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Total 83 articles, created at 2016-04-13 06:03 1 Facebook levels up its live streaming service with new video tab and developer tools

(3.00/4) Facebook is doubling down on its investment in video with a new tool that will help hardware makers build devices to stream live to the social networking service. 2016-04-12 14:42 3KB www.computerworld.com 2 Show us your Dark Souls 3 character Day one in Lothric: took a sick selfie. 2016-04-13 01:04 962Bytes www.pcgamer.com

(2.00/4)

3 Smite fans, we've got 5,000 Jing Wei keys to give away

(2.00/4) That's a lot of codes. 2016-04-13 00:37 1KB www.pcgamer.com

4 Badlock: Patch your Samba and Windows server now The Badlock security holes are as bad as bad can be. You should patch your Samba- and Windows-servers immediately. 2016-04-12 19:41 4KB zdnet.com.feedsportal.com (2.00/4)

5 PC shipments decline for sixth consecutive quarter, but gaming PCs are on the rise Industry tracking firms Gartner and IDC both reported steep declines in worldwide PC (2.00/4) shipments. 2016-04-12 18:08 3KB www.pcgamer.com 6 Come in Microsoft SQL Server 2005, your time is up Another ageing but still used Microsoft product put out to pasture 2016-04-12 15:37 2KB www.theinquirer.net (2.00/4)

7 Apple Pay struggles in Australia as banks profit from a fee- phobic market Australia's big banks are not rushing to enable Apple Pay despite the country's citizens using iPhones at a rate more than double the global average. 2016-04-13 05:41 2KB www.computerweekly.com 8 Huawei eyeing top spot in consumer and enterprise Huawei is hoping to improve brand awareness across enterprise and consumer in Australia, and wants to grow its global market share, with two new localised-led operations potentially coming up. 2016-04-13 00:05 6KB zdnet.com.feedsportal.com 9 At $5, Fallout 4's Wasteland Workshop is barely worth it Good for consoles, but PC gamers can probably skip it. 2016-04-12 23:55 4KB www.pcgamer.com 10 You can now make a flashy Facebook profile pic with third- party video apps Your News Feed is about to get a whole lot snazzier 2016-04-12 23:35 1KB feedproxy.google.com 11 The best Stardew Valley mods From Star Wars retextures to easier fishing, here are the best mods for Stardew Valley. 2016-04-12 23:00 2KB www.pcgamer.com 12 Diablo 2 is being recreated in StarCraft 2, and it looks surprisingly good The Lord of Terror meets the Queen of Blades. 2016-04-12 22:34 2KB www.pcgamer.com 13 Enterprise asset management: Why it’s even more important in today’s oil and gas industry With global organizations and systems that are more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent than ever, the oil and gas industry has the potential 2016-04-13 01:09 877Bytes www.itworldcanada.com 14 Skullcandy Grind Wireless review Stellar sound without shredding your wallet 2016-04-12 22:29 4KB feedproxy.google.com 15 An Xbox One Slim could debut this summer, FCC filings suggest This gives the rumors a few more legs to stand on 2016-04-12 22:00 2KB feedproxy.google.com 16 How to get into The Division’s tough new raid And what to expect once you’re there. 2016-04-12 21:21 4KB www.pcgamer.com 17 Micron Presents New SSDs and Strategy At Micron's Enterprising event today in Austin, TX the company discussed several upcoming products and shared information about an ongoing strategic shift... 2016-04-12 21:16 3KB www.anandtech.com 18 Microsoft OneDrive for Business to get SharePoint document sync by year-end 2016 Microsoft is starting to roll out a number of Spring updates to its OneDrive Next Generation Sync Client, many of which are aimed at OneDrive for Business users. 2016-04-12 21:12 2KB zdnet.com.feedsportal.com 19 Samsung's new dongle turns its SUHD TVs into the center of your smart home It really ties the room together 2016-04-12 21:05 1KB feedproxy.google.com 20 Ingram Micro Execs: Vendors, Partners Embracing Proposed HNA Acquisition HNA Group saw value in the intellectual property being created at Ingram Micro, and believes its acquisition will help the Chinese firm evolve from pure logistics to more comprehensive solutions, Ingram CEO Alain Monie and U. S. Chief Executive Paul Bay said at the 2016 Ingram... 2016-04-12 20:49 3KB www.crn.com 21 Everybody's Gone to the Rapture goes to the PC on Thursday Surprise! Nobody expects the Rapture. 2016-04-12 20:22 1KB www.pcgamer.com 22 DLT Solutions Strikes Partner Deal With SimpliVity For Hyper-Convergence In Public Sector Premier public sector solution provider DLT Solutions will help sell SimpliVity's hyper- convergence products to government agencies, the two firms said Tuesday. 2016-04-12 20:19 3KB www.crn.com 23 Hands on: Toshiba Portege Z30-C-125 review A surprisingly good Ultrabook despite the price tag 2016-04-12 20:10 7KB feedproxy.google.com 24 Valve blocks competitor's app from Steam Storefrontception gets a rude awakening. 2016-04-12 19:56 1KB www.pcgamer.com

25 In a fender-bender? The police may want to analyze your phone A 'Textalyzer' can tell whether you were on a phone while driving 2016-04-12 19:25 2KB feedproxy.google.com 26 On many IoT projects, IT shops get left behind IT departments are playing second fiddle to operations people as enterprises tune up for the Internet of Things. 2016-04-12 18:38 3KB www.itnews.com 27 U. S. gets 236,000 H-1B petitions, a new record The U. S. received 236,000 H-1B petitions for the 85,000 visas available under the program's visa caps. 2016-04-12 18:32 2KB www.computerworld.com 28 Badlock flaw is patched, but failed to live up to the security hype Some accused the developer who found the flaw of ramping up publicity for the bug, a month ahead of its planned patching. 2016-04-12 18:28 3KB zdnet.com.feedsportal.com 29 Facebook's 10-year roadmap outlined, eyes AI, VR, Internet access infrastructure Facebook's 5-year master plan isn't so surprising, but the 10-year view has a few detours ahead. 2016-04-12 17:40 3KB zdnet.com.feedsportal.com 30 Microsoft says it pays women almost the same as men It's probably just that the men have the best roles 2016-04-12 17:25 2KB www.theinquirer.net

31 ASRock reveals Intel Broadwell-E desktop CPU lineup ASRock appears to have blown the cover on Intel's entire Broadwell-E CPU lineup today. In a press release we received today,... 2016-04-12 17:19 1KB techreport.com 32 Uber served data on over 13 million users to US regulators The multi-billion dollar ride-sharing company also included a warrant canary, stating that it had not received a national security demand. 2016-04-12 17:05 2KB zdnet.com.feedsportal.com 33 Sources: Amazon Web Services Poised To Enter Cloud Managed Services Market With New 'Sentinel' Product Amazon Web Services is developing a new cloud managed services offering that lets Fortune 500 firms and large customers manage workloads independently, without involving MSP partners. 2016-04-12 16:58 3KB www.crn.com 34 iPhone users hit by fake Apple Support SMS phishing scam Welcome to the club 2016-04-12 16:41 3KB www.theinquirer.net 35 NGINX launches NGINX Plus Release 9 NGINX’s Application Delivery Platform Now Includes Dynamic Modules and UDP Load Balancing for Added Flexibility and Control 2016-04-12 16:38 3KB sdtimes.com

36 Titanfall 2 UK release date, platforms and features: Watch the new Titanfall 2 trailer Titanfall 2 is coming this June. Here's everything you need to know, including the UK release date, platform and feature rumours. 2016-04-12 16:35 2KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk

40 Microsoft Windows 10 Blue Screen Of Death Gets QR Code For Windows 10, Microsoft may give its infamous Blue Screen of Death a QR code that users could scan with their smartphones to get more information about the crash. 2016-04-12 16:06 2KB www.informationweek.com 41 The cloud is growing up The cloud is maturing, and along with that comes more options for companies utilizing cloud technology. However, this diversification will push certain providers to deliver a single solution, potentially causing compatibility issues 2016-04-12 16:06 3KB www.infoworld.com 42 Best Android phones 2016: What's the best Android phone? The top 20 best Android phones you can buy in the UK today - best Android phone reviews We review and rank the 20 best Android phones of 2016 in the UK. All the best Android smartphones you can buy. 2016-04-12 16:03 19KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 43 Let's Encrypt free security certificate program leaves beta After four months, the certificate authority is ready to bring free encryption to even more webmasters. 2016-04-12 16:00 2KB zdnet.com.feedsportal.com 44 Best phones 2016: What's the best smartphone? The 20 best mobile phones you can buy in the UK today - best Android phone reviews, best iPhone reviews, best Windows Phone reviews, best mobile phone reviews The 20 best smartphones available to buy in the UK right now. The best phones you can buy in the UK - Best Android phones, best iPhones, best Windows Phones - best mobile phone reviews. Keep reading to find out what is the best phone of 2016. 2016-04-12 15:48 19KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 45 Trade commission will review contentious Cisco-Arista patent dispute Specifically the ITC granted full review of the three patents that Arista is allegedly infringing under the initial determination issued by the presiding judge on Feb 2. In February, the ITC made an initial determination that Arista infringed on three Cisco patents in its switches --... 2016-04-12 15:42 2KB www.itworld.com 46 Apache Storm 1.0 milestone includes native streaming window API The Apache Software Foundation announces version 1.0 of Storm 2016-04-12 15:29 1KB sdtimes.com

47 Symantec Channel Exodus Continues With Departure Of Americas Channel Chief Stephen Thomas has left the security vendor to join Cyberbit Commercial Solutions in another channel exec loss for Symantec. 2016-04-12 15:20 3KB www.crn.com 48 HTC 10 price, release date, deals and specs Everything you need to know about picking up HTC's new flagship smartphone 2016-04-12 15:12 4KB www.theinquirer.net 49 Apple Watch Sales Declining, Report Finds KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a reputation for accurate Apple information, has issued a report claiming Apple Watch sales are slated to decline 25% this year. The report also indicates that Apple will offer some small Watch improvements this year, before a major redesign in 2017. 2016-04-12 15:05 3KB www.informationweek.com 50 Dell-EMC To Leapfrog HPE, Cisco As Cloud IT Infrastructure Market Soars To $29B As cloud IT infrastructure spending soars, Hewlett Packard Enterprise's leadership position looks to be trumped by a Dell-EMC merger, while Cisco is also seeing massive growth. 2016-04-12 15:00 1KB www.crn.com 51 Microsoft's Windows 10 Roadmap reveals upcoming biz features Firm offers snapshot of features in public preview or under development and testing 2016-04-12 14:56 2KB www.theinquirer.net 52 Tesla reveals 2017 Model S with front design update, biodefense mode Tesla has brought minor tweaks to its flagship, all-electric sedan. The new front grille design brings it closer to the Model X and Model 3. 2016-04-12 14:53 1KB zdnet.com.feedsportal.com 53 Reports of Windows XP's demise are greatly exaggerated Windows XP was the first version of Windows to bring together Microsoft's client and server product families. It became immensely popular after its... 2016-04-12 14:36 2KB techreport.com 54 Intel to ship thumb-sized Compute Sticks with Skylake chips in late April If you've been waiting patiently for Intel's new Compute Sticks with Skylake chips, there's good news: those thumb-sized PCs will start shipping on April 29. 2016-04-12 14:28 2KB www.computerworld.com 55 Verizon to replace copper with fiber optic Internet in Boston Verizon and the city of Boston today unveiled a $300 million fiber optic cable replacement of copper cable throughout the city over the next six years. 2016-04-12 14:17 3KB www.computerworld.com 56 Nvidia's next generation graphics cards are right around the corner 1070 and 1080 Pascal powerhouses revealed next month 2016-04-12 14:14 1KB feedproxy.google.com 57 HTC 10 is a 'spot on' smartphone that won't save HTC The HTC 10 is loaded with new design and high-end features, but those plums won't be enough for the new smartphone to sell well in a crowded Android field. 2016-04-12 14:12 7KB www.computerworld.com

58 Optiv Security Bets Big On Identity And Access Management Market With Advancive Acquisition Optiv Security, formerly Accuvant and FishNet Security, is making its first acquisition as a combined company: identity and access management consultancy Advancive. 2016-04-12 14:05 4KB www.crn.com 59 The Week in Mac Apps: Make your iTunes window just the right size with Moom This week's roundup of new Mac apps includes Moom, a tool for making your app windows the perfect size (and keeping them that way). 2016-04-12 14:00 4KB www.itnews.com 60 Whoa. ASRock confirms 10-core Core i7, outs other models too It's (pretty much) official: Intel's Core i7-6950X will feature a whopping 10 cores. 2016-04-12 13:54 3KB www.itnews.com 61 Event: The 13th Annual East AfricaCom 2016 The 13th annual East AfricaCom is set to take place at Radisson blu,Nairobi Kenya on the 18th - 19th May, 2016. East AfricanCom which is part of the knowledge & networking division of Informa PLC presents a forum for high level networking across telecoms, broadcasting, enterprise... 2016-04-12 13:51 2KB pctechmag.com 62 DataStax enters graph market New distributed graph database can spread datastores across the world 2016-04-12 13:45 2KB sdtimes.com 63 'Your face is big data:' The title of this photographer's experiment says it all Got privacy? You may think you do, but a recent experiment by a Russian photographer suggests otherwise. 2016-04-12 13:24 2KB www.itworld.com 64 Microsoft's Project Madeira turns Outlook into a small- business productivity hub Call it one-stop shopping. Project Madeira is aimed at all the businesses that can't afford enterprise-class applications, offering scaled-down versions within Outlook. 2016-04-12 13:23 2KB www.itnews.com 65 This 3D printer can rival standard manufacturing on the factory floor A Silicon Valley start-up has launched a 3D printer that is capable of manufacturing limited product runs of up to 45,000 units, making it one of the first machines of its kind on a factory floor. 2016-04-12 13:09 6KB www.computerworld.com 66 Lucidworks View released, Microsoft’s Global CSS Property Usage, and Keras 1.0— digest: April 12, 2016 Lucidworks announced its extension to Fusion so companies can create custom search- driven apps; Microsoft is releasing a new tool for developers 2016-04-12 13:04 7KB sdtimes.com 67 PCWorld's April Digital Edition: Today's Hottest Hardware Enjoy the best of PCWorld.com in a curated Enhanced Edition for Android and iOS, or in a PDF Replica Edition. 2016-04-12 12:59 2KB www.itnews.com 68 Zuora ups the ante and takes it (again) to the old-school vendors All fun and games in the broader contracts and subscription billing space as vendors jockey for position. 2016-04-12 12:57 4KB www.computerworld.com 69 The Great Availability Challenge: Bridging The Gap Between Business And IT Working from a central model will help create a foundation for business and IT to understand each other. 2016-04-12 12:40 3KB www.informationweek.com 70 50% off Tripp Lite Rotatable Outlet Surge Protector Power Strip - Deal Alert This power strip has a built-in surge protector, 6 rotatable outlets, an extra long 8 foot cord and a USB port for charging portable devices. Currently averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from almost 600 people on Amazon. 2016-04-12 11:59 1KB www.infoworld.com 71 Facebook wants you to be chattier with new chatbots In the next decade, Facebook will continue to focus on connecting people around the world, and it will do so by using artificial intelligence, virtual reality and chatbots. 2016-04-12 11:49 4KB www.itnews.com 72 Hortonworks Data Platform delivers industry-leading security and governance integration for Hadoop Hortonworks today announced several key updates to Hortonworks Data Platform 2016-04-12 11:38 2KB sdtimes.com 73 Vector Software launches most comprehensive Ada software quality solution for marketplace Latest Release of VectorCAST/Ada Makes Developing Complex and Embedded Ada Development Easier While Providing Extended Support for Ada 2012 2016-04-12 11:36 2KB sdtimes.com 74 IBM puts Watson to work on cancer with new patient- advisor tool IBM on Tuesday announced a new weapon in the battle against cancer that will put Watson to work in a new way. 2016-04-12 11:36 2KB www.itnews.com 75 Updated: Oculus significantly delays many Rift pre-orders It seems like the TR staff may have been lucky to get our Oculus Rift when we did. Today is the day that Oculus... 2016-04-12 10:52 2KB techreport.com

76 Chunks is the Vive's Minecraft from Rust dev Facepunch No word on VR penis size. 2016-04-12 10:35 1KB www.pcgamer.com 77 10 Internet of Things companies to watch It's good to be an Internet of Things startup these days, as investments from Cisco, Nokia, Verizon and others show. Here's a look at 10 IoT companies that could make an impact on the consumer and/or enterprise market. 2016-04-12 10:30 2KB www.itworld.com 78 AT&T won’t sell the HTC 10 in stores You’ll need to buy the phone unlocked from HTC if you want to use it on the telecom giant’s network. 2016-04-12 10:23 1KB www.itnews.com 79 Google open source hybrid cloud gets new OpenStack backup driver The Cinder driver, which allows Google Cloud Platform to be used as a backup target by OpenStack, is an important addition to the company's hybrid cloud 2016-04-12 10:15 3KB www.infoworld.com

