 'companion devices' into the G5's Magic Slot, located at the bottom of the device. The company is building out a hardware ecosystem for the handset with these modular components - along with other devices like a virtual reality headset, and a spherical 'Rolling Bot' - referring to them collectively as 'LG Friends'. LG says 'select' companion devices will be available in the US from April, which suggests that buyers may have to wait a bit longer for some of them to arrive. LG hasn't yet announced how much the G5 - or its Friends - will cost in the US, but says that further information about pricing and availability will be revealed "in the coming weeks". Source: Android Police 2016-03-10 21:06 Andy Weir

86 Data loss is one of the main reasons for failed mergers and acquisitions Data loss is one of the bigger reasons why mergers and acquisitions fail, losing companies millions of pounds each year. Those are the results of a new survey conducted by dedicated virtual data room provider for merger and acquisition deals, ansarada. According to ansarada's report, 71 percent of UK executives involved in mergers and acquisitions have confirmed that their deals have been delayed due to loss of critical data. This critical data usually sits in various documents, emails, devices and IT systems. The report also says that these delays last, on average, 12 days. Executives are not the only ones fearing for data while trying to close deals -- it is said that 11 percent of dealmakers weren’t certain their data was secure, as they were trying to close deals. The report is based on answers given during 2015, from 520 bankers, lawyers, consultants and accountants specializing in mergers and acquisitions. When it comes to financial losses thanks to missing data, 2014 (most recent figures) was the record year, with 339 deals worth £256 billion collapsed. ansarada's executive advises businesses what to do in order to stay safe: "Considering the sensitive nature of merger and acquisition deals, it's alarming to think that 'data-loss' remains such a big issue for the industry", says Stephen Dearing, MD of EMEA, ansarada. "With recent advancements in technology and security policies, dealmakers should be in complete control of the information they need to close a deal efficiently and to a tight deadline". Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved. Image Credit : Maksim Kabakou / Shutterstock 2016-03-10 20:23 By Sead

87 Fred Wilson to rep New York at Disrupt NY in May Fred Wilson is a name that needs no introduction, but we’re going to do it anyway. TechCrunch is excited to announce that Fred Wilson will be speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, which goes down May 9 through May 11, in a fireside chat. Fred is a veteran at TechCrunch Disrupt New York, which makes sense given his contribution to the growth of the New York tech scene over the past 20 years. Starting out as an associate at Euclid Partners, Fred has gone on to start Flatiron Ventures and Union Square Ventures, where he is currently founder and managing partner. His investments include Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga, Etsy, Disqus, and many more. He sits on the boards of a number of companies, including DonorsChoose, Kik and Etsy. Though Fred’s resume speaks for itself, that doesn’t stop him from approaching on-stage discussions with brute honesty. He isn’t afraid to tell startups what will and won’t work. In fact, as a Battlefield Finals Judge at Disrupt 2014, Fred told Battlefield winner Vurb: “Your problem is a bitch. You won’t solve it and it will kill you.” How’s that for blunt? There’s always a lesson to be learned from Fred, and those of us who read his daily blog know there is plenty of wisdom to be garnered from listening to what he has to say. We’re more than thrilled to see what Fred has in store for us this year — he promised to make sure it’s “not the traditional VC stuff” — and we hope you can join us to see him speak. Buy tickets to Disrupt here. Sponsors make TechCrunch events possible. If you want to learn more about sponsorships with TechCrunch, shoot an email to [email protected] . 2016-03-10 20:16 Jordan Crook

88 My Uber driver apparently moonlights as an underground electronics dealer Have you ever been riding in an Uber and become suddenly overtaken by the immediate need for a new Android tablet or a Dell Latitude E6420? Yeah, me neither. But that did’t stop an enterprising Uber driver from peddling his wares to me during a recent ride. I was presented with a laminated sales sheet for multiple electronics ranging from a refurbished iPhone to an electronic guitar. And the best part? I could even get these electronics delivered at a later date. For free! I am of two minds about this. On one hand, there is definitely potential in monetizing the backseat experience in Uber and Lyft rides, just as taxis have been doing for the last decade. On the other hand, Uber and Lyft, please just start paying your drivers a living wage. 2016-03-10 20:16 Fitz Tepper

