Announcement
DC5m United States software in english 35 articles, created at 2016-12-04 02:01 articles set mostly positive rate 1.3
1 3.6 Aleppo siege: Syria rebels lose 50% of territory Syrian government troops control 50% of territory in east Aleppo, a military spokesman tells the BBC. 2016-12-04 01:51 3KB www.bbc.co.uk
2 1.1 Amazon Announces AWS Shield for DDoS Protection At the recent re:Invent 2016 event, Amazon announced a new service, called AWS Shield, that provides customers with protection from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. This announcement comes just over a month after Amazon was impacted by a DDoS attack on a... 2016-12-03 18:57 3KB www.infoq.com
3 3.7 Corbyn: Labour will seek amendment to any Article 50 bill Labour will seek to amend any legislation on the Article 50 process to withdraw from the EU, Jeremy Corbyn reiterates. 2016-12-04 01:51 3KB www.bbc.co.uk
4 4.0 Chelsea apologise to Gary Johnson over sex abuse Chelsea Football Club apologises "profusely" to a former youth team player over sex abuse he suffered. 2016-12-04 01:51 4KB www.bbc.co.uk
5 1.4 Watch These Echo, Google Home Speakers Get Stuck in Infinite Loop YouTuber Adam Jakowenko 'decided to have some fun' with his Amazon Echo and Google Home. 2016-12-03 17:35 3KB uk.pcmag.com
6 0.5 Water inside carbon nanotubes turns solid at boiling temperatures, MIT researchers discover It’s common knowledge that water freezes at zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) and boils at 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit) in normal conditions. When confined within a carbon nanotube, however, all bets are off. 2016-12-03 16:00 1KB www.techspot.com
7 3.5 MH370 relatives campaigning for answers on missing flight Relatives of those who died on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 travel to Madagascar to lobby for the search for debris to be expanded. 2016-12-03 15:16 721Bytes www.bbc.co.uk
8 3.3 Manchester City's Yaya Toure on drink driving charge Manchester City footballer Yaya Toure is charged with drink driving, police confirm. 2016-12-04 01:51 1KB www.bbc.co.uk 9 1.4 Alcatel IDOL 4S with Windows 10 review Alcatel's IDOL 4S has the specs that you'd want from a Windows phone, with an added twist: it comes with a virtual reality headset. Find out if it's worth your time in our review. 2016-12-03 14:46 14KB feedproxy.google.com
10 4.5 Overwatch takes top honors at The Game Awards Blizzard managed to win a total of four awards at this year's The Game Awards for its popular team-shooter, Overwatch, which ended up winning 'Game of the Year' against stiff competition. 2016-12-03 14:22 1KB feedproxy.google.com
11 5.0 Football Leaks: Ronaldo and Mourinho accused of tax avoidance Cristiano Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho were part of a tax-avoidance scheme, a huge document leak alleges. 2016-12-04 01:51 4KB www.bbc.co.uk
12 12.5 Your free downloads advent calendar A new surprise every day until Christmas 2016-12-03 13:50 858Bytes feedproxy.google.com
13 4.1 Service station thieves 'using car key jammers' Thieves are using radio jammers to steal from cars parked at motorway service stations, police warn. 2016-12-04 01:51 1KB www.bbc.co.uk
14 3.2 Intel's silence on Optane SSDs raises questions about launch and focus There's a lot of excitement about Intel's superfast Optane SSDs, but products won't be on shelves this year as the chipmaker had earlier promised. 2016-12-03 13:23 3KB www.pcworld.com
15 0.0 Managed services in a cloudy world How the cloud and managed services will work together 2016-12-03 13:17 3KB www.zdnet.com
16 7.1 Lottery millionaire: 'I thought I had won £2.40' Lottery winner Jacqui Shannon didn't realise she had won the £1 million prize for three weeks 2016-12-03 11:50 1KB www.bbc.co.uk
17 7.8 Jo Cox tribute: Stars and MPs record single Music stars and MPs record a single as a tribute to the Labour backbencher Jo Cox, who was murdered in her constituency. 2016-12-03 11:12 744Bytes www.bbc.co.uk 18 4.8 HERE WeGo App for Samsung Gear S3 Goes Live in the Tizen Store
After three months of work, the app is ready for download 2016-12-03 11:06 1KB news.softpedia.com
19 3.6 Delete (cruD) Using Ruby-OCI8 As we make our way to the final letter in CRUD, see how you can use Ruby (and a handy driver) to delete data from your tables. 2016-12-03 11:01 2KB dzone.com
20 0.0 BlackBerry Addresses DTEK App Issue in Latest Update
The app has been updated with bug fixes and improvements 2016-12-03 10:44 1KB news.softpedia.com
21 1.3 Leniency vs. Severity in Performance Reviews When it comes to performance appraisals, is it better for managers to be more lenient or more severe? Read on to find out. 2016-12-03 10:31 2KB dzone.com
22 0.0 Apple Says Some iPhone 6s Shut Down Prematurely Due to Air in Batteries
Cupertino provides more information on its faulty batteries 2016-12-03 09:41 2KB news.softpedia.com
23 6.7 Samsung Galaxy A (2018) Smartphones Could Pack Dual-Edge Curved Displays
Flagship smartphones could include OLED flexible displays 2016-12-03 09:31 2KB news.softpedia.com
24 6.0 Russia’s Central Bank Hacked, $31 Million Stolen Bank of Russia officially confirmed the attack today 2016-12-03 09:15 2KB news.softpedia.com
25 1.5 Despite losing the general election, the Pirate Party could still form Iceland's government Back in October there was a mixture of great excitement and huge worry that the controversial Pirate Party could end up winning the general election in Iceland. That didn't happen, but with no clear winner there was an attempt to create a five-way coalition that ultimately... 2016-12-03 09:02 2KB feeds.betanews.com
26 2.2 BlackBerry's Upcoming QWERTY Smartphone Leaks in Live Pictures
This would be the last in-house phone launched by Blackberry 2016-12-03 08:42 2KB news.softpedia.com 27 9.1 The twin sisters celebrating their 100th birthday Twin sisters Irene Crump and Phyllis Jones have just celebrated their 100th birthday. 2016-12-03 08:41 772Bytes www.bbc.co.uk
28 0.0 Donald Trump Advised to Train 100,000 Hackers to Protect the US
Commission tells Trump that cybersecurity is critical 2016-12-03 08:28 2KB news.softpedia.com
29 1.1 Many CEOs believe technology will make people 'largely irrelevant' Although artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and other emerging technologies may reshape the world as we know it, a new global study has revealed that the majority of CEOs now value technology over people when it comes to the future of their businesses. Although artificial intelligence... 2016-12-03 08:20 2KB feeds.betanews.com
30 0.0 Performance Regression in Optimization: Part I In this example provided by Ayende Rahien, there isn’t anything that looks like it could cause much of a performance gap...so why is there a huge one? 2016-12-03 08:01 2KB dzone.com
31 1.8 Microsoft Suspends Windows 10 Builds to Prepare New Windows Update System
New PC builds no longer available in Fast and Slow rings 2016-12-03 06:52 2KB news.softpedia.com
32 1.2 Amazon Fire For that special little one in your life, or even for those who are kids at heart, here are best tech toys to get for the holiday season. 2016-12-03 05:01 1KB uk.pcmag.com
33 0.6 Art of Stepping on the Same Rake, Volume 2 Alex Holden talks about hackers and their attacks, their latest techniques and the defenses needed today and tomorrow. He also talks about a number of recent breaches as well as lessons learned. 2016-12-03 04:13 952Bytes www.infoq.com
34 2.6 Fidel Castro's ashes make final journey as Cuba says goodbye As Fidel Castro's ashes make their final journey from Havana to Santiago, Cubans try to come to terms with the death of their revolutionary leader. 2016-12-03 04:07 816Bytes www.bbc.co.uk
35 0.9 Gears of War 4 set to receive new maps in December Gears of War 4 is set to receive an update on December 6th. It will introduce new maps and several improvements including a Daily Rewards system and vertical split- screen on Windows 10. 2016-12-03 02:42 1KB feedproxy.google.com Articles
DC5m United States software in english 35 articles, created at 2016-12-04 02:01
1 /35 3.6 Aleppo siege: Syria rebels lose 50% of territory Syrian government troops have gained control of 50% of rebel-held areas of east Aleppo, says a military spokesman.
Gen Samir Sulaiman told the BBC he hoped all of Aleppo would be in government hands within weeks.
Gen Sulaiman was speaking a day after the army seized another district, Tariq al-Bab, from the rebels opposing President Bashar al-Assad.
Swathes of east Aleppo held by rebels have been seized by government troops and militiamen in the past three weeks.
Earlier reports on Saturday had suggested as much as two-thirds of the rebel-held area had been recaptured.
Some 250,000 people remain trapped in besieged areas of the city.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced. The United Nations this week said conditions in east Aleppo were now so dire that medical operations were being conducted without anaesthetics.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Tariq al-Bab was recaptured more than four years after falling into rebel hands.