80 Box launches Box Zones, aims for EU, Asia expansion Box Zones is a system to retain data locally as the content management and sharing company plans to expand globally. 2016-04-12 10:00 2KB zdnet.com.feedsportal.com 81 Truck Simulator patches deliver hefty new features Customising your trucks just got easier. 2016-04-12 09:43 1KB www.pcgamer.com 82 Sumo Logic’s new platform powered by machine learning technology Sumo Logic’s new machine data analytics platform is giving digital businesses more visibility to their metrics and log data 2016-04-12 09:00 3KB sdtimes.com 83 BAE Systems sounds security klaxon over Qbot malware Qbot ain't no BB9 2016-04-12 08:05 2KB www.theinquirer.net Articles

Total 83 articles, created at 2016-04-13 06:03

1 Facebook levels up its live streaming service with new video tab and developer tools (3.00/4) Facebook is doubling down on its investment in video with a new tool that will help hardware makers build devices to stream live to the social networking service. The new Facebook Live API will let publishers and hardware makers build tools that connect with the social network's live video streaming feature. That means broadcasters will be able to stream video from hardware that integrates with the service like DJI drones and the new Mevo camera , along with broadcast software like Livestream, ffmpeg and Xsplit. It's a move to help video producers bring live video to Facebook without having to do something extreme like strap an iPhone to a camera rig, which is what they currently have to do. With the new tool, Facebook also makes it easier for developers and broadcasters to bring higher quality video to Live, too. Users will also have the ability to share a live broadcast with members of a group, or people who are registered for an event, in addition to broadcasting to their friends or to the world at large. People watching a live broadcast can add live emoji reactions, similar to adding reactions to a news feed. The functionality is a push by Facebook to compete with other live streaming services like Periscope, which is owned by rival social network Twitter. With the rise of pervasive, high-speed mobile connectivity, live streaming is becoming more prevalent. Facebook is likely feeling the pressure from its competition, but it's in a strong position, according to Forrester analyst Nick Barber. "Paired with its active users and algorithm, Facebook stands to create a new revenue stream with live events," he said in an email. "It makes Facebook a one-stop shop for users who want to consume news, live events and connect with family and friends. " Improving live streaming may make the platform more appealing to people who know they want to stream their event to the Web somehow, but haven't yet decided how to do it. If Facebook can become the de facto home for live broadcasts from celebrities and big brands, that could put the company in a lucrative position. "Recorded video is very engaging on social channels, and live creates even more opportunities for brands and individuals," Barber said. Users are also going to have an easier time finding live video while browsing Facebook. The company is changing its mobile app to provide users with a video tab that will make it easy for them to browse what broadcasts are currently taking place. On the desktop version of Facebook, they'll find a new Live Map that shows them video broadcasts from 60 countries. There's also good news for video creators buried in today's reveals. Facebook launched a Rights Manager feature that lets publishers manage copyright-protected content that they upload to the service and restrict how it gets used by others. It's all part of the avalanche of announcements Facebook made at its F8 developer conference on Tuesday, which include a suite of new platform tools and an API for building bots on Messenger.

Facebook advances chatbots on Messenger with new developer tools itnews.com

Facebook helps developers with new analytics and login tools itnews.com 2016-04-12 14:42 Blair Hanley www.computerworld.com

2 Show us your Dark Souls 3 character (2.00/4) In the original Dark Souls, the Hollow form wasted all that effort you put into customizing your character, turning them into an ugly beef jerky version of their former selves. That thankfully doesn't happen in Dark Souls 3 , meaning you can die to your heart's content and keep on lookin' fly. So put on the best armor you've found so far and show us your Dark Souls 3 character. Throw an image link in the comments: you get bonus points for including a screenshot of the sliders in the character creator, in case other players want to recreate your masterpiece. We'll pick our favorites to show off later this week. Dark Souls 3 review feedproxy.google.com 2016-04-13 01:04 Wes Fenlon www.pcgamer.com

3 Smite fans, we've got 5,000 Jing Wei keys to give away (2.00/4) Hi-Rez introduced a new god to Smite last night in the form of Jing Wei, a woman / bird hybrid torn from Chinese mythology who, in the guise of a Smite playable character, is a ranged hunter. She arrives as part of the Escape From The Underworld special event, which can be read about in all its detail over here. The gist of it is: a four week event focused around Arena mode, with a themed map to compliment the occasion, and a tonne of themed awards. In the meantime, we have a truckload of codes to give away for Jing Wei. These will grant you permanent access to the character, whose biography can we viewed in the video embedded above. Just put your email in the box below (making sure to click the key image afterwards), and if you're among the winners, you'll get the code via email this Friday. Good luck!

Acer Iconia Tab 10: cheap Android 6.0 tablet packs 10in HD screen, MediaTek chip theinquirer.net 2016-04-13 00:37 Shaun Prescott www.pcgamer.com

4 Badlock: Patch your Samba and Windows server now (2.00/4) When German firm SerNet announced that there were major flaws in the Windows Server file server and its open-source brother Samba , many people sneered at the news. They thought a company specializing in Samba support announcing a bug fix to Samba was little more than self-promotion. It was that too, but the Samba and Windows file server and administration tools problems are real and potentially deadly. Badlock, silly name and all, masks a deadly Samba and Windows security problem. That's because, as Jeremy Allison, a Google storage and open-source engineer and a senior Samba developer, explained, "This is a protocol- level vulnerability. " Specifically, "the Security Account Manager Remote Protocol [MS-SAMR] and the Local Security Authority (Domain Policy) Remote Protocol [MS-LSAD] are both vulnerable to man in the middle attacks. Both are application level protocols based on the generic DCE 1.1 Remote Procedure Call (DCERPC) protocol. " Or, in other words, Allison said, "This is really bad and you really must patch it. It affects everyone running these RPC [remote procedure call] services. Because of design decisions going back to Windows NT, every single file server uses it and they must all be patched. Since the RPCs are also used for remote admin access pretty much all Windows and Samba servers are vulnerable. " Red Hat agrees. The company states that it "views Badlock's related security issues as 'critical' and has issued several advisories and patches. We recommend patching affected systems as soon as possible. " To be exact, Badlock is a protocol vulnerability that allows man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks to impersonate an authenticated user against Microsoft Active Directory. All versions of Samba are affected. If exploited, an attacker would be able to gain read/write access to the Security Account Manager (SAM) database, potentially revealing all user passwords and other sensitive information. Further, these protocols are typically available on all Windows installations as well as every Samba server. They are used to maintain the SAM database. It doesn't mater how you're running your server. It can be in standalone mode, a domain member, or an AD domain controller. Regardless of how you run your server, it can all be attacked. What's worse is that any authenticated DCERPC connection a client initiates against a server can be used by a MITM to impersonate the authenticated user against the SAMR or LSAD service on the server. What about your security? It won't help. According to the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVE) "the client chosen application protocol, auth type (e.g. Kerberos or NTLMSSP) and auth level (NONE, CONNECT, PKT_INTEGRITY, PKT_PRIVACY) do not matter in this case. A man in the middle can change auth level to CONNECT (which means authentication without message protection) and take over the connection. " Besides being used to hack the SAM, it can also be used for denial of service attacks on both the DCE-RPC client and server implementations. It can be used against Samba in all possible server roles. This is a security hole that just keeps on giving. In the case of Samba, all versions of Samba from 3.6.0 to 4.4.0 are vulnerable. For Windows, Microsoft states, "This security update is rated Important for all supported editions of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT 8.1, and Windows 10. " While Microsoft doesn't mention it, it also hits all earlier, no longer supported versions of Windows since Windows NT. If you ever needed a serious security reason to upgrade your older versions of Windows, you now have one. If you want to patch Samba by hand, Samba 4.4.2, 4.3.8 and 4.2.11 Security Releases are available now. To quote the Badlock site , "Please update your systems. We are pretty sure that there will be exploits soon. " You think!? This month's patches: Badlock, an active exploit, Windows 10 version 10586.218 infoworld.com 2016-04-12 19:41 Steven J zdnet.com.feedsportal.com

5 PC shipments decline for sixth consecutive quarter, but gaming PCs are on the rise (2.00/4) As you traverse the web, you might encounter some doom and gloom headlines lamenting what appears to be the sorry state of the PC based on declining shipments. We've heard this narrative before, and while PC sales may be down, gaming PC sales are still ticking over just fine. Gartner and IDC are the two big tracking firms that routinely report on PC shipments around the world every quarter, and both have some updated numbers to share. According to Gartner, preliminary number crunching suggests that worldwide PC shipments totaled 64.8 million units in the first quarter of 2016, down 9.6 percent from the same quarter a year ago. If that stands true when the final numbers are tallied, it will represent the sixth consecutive quarter of PC shipment declines. It will also be the first time since 2007 that PC shipments dipped below 65 million units. "The deterioration of local currencies against the U. S. dollar continued to play a major role in PC shipment declines. Our early results also show there was an inventory buildup from holiday sales in the fourth quarter of 2015," said Mikako Kitagawa , principal analyst at Gartner. IDC sang a similar song, though its numbers showed global PC shipments totalling 60.6 million units in the first quarter of 2016, down 11.6 percent year-over-year. That's in line with what IDC was expecting, which noted conservative expectations for an 11.3 percent decline. "In the short term, the PC market must still grapple with limited consumer interest and competition from other infrastructure upgrades in the commercial market," said Jay Chou , Research Manager, IDC Worldwide PC Tracker, "Nevertheless, IDC still projects total business IT spending to grow compared to 2015, and as we head toward the end of 2016 things should start picking up in terms of Windows 10 pilots turning into actual PC purchases. " Don't be freaked out by the reported declines. For one, IDC doesn't include handheld PCs or Windows tablets with detachable keyboards in its figures. There's also some question as to how both firms define "shipments" as Moor Insights & Strategy points out. If you're worried that declining PC shipments will affect PC gaming, don't be. These figures mostly represent low-end systems, the general purpose PCs that Lenovo, Dell, and the rest of the gang sell to the masses. The market for high-end gaming PCs is still growing, as IDC noted to PCWorld at the beginning of the year. Jon Peddie Research generally agrees with that assessment. According to JPR , following a slight dip in PC gaming hardware sales in 2015, the market will see steady growth for the next several years. But If you really want to know how gaming PCs are doing, the best approach is to ask the boutique builders themselves. "At Puget Systems, our high end gaming PC sales have never been better. Windows 10, Skylake, 4K, VR, and a strong year of gaming title launches, has made 2015 a strong year for enthusiast gaming PCs, and we expect 2016 to be even stronger," Jon Back, founder of Puget Systems, told Maximum PC. "Keep in mind, when Gartner and IDC talk about PC shipments, they're talking about the volume market, and most of the volume is entry level. We enthusiast PC builders live is a completely different world! "

Gartner: PC shipments fell 9.6% between Q4 2015 and Q1 2016 techreport.com 2016-04-12 18:08 By Paul www.pcgamer.com

6 Come in Microsoft SQL Server 2005, your time is up (2.00/4) MICROSOFT HAS brought another popular product to a close. Today sees the end-of-life for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 which, although dwindling in popularity, still holds significant market share. The official Microsoft statement reads: "If you are still running SQL Server 2005 after 12 April 2016 you will no longer receive security updates. Now is the time to upgrade to SQL Server 2014 and Azure SQL Database to achieve breakthrough performance, maintain security and compliance, and optimise your data platform infrastructure. " Despite this, many companies have opted not to bother with the upgrade, not least because it's often difficult for CTOs to explain the need for new software bundles to CFOs who don't understand what the product does. The move is compounded by the fact that, in a rare show of compassion at the time, Microsoft offered an 'Express' version free of charge. The product was launched in London in October 2005 by Bill Gates himself, but times have moved on and SQL servers have to be bigger, bolder and leaner than ever before. The latest version has been benchmarked at 13 times the size of its 2005 predecessor. Microsoft offers an Assessment and Planning Toolkit to help customers with the transition. Despite the advice from Microsoft, many customers have yet to upgrade from Microsoft Server 2003, which reached end-of-life in autumn last year and left businesses open to hack attacks. Adrian Foxall, CEO of application migration firm Camwood, warned that a lackadaisical approach to migration could prove the undoing of many a firm. "While we’d like to hope that most organisations have learned their lesson from the end of Windows XP and Server 2003 , there will always be a temptation to leave these migrations to the last minute. This is especially true for low-profile migrations such as SQL Server 2005, which many businesses are yet to even register on their IT agendas," he said. "Ironically, this lack of preparation is in part due to the improved migration process behind much of Microsoft’s software. Many businesses now leave their migrations to the last minute in the hope that, come April, the upgrades will be little more than a process of 'click Next, click Next, click Finish'. Sadly, this will not be the case. " Microsoft, of course, emphasises the relatively shonky performance offered by these legacy products, and what a great opportunity this presents, but it would say that. The firm once said that the Zune was a good idea. µ

DH2i announces industry's first Containers-as-a-Service solution for Microsoft SQL Server sdtimes.com 2016-04-12 15:37 Chris Merriman www.theinquirer.net

7 Apple Pay struggles in Australia as banks profit from a fee- phobic market Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull may have put money behind his vision of an Asia-Pacific export explosion for the leaders of Australian financial technology (fintech), but on-the-ground innovation is proving somewhat scarcer, as innovation-hungry banks protect their domestic fintech investments and take a cautious approach to Apple Pay. The payments system could have serious implications for the country’s $A2.5bn merchant-fees market, with Australia being one of the world’s leading users of iPhones (the devices make up over 35% of the local market, compared with around 16% globally). Yet Apple Pay, which was launched locally in late November 2015, remains tied to users of American Express (Amex) cards only. This might not be significant in other countries – where Amex happily co-exists with other cards and all are widely accepted – but in Australia Amex remains the black sheep of the retail market, largely because high merchant fees drive many retailers to add 2%-3% surcharges for Amex purchases. Many others simply don’t accept the cards at all. These surcharges are well above the 1.45% that the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), which passes on merchant fees at cost to customers paying tax bills with cards online, pays for Amex transactions. MasterCard and Visa payments, by comparison, attract just 0.42% fees. Apple’s Australian rates for Apple Pay are still not publicly known, but analysts are using as a benchmark the 0.15% surcharge Apple demands in the US, which would, based on a 0.42% benchmark, effectively increase merchant fees by over a third. This situation highlights the challenge of introducing Apple Pay into a fee-phobic Australian market where customers’ dislike of even modest fees for accessing their money have kept Amex side-lined to business users, or as part of dual-card credit accounts that help fee-averse customers maximise their Amex spend to receive up to three times as many loyalty points than purchases with Visa and MasterCard. With Amex and fourth-place Diners Club together comprising an estimated 20% of Australia’s card market , the affiliation with Apple Pay makes sense as a strategic play to boost the market cachet of what is still a niche card provider. Likewise, for Apple, it represents a soft entry into a market where market longevity for Apple Pay will eventually require the involvement of MasterCard and Visa – which are both on-board with rival Google Pay.