89 HPE’s Haven OnDemand developer platform hits commercial availability Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Haven OnDemand machine learning-centric developer platform has been around since late 2014, but it’s only coming out of beta and becoming commercially available today. Haven OnDemand, which is hosted on Microsoft’s Azure platform , provides developers with APIs and services for building data-rich applications. The roughly 60 APIs currently included in the service include features like sentiment analysis, speech recognition services, trend analysis and text classification services. Haven also includes a prediction and recommendation API that developers can train for their specific use cases. The service also includes an image recognition feature, but it’s still rather rudimentary for now and only recognizes a set of corporate logos in images. The company tells me it plans to invest more in this area going forward, though. As Colin Mahony, the company’s senior VP and general manager for HPE Big Data, told me, the company is targeting both enterprise developers and startups with this service. HPE wants to give them a flexible platform that can grow with them as their needs scale up. “Developers are good at what they do, but they are not statisticians and mathematicians,” he told me. “They want us to take a lot of the statistics, heuristics, and machine learning, and build it into things that do advanced text analytics, or basic format conversion, facial detection, etc.” Now that it is commercially available, Haven OnDemand will offer a free tier that limits the number of API calls and storage developers can use. Paid plans start at $10 per month. For the first three months, HPE is also offering an additional 50,000 API units (which roughly equate to API calls) for all paying users. The company says 12,750 developers registered for the service since 2014 and they currently generate “millions of API calls per week.” This has allowed HPE to fine tune its service to the point where it is now confident that it can offer SLA agreements to enterprises. To show off the power of the platform, HPE also offers enterprises a search platform ( Haven Search OnDemand ) that uses Haven’s APIs. 2016-03-10 20:16 Frederic Lardinois

90 Apple and the Justice Department enter the ‘open hostilities’ phase of iPhone unlocking case A 43-page rebuttal from the Justice Department today characterized Apple’s earlier response to an iPhone unlocking request as ‘corrosive’. Shortly thereafter, an Apple press conference attended by TechCrunch provided a rejoinder from two Apple executives, including General Counsel Bruce Sewell, who said that “the tone of the brief reads like an indictment.” For background, don’t forget to dive into our coverage here and our timeline of events here . The DoJ The Department of Justice released a 43-page document that alleges, among other things, that Apple has engaged in “false,” “corrosive” rhetoric regarding the case. The documents, made available by CNBC , frame a portrait of Apple misrepresenting the situation through “diversion” to make the conversation about encryption on a grand scale rather than the one device the government is saying it needs access to. The government’s document ultimately recommended that the Court deny Apple’s motion and compel the company “to assist the FBI in unlocking Farook’s iPhone.” Apple, of course, disagrees. Apple Sewell delivered an on the record statement in the wake of the DoJ filing to reporters today which came out swinging. “The tone of the brief reads like an indictment. We’ve all heard director Comey and Attorney General Lynch thank Apple for its consistent help in working with law enforcement. Director Comey’s own statement, that there are no demons here? We certainly wouldn’t conclude it from this brief,” said Sewell. “In 30 years of practice, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a legal brief that was more intended to smear the other side with false accusations and innuendo, and less intended to focus on the real merits of the case. “For the first time ever, we see an allegation that Apple has deliberately made changes to block law enforcement requests for access. This should be deeply offensive to everyone that reads it. An unsupported, unsubstantiated effort to vilify Apple rather than confront the issues in the case.” “To do this in a brief before a magistrate judge just shows the desperation that the Department of Justice now feels,” Sewell continued. “We would never respond in kind, but imagine Apple asking a court whether the FBI could be trusted because, there is a real question about whether J. Edgar Hoover ordered the assassination of Kennedy, see ConspiracyTheory.com as our supporting evidence,” Sewell added, in a statement that he later clarified as meant to be humorous, in an incredulous way. “We add security features to protect our customers from hackers and criminals, and the FBI should be helping to support us in this because it keeps everyone safe. To suggest otherwise is demeaning. It cheapens the debate and it tries to mask the real and serious issues. I can only conclude the DoJ is so desperate at this point that it has thrown all decorum to the wind,” continued Sewell. “Look, we know there are great people in the DoJ and the FBI. We work shoulder-to-shoulder with them all the time. That’s why this cheap shot brief surprises us so much — we help when we’re asked to. We’re honest about what we can and can’t do. Let’s at least treat one another with respect and get this case before the American people in a responsible way. We are going to court to exercise our legal rights. Everyone should beware, because it seems like disagreeing with the Department of Justice means you must be evil and anti-American. Nothing could be further from the truth.” Some interesting particulars There are some other interesting particulars to pull out of these sorties. First, Apple notes that the DoJ filing is attempting to re-frame the resetting of the iCloud password as intentional. Note that this is something that has already been characterized (in official statements) by FBI Director James Comey as a mistake. Doing so removed avenues of investigation that the FBI could have taken without having to force Apple to unlock the device. This reframing is a sort of ‘ retconning ‘ that the DoJ could be attempting in order to downplay its culpability in the matter, thereby weakening its case in the courts. Second, the DoJ filing is clearly attempting to attack the wording and positioning Apple has taken in its opposition, rather than its technical or policy-based underpinnings. This is one tactic, to be sure, but it seems like a fairly brittle one when put to any torsion in the courts. While the battle has been one of public opinion, focusing primarily on the way Apple chooses to say what it wants to say, rather than what it is saying, could come back to bite the DoJ here. And even after statements that Apple’s arguments are not about the wider issues of encryption, the DoJ goes on to make a not-so-subtle threat that it could move to force Apple to hand over signing keys to its core software — the atomic war option when it comes to user privacy, essentially ending whatever security any private citizen with an iPhone has when it comes to expectations of privacy. Any iPhone would then be at the whims of the DoJ’s desire to access it and its ability to utilize the same broad All Writs Act applications it used with Apple to peek wherever it wanted. Lastly, an Apple lawyer made it clear on the call that Apple only stores date from Chinese customers on its servers in China — and that this data is completely encrypted. “Apple appears to have made special accommodations in China as well: for example, moving Chinese user data to Chinese government servers, and installing a different WiFi protocol for Chinese iPhones,” reads the DoJ document. But that encrypted data is subject to a similar information request structure as that to which Apple has already complied in many occasions in the US. The DoJ is drawing a false equivalence here between lawful data requests and its current request of Apple in this case: that it intentionally create new software that cripples the security of its devices. The war only gets louder and more accusatory on both sides, but we’re at the stage where it is getting beneficial for both sides to attack the manner in which the rebuttals are being delivered — their character — rather than the substance of those rebuttals — their content. Apple is scheduled to appear later this month before the judge and says it will file a response to today’s DoJ brief by the deadline, March 14th. 2016-03-10 20:16 Lucas Matney