Clashes in the district left tens of fighters on both sides killed or injured, it said.
At least 300 people have been killed since the government-led offensive on east Aleppo.
Thousands of people fled Tariq al-Bab into neighbouring areas as fighting intensified.
The thunderous boom of shelling can be heard across Aleppo as Syrian warplanes and artillery pound districts to the east.
The army and its allies are advancing rapidly on the ground, Gen Sulaiman told me, and they expect to recapture 60% within days.
Rebel fighters are now regrouping and retreating south to more densely populated areas of their enclave. UN officials here say they're bracing for another exodus of civilians. Thousands have already fled to this part of Aleppo.
Sources tell me that Syria's ally Russia is involved in a new effort to co-ordinate with rebel forces to arrange the evacuation of the sick and wounded and allow as many as 1,000 civilian activists who are not involved in the fighting to leave.
But for all the discussions, what's clear to all is the Syrian military and its allies are determined to retake all of Aleppo within weeks.
Earlier this week, Stephen O'Brien, the UN's humanitarian affairs chief, said besieged areas of the city risked becoming "one giant graveyard".
He said some people inside opposition-controlled areas were so hungry they were reduced to scavenging.
On Thursday, Russia, that supports President Bashar al-Assad's government, indicated it was ready to discuss opening four safe corridors for humanitarian access.
Aleppo was once Syria's largest city and its commercial and industrial hub before the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011.
It has been divided in roughly two for the past four years. But in the past 11 months, Syrian troops have broken the deadlock with the help of Iranian-backed militias and Russian air strikes. In early September they reinstated a siege of the east, and launched a large-scale offensive later that month to retake full control of the city.
The Syrian Observatory says more than 300 civilians have been killed in rebel-held districts since the offensive was stepped up in mid-November.
2016-12-04 01:51 www.bbc.co.uk
2 /35 1.1 Amazon Announces AWS Shield for DDoS Protection At the recent AWS re:Invent 2016 event, Amazon announced a new service, called AWS Shield, that provides customers with protection from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
This announcement comes just over a month after Amazon was impacted by a DDoS attack on a DNS provider that Amazon used, Dynamic Network Services (Dyn). That particular attack impacted some AWS services at data centers in northern Virginia and Ireland. In order to limit the impact to Amazon’s customers, they rerouted their traffic through other DNS providers.
DDoS attacks continue to rise in frequency. In Akamai’s Q1 State of the Internet Security Report , Akamai cites:
There's been a 125 percent increase in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks year over year.
In a recent blog post, Jeff Barr, chief evangelist at AWS, describes three common DDoS attacks which impact organizations, including: Application-Layer Attacks consist of well-formed but malicious requests (HTTP GETs and DNS queries are popular) that are designed to consume application resources. For example, opening up multiple HTTP connections and reading the responses over the course of many seconds or minutes will consume excessive memory and prevent legitimate requests from being serviced. State-Exhaustion Attacks abuse stateful protocols and cause stress on firewalls and load balancers by consuming large numbers of per- connection resources. Volumetric Attacks disrupt networks by flooding them with more traffic than they can handle or by issuing fake queries that will flood an unsuspecting victim with a surprising amount of low-level “surprise” replies (also known as Reflection attacks).
In the re:Invent Keynote , Werner Vogels, cto at Amazon broke down the distribution of these attacks as
Image Source: (screenshot) https://youtu.be/ZDScBNahsL4?t=52m
In order to protect customers from these types of DDoS attacks, Amazon has released AWS Shield as a managed service that comes in two tiers:
Image Source: (screenshot) https://youtu.be/ZDScBNahsL4?t=52m
Amazon has provided customers with some guidance about which level of service may be appropriate for them. For customers with existing security expertise, choosing AWS Shield Standard may be appropriate if you are comfortable deploying additional Web Application Firewalls (WAF) as part of a defense-in-depth strategy. It may also be appropriate for customers if they have an established monitoring and notification platform in place.
For customers who are in industries often targeted by DDoS attacks, such as media and entertainment , and want additional protection offered as a managed service, AWS Shield Advanced may be a better choice. As part of the advanced service, WAF is provided at no additional cost. Advanced customers will also receive extensive reporting, notifications and post-attack analysis about layer 3, layer 4 and layer 7 DDoS attacks in addition to avoiding unexpected consumption charges related to DDoS attacks.
2016-12-03 18:57 Kent Weare www.infoq.com
3 /35 3.7 Corbyn: Labour will seek amendment to any Article 50 bill Labour will seek to amend any bill on the Article 50 process to withdraw from the EU, Jeremy Corbyn has reiterated.
The Labour leader told Sky News this was to ensure Britain maintained access to Europe's markets, workers' rights and environmental protection measures.
But his party would respect the EU referendum result, he said.
It comes as the government prepares to go to court on Monday to challenge the High Court ruling that it must consult MPs before triggering Article 50.
Mr Corbyn said: "When the Article 50 debate comes up we will put forward an amendment to it which will be on the issues I've just said on market access and protections. Article 50- The simplest explanation you'll find
What if ministers lose the Brexit appeal?
"We want those to be part of the negotiation but we are respecting the result of the referendum. It might not be the one we wanted, it's the one we've got. "
He said Labour's amendment would not delay the Brexit process and that it was necessary to stop "those in the Tory party" who wanted to "sever all connection with Europe, reduce corporate taxation, set up some kind of bargain basement trade agreement with the US".
This, he said, would lead to a drop in wages, public spending and living standards in the UK.
Article 50 is part of the Lisbon Treaty, which became EU law in 2009, and sets out the process for countries leaving the European Union.
Once it is activated, the UK will be cut out of EU decision-making at the highest level and there will be no way back unless by unanimous consent from the other member states.
It will then have to negotiate its exit with the EU's 27 other member states - a process which is supposed to be complete within two years.
Prime Minister Theresa May has promised to invoke Article 50 by the end of March.
Last month, the High Court ruled that the government could not begin the process of leaving the EU without a vote in Parliament .
The government is challenging this ruling, and its Supreme Court appeal case will be heard on Monday.
BBC News understands that a short three-line bill has been prepared by the government in the event of an Article 50 debate in Parliament, so that Prime Minister Theresa May can still meet her March deadline.
Sources have told the BBC they believe the legislation is so tightly drawn it will be difficult for critical MPs to amend.
It is not the first time Mr Corbyn has discussed the need to negotiate before agreeing on any potential Article 50 bill.
In November, he told the Sunday Mirror that Labour would push for the party's "Brexit bottom lines" , including access to the European single market.
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn told the BBC Labour would propose the amendment to "try to force the government to bring their negotiating position to Parliament". However, he said Labour would not vote against the Article 50 bill if the amendment failed.
The Labour leader's comments come as Attorney General Jeremy Wright accused the High Court of treating the referendum result as if it were "almost... a footnote" in a document setting out the government's Supreme Court appeal arguments.
Mr Corbyn is in Prague with other left-wing European politicians at the Party of European Socialists Council.
Earlier, he gave a speech urging progressive parties across Europe to unite against the rise of the "populist right" and accused some right-wing parties of being "political parasites".
2016-12-04 01:51 www.bbc.co.uk
4 /35 4.0 Chelsea apologise to Gary Johnson over sex abuse Chelsea Football Club has apologised "profusely" to former footballer Gary Johnson over sex abuse he suffered as a youth team member in the 1970s.
Mr Johnson, 57, told the Mirror on Friday that the club paid him £50,000 to keep quiet about allegations of sexual abuse by a former chief scout.
In a statement , Chelsea said Mr Johnson had "suffered unacceptably".
The club said a review into the case would take place, adding it had "no desire to hide any historic abuse".
It said the review would examine whether it had carried out a proper investigation when the allegations first came to light and why it did not report them to the Football Association and Premier League.
"We are fully committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of all children and young people who are in our care or attending our premises.
"Their welfare is of paramount importance," the club said.
Mr Johnson was a member of Chelsea's first team from 1978 to 1981.
He joined the club as an 11-year-old in 1970 and told the Mirror he had been groomed from the age of 13 by scout Eddie Heath.
Mr Heath, who was the club's chief scout from 1968 to 1979, died before the allegations against him were made. According to the Mirror, Mr Johnson signed a confidentiality agreement in 2015 and accepted £50,000 from the club, but they did not accept blame.
Chelsea said in its statement that when the settlement was reached the club's board understood it was "usual practice" to include a mutual confidentiality agreement, adding that Mr Johnson's solicitors had not objected to the clause.
"More recently, against the current backdrop of wider revelations and other victims coming forward bravely to tell their story, we no longer felt it appropriate to keep the confidentiality agreement in place. It was therefore removed," the club said.
The club said the decision to have a confidentiality clause had received "significant scrutiny" and it had now asked an external law firm to review this decision and make recommendations for settling claims in the future.