2016-04-13 05:41 David Braue www.computerweekly.com

8 Huawei eyeing top spot in consumer and enterprise Huawei Australia chairman John Lord has outlined the Chinese tech giant's plans to push ahead in the consumer and enterprise business segments, saying it should leverage its influence in Europe to gain more local awareness. While Lord said Huawei is already widely known across telecommunications companies through its carrier business, it still needs to push into the enterprise sector and become a more pervasive provider. "We do need to get to be known in industry verticals better, because enterprise is the new game ... we still need to be known," Lord told media in Shenzhen on Tuesday. "Even though they're better known globally and in Europe now, they're still not known enough, and people probably think of them as a mobile phone over here, and a network over there, and not as this middle enterprise player, which of course they are. So that's still the job for us. " Huawei is also aiming for deeper penetration within the consumer space, with rotating CEO Eric Xu saying on Monday that the company's goal is to become the number one consumer brand in the world. "We will leverage the technical expertise we've been building over the last decades, and try to build a premium brand, or high-end brand. We want to make it the top brand throughout the world. At the same time, we want to capture consumers' recognition through service and quality," Xu said at the Huawei Analyst Summit in Shenzhen. "We're committed to building an ecosystem with consumers in the centre, so as to improve stickiness or loyalty of consumer customers. We want to leverage our own strengths, and we want to engage with consumers in the right way... build our consumer brand into a trusted and loved brand. " Huawei is therefore considering it a top priority to make inroads into both enterprise and consumer, Lord said. "We have two roles today: One is still to get consumer land to be able to say our name and buy our mobile devices, which we're putting a fair bit of effort into, and the second one is still to say to business, 'hey, we are one of the smartest companies in the world and we can take your business end to end, wire to wire'. " The chairman suggested that Huawei's continuing lack of brand awareness in Australia could be improved by leveraging its success across Europe as a sort of seal of approval. "Our problem in Australia is still we've got to get people to know Huawei, because they don't still -- we do surveys and we're still chipping away -- but in Europe it's a lot bigger," Lord said. "I think we need to let Australia know we're playing one of the lead roles in Europe, too, as part of our branding and image. " One of Huawei's biggest successes in Australia has been the deployment of its first localised board, which the company is now looking to as an example for launches elsewhere. "The structure of the board was very smart. We had three Australian directors... and then we had two global directors. And that was just a smart move," Lord said, explaining that it gave Huawei Australia "instant access" to the global board in China, which consequently "gave us that clout, and also we were able to inherit what the company was all about". What he called the "Chinese-Western board model" was then used to launch a localised-led operation in the United Kingdom with the same structure consisting of three local and two global board members. Lord hinted that more localised boards could also be on the horizon. "They're looking at other countries -- perhaps there will be another announcement this year of one country, and another one next year. " In regards to its consumer business, Huawei already holds the most smartphone market share in China, and ranks in the top three worldwide. Last week, the Apple iPhone's market share reportedly shrank by 3.2 percentage points in China due to the success of Huawei. "iOS declined 3.2 percentage points between February 2015 and February 2016. Huawei was able to recapture the top spot on the smartphone brand leader board, capturing 24.4 percent of smartphones sold in urban China, just ahead of Apple's 22.2 percent," said Tamsin Timpson , a strategic insight director from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Huawei's FY15 net profit of 36.9 billion yuan ($5.7 billion) -- a 33 percent year-on-year rise -- on revenue of 395 billion yuan was largely attributed to its consumer business. Described by as "a major highlight" of the tech giant's results, consumer grew by 73 percent over the year to reach 129.1 billion yuan due to the increasing popularity of its handsets; Huawei shipped 108 million smartphones worldwide over the year . Huawei also filed the highest number of patent applications worldwide during the course of 2015, making 3,898 applications, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization. Trailing were Qualcomm, which filed 2,442 patent applications; ZTE, which filed 2,155; and Samsung, which filed 1,683. According to Huawei, it has had a total of 50,377 patents authorised, with 52,550 patent applications made in China and 30,613 patent applications made outside of China. To ensure its continued success, Huawei has more than 79,000 research and development (R&D) engineers, amounting to 45 percent of its total workforce, 16 R&D centres and 36 joint innovation centres worldwide -- including a AU$30 million National Training and Innovation Centre in Sydney , as well as centres in China, Germany, Sweden, Russia, and India -- and R&D investment amounting to approximately $37 billion over the last 10 years. The company invests at least 10 percent of its sales revenue back into R&D each year, with 15.1 percent of its 2015 sales revenue being invested last year.

2016-04-13 00:05 Corinne Reichert zdnet.com.feedsportal.com

9 At $5, Fallout 4's Wasteland Workshop is barely worth it Five bucks (£4) sounds like a reasonable price for Fallout 4’s Wasteland Workshop DLC, but after I played with it for a while today, I realized that even though it adds a number of new settlement items and a few new activities, none of it feels essential or even that much fun. For console gamers, who don't get to enjoy the hundreds of free mods or use console codes, I can see this being worth it. For PC gamers, not so much. Preston Garvey will certainly be pleased: the Wasteland Workshop adds a bunch of settlement improvements. You'll get some additional items to stick to the ugly walls of your buildings, like new lights and lamps, neon letters for making signs only you will read, and other decorations like buses and trailers to place around your homestead. New types of walls and floors and other building materials are included, as well automated spike and blade traps to guard your borders, plus a fusion generator that puts out a hefty 100 units of power. There's also a decontamination arch that will cure your radiation poisoning if you’ve run out of Radaway (which you haven’t and never will). The arch looks cool, though I wasn’t too happy that my ghoul settler insisted on watching me shower. The biggest addition is that you can now trap monsters and either tame them (via a new beta wave emitter) or set them against each other in arena-style fights in your settlements. Thing is, trapping monsters isn’t really fun, and frankly, neither is watching them fight. You can spawn monsters in the console and make them fight each other whenever you want, and I’ve never found monster battles, even huge ones , that interesting to watch anyway: Fallout 4's AI and animation just isn’t convincing or brutal enough to make for a good spectator sport. Having a patrolling Deathclaw guarding your camp is a nice idea but ultimately settlers and turrets can handle whatever enemies show up at your base anyway. I think the most fun I had with the DLC was opening my cat trap and seeing the fearsome creature leap out, hover an inch off the ground for a moment, and then begin strolling around its new home. "I have to live in this dump? " I think the idea of trapping monsters is a fun one if it worked differently: if you went out into the wastes, laid traps in likely areas, and came back later to see what you’d captured. Taming and transport of the beasts could have been an enjoyable and perhaps tense activity. In the DLC, though, you just place a cage in your settlement for the creature you want to capture (including mirelurks, radscorpions, ghouls, and human NPCs like raiders and gunners), then add a switch and power it with a generator. Then you sleep or go away for a few days. When you come back, check to see if you've caught something in your trap. You can then let it out either to fight in an arena you’ve built, or you can make it tame with your new emitter and turn it into a resident. You can also place a red and blue platform on the ground, and assign your settlers into teams for a deathmatch. Do you want to see settlers fight each other to the death? If so... why? It's just not that interesting, plus when they die it just means more settlers will show up and you’ll have to go through the trouble of pointing them at corn or workbenches or shops all over again. The only useful settler is one who is alive and has already been pointed at corn. I know it's only five bucks, but it's still hard not to feel a little underwhelmed by the Wasteland Workshop. I'd say this is a pretty skippable bit of DLC for PC gamers: you can find plenty of settlement improvements and decorations on the Steam Workshop Nexus Mods for free— or on our handy best mods list —and I feel that Bethesda could have added more to their original meager selection of building items without asking you to pay for it. I know, I know, It’s hard to whine over a five dollar buy, but I think I’ve managed it pretty nicely.

2016-04-12 23:55 Christopher Livingston www.pcgamer.com

10 You can now make a flashy Facebook profile pic with third- party video apps The flagship image of any social media account - the profile pic - is everything. Waiting for the most opportune lighting, camera angle, and hair day, however, can be a painstaking process, so why commit to a single static image when you can have an entire video adorn the top of your profile instead? At least, this is the thinking for Facebook, which announced today that users can now turn to third- party video apps to create and upload a moving profile image as their profile pic. Thanks to Facebook's new Profile Expression Kit for developers, users can chuck out the conventional selfie in favor of short,. GIF-like videos with a few taps of a button. The new pic program is currently in beta, but a select number of partners like MSQRD, Boomerang, lollicam, and Vine are already showing off the next wave of profile photos on Facebook's official announcement page . Integrating the Profile Expression Kit also allows developers to get a direct attribution on Facebook when users post a video profile through their app, giving them a shout-out alongside all those fresh likes and comments. Facebook added motion to its profiles back in September , but the sheer amount of customization and content that other apps bring adds a whole new level of creativity to the News Feed. That said, if the current state of Vine is anything to go off of, we can't help but brace for a litany of tired memes taking over our friends' faces during the course of the coming months. Article continues below

2016-04-12 23:35 By Parker feedproxy.google.com

11 The best Stardew Valley mods Stardew Valley is still waiting on official Steam Workshop support, but its modding community has come leaps and bounds since the game launched in February. There's already a variety of mods out there that do everything from changing what your dog or cat looks like to making fishing easier to adding items and adjusting game balance. Most of these mods were found either at Stardewmods.com or on the official Stardew Valley Mod forum , both of which are getting more amazing mods everyday Most of these mods are simple modifications to the game's XNB files. That means all you need to do to install them is download the modified XNB, find the corresponding XNB file in the Stardew Valley 'Content' folder—default location is "C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Stardew Valley\Content", and the XNB you are looking for may be in a subfolder within the 'Content' folder —and then replace the original XNB with the one you downloaded. Though, like I said, you should make a back-up of the original in case you want to remove the mod. Mods that make more complex changes may require the "Stardew Modding API", or SMAPI for short. This is a community-made API that is frequently being updated and allows you to use DLL mods. It's a slightly bigger hassle to install these mods than the XNB ones—as you first need to install SMAPI and then download DLL mods to place into SMAPI's mod folder—but it also allows those mods to make much deeper changes to the game. You can download SMAPI on the Stardew Valley modding forum , and I'll be sure to mark which mods require it to be used. There's also a great community-made ModManager tool created by modder yuuki called SDVMM. This will help you install and update SMAPI, as well as keep track of all of your mods. It allows you to easily activate and deactivate specific mods without having to remove the files completely, giving you more flexibility if you want to try something on this list out but potentially not keep the mod forever. However SDVMM hasn't been updated in a while, so there's no guarantee it will remain functional. Now then, let's get to the mods!

2016-04-12 23:00 Tom Marks www.pcgamer.com

12 Diablo 2 is being recreated in StarCraft 2, and it looks surprisingly good Blizzard's effort to keep Diablo 2 playable on modern PCs and operating systems is laudable, but it may also be somewhat less essential than it initially appeared: A fellow by the name of egod123 is recreating Diablo 2 in StarCraft 2, and a new trailer heralding the upcoming alpha release is looking very nice indeed. The Curse of Tristram: Destruction's End is actually a mod for StarCraft 2, and so while it will be free, it will require that game in order function. Egod123 said on his Patreon page that most of the “core systems and functionality” have already been completed, and egod123 is confident he'll be able to complete work on the project with some support from backers. Of course, that doesn't address the risk of a cease-and-desist letter from Blizzard, which would stop the whole thing in its tracks. The fact that it's a homage of sorts may lessen that likelihood somewhat, especially in light of the studio's relatively forgiving attitude toward fan-created content: The StarCraft Universe MMO is still drawing breath, for instance, and you can play the original StarCraft and Brood War campaigns in StarCraft 2 if you're so inclined. Of course, there's a much more recent example of a much less happy ending to an unofficial Blizzard project: Just last week, the studio took action to close down Nostalrius , the largest private Vanilla WoW server in operation. But that situation was also quite a bit different in that Nostalrius could be seen as cannibalizing World of Warcraft, Blizzard's number-one cash cow. I don't think anyone is going to seriously suggest that Diablo 2 sales are going to suffer because of this mod, especially since it's dependent upon ownership of another Blizzard game. Absent of a letter of permission autographed by Mike Morhaime, I'm hopeful that The Curse of Tristram will continue development without inference from Diablo's owners. Even in this relatively early state, it looks fantastic. The Curse of Tristram is set to begin alpha testing this summer. Follow along on Facebook.

2016-04-12 22:34 By Andy www.pcgamer.com

13 Enterprise asset management: Why it’s even more important in today’s oil and gas industry With global organizations and systems that are more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent than ever, the oil and gas industry has the potential to optimize operations and increase efficiency by using data in new ways. The core functionalities of enterprise asset management systems — flexibility, scalability and integration — support these goals.

2016-04-13 01:09 www.itworldcanada.com

14 Skullcandy Grind Wireless review Skullcandy, a brand that was once known for cheap earbuds and lackluster headphones, has been full of surprises these days. First, it put out the excellently priced Skullcandy Grind , a wired headset with exceptional sound quality and comfortable padding. Now, it's followed that with a wireless version that packs in everything we loved about the original. And, more importantly, Skullcandy has done it without tacking on an extra zero to the price tag. The headphones, as you might guess, are called the Skullcandy Grind Wireless and retail for $89 (£69, about AU$116). They're available in six different colors and patterns and sound better than 95% of the wireless headphones in the sub-$100 category. It's hard to talk about the Grind Wireless's design in any definitive way. Because it's available in so many colors and patterns, you can outfit your cans exactly how you please. On one end of the (color) spectrum, is the all-blue design with black accents that's fairly sporty. On the other is the gunmetal and gray design that has a plaid bridge that basically screams hipster audiophile or technophile lumberjack. The review sample sent to techradar is a simplistic, yet sophisticated, mix of black and faux brown leather on the top of the bridge. Beneath the leather covering is soft black foam, stitched into place with a breathable mesh layer. The cushiony foam and soft ear pads work in tandem to form one of the most comfortable-fitting headsets the Park City, Utah-based audio company has ever created. Turning now to the feature set, the Grind Wireless has three minimalist control buttons: volume up, volume down and the main function button that's used to power on and off the headset as well as sync a new device to it. Each volume button, when held down for three seconds, skips to the next or previous track. The main function button is responsible for controlling Bluetooth and answering incoming calls. The Grind Wireless comes with a built-in microphone, as well as an optional 3.5mm audio jack for the times you don't mind being tethered to your device. The word I keep coming back to when testing the Skullcandy Grind Wireless is "surprising". Surprising because, one, the Grind Wireless has a deep, well-rounded sound in a super-light headset and, two, it costs half as much as other comparable wireless headphones. To that end, it seems like no matter what music genre I throw at them, the Grind Wireless impresses me each and every time. Do you have a particularly bass-heavy music library? The Grind Wireless handles lows better than a pair of Beats ever could. The same is true for mids and highs in genres like rock, EDM, acoustic and singer/songwriter. Now, are they as powerful as a proper pair of Sennheisers? No. Can they stand up to a pair of planar magnetic cans, like the Oppo PM-3? No, definitely not. But considering that those aural bad boys cost as much as a game console, the Grind Wireless simply does a better job at giving audio enthusiasts a deep, full experience for a reasonable price. My only qualms with the Grind Wireless are that they come a bit understocked (the only items in the box are the headphones, a 3.5mm audio cable and a micro-USB cable) and the battery. It's advertised to hold a charge for 12 hours, but it doesn't quite live up to that mark. I frequently went to use the Grind Wireless only to find them out of juice after my last listening session. One explanation for this is that the headphones won't ever turn off if they're connected via Bluetooth. Even if you haven't listened to something in six hours, the Grind Wireless will sit there patiently, waiting for a chance to wow you with the next track from your music library. As for the accessories, a carrying case or charging block would have been welcome, instead of leaving it up to you to have these things in your possession. At the end of the day, though, both those two performance faux pas are far outweighed by stellar sound – and an even more stellar price. In the battle of the brands, it can be hard to trust an outsider. You probably know and trust companies like Sennheiser, Sony, Bose and Beats. And nothing against the tried and true headphone manufacturers, but a lot of what you're paying for is the name. The Skullcandy Grind Wireless is a black sheep, it breaks convention left and right and yet delivers in all the major areas. It's far from perfect (see: battery life and accessories), but, for the price tag, you're getting a great-sounding, well-constructed pair of cans that know how to rumble with bass notes and rock with mids and highs.