91 Apple sends out invites for March 21 event, likely for new iPad and smaller iPhone Apple has just issued invites for its next press event on the Apple Campus in Cupertino. The event is going to happen on March 21. As usual, Apple wrote a cryptic message on its invites — “Let us loop you in.” The event has been rumored for weeks, and we already expect a few things. Rumor has it that Apple has been working on a new iPhone. This iPhone should feature a 4-inch display like the one in the iPhone 5s, but with an updated chip and camera. It’s unclear if it’s going to be called the iPhone 5se (for “special edition”), the iPhone SE or something else. Updates for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are unlikely. Next up, we have the iPad Air. Last Fall, Apple updated the iPad mini and unveiled the iPad Pro. There was no word on the iPad Air. It looks like the company needed more time to work on a new 9.7-inch tablet. But there’s a twist. The new iPad should work with the Apple Pencil and feature a smart connector to work with a keyboard cover. Think about it as a smaller iPad Pro more than an iPad Air 3. And then, there’s the Apple Watch. “Let us loop you in” could mean something about the Apple Watch. But according to our own Matthew Panzarino, you shouldn’t expect an Apple Watch 2 just yet. Instead, Apple could announce new bands and partnerships with fashion companies. What else? We’ll have to wait and see. The good news is that TechCrunch is going to have a team on the ground to cover the event. Apple usually holds events on Tuesdays, but March 21 is on a Monday. The reason why it’s on a Monday this time is that Apple will be at its first hearing regarding the Apple vs. FBI case on March 22. 2016-03-10 20:16 Romain Dillet