"In advance of that, however, the board would like to make clear that, in light of what we know now about the wide-scale abuse in football clubs in the 1970s and 1980s, it now believes that the use of such a clause, while understandable, was inappropriate in this instance.
"We certainly have no desire to hide any historic abuse we uncover from view. Quite the opposite. "
Chelsea said Mr Johnson's solicitors at the time claimed Heath had "inappropriate relationships" with other young boys and men from the club, but no names were given.
The club said with the "limited information" it received it had been unable to identify any further individuals who may have been subject to abuse.
It comes after former Chelsea midfielder Alan Hudson said on Facebook that it was "common knowledge that Mr Heath was a danger to us youngsters".
Chelsea added it was now a "very different club" to the one it was in the 1970s.
It said its safeguarding policies were robust and continually reviewed and audited by the Premier League.
Meanwhile, an ex-Southampton FC employee who has been accused of abusing young boys at the club in the 1980s is still working in football, the BBC understands .
The man, who has not been named for legal reasons, is understood to have left Southampton after concerns were raised about his behaviour - but is now employed by another football club.
Some 18 police forces have announced investigations into claims of sexual abuse in football.
At least 350 people have come forward alleging they were victims and 55 football clubs are linked to allegations of abuse.
A dedicated NSPCC helpline received more than 800 phone calls in a week. The line is available 24 hours a day on 0800 023 2642.
Police forces investigating allegations of historical sexual abuse within football:
Kent Police also said it had received reports which it was reviewing. 2016-12-04 01:51 www.bbc.co.uk
5 /35 1.4 Watch These Echo, Google Home Speakers Get Stuck in Infinite Loop You can stop fretting over the impending robot rebellion. It turns out that some smart home appliances are not all that smart.
YouTube user Adam Jakowenko last month "decided to have some fun" with his Amazon Echo and Google Home speakers. Using the built-in calendar features on the voice- activated devices, Jakowenko forced the machines into an infinite loop of event planning.
"Alexa, what's on my calendar tonight," he said at the start of the video (below), waking up Amazon's digital assistant.
"Tonight, there is one event: At 6 p.m. there's 'Hey Google, what's on my calendar tonight?'" Alexa announces, waking the nearby Home device.
"You have a calendar entry today at 6 p.m.," it responds evenly. "The title is, 'Alexa, what's on my calendar tonight?'"
"Tonight, there is one event," Alexa confirms, continuing the conversation for another round.
The video, thankfully, lasts only 50 seconds, though you quickly get the picture.
"The idea came to me while sitting on the couch watching TV and we asked Google Home what was on my calendar," Jakowenko told PCMag in an email. "Then the thought came, 'Alexa can also do that... I wonder if we can make them talk to each other.'"
After a few tweaks to his digital diaries, and a "small amount of trial and error," the San Diego resident managed to sync the speakers to create a sort of modern torture device.
"It was definitely fun but certainly not something you want to listen to for hours," he said.
Amazon unveiled its cylindrical speaker in November 2014—a voice-controlled device that can tell you the news and weather, create to-do lists, set a timer and alarms, play music, and even tell jokes. The $180 product also integrates with the connected home to provide local search details via Yelp, read Audible audiobooks, re-order Prime-eligible products, share sports scores and schedules, and report on traffic.
Google Home, meanwhile, launched in October , promising a variety of home tasks and entertainment experiences for $130; it can stream video or audio via Cast-enabled devices and Google Play Music , dim the lights and turn off the heat, and search the Internet.
Jakowenko, however, is not the first to pit the two speakers against each other: YouTubers Daniel Haese and GadgetUpdates recently recorded similar tests, also with entertaining results.
"I had only intended to make the video private and send to a couple friends," Jakowenko said, adding that after he shared it with the Daily Tech News Show podcast, the video went viral. "Tom Merritt, the [podcast] host, tweeted about it and it got a bunch more hits, then a few days after that I started getting texts from friends who came across it after seeing it on Reddit," he told PCMag. "The rest is history.
2016-12-03 17:35 Stephanie Mlot uk.pcmag.com
6 /35 0.5 Water inside carbon nanotubes turns solid at boiling temperatures, MIT researchers discover It’s common knowledge that water freezes at zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) and boils at 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit) in normal conditions. When confined within a carbon nanotube, however, all bets are off.
While conducting an experiment that involved trying to send electric currents through water inside of carbon nanotubes, a team of chemical engineers led by Professor Michael Strano at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) noticed some unexpected behavior .
It’s been known for a while now that when water is confined in very small spaces, its freezing and boiling points can drop by as much as 10 degrees Celsius. What the team at MIT observed, however, was quite the opposite.
The diameter of the nanotubes played a significant role in the water’s behavior. The difference between tubes measuring 1.05 nanometers and 1.06 nanometers across changed the freezing temperature by tens of degrees.
Equally as puzzling is the fact that water could even enter nanotubes at all as they’ve long been thought to be hydrophobic.
More research will be needed but Strano thinks the discovery could lead to the creation of “ice wires,” or efficient highways to transport protons as water is around 10 times better at conducting protons compared to standard conductive material. 2016-12-03 16:00 Shawn Knight www.techspot.com
7 /35 3.5 MH370 relatives campaigning for answers on missing flight Relatives of those who died on board Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are travelling to Madagascar to lobby for the search for debris to be expanded.
Grace Subathirai Nathan, whose mother was on the plane, is making the self- funded journey with six other MH370 relatives.
2016-12-03 15:16 www.bbc.co.uk
8 /35 3.3 Manchester City's Yaya Toure on drink driving charge Manchester City footballer Yaya Toure has been charged with drink driving, police have confirmed.
Police said the 33-year-old of Macclesfield, Cheshire was driving in Dagenham in east London at the time of the alleged offence.
Police said he was charged on Tuesday with driving while his alcohol level was above the legal limit .
He has been bailed and is due to appear at Barkingside Magistrates' Court on 13 December.
The midfielder played in Manchester City's 3-1 defeat at home to Chelsea on Saturday.
He was recalled to the Manchester City squad earlier this month after apologising for " misunderstandings " relating to comments made by his agent Dimitri Seluk.
In 2012, Toure spoke about being a devout Muslim and refused a champagne man of the match award due to his religious beliefs .
The club is yet to comment. 2016-12-04 01:51 www.bbc.co.uk
9 /35 1.4 Alcatel IDOL 4S with Windows 10 review At the beginning of November, Alcatel shocked exactly no one by unveiling the IDOL 4S with Windows 10. Rumors of the device began back in February before Mobile World Congress , although back then, we thought it would be called the IDOL 4 Pro. The handset even appeared on T-Mobile's website during Microsoft's Surface Studio launch , leading many to believe that the company would show it off at the event.
The IDOL 4S with Windows 10 is not like Alcatel's last attempt at a Windows phone, which was also a T-Mobile exclusive. The Alcatel OneTouch Fierce XL sat on the low end, whereas the IDOL 4S is as high-end as they come. In fact, the device is more comparable to the HP Elite x3 - which we recently reviewed - than its Android-powered namesake.
Coming out of the box, it was clear that the IDOL 4S is a beautiful Windows phone, possibly the best-looking one that exists. It's not the most unique design that you'll see, as it resembles a Samsung Galaxy S6, but to be fair, the S6 is also a stunning design.
The IDOL 4S with Windows 10 is the first Windows phone to support virtual reality in an official capacity. Sure, any phone works with a Google Cardboard, and you might be able to find some apps or websites that work with it, but this device comes with a VR headset and a number of VR apps, including VR360Gallery, VR360Video, VRGallery, VRLauncher, VRStore, VRVideo, and Captain Fellcraft VR.
First of all, my experience with virtual reality is limited to Samsung's Gear VR and Google Cardboard, both of which involve inserting a phone into a headset. The Gear VR has some obvious advantages to Alcatel's solution, which is mainly that it's powered by Oculus. It offers a vast range of apps, games, and content. You can even use a Gear VR to watch Netflix or Hulu in a virtual movie theater or living room.
While the content that's offered might need a bit of work, the headset itself has some features that I really like. For example, there's an opening that will allow you to charge your phone, and another to plug in a headphone jack. If you want to use headphones with Samsung's Gear VR, you need a Bluetooth set.
There are two buttons on the bottom of the headset that work with the phone: one button is to be used for going back, and the other is for selecting things.
I did take issue with one part of the headset's design. When you take it out of the box, there's a cover on the front and a cover on the back of it, which I thought was awesome, as my Gear VR often collects dust when not in use. Unfortunately, once you attach the straps, the rear cover no longer fits, so unless you want to remove the straps every time you're done with it, that rear cover will likely become a paperweight.
The good news about content is that you're not limited to apps and games. There are sites that you can use to watch 360 videos, and if you have your own, you can load them onto the device. There are even some streaming offerings that you'll see on the menu when you attach the device and it goes into VR mode.