2016-04-12 22:29 By Nick feedproxy.google.com

15 An Xbox One Slim could debut this summer, FCC filings suggest A recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filing hints at a potential Xbox One successor to be unveiled later in the summer, namely. Compiled on NeoGAF (so, prepare your salt), a user has uncovered documents from Microsoft's filing with the FCC that show the company is working on some new pieces of communication hardware. The thread's original poster was able to link information from the Xbox One's WLAN module to two similar filings that are under a non-disclosure agreement for separate dates: June 25 and July 29. While best to take with a grain of salt (see?), the user safety manual submitted for one of devices, identified for FCC approval as C3K-1683 , is written as "User Manual 1525. " The original Xbox One's FCC ID, C3K-1525, leads speculators to believe that whatever device Microsoft is pushing through approval uses the same manual as the Xbox One. The logical conclusion here is that Microsoft is preparing to announce a redesigned or slimmed-down version of the current console. The other filing – ID'd C3K-1682 – seems have a revised manual listed in the application, causing some to think it as an upgraded Xbox similar to the equally-elusive PS4K , despite Microsoft denying the claim that it is working on an intermediate upgrade to the Xbox One. US law requires any and all electronics that wirelessly transmit data to be registered with the FCC before they can go out on the market. However, certain bits of information, like images of the device or a manual, can be kept under wraps for a period of time, leaving us waiting for June before we'll get the full deets. While the application's embargo runs nearly two weeks after this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (i.e. E3 2016 ), it wouldn't be a stretch to guess that Microsoft will tip its cards during the conference, giving itself ample time for Xbox head Phil Spencer to deliver the reveal himself in place of the FCC. Article continues below

2016-04-12 22:00 By Parker feedproxy.google.com

16 How to get into The Division’s tough new raid A big free content update for The Division dropped this morning, and with it came the Falcon Lost incursion, what many have referred to as its first raid. Keep expectations in check, though, because Falcon Lost isn’t structured as a multilayered dungeon with a few bosses and light puzzles along the way, as a raid in WoW or Destiny might be. Instead, the incursion is a wave-based arena that throws in a few playful cooperative mechanics to mix up the action. I’ve yet to play the mission myself, though I did watch a few streams to get an idea of its structure, and even though I’m not impressed by its design, I’m intrigued by the new endgame incentive it promises. Before you log back in and try to tackle the incursion, make sure you’re level 30 and your Gear Level is high enough. For the default difficulty (Hard), 140 is the bare minimum with 160 as the recommended level. This is definitely an endgame activity, and grinding out for the best gear you can find is to be expected even if it is a little inconvenient for a more casual player. Falcon Lost takes place in a single multi-tiered arena inside a water treatment plant littered with a maze of cover and vantage points. Last Man Battalion forces occupy the plant and since NYC could use some clean water, you’re tasked with taking it back. You and three teammates spawn in from one end of the space and get two primary goals: destroy the enemy APC located opposite you and eliminate 15 waves of the LMB. At the default difficulty, enemies (familiar LMB classes and drones with a stun attack) spawn in at level 32 with reckless abandon—elites are everywhere, and the waves don’t take long to ramp up in difficulty. I didn’t see many groups make it beyond wave 11, even with gear levels that exceeded the recommendation. That said, after perusing some message boards, some players have reported that there’s an optimal method for completing the mission that takes advantage of the turrets and occasional bombs dropped by special enemies in the arena. I’ll leave that strategy for players to discover, but thankfully, it requires tight teamwork and a bit of experimentation. After successfully completing Falcon Lost, players are rewarded with 33,000 credits, 15 Phoenix credits, one vanity item, one equipment item, and one gear set item—gear sets are a new, but familiar RPG feature: complete the set and get a bonus. With a guaranteed gear set drop and the added ability to trade items within one hour of obtaining them, players will definitely have incentive to repeat the incursion regularly and eventually try it on a higher difficulty. Players appear to be enjoying Falcon Lost, even if it doesn’t feel as substantial or diverse as raids in similar multiplayer games. Based on what I’ve seen, I think I’d like to explore an interesting space and fight through a series of challenging scenarios or bosses that require precise cooperation instead of a single prolonged scenario that taps into the same pool of cooperative challenges, but draws them out in a single generic area. Time will tell if Falcon Lost is more rewarding with repetition. There’s something to be said for perfecting a ‘dance’ with a good fireteam. If not, I worry about players are treating it strictly as a means to an end, as a 30 minute exercise to complete gear sets, build up currency, and continue the same grind loop the end game already had. If the paid expansions fail to amplify the ideas Falcon Lost pokes at, then we’ll have more grounds to worry about the future of The Division, but right now, things look much more exciting than dire. For now, I’m happy to see The Division trend towards a fully-featured cooperative shooter that properly incentivises its RPG mechanics and endgame grind.

2016-04-12 21:21 James Davenport www.pcgamer.com

17 Micron Presents New SSDs and Strategy At Micron's Enterprising event today in Austin, TX the company discussed several upcoming products and shared information about an ongoing strategic shift. Not content to stay a mere component supplier for storage and memory, Micron is getting involved in software to help develop solutions that can make the most of their storage hardware offerings. The venue was Micron's new Storage Solutions Center, the nexus of Micron's collaboration efforts with OEMs, software vendors and enterprise end-users. At the Storage Solutions Center, Micron and their partners work on whole-system optimization to solve immediate customer needs and to generate reference architectures and documentation for the benefit of other customers. The reference architectures are branded as Micron Accelerated Solutions, the first of which is a hardware platform by Supermicro bundled with VMWare Virtual SAN and using Micron M510DC SSDs. A similar solution has been developed with the Ceph object storage system and work is underway with Nexenta on an integrated system that will be available in the second half of the year. In addition to the whole-system products, Micron shared information about several new and upcoming SSDs. The 9100 and 7100 series PCIe SSDs were launched and covered in a separate post. The 9100 was featured in a demo of the software defined storage system under development by SymbolicIO. The 7100 series is the second product line resulting from Micron's collaboration with Seagate, which previously resulted in a family of SAS SSDs. Micron announced the schedule for their first 3D NAND SSDs. The Crucial MX300 will launch later this month using Micron's 3D TLC NAND. Specifics aren't available yet, but given the 384Gbit (48GB) capacity per die of the 3D TLC, the MX300 will either feature oddball capacities, significantly more overprovisioning than its MLC-based predecessors, or an uneven distribution of NAND dies across the controller's channels. In June Micron will launch a pair of OEM client SSDs, the 1100 series and the 2100 series. Specifications for those drives were also not announced, but the photographs reveal some details: an M.2 SATA drive using a Marvell controller (probably 88SS1074, and thus probably also using TLC), and an M.2 PCIe drive with a Silicon Motion controller, presumably the SM2260. Micron says there will be 3D NAND for the datacenter in the second half of the year, but they have not yet identified any of the drives that will be using it. A 3D XPoint wafer was waved around onstage but Micron made no substantial announcements today about the technology. They did promise that we'll be hearing more about the products and their branding later this year, and confirmed that they've been focusing on using 3D XPoint in NVMe products (whereas Intel is also developing NVDIMMs).

2016-04-12 21:16 Billy Tallis www.anandtech.com

18 Microsoft OneDrive for Business to get SharePoint document sync by year-end 2016 Microsoft is rolling out over the next few months, starting today, a number of new 'Spring' features for the next version of its OneDrive Next Generation Sync Client. Officials disclosed the features for the updated NGSC -- "which we now refer to as the new OneDrive sync client," in execs' words -- on April 12. Microsoft rolled out the initial release of OneDrive NGSC for Windows and Mac users in December 2015. According to the company, here's what's coming to users starting today, and continuing on for the next several months: Microsoft lays out year-long roadmap for unifying OneDrive sync engines In a new announcement, the company says it plans to unify its consumer and commercial OneDrive engines, but some changes might arrive after the initial release of Windows 10. Officials said "most" of these new capabilities will be available to all OneDrive for Business users within one to two weeks. The Office 2016 integration (including the associated Office 2016 update) and Pause sync features "will continue rolling out during the course of the summer," they noted. In March 2016, officials said they were planning to deliver Windows 8.1 support in Q1 of 2016. Groove.exe takeover and pause sync were listed as Q2 2016 deliverables on Microsoft's updated OneDrive for Business roadmap . Additional sync updates are coming beyond that, including: The SharePoint Document Library Sync is one of the most sought-after OneDrive for Business features -- and one that Microsoft execs, until today, on which officials weren't pinning a definitive ship target. In early March, Microsoft execs said they were committed to providing this functionality, but wouldn't say when. There's still no official update as to when and how Microsoft plans to provide something to replace OneDrive Placeholders functionality that the OneDrive team removed in Windows releases following Windows 8.1. In other Microsoft cloud services news, Microsoft updated its Skype for Business clients for iOS and Android today, April 12, adding the ability to view meeting content on Android and improvements to the meeting experience on both platforms, even when you are experiencing spotty Internet connectivity.

2016-04-12 21:12 Mary Jo zdnet.com.feedsportal.com

19 Samsung's new dongle turns its SUHD TVs into the center of your smart home Samsung has been one of the biggest proponents of smart TVs and now it has introduced a new dongle, called extend, that transforms them into the center of your home. The new dongle essentially ties the Smart Hub system built into Samsung television sets together with its SmartThings smart home platform. Samsung announced the dongle will work with all Samsung 7-, 8- and 9-series smart TVs (including all of the new SUHD with Quantum Dot Displays announced at CES), allowing you to check in on everything from your alarm clock to your refrigerator's energy consumption. And what's more, the electronics firm also plans to give the it will give away the dongle to existing SUHD TV owners later this summer. Article continues below

2016-04-12 21:05 By Kevin feedproxy.google.com

20 Ingram Micro Execs: Vendors, Partners Embracing Proposed HNA Acquisition Vendors and partners support Ingram Micro's becoming part of HNA Group, according to Ingram executives, and are not worried about the deal’s impact in the U. S. federal space. The Chinese conglomerate saw value in the intellectual property being created at Ingram Micro and believes the proposed $6.5 billion acquisition by affiliate Tianjin Tianhai will help HNA evolve from pure logistics to more comprehensive solutions, Ingram Micro CEO Alain Monie and U. S. Chief Executive Paul Bay said Tuesday. "As far as the change, I only see positives," Monie said, in one of his few public comments since the deal was revealed in February. "We will have additional flexibility and more power to drive investment in these technologies. " [Related: Ingram Micro Exec: Proposed Chinese Ownership Won't Hurt Our U. S. Federal Business ] HNA's commitment to additional IT funding as well as the shift to a more private ownership structure further made the deal all the more appealing, Monie said at the 2016 Ingram Micro Cloud Summit in Phoenix. HNA is privately held, though Tianjin Tianhai is publicly traded. Bay told assembled media that he has spoken extensively with partners on large conference calls as well as in one-on-one meetings and phone calls, reassuring them that the proposed HNA deal will have no impact on the Irvine, Calif.-based distributor’s robust U. S. government business. "Once we get on the phone and have a conversation and reiterate what we've already said, people feel comfortable now," Bay said. "There's been nothing that's come back as a negative. " Bay said that after the sale closes, Ingram Micro will continue to use the same systems it does today. The distributor holds an ISO 27001 certification, which verifies that systems are managed to the highest global standards and stringent rules around data classification are in place for its public sector business, Bay wrote in an internal memo filed last month with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The distributor's vendor partners have embraced the deal without hesitation, according to Bay. "It hasn't been a long conversation because they understand that most of these [vendors] are global companies as it is already," Bay said. "So I think they understand the landscape a little bit more with a foreign entity making a potential investment. " Mark Roach, president of CEO of Carlsbad, Calif.-based Pearl Technologies, hadn't even heard about HNA's acquisition of Ingram Micro until Monie mentioned it from the main stage Tuesday morning. He was pleased to hear from Monie that the existing management team will remain in place, and is confident that if that remains the case, the proposed acquisition will have no impact on his business.

2016-04-12 20:49 Michael Novinson www.crn.com

21 Everybody's Gone to the Rapture goes to the PC on Thursday A PC release of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture was finally confirmed a couple weeks ago, a nice bit of news that was lacking the rather important detail of a release date. Today, developer The Chinese Room got around to revealing that bit of info, and as it turns out, it's very close—very close indeed. “We shared quite a lot of info last week in this post about some of the features that you can expect in the PC version, but the Steam store page is now up, and you can pre-purchase the game to play it on Thursday 14th April,” the studio wrote on its blog . Everybody's Gone to the Rapture was originally released last summer as a PS4 exclusive, but The Chinese Room Creative Director Dan Pinchbeck told us in a recent chat that he was “absolutely chuffed to bits” that a PC version is on the way. “We always wanted to get it onto PC as it's kind of our home turf and we've got a lot of really passionate, supportive fans on PC. We kept making sure all the way through development that Sony knew that we could do it, and that we really wanted to do it,” he said. “Around the time Rapture came out on PS4 there must have been an internal discussion at their end, as suddenly it became a possibility, so we jumped at the chance.” Don't worry about the short window before launch causing you to miss a discount. The $20/£16 pre-purchase price for Everybody's Gone to the Rapture on Steam is also its regular price.

2016-04-12 20:22 By Andy www.pcgamer.com

22 DLT Solutions Strikes Partner Deal With SimpliVity For Hyper-Convergence In Public Sector Premier public sector solution provider DLT Solutions will help sell SimpliVity’s hyper-convergence products after the two companies formed a partnership. The partnership will focus on helping agencies improve operational efficiency within their increasingly complex data centers, DLT said in a statement released Tuesday. "Hyperconverged infrastructure provides significant benefits for government data centers including improved ability to scale, cost savings, faster deployment time, and IT productivity savings," Brian Strosser, DLT’s chief operating officer, said in the statement. "DLT has been working with data center managers for more than two decades, and our customers are always very interested in exploring the latest innovations available to simplify their IT footprint without sacrificing performance or functionality.” [Related: SimpliVity CEO Kempel On n Competing With Cisco, AWS, And How VARs Can Win In The Hyper-Converged Market ] DLT, founded in 1991, is based in Herndon, Va. It grew rapidly from 2012 to 2014 as revenue soared more than 12 percent to $900 million. Last year, DLT was sold by majority owner TZP Capital Group to Millstein & Co. DLT ranks 35th on CRN’s 2015 Solution Provider 500 list. "Through this partnership, agencies can easily procure SimpliVity solutions to achieve cloud-like economics and scale without compromising the performance, reliability, and availability expected within their own data centers," Strosser said in the statement. In an interview with CRN on Tuesday, Gary DePreta, director of federal sales for SimpliVity, said the Westborough, Mass.-based hyper-convergence startup was "excited" about the deal, which had been in the works before he came aboard six weeks ago after 10 years as an executive with Cisco Systems. "DLT is a great brand" that brings "great experience" to help SimpliVity in the government space, he said. "Hyper-convergence is revolutionizing IT infrastructure and provides CIOs the ability to transform their data centers and service delivery," DePreta said in the DLT statement. "DLT has the relationships, in-depth knowledge of public sector requirements, and technical services capabilities to accelerate our ability to bring these transformative solutions to the public sector. " DePreta also said the deal between the two companies includes joint marketing efforts to help drive demand and interest in the public sector.

2016-04-12 20:19 Rick Saia www.crn.com

23 Hands on: Toshiba Portege Z30-C-125 review 2016 has been a tumultuous year for Toshiba. It will be remembered as the year when the Japanese company made the decision to abandon the consumer laptop market and focus exclusively on the B2B market. For business users however, that's not a great loss as the Satellite Pro, Portege and Tecra ranges are expected to stay around. The Portege Z30-C-125 is the third iteration of the Z30 series (see our hands-on review of its predecessor here ) and differs from the top-of-the-range C138 by offering half the on-board storage, half the system memory and no 4G/LTE support. The design, however, hasn't changed much over the years – like other brands, such as Dell's Latitude range, Toshiba engineers only tinkered with the chassis. There's not much difference between the Z830 and the Z30-C and yet more than four years separate both models. The footprints of both are actually the same (316 x 227mm) and they only differ when it comes to the thickness (15.9mm on average for the newer model) and the fact that the Z30-C is a tad heavier (1.2kg). Still, this is a superbly thin laptop although not to the extent of the Dell XPS 13 (which is the same weight but 12mm thick). And there's a very good reason for that. This laptop comes with a lot of ports, far more than on the aforementioned Dell flagship laptop. Other than three USB 3.0 ports, it also has a VGA connector, HDMI, a Gigabit Ethernet LAN port, an audio socket, and underneath there's even a docking station connector. If that wasn't enough there's a smartcard reader and an SD card slot on either side of the laptop. How Toshiba managed to cram so much into such a small volume is an engineering feat – although the truth is that they discovered the formula from day one (well, since the Z830 at least). The Portege was never destined to be a mainstream laptop and the two legacy ports (VGA and LAN) actually determine the thickness of the base unit, where all the components are housed. Removing these would help shave a few millimetres but businesses and IT admins may not approve. Ditto for the docking station connector: the port replicator is still very much an essential accessory for businesses who have moved to a laptop-only environment. Wireless connectivity is handled by an Intel chipset which provides 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. As for the laptop design, it sports the same "muted silver brushed aluminium" finish (gunmetal grey or metallic steel grey) as the Z830 from four years ago. This notebook is actually made of a magnesium alloy which adds to its sturdiness (more on that a bit later). Sadly, it does look and feel far more plasticky than the XPS 13. The latter has set the standard when it comes to premium, high-end laptops. The bezel on the Z30-C's display is thicker than we were expecting but then again, it allows for the webcam and the microphones to be located centrally at the top of the screen. Speaking of the display, it is a 13.3-inch full HD non-reflective model with LED backlighting. It is bright but lacks the level of colour vibrancy that we've seen on other laptop displays. That's unlikely to have a negative impact in terms of business scenarios but it's still worth bearing in mind if you plan to use this machine to watch movies on the move. The Portege exhibits a lot of flex, far more than we would consider to be acceptable on a model which costs just over a grand. We wouldn't lift it by the screen corner, as we usually do with the XPS 13. There's also a rather annoying and even worrying gap between the plastic bezel and the actual panel – a gap wide enough for a business card to be slotted in. Not good in terms of crumbs or dust particles. The keyboard goes a long way to making up for this slight disappointment, though. It is an island-style affair, and is spill-resistant plus it's backlit. You can even set up a timer via an onscreen menu, to allow it to switch off after a set period. The keys have an excellent amount of travel and are comfortable to type on although a bit too noisy for our tastes. The further good news is that the keyboard doesn't exhibit obvious flex when typing. In the middle of the keys is Toshiba's own take on the track point; its version has a felt top which is likely to divide opinions. The touchpad is rather roomy but lacks proper mouse buttons and its surface is marginally rougher than we'd ideally like. Note that the status lights are located next to the touchpad on an area that also contains a fingerprint reader. We also noticed that the touchpad is slightly depressed – by which we don't mean it's miserable, but rather it doesn't sit flat and flush with the palm rest. This adds to the sinking effect when you press on the touchpad's edges to activate the left/right mouse buttons, and generally speaking makes it a bit more laborious to register your presses. As expected, this machine comes with Windows 7 Professional with a free upgrade to Windows 10 Professional should the client want it. And if you want to get all the cutting-edge security improvements in Microsoft's latest OS, then you don't really have a choice. Speaking of which, the laptop supports TPM 2.0. Last but not least, Toshiba says that the 4-cell Lithium-Ion 55Whr battery that powers the laptop can keep it working for a whopping 11 hours (based on Mobile Mark 2014, running Windows 10). Sadly, we couldn't test this but as always, your mileage will vary depending on your operating system and your work scenario. Open the laptop up (which is just a matter of undoing a few screws) and you will find 8GB of RAM (one DIMM, expandable to 16GB), a sixth-generation Intel Core i7-6500U CPU with Intel HD Graphics 520, a 256GB SSD and no other internal expansion options. So, there are no surprises there. This is no Latitude (or indeed Tecra) – there's no spill-proof keyboard or MIL-STD 810G testing involved. Although arguably its seemingly fragile construction could actually subliminally encourage owners to treat this notebook with a bit more care. If we were in the market for a laptop though, we wouldn't select the Z30 for one reason; it lacks a DisplayPort connector. We might be in a minority but we are a strong advocate of 4K in the workplace and use it on a daily basis. No 4K is not okay. Swapping the HDMI port for a DisplayPort would make sense although we do understand Toshiba's reasoning to stick to more popular video outputs. All is not lost though as you can always grab one port replicator like the Toshiba Hi Speed Port Replicator III. It comes with a full array of connectors (including DisplayPort) and Ballicom International sells it for £138 (around $195, or AU$255). If the lack of DisplayPort is not an issue for you and you're in the market for a high-end laptop that is light but also boasts an array of ports, then we wholeheartedly recommend the Toshiba Portege Z30-C-125. It's worth noting as well that Toshiba offers relatively affordable service agreement packages. Four-year onsite costs as little as £120 (around $170, or AU$220) while a five-year international carry-in warranty extension will set you back a mere £93 (around $130, or AU$170). You can buy the Portege Z30-C-125 for just under £1,130 (around $1,600, or AU$2,100) at the time of writing (from Ballicom International ).