92 Wikipedia’s new iOS app focuses on discovery, personalization Wikipedia today launched an upgraded version of its iOS application aimed at helping users better discover content matching their own interests, including both articles and images. In addition, the app has been optimized for Apple’s newer OS and latest iPhones (6s and 6s Plus) with support for 3D Touch and Spotlight Search integrations. This is the latest in a series of efforts from the organization to make its mobile application something users turn to for more than everyday fact-checking purposes. In the past, those efforts have included the rollout of more utilitarian features like offline access and mobile editing, as well as an experiment with going social by way of shareable “fact cards ,” which were added last year. (That feature is still supported, but has been made less prominent. You now have to select text to “share a fact.”) In the latest version , Wikipedia focuses more heavily on finding interesting things to read and personalization. That is, it presents users with a new “Explore” feed that showcases a combination of the top read articles, the featured article and featured picture of the day, random articles, and nearby articles, in addition to those recommended based on how you’ve been using the app previously. These latter suggestions will be related to what you read on the app, the organization says. In addition, the update includes support for navigating using multi-touch gestures (including swipe, tap and 3D Touch), as well as 3D Touch from the app’s icon on the homescreen. This will let you open search, read a random article, see nearby articles, or continue reading your latest. Another iOS-specific feature, Handoff, is now supported in this release, too. Finally, a feature that you save articles to read later, which are also available offline, arrived along with improvements to image galleries and tools to more easily share articles via social media or email. The extent any of these changes – or those in the past – are having on Wikipedia’s traction on iOS is less certain. The app remains top-ranked in the “Reference” category on the App Store, where it’s usually in the top 15 or 20 (Though, lately it dropped a bit to the 30’s.) However, it’s certainly not one of the most popular “Overall” apps on the iPhone, despite its brand-name awareness. The problem is that many people don’t think of Wikipedia as a place they want to explore, but rather a place to look something up. And the fact that its web content has been surfaced through Apple’s Spotlight Search since iOS 8 likely satisfies most in need of a quick fact check. Wikipedia is still trying to find the sweet spot in terms of making its iOS app something that would be more regularly launched, but it’s not a certainty that simply rolling out a better “explore” feed will do the trick. That said, the app is well-designed and highly polished, and worth the download for those who would rather learn something in their free time rather than goof off on Snapchat or Vine. The updated Wikipedia app is live now on the iTunes App Store. Wikipedia Mobile 5.0 for iPhone and iPad from WikimediaFoundation on Vimeo . 2016-03-10 20:16 Sarah Perez