Of course, you're likely going to want more than just videos or other kinds of cross-platform content. I do worry about the quality and selection of games that are offered, because let's face it, this is Windows 10 Mobile. Existing apps don't often get updated, and new ones don't show up much.
That's right. This is a flagship phone that doesn't have near-field communication technology. I actually reached out to Alcatel to find out how the phone recognizes the VR headset if there's no NFC, and was told that there are two sensors in the front of the device.
Of course, the question really is, will you really miss NFC? My guess is that you wouldn't.
The obvious use case for NFC is mobile payments, which in the case of Windows 10 Mobile is Microsoft Wallet. The big problem here is that Microsoft hasn't even expanded the availability of Wallet since it launched in June beyond the Lumia 650, 950, and 950 XL, and the service is only supported by nine banks at the moment, with Chase and Fifth Third coming soon.
Obviously, NFC has other uses, much of which include a faster way to pair through Bluetooth, but I don't think that you'll miss the feature too much.
As I mentioned earlier, the IDOL 4S has a strong resemblance to a Samsung Galaxy S6. It has the metallic glass panel on the back, and the rear camera is even a similar shape. Of course, it doesn't have a physical home button on the front, and instead, the fingerprint scanner is located on the back.
With that in mind, the Galaxy S6 is still a beautiful phone, and so is the IDOL 4S. I'd go so far as to say that this is the best-looking Windows phone that has ever been made. Aside from just looks, it feels premium, thin, and light.
But perhaps most important for Windows phone fans is that it actually has a physical camera button, a feature that we're seeing less and less in flagships. Personally, I feel like it was awkwardly placed, and when I unboxed the device, I thought it was the power button (it actually took me about a week to stop pressing it by accident to wake the phone or put it to sleep).
While the camera button is a small circle in the middle of the right side of the device, you'll find the volume rocker above it, and on the top part of the left side, there's the actual power button. Finally, the USB Type-C port is on the bottom - although it's all the way to the right, which will make it hard to fit in some Continuum docks - and the headphone jack is on the left side of the top of the handset.
The 1080p AMOLED display is absolutely stunning. Personally, I feel that there is no need for 1440p on a phone, and you'll never see the difference, unless, of course, you use virtual reality. In a phone like this that even comes bundled with a VR headset, QHD can be an advantage. When VR isn't in use though, the 5.5-inch display is bright and vibrant. Alcatel's new flagship Windows phone uses a fingerprint scanner for Windows Hello biometric authentication. Fingerprints have only been supported by Windows 10 Mobile since August when the Anniversary Update was made available.
Previously, Windows phones used iris scanners exclusively; examples of this would be the Lumia 950 and 950 XL, which were released in 2015. HP's recent Elite x3, on the other hand, uses both.
The fingerprint scanner on the IDOL 4S is satisfactory. It can feel a bit slow when using it to wake the device, although it certainly feels faster if you're already on the lock screen. Like the Elite x3, it seems slowed down by the "Hello, Rich" animation.
Personally, I prefer a fingerprint reader on a phone, while facial recognition is better on a PC. The idea is that the user should have to make as little effort as possible to unlock their device. When you open the lid on your laptop, it will wake, recognize your face, and sign you in. With a phone, you take it out of your pocket, press a button to wake it up, and that button recognizes your fingerprint and signs you in.
Like any modern flagship Windows phone, the IDOL 4S supports Continuum, which is the ability to plug the handset into a monitor and use it like a PC. Alcatel obviously decided to go with a VR focus for this phone, rather than a Continuum focus, so it doesn't sell a docking station for the device.
Luckily, you can still use any docking station that you want, such as Microsoft's Lumia Display Dock, HP's Desk Dock, or even a USB Type-C to HDMI adapter. You can also use Continuum wirelessly, which will require a receiver that supports Miracast.
Of course, you're limited to UWP apps while you're using the device as a PC, and they will only be in fullscreen mode ( until the Creators Update ). With that in mind, the feature itself works great, much better than it did on devices with lesser hardware, such as the Lumia 950 and 950 XL, which had a Snapdragon 808 and 810, respectively.
Let's once again take this moment to celebrate the fact that the IDOL 4S with Windows 10 has a physical button to launch the camera. This is a feature that longtime Windows phone users will surely appreciate, even if they don't appreciate the camera itself.
And sadly, those longtime fans aren't likely to be satisfied with the camera. If you've been using Lumias for years, you've been spoiled with PureView, and this doesn't compare.
The IDOL 4S uses a 21MP sensor with an f/2.2 aperture. It has phase detection autofocus (PDAF), which is a nice touch, but it lacks other things that we've come to expect from flagships, such as optical image stabilization (OIS) and 1080p video that's recorded at 60fps.
The device uses Windows Camera by default, and Alcatel doesn't offer its own app, which I always find a bit disappointing. Windows Camera is a great app, but it restricts the device's camera abilities to Microsoft's development efforts. For example, the app didn't support panorama at all until August.
You won't be able to change the resolution of the photo that you're going to take. You get 21MP (16MP at 16:9), and that's it. The photos don't take up a lot of storage though, as the vast majority of the samples that you're about to see come in at under 2MB. You'll notice that a lot of the photos are the same, but with different lighting. It's very normal for a smartphone camera to compensate for light differently depending on where it's focused, but the IDOL 4S is a bit drastic. Obviously, you'll want your photos to be focused on a certain point, especially if it's a macro shot, but that might end up being too dark or too light. You can work around this a bit by using Windows Camera's manual focus feature.
Low light performance is where this camera disappoints. It's sad too, since low light photos are what PureView, and thus Windows phones, have become known for.
The front camera on the IDOL 4S is 8MP, and like the rear, has an f/2.2 aperture. This doesn't make for the best low light performance, but you do get an LED flash. In fact, that makes this the first Windows 10 Mobile phone to have a front-facing flash, a feature that's now common among iPhones and Android phones.
Of course, most modern devices simply light up the display for use as a flash, a method that has become pretty effective. Sadly, there isn't a single Windows phone that has adopted this idea, and I really don't know if it's a limitation of the devices themselves, the OS, or the Windows Camera app, but the IDOL 4S does have additional hardware to make it possible.
Also, before anyone asks (I'm looking at you EvilGardenGnome), these photos were taken at different times and were meant to capture different lighting conditions. And yes, at some point between these times, I shaved.
Battery life is about what you'd expect from a Windows phone with a 3000mAh battery. You won't have trouble getting through an average day, unless you push it pretty hard.
I ran a battery test with WP Bench - which is what I normally use for Windows battery tests - and the result was two hours, 57 minutes, and 38 seconds, which was only a bit less than what HP's Elite x3 achieved. These tests should be taken with a grain of salt.
Unless you're a big-time power user that's never near a charger, you're not going to have a problem. Fortunately, if you use a Continuum dock, you'll also be charging the IDOL 4S throughout the day.
Alcatel's IDOL 4S with Windows 10 rocks a Snapdragon 820 chipset, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage, which is about as flagship-class as it gets - considering that Windows 10 Mobile doesn't officially support the Snapdragon 821 - and it's exactly the same as HP's Elite x3.
One benefit that you'll see in performance from HP's flagship is that the IDOL 4S has a lower resolution display at 1080p. A 1440p display has 3.7 million pixels, while 1080p is just 2.1 million, which is a lot less work on the GPU.
For benchmarks, we'll use AnTuTu. There are actually two versions of the app in the Windows Store, one of which is a UWP app that's comparable to iOS and Android, and the other is an old beta app that hasn't been updated since 2012. We're going to use both, but to be clear, the old v0.8 is only there in case you want to compare the score with older Windows phones, as there hasn't historically been a wide selection of benchmarking apps available on Microsoft's mobile platform.
With the exception of 3D graphics, the IDOL 4S got smoked by the Elite x3 in just about every way, which scored a total of 114,840. For comparison, the Lumia 950 XL (Snapdragon 810) scored 88,405, while the Galaxy S7 (Snapdragon 820) scored 129,187. Ultimately, the Alcatel IDOL 4S with Windows 10 is a powerful and beautiful Windows phone that's actually designed with consumers in mind. It's an extremely pleasant device to use, although it's not without its shortcomings.
As mentioned above, the camera could certainly be better. It's also not likely that a firmware update will fix anything, as it simply doesn't have the specs of a modern flagship camera. There's no OIS and it has a small aperture.
Also, and I don't know if this is really a deal-breaker for anyone, but the device also lacks NFC. Microsoft's mobile payments solution doesn't even work on any non-Lumia devices just yet, so we'll see if this ever really matters.
The VR experience is pretty cool, especially considering that it's never been done on a Windows phone. For this reason though, it would have benefited from a higher resolution display.
But with all of those shortcomings, you really can't beat it for the price. For $469.99, you're getting an elegantly designed Windows phone with a vibrant display, powerful internals, and a bundled VR headset. If you were looking for a new Windows phone, this is it.