2016-04-12 20:10 Not yet feedproxy.google.com

24 Valve blocks competitor's app from Steam We have a follow-up on our recent story about Itch, an app from the creators of indie game store Itch.io who were trying to get their app through Steam Greenlight. In short: it ain't gonna happen. After receiving a message from Valve, the creators of Itch.io reported today that their app has been rejected from Steam Greenlight. "This item is incompatible with Greenlight," reads a header at the top of Itch's Greenlight page. Separately, Itch.io shared a private message that Valve sent them where a representative says that Steam simply isn't equipped to handle that type of non-game software. Here is the message sent by an employee of Valve, which one of Itch's creator's shared on Twitter: There are all sorts of types of software on Steam that don't fall into those categories, so this reasoning doesn't completely resonate. You can't really expect Valve to give an open-arms welcome to an app for another game store, but on the other hand, stuff like Uplay is bundled with Ubisoft's games on Steam. It's a complicated issue, and a clearer statement from Valve about what is and isn't welcome on Steam at this time is still needed, I think.

2016-04-12 19:56 Christopher Livingston www.pcgamer.com

25 In a fender-bender? The police may want to analyze your phone A new device is in the works that informs police whether a driver was using his or her phone prior to a car collision. Legislators in New York are also aiming to implement this device in an effort to better enforce laws against using a phone while driving. The nicknamed "Textalyzer" – a play off of breathalyzers used to confirm drunk driving – scans a driver's smartphone to tell when it was used last. The device is currently being developed by Cellebrite , the same Israeli forensics tech firm that reportedly assisted the FBI with the San Bernandino iPhone cracking case recently. A New York bill currently in committee would give the green light for the Textalyzer's use, but also has a few provisions as to what the device can – and can't – grab from a scanned phone. According to the bill, the device "is able to immediately determine cell phone usage without an inquiry into the content, [and] will allow enforcement of these laws after an accident while still protecting essential privacy rights. " A press release clarifies those aforementioned "essential privacy rights," iterating that, while the Textalyzer would be able to scan your phone to see when it last texted, it wouldn't be able to pick up who that text was for, what its contents were or any other sensitive information. The recent crackdown on distracted driving in New York is the result of intense lobbying by Distracted Operators Risk Casualties – a group rallied against the dangers of distracted driving co-founded by Ben Lieberman, whose son was killed in a distracted driving collision. With the advent of Apple CarPlay and other phone-integrated dashboards, it is still uncertain whether the Textalyzer will penalize a user for using hands-free components on a phone, or if the firm expects to see use outside of New York, as laws against using a mobile device while driving vary based on location. Regardless, just stop using your phone behind the wheel already? Whatever it is, it can wait. Article continues below 2016-04-12 19:25 By Parker feedproxy.google.com

26 On many IoT projects, IT shops get left behind IT departments are playing second fiddle to operations people as enterprises tune up for the Internet of Things. That’s one of the surprising findings from a survey of people involved in business IoT projects in the U. S. The survey, conducted last month by Technalysis Research, also revealed that monitoring employees is the No. 1 thing companies want to do with the widely hyped technology. IoT straddles IT and operational technology, two disciplines that for decades have lived side by side without much interaction. Operations people handle things like lights, locks, and machine tools, while IT folks buy the computers and run them. Now it turns out that very small computers, such as networked sensors, can help a company’s infrastructure work better. But more often than not, IT’s not in charge of those systems, the Technalysis survey showed. According to the survey’s 620 respondents, 42 percent of IoT projects were being managed by facilities or operations departments, or other business units like manufacturing. IT was in charge of a third of the projects, while a quarter were run by a line of business within the company. Conflict between IT and OT (operations technology) had been brewing before the IoT trend even began, as physical infrastructure was updated with new smarts. OT departments adopted those updates without asking IT, so whole new digital systems rose up in parallel with traditional computing and networks. “It does represent a bit of a shift in power,” Technalysis Chief Analyst Bob O’Donnell said. To make IoT a success, the two sides should start talking and then collaborating, and top management should buy into that process, he said. If the departments stay isolated, the company might miss out on getting maximum value from IoT data through deeper analytics. In addition to organizational challenges, enterprises studying or adopting IoT are facing sticker shock, O’Donnell said. High capital outlay was their top concern, followed by time to deploy and security of IoT data. That may explain why saving money, sometimes seen as a key driver of IoT, wasn’t the top objective they cited. More respondents were aiming to improve internal processes, a goal that could save money in the long run but is more focused on just making the company run better. Early IoT deployments seem to be taking a conservative approach overall. Ethernet and Wi-Fi, rather than LTE or specialized low-power technologies, were the networks of choice for most respondents. And predictive maintenance , a highly touted system for replacing things before they break, isn’t the top application companies are using. Instead, it’s simple monitoring and alarms to keep on top of things that might go wrong, followed by security and identification. But predictive maintenance is on its way: It was the number one application respondents were evaluating.

2016-04-12 18:38 Stephen Lawson www.itnews.com

27 27 U. S. gets 236,000 H-1B petitions, a new record The U. S. received 236,000 H-1B petitions for 85,000 visas available under the program's visa caps, the U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said Tuesday. The visas are being distributed via a lottery, which means only about one in every three petitions will be approved. The U. S. received 233,000 H-1B visa petitions last year, the previous record. The U. S. accepts visas on April 1 for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. If history is any guide, a majority of the demand for the visa is coming from IT services, offshore outsourcing firms. Critics believe the high number of visas represents a form of " ballot box " stuffing by IT services firms in response to the lottery system. Applicants can apply for a visa for someone who is not an employee. The lottery will prompt smaller firms -- start-ups, in particular -- to renew complaints about the lottery system. Employers trying to hire small numbers of visa workers may find themselves squeezed out. The proponents of the H-1B visa say it's the growth in IT jobs that's behind the record number of petitions. Critics will point to offshore outsourcing engagements, where U. S. workers are fired and replaced by visa workers, instead as the driver of demand. The current demand for visas will not the change the H-1B debate, but the election might . The H-1B issue has gained attention in this year's election, thanks in part to Disney's layoff in 2015 of between 200 and 300 IT employees. Disney hired IT services firms that use visa workers, and some displaced workers complained of having to train visa-holding replacements. Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), in particular, have cited the Disney layoffs in a push for reforms. Trump has the backing of the Senate's leading visa reformer, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). Ohio Gov. John Kasich, also seeking the Republican nomination, supports a guest worker program, but has not offered any specifics. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Independent Vermont lawmaker now seeking the Democratic nomination, is also a critic of the visa program. But former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who leads Sanders in the Democratic nomination fight, has been silent about the H-1B visa and only talks about comprehensive reform.

2016-04-12 18:32 Patrick Thibodeau www.computerworld.com

28 Badlock flaw is patched, but failed to live up to the security hype Badlock, the latest security flaw with a catchy name and a logo, has been fixed, but not without stirring the controversy pot. Samba, an open-source software that connects Linux and Unix servers and Windows PCs over a network, has patched seven separate vulnerabilities, which would allow an attacker to conduct man-in-the-middle or denial-of-service attacks. Badlock, another 'major' security bug that puts profits before patches Some accused the developer of profiteering by publicly revealing a vulnerability that amounts to effectively fixing their own code. The team said that Samba versions 3.6 and later were affected, but only released fixes on its website for version 4.2 and later. Collectively, the so-called "Badlock" vulnerability, would allow an attacker to listen in on traffic, trigger a session downgrade, and hijack a session. Simply put, an attacker may be able to reveal user passwords and other sensitive information on an affected server. The flaw specifically affects Windows servers running Samba, but also affects almost every version of Linux, which Samba is bundled with. Microsoft addressed the "important" flaw in a patch released on Tuesday as part of its scheduled monthly release of security fixes, but fell shy of rating the issue at the highest-rated "critical" level. A spokesperson said users who apply April updates are "protected automatically. " Josh Bressers, security strategist at Red Hat, one of the Linux distributions affected by the flaw, said in an email that Badlock was "one more potentially dangerous exploit that was identified and addressed by the open source community. " But not everyone thought the bug was as serious as others claimed it was. Karl Sigler, threat intelligence manager at security firm Trustwave, said in a blog post on Tuesday that the three-week lead time ahead of the disclosure was a key indicator of what was to come. "Well, we now know the details and I'm guessing most people will consider Badlock a bust," said Sigler. US government pushed tech firms to hand over source code If source code gets into the wrong hands, the damage would be incalculable. "This is certainly a concern and admins should patch their systems as early as possible. However I can't say that this vulnerability rises to any level that deserves the focus that a dedicated website and three weeks of buildup have given Badlock," he said. Little was known about the security flaw until today, but it nevertheless drew attention -- if not for the wrong reasons. The preemptive publicity push has drawn ire from the security community, amid accusations that the latest bug could allow some to exploit the flaw ahead of its scheduled patching in three weeks time. Stefan Metzmacher, a SerNet employee, found the flaw, but is also named in hundreds of Samba source code files, dating back as far as 2002, according to one analysis . The close connection between Metzmacher's development work and the discovery of the flaw have led some to accuse the company of trying to profit from what was effectively fixing their own code . Metzmacher did not respond to questions when we reached out.

2016-04-12 18:28 Zack Whittaker zdnet.com.feedsportal.com

29 Facebook's 10-year roadmap outlined, eyes AI, VR, Internet access infrastructure Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined a 10- year roadmap that will take the company into drones, telecom infrastructure, artificial intelligence-powered vision and reasoning and social virtual reality. The roadmap, outlined at Facebook's F8 powwow , is notable because it revolves around a simple construct that takes a product, scales it and then works an ecosystem. Over the next five years, Facebook's focus will be on its product set everyone knows. For instance, video, search, Messenger and Instagram. The general theme here is for Facebook to grow an ecosystem and develop tools that can be monetized. For instance, Facebook's Messenger Platform will revolve around connecting businesses to people. Between Messenger and WhatsApp, Facebook processes 60 billion messages a day, or "three times as many messages as SMS ever did. " Where things get really interesting is Facebook's 10-year plan, which takes a departure from the core model. In fact, the Facebook master plan had a Google X feel to it. Zuckerberg quipped that if someone said that Facebook would build a plane he'd say they were crazy. However, Facebook is developing a solar powered plane to beam access to earth. Facebook is also launching a satellite to beam Internet access to Africa. Facebook is building a solar powered plane for Internet access. On Wednesday, Facebook will brief developers on new hardware that will boost access in urban areas. For artificial intelligence, Zuckerberg outlined how AI is being used today and how Facebook wants to learn the comment. "We will be able to read the video and know what they are about," said Zuckerberg. The aim will be to deliver more relevant content, but Facebook's ambitions will be much larger. "In a lot of ways advances in AI can save people's lives," said Zuckerberg. "We want to make it easier for you to take advantages of AI. " Zuckerberg outlined its open source Torch system to train neural networks. On the VR front, Zuckerberg touted Gear VR as a start, but noted that drones will intersect with augmented reality. "One reason VR is important is we're working on new social experiences. VR can be the most social platform," said Zuckerberg. "When we get to this world. A lot of the things we think about a physical thing like a TV will be $1 apps. It's going to take a while. " Here's a look at how Facebook sees VR specs in the future as well as the social experience.

2016-04-12 17:40 Larry Dignan zdnet.com.feedsportal.com

30 Microsoft says it pays women almost the same as men GREAT NEWS if you're a black man or lady of any description and work at Microsoft. You probably earn the same sort of money that the old white dude earns, it's just that he probably earns a lot more of it than you do and has a better job than you. Microsoft has used National Equal Pay day, and a lady spokesperson, to announce in a blog post that it is doing OK when it comes to splitting the cash away from white men and sharing it among the rest of the workers. The post said that Caucasians and non-Caucasians earn the same, dollar for dollar. It's less good for women, but they don't really have the same kind of brains as men, do they? Neither do they have the same options, according to a certain Microsoft executive. Kathleen Hogan, executive vice president for hu man resources at Microsoft, said: "One of the most important aspects of our evolving culture at Microsoft is our deep commitment to building a more diverse and inclusive workforce. "If we want to build products and services for everyone on the planet, we need to represent everyone on the planet. Having a diverse and inclusive workforce is a powerful bridge to the markets and people we serve. "A year and a half ago, our CEO, Satya Nadella, set out three areas of focus for diversity and inclusion at Microsoft: recruiting more diverse talent, expanding training to foster a more diverse and inclusive culture, and ensuring equal pay and equal opportunity. "At that time, for every $1 earned by men, our female employees in the US earned 99.7 cents at the same job title and level. " That was then, and Hogan is here to fill us in on the now. Women are flush with cash and men are starting to feel a little less like superiors and more like colleagues, or at least something like that. "Today, for every $1 earned by men, our female employees in the US earn 99.8 cents at the same job title and level. Racial and ethnic minorities in the US combined earn $1.004 for every $1 earned by their Caucasian counterparts," she said. "Our announcement today is another step forward along the path of greater diversity and inclusion at Microsoft, and in society as a whole. " µ

2016-04-12 17:25 Dave Neal www.theinquirer.net

31 ASRock reveals Intel Broadwell-E desktop CPU lineup ASRock appears to have blown the cover on Intel's entire Broadwell-E CPU lineup today. In a press release we received today, the company touted its readiness for the new chips and confirmed that the Core i7-6950X will be a 10- core, 20-thread part. It also advised owners of its X99 motherboards to apply firmware updates in preparation for the as-yet-unnanounced Core i7- 6900K, Core i7-6850K, and Core i7-6800K. Those model names all comport with a leaked Broadwell-E CPU lineup obtained last year by Chinese hardware site Xfastest. If that site's info is correct, the Core i7-6800K and Core i7- 6850K will both be six-core, 12-thread chips, while the Core i7-6900K will be an eight-core, 16- thread part. Details of these chips remain scarce, but when they launch, they may be among the worst-kept secrets in recent memory. Owners of ASRock X99 mobos can prepare for the impending launch of these parts by heading over to the company's X99 lineup page and navigating to the download page for their particular motherboard model.