93 New law changes the liquidity game for tech company founders, workers and investors Late last year, Congress passed legislation that substantially improved the legal landscape for startups, early-stage companies and the stakeholders in the ecosystem. You might have read about, for example, Congress making permanent the 100 percent tax exclusion for sales of qualified small business stock held for more than five years (up to $10 million). This is great news for company founders, workers and investors. But there was another significant legislative improvement that hasn’t been as widely written about: Congress passed a new securities law exemption that changes the liquidity game for stockholders in early-stage companies. Already effective, the new law, Section 4(a)(7) of the Securities Act of 1933, makes it substantially easier for stockholders, such as early employees, investors and consultants, to sell their stock. If you are not already aware, every private sale of stock needs to either be “registered” with securities regulatory agencies (which is super expensive) or be “exempt” (in other words, excused) from registration. Prior to this new law, the exemptions available to stockholders were subject to a range of limitations, restrictions and requirements, making resales of private company stock difficult and infrequent. The new Section 4(a)(7) provides a much easier exemption to access, and empowers early stockholders to get liquidity for compensation that’s been paid to them in stock or stock options. Access to this previously illiquid asset has prevented early stockholders from financing the purchase of a new home or the education of their children. With new rules that enable more liquidity, the options for early stockholders are improved dramatically; however, there are still requirements that must be met before you can run out and sell some of your shares. Early employees, consultants and investors need to keep these requirements in mind when making decisions to work with or invest in a company to make sure they’ll be able to exercise their sale rights. The new exemption is designed to simplify private sales of stock in privately held companies to accredited investors. Provided the transaction meets basic requirements, such as the company is a going concern and the buyer isn’t a broker buying for the purpose of distributing the shares, you can sell shares under this new exemption as long as: That last one requires a little more explanation. The buyer isn’t required to obtain all the relevant information, but they must be able to obtain it if they want it. Relevant information includes things that are easy to collect, such as the nature of the business, products and services and the names of its officers and directors, or, if the seller has control over the company, a statement about that affiliation is needed. It also includes information that may be more difficult to come by, such as the most recent GAAP- or IFRS-compliant balance sheet and profit and loss statements for up to two prior years. As a seller, you’ll need the cooperation of the company to acquire the balance sheet or profit and loss statements. All the other resale exemptions are still in place and still available to use. If you aren’t familiar with the law regarding the resale of securities, in general, a security cannot be offered for sale or sold unless it is registered with the SEC or state securities authorities, or an exemption from registration is available. The new exemption provided by Section 4(a)(7) is non-exclusive. It also doesn’t supersede or undo the Section 4(a)(1½) exemption or any other pre-existing exemptions on resales. There are a number of exemptions for resales of securities. The problem is they all contain limitations that make them impractical for private company stock resales. For example, Section 4(a)(1) allows resales of non-restricted securities by a person other than an issuer (the company), underwriter or dealer. This is the exemption that allows you to resell a security you bought in a registered public offering. The trouble with 4(a)(1) is that the definition of “underwriter” is broadly defined to include any person who purchases a security from an issuer or affiliate of an issuer with a view to or in connection with a distribution. And then the term “distribution” is broadly defined, as well. These broad and uncertain definitions limit the ability to resell restricted securities. The 4(a)(1) exemption also does not preempt state law, whereas the new Section 4(a)(7) does (see below). There are also resale exemptions under Rule 144 and Rule 144A, and there is the 4(a)(1½) exemption. But again, the trouble with all of these resale exemptions is they aren’t easily and readily available. The new Section 4(a)(7) exemption is a substantial improvement in the law. The largest problem with the other resale laws is the lack of an easy way for stockholders who also control the company to sell shares. Affiliates, or persons who control an issuer, are subject to stricter scrutiny than investors under the Securities Act of 1933. In theory, a company could issue stock to its founders, who could then sell the stock without registering it and use some or all of the proceeds to fund the company, bypassing all of the regulation in place for companies to sell stock to investors. To avoid this potential loophole, Section 4(a)(1) is not available to affiliates. Section 4(a)(2) is also closed to affiliates who may want to conduct a private placement. That section is reserved for the company itself. Since the law’s inception in 1933, there has been no statutory exemption for resales of restricted stock for an affiliate of the issuer. In a series of court cases over the years, judges crafted an extra-statutory exemption that has been aptly named Section 4(a)(1½) to allow affiliates in certain circumstances to conduct what amounts to a private placement so they could resell some of their stock. Without a clear method of determining who is and who isn’t a control person, the previous exemptions limit many stockholders from being able to resell shares at all. In trying to address the problem left by the original drafters, Congress was aware it couldn’t create a safe-harbor defining who is and who isn’t an affiliate. A clear definition like that would open the loophole the statute so desperately seeks to avoid. That leaves a bunch of folks in a difficult situation. Large stockholders such as founders, venture capital firms or directors and officers of the company all might be persons who can control what the company does. In the situation where a person might be an affiliate, but really isn’t, things get tricky. Persons who may or may not be affiliates desperately need a safe way to get some liquidity if there are potential purchasers out there. If these potential purchasers are accredited investors, the law has long reasoned they can take care of themselves and bear the risks of buying unregistered shares in startup companies. The potential purchasers need to know a few things about the company, as discussed above. The one thing they need to know specifically about the seller is whether or not the seller is an affiliate. Section 4(a)(7) states: “To the extent that the seller is a control person with respect to the issuer, [they shall include] a brief statement regarding the nature of the affiliation, and a statement certified by such seller that they have no reasonable grounds to believe that the issuer is in violation of the securities laws or regulations.” This is an elegant and powerful provision. Instead of keeping the loophole closed and placing a burden on large stockholders, directors and officers, Congress has given them the option to resell shares under this new exemption. They’ve paved a clear path for sellers to certify they’re not helping the issuer exploit a loophole to sell stock in a private placement that should have been registered. For all the honest folks who seek some liquidity, this is an easy statement to certify. For the crooks out there, should they falsely certify to a clean slate, the SEC will have grounds to enforce the law against both the seller and the company. In theory, the purchaser will also have the ability to sue the seller and the company, but that will be costly. But then again, they are an accredited investor and presumed to be able to take care of themselves. A great thing about the new Section 4(a)(7) exemption is that securities sold pursuant to the exemption are “covered securities,” thereby preempting state law registration requirements. You might be aware that securities sold by companies in Rule 506 offerings (almost all angel and venture capital financings are Rule 506 offerings) are also “covered securities.” This is why in an angel or venture financing, you don’t have to obtain pre-approval from state securities regulators before you can raise money from angels and VCs. For tech workers at startups with a portion of their compensation locked up in private, illiquid stock, the new rules are effective today. If you have an interest in selling a portion of your holdings, you could sell stock today under this new exemption. Here are some recommendations on how to get started: If you’re just starting with a new company, look for restrictions on transfers or sales of stock that are included as a part of your compensation package. Speak with the company about the potential for resales and how the company may or may not be willing to support you in a resale transaction. For investors with investments in privately held companies, you will want a covenant that the company will provide the information you need, such as the financial statements, so that you can use the exemption. In addition, the general restrictions on transfers found in most securities purchase agreements can now be amended to allow resales pursuant to the new Section 4(a)(7) exemption. For founders or executives at privately held companies, now is a good time to consider your policy around resales. Many tech workers and investors are looking at these transactions as a means to access a portion of the value they’ve helped create in your company. In the widely covered resale transaction architected by Twitter in 2011, employees sold only a portion of their shares, holding the majority for the eventual exit. At the same time, $400 million worth of value was unlocked for early stockholders, enabling those employees, consultants and investors to use a portion of the value created in the company while still contributing significantly to the eventual IPO. 2016-03-10 20:16 Josh Maher