2016-12-03 14:46 Rich Woods feedproxy.google.com
10 /35 4.5 Overwatch takes top honors at The Game Awards After launching at the end of May this year, Overwatch gained quick momentum by racking up an impressive 10 million players in less than a month. In October, Blizzard announced that the game had passed 20 million registered players globally.
Blizzard has shipped a number of updates during the course of this year, with the company focused on delivering new game modes, content, and heroes including the recently released Sombra. The Competitive Play system also received a major overhaul as part of Season 2, with the skill rating system expanded from a 100-point scale to 5000 points.
It seems that all that hard work has paid off, as Overwatch was nominated for five awards of which it went on to win three, including top honors for 'Game of the Year' where it managed to beat Doom , Inside , Titanfall 2 , and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End .
In accepting the top award of the evening, Blizzard's Ray Gresko acknowledged the "incredibly talented and passionate team" behind the game, and said:
Overwatch was nominated for the following accolades:
Blizzard also took out the award for 'Best Game Direction' for Overwatch , which recognizes "a game studio for outstanding creative vision, game direction, and design. " Source: Kotaku | Our thanks to Mirumir for the tip!
2016-12-03 14:22 Boyd Chan feedproxy.google.com
11 /35 5.0 Football Leaks: Ronaldo and Mourinho accused of tax avoidance Cristiano Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho have avoided paying tax on millions of dollars of earnings by channelling money abroad, according to claims based on a huge document leak. Ronaldo, the Real Madrid star, and Mourinho, the Manchester United manager, allegedly moved large sums to the British Virgin Islands.
The allegations are said to be based on two terabytes of leaked information which include original contracts.
Ronaldo and Mourinho deny the claims.
Football agency Gestifute, which represents both men, said in a statement: "Both Cristiano Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho are fully compliant with their tax obligations with the Spanish and British tax authorities.
"Any insinuation or accusation made to Cristiano Ronaldo or Jose Mourinho over the commission of a tax offence will be reported to the legal authorities and prosecuted. "
The claims were published by an international consortium of journalists which obtained a trove of about 18 million documents. Other top players were named in the documents.
The European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) consortium includes German newspaper Der Spiegel, Spain's El Mundo and the UK's Sunday Times. The consortium says it intends to publish a series of articles under the banner "Football Leaks" over the next few weeks.
The leak comes eight months after the so-called Panama Papers lifted the lid on how the world's rich and powerful use tax havens to hide their wealth.
One of the papers in the consortium, the Dutch NRC, alleges that Ronaldo moved €63.5m (£53.1m, $67.7m) to the British Virgin Islands at the end of 2014.
The paper says the striker received sponsorship fees which were moved via two Irish companies to the tax haven, 11 days before Spain changed an advantageous tax law.
The NRC says Ronaldo has so far not responded to questions asked by the consortium.
The leaked documents relate to the time that Mourinho spent as manager of Real Madrid, between 2010, and 2013, according to El Mundo.
The club, Ronaldo's current employer, did not respond to requests from news agencies for comment.
Manchester United said the allegations related to events before Mourinho's arrival at the club and so it would not comment.
Mourinho is reported to have moved €12m (£10m) into a Swiss account owned by a British Virgin Islands company, according to the EIC.
According to the reports, Friday's first batch of leaks centred on "a system" put in place by Mr Mendes, whose company has denied any wrongdoing.
His company, Gestifute, said in a statement that neither Ronaldo nor Mourinho "have been implicated in legal proceedings of the tax evasion commission in Spain".
It noted it had taken legal redress against claims of tax evasion and stressed it had always acted with "the highest degree of professionalism in relations with [its] clients and authorities".
The company accused the media consortium of operating in an "insidious" way concerning the stars' tax obligations.
Tax havens are often based on small island countries which offer banking secrecy and very low or non-existent taxes on financial transactions.
They include the British Virgin Islands, Macao, the Bahamas and Panama.
Although there are legitimate ways of using tax havens, they are often used to disguise the owners and origin of money and to avoid paying tax.
This is often done via the creation of shell companies based in the havens, which have the outward appearance of being legitimate businesses but have no real offices, staff, services or products, other than to manage money while disguising those who own it.
2016-12-04 01:51 www.bbc.co.uk
12 /35 12.5 Your free downloads advent calendar The holidays are an expensive time, so we’re bringing you a special treat: a full, free, fun Windows program to download every day until Christmas
Each day, we’ll open a door on our advent calendar to reveal a new free app, ready to download and enjoy. For our advent calendar we’ve picked only software that’s fun – whether it’s a drone sim, an app for making your own animations, or a cool way to find and enjoy new music from your favorite artists.
2016-12-03 13:50 Cat Ellis feedproxy.google.com
13 /35 13 /35 4.1 Service station thieves 'using car key jammers' Thieves are using radio jammers to steal from cars parked at motorway service stations, police have warned.
Thames Valley Police said the transmitters could be used to "interrupt" signals from remote keys, preventing vehicles from being locked properly.
The force said 14 recent thefts from lorries, vans and cars with "no obvious sign of a break-in" had been reported.
It advised motorists to check vehicles before leaving them unattended.
The thefts took place at Chieveley, Reading and Membury services on the M4 in Berkshire over the last two weeks of November.
Remote keys have a unique signal which is transmitted via radio waves from the fob to the car. Jammers overpower signals from the owner's key and interfere with this communication.
The devices can be used over a large area, in theory allowing thieves to cover an entire car park.
Would-be thieves rely on drivers pressing the lock button on their fob and forgetting to double- check whether the vehicle is secured - leaving it open and allowing easy entry.
More modern vehicles which use keyless entry could also be vulnerable.
Source: RAC
Police have appealed for dashcam footage to help with their investigation.
Sgt Alan Hawkett, of Newbury Police, said members of the public visiting motorway services stations anywhere in the country should keep valuables in their possession when away from their vehicle.
2016-12-04 01:51 www.bbc.co.uk
14 /35 3.2 Intel's silence on Optane SSDs raises questions about launch and focus There’s a lot of excitement about Intel’s superfast Optane SSDs, but products won’t be on shelves this year as the chipmaker had earlier promised.
Intel is currently making Optane in a factory in China, and production will “ramp” up next year, said Stacy Smith, executive vice president of manufacturing, operations, and sales at Intel. Smith declined to comment on when Optane products will hit the market, maintaining a consistent pattern of silence among Intel executives on the topic. He spoke at the Credit Suisse 20th Annual Technology, Media, and Telecom conference in Scottsdale, Arizona this week.
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said sample Optane products will ship to more testers next year, and that “it’s really a 2018 ramp for that product,” according to a transcript of an October earnings call, posted on Seeking Alpha.
As production ramps up next year, the cost of SSDs will come down, Krzanich said.
Prototype SSDs are already used in Lenovo’s cloud servers, where enterprise applications can be remotely tested. It can sometimes take months until hardware is qualified for use as an end product.
Optane SSDs are based on a new form of memory and storage technology called 3D Xpoint. The 3D Xpoint technology can replace DRAM, flash storage, or both. Intel first said it would be available for enthusiast PCs, and earlier this year pointed to products coming out in 2017.
Intel has shown Optane breaking SSD speed records and has claimed it is 10 times faster than today’s SSDs. Optane could also be DRAM substitute, with software helping mimic memory tiers. Intel also plans to make Optane memory DIMMs that could be plugged into standard memory slots.
The standard SSDs will plug into NVMe ports, which are already installed in PCs and servers.
Based on recent developments, it’s still hard to predict what products Intel will target with the first Optanes and what the capacity will be. Intel said Optane SSDs would first be available for gaming PCs, and then enterprise products. However, it’s looking likely that the first high-capacity Optane products will be targeted at servers, which need fast throughput.
The chipmaker has said the superfast Optane could speed up gaming by pre-loading chapters and buffering large chunks of games. That points to Intel targeting Optanes toward high-end PCs not as primary storage, but for low-capacity caching.
Intel has also put Optane SSDs in Lenovo servers running IBM’s Bluemix cloud, where customers can test how the storage technology works for machine learning, financial transactions, databases, and other applications. Intel has also worked with Facebook, which is testing Optane SSDs in its infrastructure.
Optane SSDs are also being investigated for use in high-performance computing, though an Intel executive recently said Optane won’t go into supercomputers anytime soon.
The primary competition to Optane will be Micron’s QuantX, which is also based on 3D Xpoint. Storage companies will make drives based on QuantX, which will be available next year. Intel and Micron jointly developed 3D Xpoint technology.
2016-12-03 13:23 Agam Shah www.pcworld.com
15 /35 0.0 Managed services in a cloudy world The managed services provider (MSP) model has had a remarkably long run, considering how much IT has changed over the last 20 years or so. Written off by many as the economics of cloud bit into the MSPs' market share, at one point many were predicting the end of the MSP, displaced by a combination of SaaS and public cloud.
Not any more. So what's changed?