2016-04-12 17:19 by Jeff techreport.com

32 Uber served data on over 13 million users to US regulators Uber, the multi-billion dollar ride-sharing company, has turned over data on more than 12 million users to US local and federal authorities. The company revealed the information in its first transparency report published Tuesday. Uber said it received 33 requests which amounted to data on more than 11.6 million riders. The company, valued at around $62 billion , complied with 58 percent of those requests, either as required or after unsuccessfully narrowing the scope of the request. Uber also said it wholly complied with 33 requests by regulators in relation to airport transportation services, amounting to about 1.6 million riders. The company said regulators may request information about trips, requests, pickup and dropoff areas, and fares for a given time period. But the number of law enforcement requests is just a fraction compared to the number that is collected by US regulators. Uber turned over data on 205 driver accounts over 408 requests. The company fully complied with about one-third of those requests, and partially complied in 52 percent. Most requests were subpoenas filed by state authorities. How tech companies use warrant canaries to secretly communicate with you Tech companies aren't allowed to tell you when the government wants your data. Enter the warrant canary. In most cases, law enforcement requests that were received related to fraud investigations or the use of stolen credit cards, the report said. The company also said it has "not received a National Security Letter or FISA order" as of the date of the report. This so-called warrant canary is a widely-used tool to tell customers that no secret government demands for data have been filed. Many companies have included these public statements on their website, in anticipation of receiving secret requests down the line. Removing the notice suggests one has been received but doesn't violate the gag order because nothing was explicitly said. Reddit recently became the first widely-known company to remove a warrant canary , indicating that it been subject to a top-secret order. The company did not disclose any information on government requests from other countries. 2016-04-12 17:05 Zack Whittaker zdnet.com.feedsportal.com

33 Sources: Amazon Web Services Poised To Enter Cloud Managed Services Market With New 'Sentinel' Product Amazon Web Services is working on a new offering that will let large enterprise customers manage and monitor their public cloud workloads in a self-service fashion, which could compete with its managed service provider partners, multiple sources told CRN this week. The product, code-named Sentinel, involves a set of automated tools that handle some of the functions currently provided by AWS MSP partners, according to the sources. "It is a very narrow use case but definitely signals their entrance into the MSP space," said one source familiar with the Sentinel offering. [Related: Cloud Makes For Strange Bedfellows: Apple Signs On With Google, Cuts Spending With AWS ] Several MSPs that have built businesses around migrating, managing and automating enterprise workloads on the AWS cloud told CRN they're concerned that Sentinel could compete with their own offerings. "MSPs generate long-term recurring revenue, which is highly sought after, so Sentinel is viewed as a competitive threat," said one partner who didn't want to be named. "Will AWS grow it over time and compete with its channel? I trust they won’t, but it’s going to be tough [for Amazon to say] no to the top customers who want buy services directly. " AWS has invited a handful of MSP partners around the world to take part in the Sentinel beta, said the sources, adding that these partners will help customers get the service up and running in their environments. AWS is downplaying the potential for channel conflict, telling these MSPs it plans to sell Sentinel to only a handful of its largest customers, and that the product is designed for only a narrow set of simple workloads that don't include customized software, according to the sources. "If you're a multinational company and you have some workloads that fit, and you would rather have AWS managing your infrastructure than someone else, you'll be able to buy Sentinel directly from AWS," one source with knowledge of the offering told CRN. AWS has been working on Sentinel for more than a year, and possibly since as long ago as 2013, but the sources said the provider's timetable for launching the product isn't clear. An AWS spokeswoman told CRN in an emailed statement: "We don’t comment on rumors, but will note that we always build services with our partner ecosystem in mind, enabling our partners to leverage and extend whatever we build to create unique value-added solutions for customers. "

2016-04-12 16:58 Kevin McLaughlin www.crn.com

34 iPhone users hit by fake Apple Support SMS phishing scam APPLE USERS are advised to be on the lookout for a new security threat that's actually an old threat, but it is relatively new to iOS. It's a spin on the old support scam tool designed to part people from passwords and user names . Keep getting texts warning that my Apple id is about to expire/be terminated... With a link to click. Bogus?? — Michelle Ogundehin (@MOgundehin) April 4, 2016 The scam messge reads: "The Apple ID associated with this number is due to be terminated. To prevent this, please confirm your details at supportatapple.com - AppleInc. " The all-seeing security eye that is Graham Cluley has measured the threat and is quite concerned. "It's not just your bank accounts that online criminals are keen to break into. They would quite like to hijack your Apple ID credentials too. A number of people have reported receiving a text message from ‘AppleInc' over the weekend claiming that their Apple ID is about to expire and urging them to click on a link if they want to keep it," Cluley said in a blog post. "Of course, the scammers have chosen their words carefully, making the message appear urgent to encourage as many people as possible to click on the link without properly considering the potential pitfalls. The scam was probably even more convincing to the unwary as it used the real first name and last name of recipients. " Cluley urged people not to panic when they get a message out of nowhere suggesting that immediate action is required. "OK, so perhaps you as a regular reader of a security news site wouldn't fall for such shenanigans, but are you certain that there isn't someone among your family and friends who wouldn't be susceptible to a moment of muddied thinking, and click on the link without proper caution? If they did they would be greeted with a convincing-looking replica of the real Apple ID log-in page," he said. Apple's own support account on Twitter has not commented on this latest development, but rest assured that the security industry will. A new #SMS #phishing campaign is trying to steal Apple IDs, telling victims their ID is about to expire https://t.co/HbIOePnnbA via @gcluley — Security Response (@threatintel) April 12, 2016 The bogus log-in page asks the usual questions, including mother's maiden name and password. The good news is that there's an easy fix and you might have enabled it already. In case you haven't, Cluley takes you there with a question to think about. "One obvious question remains. Where did the attackers get the list of names and mobile phone numbers to target their potential victims with the initial phishing SMS message? " he said, raising what might become the real issue here. "Stay safe people, always be wary of the links that you click on and, if you haven't already done so, enable two-factor authentication on your Apple ID account. " Graham Cluley: always watching, always wise. µ To hear more about security challenges, the threats they pose and how to combat them, sign up for The INQUIRER sister site Computing's Enterprise Security and Risk Management conference , taking place on 24 November.

2016-04-12 16:41 Dave Neal www.theinquirer.net

35 NGINX launches NGINX Plus Release 9 NGINX, Inc. , the engine delivering sites and applications for the modern web, today announced the availability of NGINX Plus Release 9 (R9), the latest release of its application delivery platform. Today’s updates provide significant new features for NGINX’s innovative community of users, including the ability to dynamically install rich extensions to NGINX Plus, the inclusion of commercially-supported UDP load balancing, and new, more flexible pricing and support options. “NGINX Plus is in use by thousands of applications across incredibly diverse use cases – from traditional enterprise applications to the most modern mobile and IoT systems, and within companies ranging from the smallest startups to the Fortune 500,” said Gus Robertson, CEO at NGINX, Inc. “Our rapid growth is the result of our commitment to performance, adaptability, security, and ease of use. The addition of these capabilities to NGINX Plus R9, and our new flexible support and pricing models, ensures that NGINX Plus continues to be the ideal application delivery platform for every modern-day company, and any application today.“ The key new features in NGINX Plus R9 include: Dynamic modules – The introduction of dynamic modules in NGINX Plus R9 allows NGINX to be extended at runtime. Customers can now select the extensions they want, and install them directly from NGINX’s managed module repository, accessible via standard package management tools such as apt and yum. Over time NGINX will be distributing an ever-growing set of tested and fully certified extensions for its software. The most popular NGINX-authored and third-party modules, such as support for the Lua programming language, have already been converted to the new dynamically loadable format. The company also published instructions for third party module owners to convert their modules to the new dynamic format, which is required before modules can be added to the NGINX repository. UDP load balancing – In addition to existing support for TCP and HTTP load balancing, NGINX Plus can now load balance UDP applications. Support was added to the open source NGINX version last month. Advanced features in NGINX Plus include health checks, extended status monitoring, and on-the-fly reconfiguration. UDP is quickly emerging as one of the protocols-of-choice for new Internet of Things (IoT) applications due to its low-bandwidth requirements. For today’s digital businesses, UDP ensures the highest-level of application and web performance for organizations that hope to capitalize on the rise of large volumes of traffic and data generated by the IoT. UDP is also used for DNS, syslog, RADIUS and other ubiquitous services. NGINX Plus can deliver and load balance these existing and new applications with ease. NGINX Plus App Pricing – To ensure maximum performance and uptime during high growth, seasonality, or elastic traffic, many applications require dynamic infrastructure. Paying per instance or machine hour for software no longer makes sense for delivering the flexibility or cost effectiveness required by these modern apps, so NGINX has introduced NGINX Plus App Pricing.

2016-04-12 16:38 SD Times sdtimes.com

36 Titanfall 2 UK release date, platforms and features: Watch the new Titanfall 2 trailer With Titanfall clocking up an impressive 10 million users, there's hype building around the sequel which already looks pretty interesting. Here we bring you all the news and rumours including Titanfall 2 release date, platforms and features. See also: The most anticipated games of 2016 . Titanfall 2 UK release date: 12 June 2016 EA has confirmed Titanfall 2 will launch during E3 2016. Thanks to an interview with lead writer, Jesse Stern, by Forbes , we know a few details about Titanfall 2 – including the above quote. For starters, he confirmed that although the original Titanfall started life as an Xbox exclusive (it was later released on PC), Titanfall 2 will be multi-platform. "This one is going to be widely available, I believe on all platforms," said Stern. We also know that the game will have a single-player campaign with Stern admitting "One of the shortcomings of the first game was we just did not have the mechanism to tell everyone ‘here’s who you are, here’s where you are and who’s around you.’ We knew all the answers, we just could not deliver it. " "So we are doing our best to deliver a vision of grand global colonial warfare retelling the story of the American Revolution and the American Civil War in space," added Stern. "What inspires us is the junction of technological advancement with the inevitability of conflict and war and what the next war might look like. In Titanfall 2 there will be a lot of [scenes] where science meets magic, but keeping it grounded and dirty and human and real. " In the interview, Stern also alluded to a possible spin-off Titanfall TV show as Respawn Entertainment CEO, Vince Zampella, wants to diversify into scripted and animated TV series with Lionsgate TV. However, Stern said on the subject "It would be very expensive. We are trying to find a way to tell a story in the worlds we want to be in and produce in the TV model. "

2016-04-12 16:35 Chris Martin www.pcadvisor.co.uk

37 HTC 10 UK release date, price, pre-order, new features, specifications and photos: HTC 10 looks awesome. Sounds awesome. Is awesome. (And you can get it for just £512.99) HTC has today unveiled its new flagship smartphone, the HTC 10. Successor to the HTC One M9 , the HTC 10 is a beast of a phone with the gorgeous design, Quad-HD display, fingerprint sensor and awesome performance and multimedia features it needed to get back in the running for best Android phone 2016. We reveal the HTC 10 UK release date, price, new features, specifications and photos. Also see HTC 10 hands-on review and HTC 10 vs Samsung Galaxy S7 vs LG G5. The HTC 10 costs £569 and can be pre-ordered directly from HTC. Use the promotional code HTC10 and you'll get it for just £512.99, including Express delivery. (We have no idea how long this code will remain active for, but thanks @JamesRWP for the tip.) Carphone Warehouse has also confirmed it will be taking pre-orders for the HTC 10 from tomorrow (13 April). As for a release date, we were told it would be available in April by the press release, and in May during our pre-brief; HTC has since clarified it should be available early May. According to our friends at Clove it should go on sale the week commencing 9 May. We’ll update this article as soon as we have more exact details. You can expect the HTC 10 to be available from the four major UK operators, Vodafone , Three , EE and O2. EE has now been in touch to say it will offer the HTC 10 in Carbon Grey with Wi-Fi Calling and 4G Calling, as has Three , which will sell the HTC 10 with 4G at no extra cost, Feel At Home roaming in selected countries, and a six-month free Deezer subscription. The HTC 10 is available in three colours: Carbon Grey, Glacial Silver and Topaz Gold. HTC builds arguably the best-looking smartphones in the Android world, so last year upon the launch of the HTC One M9 we were disappointed to find not much in the way of new hardware that could help it to compete against its rivals Samsung and LG, which have already unveiled their 2016 flagships in the form of the Galaxy S7 and LG G5. Thankfully, it’s all change for 2016. Also see: Best smartphones 2016. HTC has been building up hype around the #powerof10 for some time - but what does it actually mean? According to the company it represents a decade of building smartphones, and is all about perfection. No longer will you hear us criticise HTC for shunning a Quad-HD screen or a fingerprint scanner, for example. The screen is both larger and higher in resolution, a responsive 5.2in Super LCD 5 2K panel with a 564ppi pixel density. And the new fingerprint scanner responds to the touch in just 0.2 seconds. The HTC 10 has a crazy-fast processor in the form of the Snapdragon 820 (as seen in the LG G5), which it pairs with a massive 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage (plus microSD support up to 2TB). Performance should be very good. Also see: Best Android phones 2016. The design has changed somewhat, but the HTC 10 is just as attractive as previous One-series smartphones, a diamond-cut, chamfered-edge, two-tone metal unibody device with a single sheet of 2.5D curved glass at the front. In common with the Galaxy S7 the IR blaster has gone, while the familiar front-facing BoomSound speakers have been replaced with a new version that sees the tweeter at the top and woofer at the bottom, with a dedicated amp for each. A pair of Hi-Res earphones is supplied in the box, and a world first - optional JBL USB-C headphones - will be available in some territories. The HTC 10 boasts 24-bit Hi-Res audio (for both playback and recording), with a powerful headphone amp, the ability to upscale 16-bit- to 24-bit audio, and a high-performance DAC that delivers 10 times lower distortion than rival devices. A Personal Audio Profile can be created to perfectly suit your personal listening style. There’s also an awesome 12Mp UltraPixel 2 camera - “a world-class camera” in HTC’s words - that has a dual-tone LED flash, 1.55um pixels, OIS, a laser autofocus, and support for 4K video and RAW files. Two awesome cameras, in fact, since the 5Mp UltraPixel UltraSelfie front-facing camera is the first selfie camera to come with OIS. HTC cites a DxOMark score of 88 for the HTC 10, one of the highest camera-quality scores of any phone to date. The non-removable battery is now higher in capacity, rated at 3,000mAh and, although it doesn’t support wireless charging, a combination of Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 and HTC’s own Rapid Charge tech means you can charge the battery up to 50 percent in just 30 minutes. Boost+ tech is designed to make the HTC 10 faster, consume less power and to provide effective security and application management features, such as automatically optimising the phone’s memory and boosting battery life during gaming. Software has been improved, and notably so, now more simplistic and user-friendly with less duplication between Google and HTC apps. The material design is applied throughout, and HTC has completely ditched the home screen grid in favour of a freestyle layout - you can arrange your app icons however you like. HTC has also tweaked the software to make it more responsive, and claims that apps launch twice as fast. We’re looking forward to watching the camera launch in 0.6 seconds - our one issue with the HTC One M9’s performance. See all smartphone reviews. Read the full HTC 10 specification below. Operating system: Android Marshmallow with HTC Sense Screen: 5.2in Quad-HD (2560x1440, 564ppi) Super LCD 5 with curved-edge Gorilla Glass Processor: 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 64-bit, quad-core RAM: 4GB Storage: 32/64GB, microSD up to 2TB Primary camera: 12Mp HTC UltraPixel 2, 1.55um pixels, laser autofocus, BSI sensor, OIS, f/1.8 aperture, 26mm focal length, dual-tone LED flash, 4K video recording with Hi-Res Audio, slo-mo video at 720p/120fps, camera modes: Auto-HDR, Panorama, Pro mode with manual control and 12-bit RAW format support Hyperlapse, Zoe capture, Video Pic, continuous shooting up to 8fps Front camera: 5Mp, 1.34um pixels, autofocus, BSI sensor, OIS, f/1.8 aperture, 23mm focal length, 1080p video recording, camera modes: Auto-HDR, Auto Selfie, Voice Selfie, Live Make- Up Audio: HTC BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition, Dolby Audio, Personal Audio Profile, Hi-Res Audio certified, Hi-Res Audio earphones, Hi_res Audio stereo recording, three mics with noise cancellation Connectivity: 4G LTE (Nano-SIM), dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS and GLONASS, NFC, DisplayPort, Miracast, Google Cast, AirPlay, HTC Connect, DNLA, USB-C Sensors: Ambient light, Proximity, Motion G-sensor, Compass, Gyro, Magnetic sensor, fingerprint sensor, Sensor Hub for activity tracking Battery: 3000mAh with Quick Charge 3.0 support (up to 50% in 30 minutes), extreme power saving mode, up to 19 days on standby or 27 hours talk time Extras: Display colour personalisation, Ice View case, Motion Launch, Quiet ring on pick-up, Pocket mode Dimensions: 145.9x71.9x3.0-9.0mm Weight: 161g Read next: Best new phones coming in 2016 . Follow Marie Brewis on Twitter.