94 FCC's Tom Wheeler wants to protect internet users' privacy by limiting ISPs' personal data usage The chairman of the Federal Communication Commission has put forward a set of proposals to protect internet user's privacy. Tom Wheeler wants to place limits on how ISPs are able to use customer data in much the same way that phone companies are regulated. The amount of unencrypted data ISPs have access to which can be used for advertising and marketing worries Wheeler. The FCC already governs how phone companies can use and resell customer data, and he believes the same rules should be applied to ISPs. More than this, he wants to empower customers so they can choose precisely how their data is used. Chairman Wheeler published details of his proposals in a fact sheet on the FCC website. It's being sold as a proposal that gives "broadband consumers increased choice, transparency and security with respect to their data", and recognizes the fact that most internet users simply have no idea of how their personal data can be exploited. He suggests that customers' relationships with their ISPs are very different to the relationships they have with individual apps and websites. While it is easy to decide to stop using a particular website or app if the privacy policy is disagreeable, the privacy policies for ISPs are often more difficult to find. The lack of transparency is something that the proposal seeks to address. Writing for the Huffington Post , Wheeler says: The proposal centers around three core principles: One of the key suggestions is that customers should be able to opt out of having their data used for marketing purposes, and that the sharing of data with third parties should be a strictly opt-in program. The proposal will be voted on by the full Commission at the March 31 Open Meeting, and, if adopted, would be followed by a period of public comment. Photo credit: de-focus / Shutterstock 2016-03-10 20:13 By Mark

95 Microsoft Band 2 updated to include Auto-Pause for tracking sessions Microsoft is pushing out an update today with a couple of new features for Microsoft Band 2. The first of the two features is Auto-Pause, which allows Band 2 to detect when the user has stopped during a tracking session. The feature must be enabled before use. The second new feature is character-based language display. Microsoft really seems to be working hard on new features for its health- and fitness-focused wearable devices, particularly the Band 2. The last update to include new features was less than a month ago. The following day, Microsoft Health was updated with a Live Tile to show battery status, steps counted, and calories burned. Are you a Microsoft Band 2 user? What do you think of the new features? Let us know in the comments! Source: Microsoft Health Blog 2016-03-10 20:04 Richard Woods

96 Apple releases tvOS 9.2 beta 6 to developers As another Apple event is right around the corner , Apple is gearing up its latest software updates that are expected to launch at the same time. Today, they seeded the sixth iteration of their tvOS 9.2 beta to developers. The new beta comes separately from the other beta 6 iterations in the current cycle, including iOS 9.3, OS X 10.11.4 El Capitan, and watchOS 2.2 , which were launched three days ago. Normally, for each iteration, there is an Xcode release to coincide with it; however, Xcode 7.3 is still on beta 5. According to the release notes, tvOS 9.2 beta 6 only includes bug fixes and general improvements, as did beta 5. Here's the entire changelog for the tvOS 9.2 betas: Source: Apple Developer 2016-03-10 19:42 Richard Woods