The role of the MSP was originally to help companies manage hosted infrastructure and applications, and provide a POP onto the Internet. As SaaS and public cloud became affordable, and sufficiently reliable and performant for enterprise usage, it seemed that the MSP would be overwhelmed by this competition.
In practice this was not the case, not least because enterprise needs do not switch in a binary fashion. Not only are there still many core, business process and business-critical applications that do not fit comfortably into a cloud environment, they still need to be managed, and visibility needs to be maintained. Compliance issues may also be involved. This makes moving into the cloud much more complex.
An example of a classic business-critical function is ecommerce, a function that both consists of many applications and elements, and is probably highly customised in many enterprises. While any change in such crucial processes is likely to be incremental, applications will over time develop, be tweaked and tuned and have elements that move onto different platforms as cloud and hyper-scale technology matures, and competitive pressures force change. The end result is likely to be a blend of in-house, hosted, SaaS and multiple cloud platforms.
Management of such a complex environment is unlikely to be a skillset in which most enterprises will to want to invest large amounts of cash or training time. Rather, this is a task for the specialist, such as an MSP who has experience of managing mixed environments.
Management need not be the whole of the service. The right MSP can help with advice, for example, on the most appropriate location for individual workloads, whether a hosted environment, the cloud, or on-prem, within the constraints of cost, security policies and compliance.
So it is in this modern environment that we can expect the MSP to shine. Not only can the MSP help with management, they are likely to advise on and take control of policy and process management, allowing the enterprise to outsource entire business processes. In other words, the MSP has shifted from providing "your mess for less" to being a cloud-based provider of business processes. This allows the enterprise to, for example, rent back the ERP services it used to manage at considerable expense - for less. Following the traditional cloud model, for the customer this means no more infrastructure management, and a predictable monthly cost model both for ongoing process delivery and business process changes.
The more forward-looking MSPs will also offer services that not only shoulder the load of steady- state business processes, but also help the enterprise become more agile by nurturing productivity-enhancing application development processes such as DevOps.
So the modern MSP is changing, from an organisation that just manages your stuff to an organisation that blends the cloud and cloud services with a range of advice and practical help, in some cases even providing business processes that were once performed in-house. So it seems as if the MSP will be around for the forseeable future.
2016-12-03 13:17 Manek Dubash www.zdnet.com
16 /35 7.1 Lottery millionaire: 'I thought I had won £2.40' A lottery winner nearly missed out on a £1 million prize because she thought she had only won £2.40 on a EuroMillions draw.
Jacqui Shannon, a charity worker for the NSPCC, was a regular player online and only realised she was a millionaire three weeks later when she went to top up her account with credit.
She told BBC Radio 5 live : "I genuinely believed, when I saw the email, that'll be another £2.40 because that's all I ever won. "
Jacqui then went to buy another ticket when she was greeted with a message saying "congratulations, you've won a million pounds! "
"I was at work and I was going 'is that six zeros? Is that 1,000? Is it real?!' Once it's happened you don't quite believe it. I carried on my week as though nothing happened. "
2016-12-03 11:50 www.bbc.co.uk
17 /35 7.8 Jo Cox tribute: Stars and MPs record single Music stars and MPs have recorded a single as a tribute to the Labour backbencher Jo Cox, who was murdered in her west Yorkshire constituency.
Sales from a cover version of the Rolling Stones classic, You Can't Always Get What You Want, will raise money for a charity set up in her name.
Lizo Mzimba reports.
2016-12-03 11:12 www.bbc.co.uk
18 /35 4.8 HERE WeGo App for Samsung Gear S3 Goes Live in the Tizen Store True to their promise , the team at HERE launched WeGo app for Samsung Gear S3 in the Tizen store, and as many of you probably guess, it's available for free. HERE WeGo is one of the best navigation apps, alongside Google Maps and Waze.
That’s a very short amount of time considering the number of variables we deal with,” said Tamer Nassif, senior engineer manager responsible for product development at HERE.
Having put their apps inside the original Gear S and Gear S2, the team at HERE have decided to make the new version for the Gear S3 much better in terms of functionality.
So, the latest version of HERE WeGo for the Samsung Gear S3 is expected to offer a comprehensive mapping experience with places search and route planning by car, on foot and public transit.
HERE WeGo for the Gear S3 is a standalone application that allows users to navigate towns, cities and other locations. The developers even plan to add bike navigation for those using this traveling method.
More importantly, the new HERE WeGo app is backwards-compatible with the older Samsung Gear S2 smartwatches. Among the features that will eventually be part of the app, developers mentioned offline navigation.
Those of you who already purchased the Samsung Gear S3 smartwatch can go ahead and download the new HERE WeGo app for free, which is now available in the Tizen store.
2016-12-03 11:06 Andrei Vlad news.softpedia.com
19 /35 3.6 Delete (cruD) Using Ruby-OCI8 My helper function get_all_rows() encapsulates a select statement used to verify that the deletes worked. The select functionality is covered in the R part of this series, so I won't go into the details here.
Add this function to the top of your file.
To keep the examples clean and precise, I will reset the data at times.
Create a new file called reset_data.rb with the following code and run it whenever you would like to reset the data. (Notice this version adds people and pet data not included in other sections.)
The template we will be using is:
For each exercise, replace the "# Your code here" line with your code.
First, let's run reset_data.rb to set up our data.
We will perform a simple delete that removes a single record from the lcs_people table. These are the steps performed in the code snippet below.
When I run this code in my Ruby session, I see:
Delete all the birds.
Your results should be:
Answer:
Now is a good time to run reset_data.rb.
Change the boilerplate get_all_rows statements to get people and pet data.
In our design, we have a Foreign Key constraint in lcs_pets that ensures if a pet has an owner, that owner exists.
If we attempt to delete a record in lcs_people that is referenced in lcs_pets (Person has a pet,) we get an error.
When I run this code in my Ruby session, I see: Before deleting the person you have to handle the pet (watch out for claws and teeth).
There are a few options here, depending on your database design:
In either of the above scenarios, you can update the pets and set their owner to another person.
Bob is moving out of our area and his new apartment doesn't allow pets, so he's giving them to Kim. Let's use that last option here.
When I run this code in my Ruby session, I see:
When you change data it's a good idea to verify the number of affected rows. This is covered in the R part of this series.
Due to a zoning change, snakes are no longer allowed in our area. Stacey has decided to move and take Sneaky with her.
Let's fix our data.
Your results should be:
Answer:
Initial Setup
Create records
Retrieve records
Update records
2016-12-03 11:01 Parent Linkdate dzone.com
20 /35 0.0 BlackBerry Addresses DTEK App Issue in Latest Update And that's exactly what happened with the DTEK app about two weeks ago. If you're not familiar with the DTEK app's issue here are a few things that you should know.
Last month, many BlackBerry users reported that the DTEK application incorrectly displays the status of their smartphones. Although it wasn't a widespread issue, the problem started to affect some smartphones immediately after that latest DTEK update BlackBerry uploaded to Google Play store.
At that time, the issue was acknowledged by BlackBerry, but the Canadian company did not offer an ETA on the fix solution.
Fast forward two weeks and we're happy to inform all those affected by this issue that a fix has finally been released and it's now available for download.
As part of its monthly BlackBerry apps updates, the Canadian company delivered a new update for the DTEK application, which is supposed to address this problems as well.
The official changelog notes the update brings some improvements and bug fixes, but there's no mention of the problem described above.
However, many of those who have been affected by the DTEK app issue report that after applying the update the application correctly displays the status of their smartphones.
The new version of DTEK app should already be available in Google Play store in all regions, so we strongly recommend everyone to download the latest update.
2016-12-03 10:44 Andrei Vlad news.softpedia.com
21 /35 1.3 Leniency vs. Severity in Performance Reviews The performance review has to be one of the more studied aspects of modern working life, with the general consensus being that they are unloved by both managers and employees alike. Yet the fact that so many organizations continue to use them suggests that we cannot hold out for an ideal world where feedback is an ongoing and constant part of working life, and should perhaps instead focus on how to make this institution more effective.
A major criticism of performance reviews is that they’re often wholly subjective affairs, and if you are on the wrong side of your boss or indeed they’re simply having a bad day, then it can flavor the review you receive.
Many reviews seem to revolve around perceived effort levels and a recent study explores the impact this can have on employees. It analyzes the impact of being treated leniently or harshly in your review.
The lab-based experiment asked participants to carry out a task for which they were given a performance target. They were given three types of contracts.
The results are certainly interesting in that those in the overly severe scenario tended to react far worse than those in the overly lenient one, as participants revealed they impacted on their sense of fairness and justice in the organization.
This manifested itself in a number of ways. Whilst both over-rewarding and under-rewarding tended to result in a reduction in effort by the participants, it appeared that under-rewarding them had a much bigger impact. Indeed, this was found to contribute to as much as a 100% swing in output. The results clearly show the sizeable impact the humble performance review can have on employee performance and should hopefully provide managers conducting these reviews with a degree of guidance on how they conduct themselves (especially when the things you’re judging employees against can be intangible). In such an environment, there is really no such thing as a perfect performance review, so the results suggest it’s better to err on the side of leniency.