Apple Watch 2 (Apple Watch S) UK release date, price and specification rumours: New Apple Watch will look exactly the same pcadvisor.co.uk 2016-04-12 16:27 Marie Brewis www.pcadvisor.co.uk

38 How Life is Strange channels Twin Peaks When you hear the name Twin Peaks you probably think of Dale Cooper delighting in a damn fine cup of coffee, or a little man talking backwards and dancing in a red room. These have become indelible pop culture images, referenced and parodied countless times, and have given the show a reputation for, above all, being weird. But there’s a lot more to David Lynch and Mark Frost’s cult supernatural soap opera than its eccentric characters, quotably idiosyncratic dialogue, and offbeat nature. Peel away the layers and you’ll discover that, really, it’s a show about the secrets people keep. The picturesque town of Twin Peaks, nestled among the mist-shrouded mountains and towering Douglas Firs of the Pacific Northwest, looks like a peaceful, idyllic place at first glance. But it soon becomes clear, to both the viewer and outsider Cooper, that it has a dark, sinister side lurking quietly in the shadows. This is a common theme in David Lynch’s work, and the opening scenes of his 1986 film Blue Velvet are perhaps the most powerful articulation of this concept. As the saccharine pop song the movie takes its name from plays, we see a brilliant blue sky, a white picket fence, rows of colourful flowers, and idealised images of suburban life. But then the music fades, replaced by an unsettling machine-like drone, and the camera sinks into the dirt, revealing a writhing, repulsive mass of insects below. Several games have famously been compared to Twin Peaks. There’s cult favourite Deadly Premonition, which tells the story of an eccentric FBI agent investigating a murder in a small Washington town. Bright Falls, the setting for horror game Alan Wake, is clearly inspired by Twin Peaks—particularly the Oh Deer Diner and its peculiar patrons. And the Silent Hill series, in which the titular New England town has been corrupted by malevolent demonic forces, draws obvious parallels. But the tonal and visual similarities these games have to Twin Peaks is superficial. The inspiration is simplistic and cosmetic, focusing on the odd, quirky elements of the show rather than the deeper themes that run through it. And that’s fine. But as a fan of the series, I’ve always wanted a game to go deeper than cherry pie references, and to capture the dark magic of the show in a more meaningful way. As much as I love the weirder aspects of Twin Peaks, it’s the human side of the story I’ve come to appreciate more over the years. The teenage melodrama, the double lives, and the everyday demons that torment the town’s residents as well as the supernatural ones. Life is Strange is a game littered with references, from Blade Runner to Jack Kerouac. Some of them feel slightly forced, but overall it accurately reflects those exploratory teenage years when you define yourself by the artists, musicians, writers, and filmmakers you enjoy. Among them are a few nods to Twin Peaks, many of which are lacking in subtlety: the ‘TWN PKS’ licence plate on Chloe’s truck, ‘FIRE WALK WITH ME’ scratched into a bathroom mirror, a letter signed by a Dr. Jacoby, red drapes. It’s all fairly obvious stuff, riffing on the popular iconography of the show, but doesn’t serve any purpose other than giving fans a glimmer of recognition. I groaned when I saw Chloe’s plate, because it felt like a cheap, easy way of scoring pop culture points. But the more I played Life is Strange, the more I realised that, as well as these allusions, it also seemed to have a deeper understanding of the show. I don’t know how much of this was intentional—the sheer amount of references suggests it was—but for me it’s the closest a game has come yet to capturing the essence of Twin Peaks. It’s nowhere near as artistically interesting or as hauntingly atmospheric, but it gives you that same feeling of pulling back the veil and uncovering the many hidden, sometimes disturbing, secrets of a seemingly pleasant place. By episode three, which is when the game really clicked for me, the camera has plunged deep into the dirt and revealed the insects swarming beneath the streets of Arcadia Bay. It seems nice enough at first—a sleepy, charming coastal town—but Max digs deeper and finds the reality: corruption, drugs, voyeurism, obsession, bullying, and worse. And when she begins to investigate the disappearance of a fellow student, and realises she’s been leading something of a double life in secret, you can’t help but think of Twin Peaks’ similarly troubled Laura Palmer. The supernatural elements in Life is Strange aren’t as successful—there’s nothing as darkly surreal as the Black Lodge or as abstractly terrifyingly as BOB—but it does the much tougher job of capturing the less obvious elements of the show. The result is that Life is Strange feels more like it than Deadly Premonition ever did, even though its inspiration is far less overt. I'm ashamed to admit that Life is Strange had been sitting unloved in my Steam library for over a year. I tried to get into it once, but couldn’t stomach the occasionally cringeworthy dialogue. But I’m hella glad I gave it another shot (sorry), because I’ve since fallen in love with it. As I learned more about Arcadia Bay, I was reminded of the first time I watched Twin Peaks and saw Laura Palmer’s life unravelling and spilling its secrets. “Beneath the surface there’s another world, and more worlds still if you dig deeper,” says David Lynch. “There’s goodness in blue skies and flowers, but another force—a wild pain and decay—also accompanies everything. If you look a little closer at this beautiful world, there’s always red ants underneath.”

2016-04-12 16:22 Andy Kelly www.pcgamer.com

39 Perfect World apologises for Shanghai Major mess Despite the high-level Dota on display, the Shanghai Major is remembered as the hottest mess—volcanic, even. Chris detailed what went wrong in a post worthy of its own leather-bound tome, but the highlights include starving talent, a manager trapped in a lift, a missing keyboard and the audience being ordered to vacate the premises. The drama peaked with the sacking of the event's production company. Perfect World, Dota's publisher in China, has now issued an apology. From the Chinese Dota 2 site : For all the heavy-handed talk of firing people, I'd say we're safe in assuming that slip-ups of this magnitude are unlikely to happen again. With a lucrative brand to protect and a stake in the future of esports, I foresee Valve getting its hands dirty at events more often.

2016-04-12 16:20 By Angus www.pcgamer.com

40 Microsoft Windows 10 Blue Screen Of Death Gets QR Code Microsoft is changing up its dreaded Blue Screen of Death by adding a QR code that users can turn to when their operating system dies and potentially cannot be revived. The QR code was spotted in Windows 10 Insider Build 14316, which Reddit user javelinnl shared in a post last week. The error message reads: "Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart. We're just collecting some error info, and then we'll restart for you. " It also points users to a QR code and notes next to the image that users can get more information about the BSOD and possible fixes by visiting a support link or calling their IT support and providing them with the stop code information. The QR code, noted The Verge, is one of the most significant changes to the dreaded BSOD since the Redmond giant introduced a frowny face to the blue screen and stripped out most of the crash details. Another variation to the BSOD was trotted out in 2007, when Microsoft rolled its Purple Screen of Death in Windows Vista's Desktop Window Manager. Although the QR code is in the latest version of the Windows 10 preview, users will not be able to make use of it until Windows 10 is distributed over the summer as an anniversary update , according to The Verge. Then again, users are likely happy if they never have a need for the QR code. [Read Microsoft Publishes Windows 10 Roadmap, Targets Business PCs .] If users find themselves in such a position, they could scan the QR code with their smartphone. And as javelinnl noted on Reddit: "The first thing the new build did in my VM was crash, but instead of just the usual smiley I was greeted by a QR code as well. " With Microsoft's Windows so pervasive in the tech world and QR codes becoming ubiquitous , used on tattoos to Dutch coins, it would not be surprising to see other tech companies rely on these two-dimensional bar code images for their error pages, as well.

2016-04-12 16:06 Dawn Kawamoto www.informationweek.com

41 The cloud is growing up Once a market and technology matures, there tend to be a few large companies that are generalists and a second group of companies that provide niche versions of a technology. For example, take a look at dating sites, which I'm using as an example because the industry is mature. The factors that represent maturity include: There are a handful of well-known brands, such as Match Group and eHarmony. Additionally, there are dozens of very specific, much more niche dating sites you may never have heard of, such as sites for: Many markets naturally organize themselves this way. I think the cloud has entered into this pattern where there are a couple of large, well-known and dominant players. For me, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google come to mind immediately. Ironically, they come to mind without even doing an online search on Google or Microsoft. The second tier is forming now and will include dozens of very specific niches: So what does this mean for your business? First of all, it means more relevant options at better prices. If the large providers had to deal with every fringe request, they couldn't commoditize at their current ferocious rate. It also means that for a price you will be able to utilize the cloud for almost any need. Second, specialization and diversification will push companies that utilized multiple providers to deliver a single solution which will cause some compatibility issues. Just the other day I had an issue with Azure not playing nice with Apple's new push notification provider. Turns out there is a security incompatibility between the two for one particular subsystem. Taken to the extreme our systems may look more like a giant, multi-provider, conglomeration of micro-services -- but that's a conversation for another blog. Third, large providers will circle back and try to provide everything to keep their control over the marketplace. Microsoft is an example of this with its government cloud offering. I like compatibility, but I don't like too much market control, and the top providers are getting very close to market dominance that has put companies in the past under the scrutiny of the US and EU anti-monopoly provisions. Lately the attitude has switched from "should I consider the cloud" to "how do I get to the cloud. " There are still plenty of systems that are stuck right where they are because of some sort of technical or legal block. Not for much longer. Soon, these second-tier providers will remove the final blocks, and then we will be on to the next problem to solve in IT.