97 Nvidia quietly releases trio of new entry-level mobile GeForce GPUs Nvidia has quietly released three new entry-level GeForce discrete graphics cards that are destined for laptops and other low-power devices. The three GPUs – the GeForce 940MX, 930MX, and 920MX – are all based on Maxwell GM108 silicon and succeed last year's 940M, 930M and 920M respectively. Specifications are a little hard to come by for these new parts, but we do have some idea of what to expect thanks to NotebookCheck and VideoCardz. Aside from changes to clock speeds, the main difference between these new MX parts and the previous M series is support for GDDR5 memory, alongside support for slower and cheaper DDR3. Both the 940MX and 930MX come with 384 CUDA cores and a 64-bit memory bus for either GDDR5 or DDR3. The 940MX is clocked at around 1176 MHz, while the 930MX sits at 967 and 1006 MHz for the GDDR5 and DDR3 variants respectively. The 920MX has 256 CUDA cores and is clocked at 926/965 MHz for the GDDR5/DDR3 models. According to information given to NotebookCheck, the DDR3 variants of the new MX series are very similar in performance to the existing M SKUs. However if you get a model with GDDR5 instead, you can expect to see sizable performance gains due to increased memory bandwidth. There don't appear to be many (if any) notebooks with the new GeForce MX parts inside, but when they do hit the market, expect to find them in entry-level gaming laptops and mid-range workstations. 2016-03-10 19:30 Tim Schiesser

98 Lumia 650 coming to Mexico for 4,399 pesos According to a report from MicrosoftInsider.es , Microsoft held an event in Mexico City yesterday to announce that the Lumia 650 will be coming to Mexico for 4,399 pesos, or about $246 USD. This is interesting news. After all, when Microsoft announced the device , they said that it would be coming to select European markets. Now that it's launching in a North American market, this opens up new possibilities. Lumia US also tweeted earlier this week that they'll have something to say regarding the device. With that and the fact that a user manual for a Cricket Wireless variant exists , a US launch of the Lumia 650 could be imminent. We've been reviewing the Lumia 650 for the last week. Feel free to check out our first impressions , second impressions , comparison with the Lumia 640 , or comparison with the Lumia 550. We'll have a full review next week! Are you excited about the Lumia 650? Let us know in the comments! Source: MicrosoftInsider.es via Windows Central 2016-03-10 19:16 Richard Woods

99 Samsung announces progress with SmartThings for Windows Phone Windows Phone has its fans, but they sometimes, perhaps most times, feel left out of things. That includes the latest fad, the Internet of Things. Controlling devices in your home can be easily done without moving off the couch, but, for the most part, you better have an Android or iOS device at hand. Samsung is hoping to open this world up to more people. The company makes a line of devices it calls SmartThings and the platform is compatible with some devices made by other manufacturers. It hopes to soon update its app on the Microsoft platform (yes, it has one) in an effort to please everyone and, perhaps, get a few more customers. This is really just catching up, as the Android and iOS apps have already been updated to version 2.1.0, so Samsung is merely reassuring its Windows Phone fans that they haven't been forgotten. Don't get too excited, though. The company claims "Instead of doing a large app interface overhaul like we did with iOS and Android, we’ll be releasing individual features over time. The size of each app development team is proportional to the number of SmartThings customers on that platform, so our Windows Mobile team is smaller (though no less dedicated!) than our iOS and Android teams. We plan to do these version releases approximately once a month with a primary focus on stability and bug fixes, but which will frequently be accompanied by updates to features, functionality, and design". A new "Rooms" capability should roll out to users in the next few days. The rest Samsung plans for "down the road", a vague sort-of timelime. Meantime it has more in mind for the other two major mobile platforms. Photo Credit : bergserg / Shutterstock 2016-03-10 18:37 By Alan

100 Xerox adds instant document translation to select multi- function printers A global, universal language would solve a lot of communication problems but let's face it, that's not likely to happen. Mobile apps like Word Lens have really helped to bridge the gap but sometimes, you need a physical printout of a translated document. That's where Xerox comes in. The company's new Easy Translator Service , which works with ConnectKey-enabled multi- function printers, allows users to scan a document in, select from one of more than 30 output languages and print out a translated version that retains the same formatting and layout as the original. This level of wizardry does come at a price , however. The first 30 translated pages are free within 30 days of registering. After that, expect to pay $10 for every 10 pages translated or $50 for every 100 pages. There is also a packages that offers 10,000 pages of translation for $500. But what if you don't have one of Xerox's fancy printers? No worries. The service can also be utilized via mobile app (you take a picture of a document and upload it) and through a web portal. Using the web portal, you can select from a quick machine translation or pay extra for human translation services. The latter is broken down into three categories: express, professional and expert – each a bit more "professional" than the last. 2016-03-10 18:30 Shawn Knight

Total 100 articles. Created at 2016-03-11 18:00