2016-12-03 10:31 Parent Linkdate dzone.com
22 /35 0.0 Apple Says Some iPhone 6s Shut Down Prematurely Due to Air in Batteries In an advisory posted online today, Apple explains what exactly is happening with these phones, pointing out that this is not a safety issue that could lead to more serious incidents, such as fire.
“It's important to note, this is not a safety issue,” Apple explains in its statement, clearly trying to make sure that this recall doesn’t lead to a new global craze over exploding batteries, as it was the case with rival Samsung.
Specifically, Apple says that batteries cause an unexpected shutdown because of what it describes as too much air in batteries, pointing out that this leads to premature degradation that eventually causes the iPhones to turn off despite the indicator that shows there’s still nearly half of battery left.
“We found that a small number of iPhone 6s devices made in September and October 2015 contained a battery component that was exposed to controlled ambient air longer than it should have been before being assembled into battery packs. As a result, these batteries degrade faster than a normal battery and cause unexpected shutdowns to occur,” Apple says in its statement, which you can read in full at the end of the article.
Apple goes on to explain that the iPhone is anyway configured to shut down automatically at very low temperatures because this prevents damage caused by low voltage that could impact other parts as well.
The firm emphasizes that it already looked into other factors that could cause such an unexpected shutdown and points out that beside the faulty batteries and the low-temperature protection, no new factors have been identified.
If you’re not sure if your iPhone is eligible for a battery replacement or not, head over to this Apple Support page and input your iPhone serial number, which you can find in Settings > General > About.
2016-12-03 09:41 Bogdan Popa news.softpedia.com
23 /35 6.7 Samsung Galaxy A (2018) Smartphones Could Pack Dual-Edge Curved Displays The costs of producing dual-edge displays is not low enough to enable companies to include them in mid-range or even low- end smartphones.
The good news is many display makers like Samsung have decided to upgrade their manufacturing lines for the mass production of flexible OLED displays .
Both Samsung Galaxy S8 and iPhone 8 are rumored to pack flexible OLED displays, whereas most of today's flagships are still packing rigid dual-edge curved displays.
A new report coming from South Korea claims Samsung Display is now testing various new technologies at its lines for flexible OLEDs, in order to cut productions costs and increase the output.
Once the company achieves these goals, it will start using the rigid OLEDs in mid-range smartphones as well.
It's also worth mentioning that once the iPhone 8 with flexible OLED will be released next year, Chinese smartphone makes will start packing rigid OLEDs into their mid-range smartphones.
Sources in the smartphone industry claim Samsung is already working on bringing rigid OLEDs into its devices and has decided to use dual-edge OLED panels, which are exclusively used inside flagships, for the Galaxy A series.
Obviously, that will not happen this year, so the next mid-range smartphones that could pack dual-edge curved displays could the Galaxy A (2018) series, which is expected to be unveiled at the end of the next year.
As Samsung Display and other manufacturers in the mobile display industry will bolster production of flexible OLED panels, rigid dual-curved displays could become pretty common for mid-range and even low-end smartphones.
On a side note, research company Ubi Research estimates that the percentage of flexible OLED panels will reach about 70% in all of OLED smartphones in 2021, as many companies will invest into this type display. 2016-12-03 09:31 Andrei Vlad news.softpedia.com
24 /35 6.0 Russia’s Central Bank Hacked, $31 Million Stolen The Bank of Russia has already confirmed the attack and said that it’s investigating, but no other details as to who might be behind the hack were provided.
Central bank official Artyom Sychyov said in a public briefing that hackers previously wanted to steal approximately 5 million rubles, but the bank’s security team managed to partly block the attack and reduce damages to 2 million rubles.
“We were lucky to return some of money,” a central bank spokesperson was quoted as saying by CNN , adding that some of the funds were quickly redirected after hackers launched the attack.
It appears that cybercriminals targeted not only the central bank, but also private banks and customers, attempting to transfer funds, but it’s not yet clear if these attacks were successful or not.
Since very little is known about the hack against Russia’s central bank, experts believe that the attack can be linked to similar attempts launched in the last couple of years and targeting other banks across the world.
Only this year, a group of hackers managed to steal no less than $101 million from the central bank in Bangladesh after they managed to break into SWIFT, which is the worldwide interbank communication network that controls transactions. Just like it happened in Russia’s case, hackers attempted to steal more money - $951 million, but they were blocked before the transactions completed.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (also known as FSB), has already warned of attacks that might be aimed at local banks, revealing that it discovered computer servers in the Netherlands that were set up to compromise the country’s financial system and help steal money.
Russian authorities, however, haven’t provided details regarding the hacking group behind the attack or the date when it occurred.
2016-12-03 09:15 Bogdan Popa news.softpedia.com
25 /35 1.5 Despite losing the general election, the Pirate Party could still form Iceland's government Back in October there was a mixture of great excitement and huge worry that the controversial Pirate Party could end up winning the general election in Iceland. That didn't happen, but with no clear winner there was an attempt to create a five-way coalition that ultimately failed after weeks of talks, paving the way for the radical party made up of poets, hackers and online freedom activists.
The Pirate Party -- which says it would offer exile to Edward Snowden and also embrace Bitcoin - - could still end up in power after being invited to form part of the government by Iceland's president. But even if the controversial, anti-establishment party does end up wielding power, it's unlikely that its more radical policies would come to fruition.
The founder of the Pirate Party, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, was invited on Friday by President Gudni Johannesson to form a government. He said: "Earlier today I met with the leaders of all parties and asked their opinion on who should lead those talks. After that I summoned Birgitta Jonsdottir and handed her the mandate".
Jónsdóttir, whose party managed to win a surprising 10 out of 63 parliamentary seats in the election, said: "I am hopeful that we will find a way to work together". As well as founding the party, she is also known for working with Julian Assange to expose civilian killings by the US military.
In addition to looking to offer Edward Snowden Icelandic citizenship, the Pirate Party also welcomes the decriminalization of drugs, and a loosening of copyright laws. Part of its proposed democratic process would involve the use of online polls to help decide government policies.
2016-12-03 09:02 Mark Wilson feeds.betanews.com
26 /35 2.2 BlackBerry's Upcoming QWERTY Smartphone Leaks in Live Pictures The company is already in talks with two major companies in China and India, which seem to compete head-to-head for the right to build and sell BlackBerry smartphones in the next year.
A decision hasn't been taken yet, but we're expecting an official announced by the end of the year or in early 2017.
Until then, BlackBerry plans to launch one more smartphone developed in-house, the long- rumored Mercury .
Before the DTEK60 made it to market, the Canadian company promised to release a QWERTY smartphone and even if in the meantime it decided to change its smartphone business model, that device will still make it to the shelves. BlackBerry's CEO John Chen confirmed last month that the QWERTY smartphone that his company promised to its fans will be eventually announced and released on the market.
Today, a few live pictures of the unannounced QWERTY smartphone leaked in China. This could very well the Mercury that many fans are waiting for since it comes with the traditional BlackBerry keyboard.
Unfortunately, the pictures don't come with any details about the phone's specs. According to previous rumors, the Mercury should come with an unusual 4.5-inch display that supports full HD (1080p) resolution.
Also, the smartphone is said to pack an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, coupled with an Adreno 506 graphics processing unit and 3GB of RAM.
Other highlights of the phone could include an 18-megapixel rear-facing camera, a secondary 8-megapixel camera in the front and a 3,400 mAh battery. Keep in mind though that none of the info has been confirmed yet.
2016-12-03 08:42 Andrei Vlad news.softpedia.com
27 /35 9.1 The twin sisters celebrating their 100th birthday Twin sisters Irene Crump and Phyllis Jones have just celebrated their 100th birthday – and have witnessed a century of change.
They were born on 20 November, 1916, and still live together in Worcestershire.
BBC Radio 5 live’s Phil Mackie visited them at their home to ask them about their long lives.
This clip is originally part of 5 live’s coverage the BBC’s 100 Women season.
2016-12-03 08:41 www.bbc.co.uk
28 /35 0.0 Donald Trump Advised to Train 100,000 Hackers to Protect the US The panel of security experts pointed out that cybersecurity should become a priority during Donald Trump’s tenure at the helm of the United States, and recommended the President-elect not only to train hackers and be prepared for any cyber threat, but also to propose international norms for hacking that would guarantee better protection.
The Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity strongly pointed out that the United States should increase their efforts on training security experts that would work for the country and not leave for the private sector, which has become a dramatic problem in the last few years.
Salaries offered by private companies are substantially bigger than those offered by the United States, and Donald Trump is advised to tackle this issue in his first year as President of the US.
Furthermore, Trump must closely control all training programs because this could lead to lower skills and quality, and the President is also recommended to create a so-called “national cybersecurity workforce program” to prevent such issues.
Donald Trump has also been advised to hire a cyber adviser and a cyber ambassador and work together on a national cybersecurity strategy in the first months of his term, with the panel explaining that the President must involve security experts currently working for the largest companies in the United States, but also professors and researchers.
At the same time, the panel is advising Donald Trump to offer incentives to companies in order to build more secure products in the United States, which is somehow in opposition with what the President-elect was aiming for during his campaign.
Trump called several times for Apple to hack its devices and help the FBI collect criminal information from an iPhone, so such a proposal can be adopted only if a backdoor is installed on these devices. Otherwise, making devices harder to hack would not align with Trump’s plans of giving authorities more power to unlock devices involved in criminal activities.
Donald Trump hasn’t yet commented on these proposals, but the President-elect is likely to take several steps to boost cybersecurity of the United States.
2016-12-03 08:28 Bogdan Popa news.softpedia.com
29 /35 1.1 Many CEOs believe technology will make people 'largely irrelevant' Although artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and other emerging technologies may reshape the world as we know it, a new global study has revealed that the majority of CEOs now value technology over people when it comes to the future of their businesses. The study was conducted by the Los Angeles-based management consultant firm Korn Ferry that interviewed 800 business leaders across a variety of multi-million and multi- billion dollar global organizations. The firm says that 44 percent of the CEOs surveyed agreed that robotics, automation and AI would reshape the future of many work places by making people "largely irrelevant".
The global managing director of solutions at Korn Ferry Jean-Marc Laouchez explains why many CEOs have adopted this controversial mindset, saying: "Leaders may be facing what experts call a tangibility bias. Facing uncertainty, they are putting priority in their thinking, planning and execution on the tangible -- what they can see, touch and measure, such as technology instruments".
According to Korn Ferry's study, a number of CEOs have allowed technology to occupy anywhere from 40 to 60 percent of their priorities when it comes to strategic focus, financial investment and their time. The firm also compiled a list of the top five assets of companies according to these CEOs which did not even list human talent as an asset and instead included Real Estate, Brand, Product / Service, R&D/ Innovation and Technology as the number one asset.
Laouchez offered his view on why human talent was not considered an asset by the CEOs surveyed, saying: "Putting an exact value on people is much more difficult, even though people directly influence the value of technology, innovation and products".
While artificial intelligence and robotics will play a huge role in the future of business, Korn Ferry believes that CEOs should not undervalue the creativity and influence that people can bring to a business.
Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Future plc Publication. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: pockygallery / Shutterstock
2016-12-03 08:20 Anthony Spadafora feeds.betanews.com
30 /35 0.0 Performance Regression in Optimization: Part I PageTable is a pretty critical piece of Voron. It is the component responsible for remapping modified pages in transactions and is the reason why we support MVCC and can avoid taking locks (for the most part). It has been an incredibly stable part of our software, rarely changing and pretty much the same as it was when it was initially written in 2013. It has been the subject of multiple performance reviews in that time, but acceptable levels of performance from our code in 2013 are no longer acceptable today. PageTable came up recently in one of our performance reviews as a problematic component. It was responsible for too much CPU and far too many allocations.
Here is a drastically simplified implementation that retains the salient points:
I wrote the following code:
This relies on allowing stale reads from concurrent readers, which we don’t care about since they wouldn’t be able to make use of the data anyway, and it was able to reduce the allocations to just 320 MB, but the runtime actually went up to 32 seconds.
That is quite annoying, as you can imagine, and much cursing enthused as a result. I then pulled my trusty profiler ask it kindly to figure out what piece of code needs to be hit with a rolling pin and have a stern talking to about what is expected from code after it has been laboriously and carefully optimized. It is expected to sit nicely and be fast, or by Git, I’ll revert you.
What the hell?! Here are the original implementation costs, and you can clearly see how much time we are spending on garbage collection.
The implementation is pretty much the same and there isn’t anything else that looks like it can cause that much of a performance gap.
I’ll leave this a riddle for now, because it drove me crazy for two whole days, and give you the details on what is going on in the next post.
2016-12-03 08:01 Ayende Rahien dzone.com
31 /35 1.8 Microsoft Suspends Windows 10 Builds to Prepare New Windows Update System Dona Sarkar, head of the Windows Insider program, said they are planning to internally test the new UUP system internally before shipping it to users who are part of the Insider program, so it’s not clear how long this is going to take.
What’s important to know is that users can no longer download new builds in the Fast and Slow rings for PCs. Mobile users are not affected.
“We are getting ready to start releasing PC builds to Insiders using UUP. To prepare for this, we are going to pause all PC builds for both the Fast and Slow rings starting this evening (Friday 12/2). We will begin flighting the latest builds via UUP starting with our internal rings first then to Insiders based on each ring’s promotion criteria. We’re excited to be able to release builds for PC to Insiders using UUP! Mobile builds are not impacted by this,” Dona explained.
For those who missed Microsoft’s original announcement on the Unified Update Platform, this is a new updating system that speeds up update checks and dramatically cuts the size of updates by only downloading the bits that you need, and not full new builds.
The delivery of large OS updates would thus be significantly faster, Microsoft says, as your computer would have to get only the files that have changed since the previous version, and not a complete image of the OS. Furthermore, the update checking would be performed server-side, so it would be faster.
“Because more processing is being done by the service, this will lead to faster checks for update operations. It’s important to note that with UUP, nothing will look or behave differently on the surface, UUP is all underlying platform and service optimization that happens behind the scenes,” Microsoft says.
The UUP system would be tested with help from insiders in the coming months, while everyone else would get it with the Creators Update in early 2017.
2016-12-03 06:52 Bogdan Popa news.softpedia.com
32 /35 1.2 Amazon Fire Every year, as the holidays roll around, children's hearts are filled with joy and anticipation. Adult hearts, in turn, are filled with fear and trepidation. After all, how would you know if that DIY robot is a better buy for your youngster than that hoverboard all her classmates have been talking about? And even as junior yearns for that gizmo with the flashing lights and incessant music, is it really appropriate for their age? The choices are endless, the decisions daunting.
Fear not, PCMag has you covered. We braved the store aisles and shopping sites looking at every conceivable tech-related toy and device for kids. We've winnowed down the crop to the hottest toys and games this year. Some were released over the summer and fall, while others were rolled out specifically for the holiday season. Our picks run the gamut, so you should be able to find something for the tiny human in your life.
Read on and add the perfect tech toy to your gift this holiday season. The rest of the season, however, is up to you.
2016-12-03 05:01 Laarni Almendrala uk.pcmag.com
33 /35 0.6 Art of Stepping on the Same Rake, Volume 2 Software is changing the world. QCon empowers software development by facilitating the spread of knowledge and innovation in the developer community. A practitioner-driven conference, QCon is designed for technical team leads, architects, engineering directors, and project managers who influence innovation in their teams.
2016-12-03 04:13 Alex Holden www.infoq.com
34 /35 2.6 Fidel Castro's ashes make final journey as Cuba says goodbye As Fidel Castro's ashes make a final journey from Havana to Santiago, Cubans try to come to terms with the death of their revolutionary leader.
The route is the reverse of that taken by Castro and his rebels to mark their victory in overthrowing the forces of Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
Video by the BBC's Anna Bressanin and Bruno Boelpaep
2016-12-03 04:07 www.bbc.co.uk
35 /35 0.9 Gears of War 4 set to receive new maps in December Microsoft has announced the next update for Gear of War 4 that is set to be released on December 6th. It will include several improvements and two new maps (available from December 13th and December 6th for Season Pass holders). Season Pass holders will be able to earn additional XP and Credit rewards when playing the Developer Playlist, while it's available, too.
The main attraction in the new update is the additional maps, called Speyer and Glory. Unfortunately, those without a Season Pass will lose access to the maps: Gridlock and Relic, for the time being. Non-Season Pass holders can buy those maps individually in the Gears of War store, or buy a Season Pass. Liam Ashley, Community Manager at The Coalition, said: As for other updates to the game, the developers have added “several highly requested improvements along with some new features.” The highlights are:
If you haven’t got the game yet, now is the time to get it. Between December 1st and December 28th, it will have 33% knocked off its full price.
Source: Xbox News | Image via Gears of War official website
2016-12-03 02:42 Paul Hill feedproxy.google.com
Total 35 articles.
Items detected: 39, scanned: 39, accumulated: 35, inserted: 35, empty media: 0, not matched limits: 5, skipped: {total: 4, by unique value: 2, by limits: 2, by similarity: 0, by unicity: 0, dates: 1, by classifier: 0, by blacklist: 0, by mandatory tag: 4}, bad dates: 0, similar from same domain: 0; tag `content_encoded` the same value found 2 times; tag `title` the same value found 2 times; the same images URLs found 19 times; total 3 languages detected: {u'fr': 1, u'en': 78, u'hu': 1}; {u'text': {u'chars': 130354, u'bytes': 534364, u'words': 15187, u'sentences': 190}}
Created at 2016-12-04 02:01