2016-04-12 16:06 John Basso www.infoworld.com

42 Best Android phones 2016: What's the best Android phone? The top 20 best Android phones you can buy in the UK today - best Android phone reviews What's the best Android phone? The best Android phone is the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, closely followed by the regular Galaxy S7 and LG G5. Learn more about these best Android phones ands some top alternatives in our best Android phones chart below. The Huawei P9 and HTC 10 have been announced now but will only appear in this chart once we've done a full review. For now you can read our hands-on reviews to get our first impressions. Here are the top 20 best Android phones of 2016 - the best Android smartphones and best Android reviews. See also: The 20 best smartphones: What's the best phone you can buy in 2016? Unless you're an iPhone fan, Android is your best option for a smartphone and also means you have a wide range of choice when it comes to manufacturers and models. With the likes of Sony, Samsung, HTC and LG on-board you're bound to find something which suits your needs. We split Android smartphones into two main categories: the flagship devices that go head-to- head with leading Windows Phones and the iPhone, and the larger mass of more affordable options, typically priced at under £200 when sold SIM-free. Also see: Best SIM-only deals: Best SIM-only and Data SIM deals for smartphone and tablet users In the UK, many Android smartphones will be sold on contract, of course, often with no upfront cost, but on a two-year contract. Another option may be a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) handset that requires topping up with credit for calls and data. But bear in mind that PAYG phones may be locked to the selling operator, which will try to recoup its loss-leading sale price with costlier fees. (See also: what's the best Android tablet? ) The flagship Android smartphones of 2016 will typically come with quad or octa-core processors, huge 5in and larger touchscreen displays and 3GB or more of memory. They are also 4G-capable and ready to join the UK’s established LTE networks, and most now sport dual- band Wi-Fi with draft 11ac, so can take advantage of faster data links to the latest wireless routers. Also see: Best sounding phone 2016. The arms race for more processor cores and higher clock speeds was started by Android hardware makers, desperate to differentiate themselves with specifications against rival devices. We're now at the point where few phones are not powerful enough to meet your needs. In fact, the Snapdragon 820 has fewer cores than its predecssor. The main processor will be integrated as a system-on-a-chip with the graphics processor, and all the best Android phones can play action games fluidly. Although benchmark speed tests tell us little about the suitability of a smartphone to serve in its chosen role as our personal internet gateway and digital assistant, we don’t recommend you make your purchasing decision on these alone. We always tell you what the phones are like in terms of real world performance. See also: What's the fastest smartphone 2016. In camera tech, we've reached a point where there are enough megapixels - more isn't always better so phone makers are having to differentiate with other features such as optical image stabilisation, laser auto focus, dual-tone LED flashes and large apertures of even f/1.7. Some even have dual cameras for different reasons. All of which are good but check out individual reviews for a detailed look. See also: Best phone camera 2016. On the video side, we’re seeing 4K-class UHD video recording, high-speed shooting for slow- motion playback, and front Skype cameras equally at home with Full-HD face capture. Get as much internal storage as you can without breaking the bank - you'll easily fill it with apps, photos, videos and music. However, if there's a Micro-SD card slot then you can add more without paying such as premium. Other features typically only found in the leading Android devices include NFC, even if it remains a novelty for the greater majority of users, and infrared transmitters that allow your phone to replace your TV channel zapper. Most have fingerprint scanners and heart rate monitors - should those tickle your fancy. Some phones are waterproof too, allowing you to watch iPlayer in the bath without worry but it's typically Sony which offers this feature. But Samsung has brought this back with the Galaxy S7. There's a wide range of Android smartphones in this chart and you don't always need to spend through the roof to get decent specifications. Most of the devices in this list are premium flagship models but some cheaper mid-range handsets have proven themselves worthy. If you really are tight on money then we've a separate chart for the best budget smartphone which are all under £150 to buy outright. Sacrifices can include lower-quality displays, both in pixel count, which makes text blurrier, and also in colour/image quality. Processors may also be slower or less efficient, meaning more interface lag is likely and perceptibly slowed screen animations. Cameras may cite as many pixels as their more expensive stablemates, but will use low-grade sensors and cheaper optics, giving lower-quality photos. And built-in storage can be limited to a paltry 4GB, which means you’ll depend on slow and fiddly SD cards just to keep your music collection to hand. Also see: Best sounding phone 2016. As you'll see from our reviews of the best Android smartphones, there is a wide variety of Android operating systems on the market. So do be aware that not all Androids are made equal. Each manufacturer puts on to Google's OS its own stylings and features: Samsung's TouchWiz interface is very different from HTC's Sense, for instance. But it's also worth pointing out that there are different iterations of Android included with brand new phones, and your phone is not likely to be upgraded when a new Android comes out. If you like the design of a phone but not the user interface, you can still customise things thanks to the openness of Android. Not only can you choose your own widgets, there are various launchers available including Google's own giving you a vanilla Nexus look and feel. See : Make your own Google Play Edition smartphone and best Custom Launchers for Android. Also some Android phones - none here - don't give you access to Google Play and all the apps and media contained therein. This is a big point: don't get caught out. Unlike Windows Phone and BlackBerry the Android world is full of great apps. Unlike Apple's iOS you have a choice of music and movie stores. And almost all Android phones charge and sync from vanilla micro USB cables, and allow for the addition of SD cards for expanded storage. We are seeing more come with the new Type-C USB port which is both reversible and offers faster charging. (That said, it is possible to buy an Android BlackBerry phone - see our BlackBerry Priv review .) The bottom line is that the best Android phones, those reviewed here, are the best phones you can buy. Remember that the phone in the number one position isn't necessarily the right device for you. Click through to our full and in-depth review of each phone for more details before parting with your cash. Two of the biggest Android phones for 2016 have been announced at MWC 2016 - the Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5 and we're looking forward to adding them into the chart. There's also the Galaxy S7 edge , too, which is set to be a popular choice. Stay tuned for the HTC 10 , too. Although they are set to dominate soon, there will be competition from the HTC One M10 and possibly the Sony Xperia Z6. Google will also likely announce new Nexus phones later in the year to go with Android N and don't discount the Huawei P9 which is coming soon. If you're looking for older devices - which can still be a good buy - check out our best old phones chart for handsets like the LG G3, HTC One M8 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4. See: The phones you should be most excited about in 2016 . The mid-range smartphone market is always tricky, especially with budget devices getting so good. If you are looking for something around this price, the Sony Xperia M4 Aqua is a solid choice although the Honor 6 is worth a look for extra features. It offers flagship-like design, a great camera and a user-friendly Android Lollipop. Read our Sony Xperia M4 Aqua review . With various upgrades including a waterproof design, great cameras and stock Android, the new Moto G 2015 is a great affordable phone. The device is still a bit chunky and it's a shame to see the stereo speakers gone. It's worth opting for the model with 16GB of storage and 2GB of RAM and when you customise the device with Moto Maker the price is a not so attractive £209. The Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 is worth a look at just £125 with its Full HD display. Read our Motorola Moto G 2015 (3rd gen) review . The OnePlus X is the best value smartphone of the year. We love the premium design in a smaller form factor to the firm’s other phones. Software is a strong point and you get a gorgeous screen. However, cuts had to be made somewhere and the X is lacking features such as NFC, 11ac and Wi-Fi. It also is missing the fingerprint scanner and USB Type-C port found on the OnePlus 2. Battery life isn’t great and cameras aren’t best in class but this is a great phone for the price. Read our OnePlus X review . Overall, the Moto X Play is a decent mid-range phone. But, it's not the great upgrade which Moto X owners were looking for. The camera is good, as is the screen, but performance could be better - as could battery life. Had Motorola offered the dual-SIM version in the UK and made the phone waterproof, it would have had enough to be a decent alternative to the OnePlus 2. For many, this more powerful rival will be more appealing. It's also cheaper and has optical stabilisation and the option to shoot 4K video. Yet, if you like the idea of creating your own custom phone and don't want the hassle of getting an invite to buy a OnePlus 2, it's really not a bad deal at all. Read our Motorola Moto X Play review . Those looking to upgrade from a Nexus 5 will be happy and sad in almost equal measure. The 5X is a fantastic phone overall, with excellent cameras, a good turn of speed and an excellent screen. But it's noticeably bigger than its predecessor despite the small increase in screen size, it has limited storage compared to the Nexus 6P and it lacks a couple of camera features due to the slower processor. The absence of wireless charging is another blow for some, but additions such as the fingerprint scanner will make it a great upgrade for others. Read our Google Nexus 5X review . Honor has once again impressed us with a flagship smartphone at an outrageous price. For under £250 you get a lot of phone for your money. Performance is good with the main camera and fingerprint sensors being the highlights on the hardware side. Emotion UI isn't our favourite Android skin but it's perfectly usable and you can always change it if you like. Read our Honor 7 review . The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is a beautiful smartphone, one of the most attractive but the design has flaws such as sharp edges. While a non-removable battery is an inevitable outcome, we're surprised about the lack of waterproofing and a microSD card slot. Hardware is strong with a gorgeous screen, fast processor and great all-round camera. The key point here is that while dual edge display sounds like an amazing innovation it has very limited in functionality so simply isn't worth the extra money compared to the regular Galaxy S6. Read our Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge review . If you're looking for a big screen phone, the Moto X Style is a great choice. It's got great specs across the board and it cheaper than rivals like the Nexus 6P and Galaxy S6 Edge+. We love the screen, stock Android and cameras. However, it really comes stands out when using the Moto Maker to customise it which costs more. With a screen only slightly smaller and a fingerprint scanner the OnePlus 2 is the spanner in the works here at £289 for the 64GB model. Read our Motorola Moto X Style review . The lack of NFC, a microSD card slot, a removable battery, and quick- and wireless charging means the OnePlus 2 is not a flagship killer. It does have some killer new features though, including USB Type-C, 4G dual-SIM support and some powerful hardware. At the reduced price of £249 (we don't recommend the 16GB OP2), it's an unrivalled deal. Read our OnePlus 2 review . We’re very impressed with the Elephone P9000, which is a great all-round Android phone at an unbelievable sub-£200 price. It’s fast, battery life is good, it’s feature-packed and it even runs Marshmallow. Wireless- and quick-charging-, NFC-, USB-C-, dual-SIM- and microSD support are the icing on the cake. Recommended. Read our Elephone P9000 review . The Xperia Z5 Compact is the best small phone around, but then there's not much competition in this area anymore and there are a number of phones offering decent specs for a lot less. Those looking for Z5 design and specs in a smaller frame will be pleased but it's a shame about the chunky design with the sharp edges. The fingerprint scanner is a great addition and the Snapdragon 810 with almost stock Android provides slick performance. However, the camera isn't as good as Sony makes it out to be. Read our Sony Xperia Z5 Compact review . The HTC One M9 is a genuinely desirable smartphone with the best design and build available in Android land, even with Samsung upping the ante. It's good to see the powerful Snapdragon 810 and more memory, however, some key hardware remains the same meaning M8 users are unlikely to be tempted to upgrade – and the old model is now an attractive buy at around £350. The fact the Galaxy S6 is the same price with more impressive specs is also not a good thing for HTC. Read our HTC One M9 review . A fantastic Android flagship that comes in at an outrageously low price, the Xiaomi Mi 5 has the braun and the beauty to match the greats. Perhaps not a wise choice for first time Android users, but those comfortable in customising the setup will love the excellent-value, gorgeously designed Xiaomi Mi 5. Read our Xiaomi Mi 5 review . There's no doubt that the Xperia Z5 is a solid flagship smartphone from Sony and an improvement on the Z3+. We certainly like the new frosted glass rear cover and the addition of a fingerprint scanner in that slim power button. Once again, the camera is great but it's tough competition out there and arriving late in 2015 means rivals are now available for a decent chunk less. Once the price drops, which it will, this will be a great option for those of you looking for a waterproof flagship with a Micro-SD card slot but we'd like the Full HD screen to be Quad HD and the design just isn't as nice in the hand compared to rivals. Read our Sony Xperia Z5 review . So, what do we think of the Galaxy Note 5? We’re very fond of just about every aspect of the Galaxy Note 5, from its curved and sleek design to its vibrant display and high-resolution camera. It can handle almost anything you can throw at it thanks to its CPU, GPU and 4GB of RAM and we experienced no lag during our testing. The only bad point is that the Note 5 would sometimes falsely detect the S Pen detaching – and to point out such a minor fault says a lot about the quality of the handset. With this being said, we’re both surprised and sad that the Galaxy Note 5 won’t be heading to UK shores any time soon. Read our Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review . Originally, Nexus phones stood out for being excellent value at a price that was low, but not the lowest. They weren't an alternative to flagship phones, but they had the advantage of running stock Android and getting the next version more quickly. The 6P, though, is not only a flagship, but is arguably the best Android phone to buy at the moment. It won't suit everyone due to its size, nor those looking for a phone with dual-SIM slots or a removable battery. There's no support for wireless charging either. But the excellent screen, front-firing speakers, quick charging, great cameras, speedy performance and Android Marshmallow add up to make this a phone that's a pleasure to use. And yes, it's also cheaper than its rivals, so unless you think it's worth shelling out extra on the Note 5, Galaxy S6 Edge+ or iPhone 6S Plus, the Nexus 6P is the one to buy. Read our Google Nexus 6P review . Samsung's Galaxy S6 is the best Android phone of 2015 so far, although we've yet to see what's to come from the LG G4 and Sony Xperia Z4. It's fast, it's well built, it has a gorgeous screen and the software isn't overly intrusive. The fingerprint scanner is vastly improved, the heart-rate scanner a potential draw for some users, and the wireless- and fast charging welcome inclusions. We'd like to see the price come down (which we are sure it will) and it's a shame we've lost the removable battery, waterproofing and microSD support, but these are all things we can live with. Read our Samsung Galaxy S6 review . The LG G5 is one of the most radical phones to come along in a while and we’re glad the firm has shaken things up with the modular design. The G5 is innovative and interesting with unique features but it’s a shame the design and build feels unfinished in areas. It’s a top-notch device which can hold its own with the best phones in performance and cameras, but it’s LG’s modular design which is the real selling point here. There is bags of potential but the future of this is unclear so it’s hard to be definite right now. The G5 is one of the best phones around but for completely different reasons to the Galaxy S7. Read our LG G5 review . The Samsung Galaxy S6 was the best phone of 2015 and, although it’s still early days, the Galaxy S7 is a serious contender for best phone of 2016. Samsung has taken into account what its fans want, addressing the three main areas of concern: removable storage, waterproofing and battery life. It’s also upgraded the core hardware and photography gear, added an always- on display and some useful software. Right now the Galaxy S7 is simply unbeatable. Read our Samsung Galaxy S7 review . The Galaxy S7 edge is no longer the semi-gimmick it was before. Although some of the main features are things from the Galaxy S5 – Micro-SD and waterproofing – Samsung has given fans what they want. It's now a refined, sophisticated and highly desirable piece of technology. The battery isn't removable but the phone lasts longer than before and has seriously powerful specs under the hood. It has almost everything you could want from a phone even though the IR blaster is gone. We're also very impressed with the new camera and unless the screen is too big for you (despite some software features to help out) we think it's worth getting the S7 edge for the extra £70 with its gorgeous looks and extra functionality. Right now, this is the best smartphone money can buy. Read our Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge review .

2016-04-12 16:03 Chris Martin www.pcadvisor.co.uk

43 Let's Encrypt free security certificate program leaves beta Let's Encrypt has announced that the free secure certificate program is leaving beta in its push to encrypt 100 percent of the web. The certificate authority (CA) announced on Tuesday that the Let's Encrypt program has left the beta stage of testing after four months, having issued over 1.5 million HTTPS certificates to approximately three million websites worldwide. In a blog post , Let's Encrypt said the project is pushing "much closer" to the overall target of providing free security certificates to every webmaster online. Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificates are implemented on websites to add a layer of encryption and additional security to communication between a user and website server. Without this layer, communication and transactions are more vulnerable to surveillance, drive-by attacks and potentially data theft. However, the cost of TLS certificates can be difficult for small businesses and individuals to support -- and so it is not surprising that a free TLS certificate issued by a CA now trusted by major browsers is attractive. "We were delighted that we've been able to grow so quickly during our first four months of general availability. We now have the experience and confidence to take the project out of beta," said Josh Aas, Internet Security Research Group executive director. "We will continue to work on making the web a safer place through free encryption. An increasingly broad set of industry stakeholders recognize how important it is to secure the Web through Let's Encrypt. However, we still have a long way to go to deliver on our goal to encrypt 100 percent of all Web sites. " In addition to the announcement, Let's Encrypt also revealed that four new sponsors have joined the scheme; Gemalto, HP Enterprise, Fastly and Duda. Akamai Technologies and Cisco are already supporters and sponsors of the certificate authority.

2016-04-12 16:00 Charlie Osborne zdnet.com.feedsportal.com

44 Best phones 2016: What's the best smartphone? The 20 best mobile phones you can buy in the UK today - best Android phone reviews, best iPhone reviews, best Windows Phone reviews, best mobile phone reviews What's the best smartphone? The best mobile phone is the Samsung Galaxy S6, closely followed by the Google Nexus 6P and Apple iPhone 6s Plus. Read more about the best smartphones and some top alternatives in our best phones chart below. The Huawei P9 and HTC 10 have both been announced and we'll add them to this chart once our full review of each is finished. We test and review all the best smartphones money can buy across iPhones, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry (and sometimes others). So here are the best phones of 2016. We review all the major handsets available to buy in the UK. Here we rank them into the 20 best smartphones of 2016. Latest entries: Xiaomi Mi 5 & LG G5 Take a look below, and when you come to buy your smartphone you might be interested in using our exclusive Mobiles.co.uk codes to save you some extra cash if you're buying on contract. Use PC Advisor's exclusive PCAMOB10 code at checkout to remove £10 from the upfront cost of any pay montly deal where a payment of £10 or above is required (excludes O2). Or, use PCASIM10 to add £10 of automatic cashback to any 12 month SIM-only contract (excludes O2). Although these are the latest phones, many previous generation devices are still great buys, especially as most are now available at a discount now that newer ones have launched. Some may stay in the chart for a while even after being replaced with a new model. Here are the best 'old' phones you can buy right now. We test and review smartphones in-depth and here are the best of the best from all the operating systems including iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry. We update this story all the time as we review the latest smartphones. See also : Best Android smartphones in UK: What's the best Android phone you can buy in 2016? If you've visited this page in the past you may notice that we've cut the number of smartphone in the list. There are now just 20 to help you get a clearer and more concise look at the best phones on the market. (See also: best smartphones for business .) We have also ranked the phones in order of performance: The fastest smartphones of 2016: processor, web and graphics performance comparison Although we've ranked the best smartphones which we've reviewed, there are some upcoming handsets to be aware of. Once we've had them in, tested them fully, and reviewed them, they are likely to make this chart. This means it might be worth holding off your purchase for a little while. Take a look at : The best tablets of 2016: What's the best tablet in the UK right now? The biggest three are the Samsung Galaxy S7 , Galaxy S7 edge and the LG G5 but there are others which are yet to be announced including the HTC One M10 and iPhone 7. Whether Sony will launch the Xperia Z6 remains to be seen but we can expect new Nexus phones from Google later this year. One of the biggest things you need to decide when choosing a smartphone is which operating system to use. Although there are others around, it's best to stick with the big names including iOS, Android, Windows Phone and potentially BlackBerry. There are no Windows Phones in the chart at the moment but this might change in the future. See: Best Windows Phones 2016. If you're already using one then it might be best to stay in that camp – especially if you've invested time and money in its apps. However, it's not difficult to switch so you should consider them all. Note there aren't any BlackBerry devices on the market at the moment which we think are good enough to make this list but check out our BlackBerry Classic review and BlackBerry Priv review to see what we think of the latest choices. Design will come down to personal taste and most of the top smartphones now have a very thin and light chassis. The best smartphones typically use premium materials like glass, aluminium or even steel and on this front you're best off trying a phone out in the flesh to see whether it feels good for the size of your hand. Some even come with the option of wood, leather or other materials. It's worth pointing out that only a handful of the best phones on the market come with a waterproof design. It's mostly Sony offering this feature across its Xperia Z and Xperia M ranges. The screen size of a high-end phone is typically 5in or above with a key exception being the Xperia Z5 Compact. You're looking at a Full HD (1080 x 1920) resolution typically or even higher at Quad HD (1440 x 2560). Only one phone goes higher than this with a 4K screen (3840 x 2160) and that's the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium but we think the resolution isn't needed on a phone so it doesn't appear in this chart. These days, all the best phones have decent processors and plenty of memory. Some may be quad-core or octa-core with 3- or even 4GB of RAM. Despite benchmark scores, you're typically going to get great performance from these devices - you tend to get what you pay for. What is more important to look at is storage as once you run out, that's it. If you want to store lots of apps, photos, videos and music then look for a phone with plenty of internal storage – 64- or even 128GB. Less is ok but check for a Micro-SD card slot meaning you can add more by buying and inserting a memory card. When it comes to cameras, more megapixels is a good sign but isn't the be and end all so make sure you click through to our full review of each phone for our thoughts as well as sample photos and videos. See also: Best phone camera 2016. Whether you care about it or not, the best phones will typically come with some additional hardware. Many phones have fingerprint scanners now, and Samsung's Galaxy phones also often have heart rate monitors and even UV sensors. Lots of top phones have an IR blaster so you can control other gadgets around your home such as your TV, although it's a feature which is disappearing. Audio fans will enjoy the stereo speakers of the HTC One M8 and M9 while Sony's Xperia Z range and some other phones offers High-Res playback support. Also see: Best sounding phone 2016. Battery life will no doubt be important to you and there are still only a handful of phones which come with wireless charging built-in making it easier to keep your handset topped up. Also look out for features such as USB Type-C which is reversible and offers faster charging, plus Quick Charge 3.0. Battery life varies from device to device, so click through to our reviews to see how they got on in our tests. See also: Best power banks 2016 . The OnePlus X is the best value smartphone of the year. We love the premium design in a smaller form factor to the firm’s other phones. Software is a strong point and you get a gorgeous screen. However, cuts had to be made somewhere and the X is lacking features such as NFC, 11ac and Wi-Fi. It also is missing the fingerprint scanner and USB Type-C port found on the OnePlus 2. Battery life isn’t great and cameras aren’t best in class but this is a great phone for the price. Read our OnePlus X review . With more memory and excellent battery life the Galaxy S6 Edge+ is a powerful phone and a great choice if you want a large screen. However, it's expensive, unwieldy and Samsung has dropped the IR blaster and hardly added anything to the edge screen. With the regular S6 available for less than £340 it's a no brainer. Read our Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ review . Those looking to upgrade from a Nexus 5 will be happy and sad in almost equal measure. The 5X is a fantastic phone overall, with excellent cameras, a good turn of speed and an excellent screen. But it's noticeably bigger than its predecessor despite the small increase in screen size, it has limited storage compared to the Nexus 6P and it lacks a couple of camera features due to the slower processor. The absence of wireless charging is another blow for some, but additions such as the fingerprint scanner will make it a great upgrade for others. Read our Google Nexus 5X review . Honor has once again impressed us with a flagship smartphone at an outrageous price. For under £250 you get a lot of phone for your money. Performance is good with the main camera and fingerprint sensors being the highlights on the hardware side. Emotion UI isn't our favourite Android skin but it's perfectly usable and you can always change it if you like. Read our Honor 7 review . If you're looking for a big screen phone, the Moto X Style is a great choice. It's got great specs across the board and it cheaper than rivals like the Nexus 6P and Galaxy S6 Edge+. We love the screen, stock Android and cameras. However, it really comes stands out when using the Moto Maker to customise it which costs more. With a screen only slightly smaller and a fingerprint scanner the OnePlus 2 is the spanner in the works here at £289 for the 64GB model. Read our Motorola Moto X Style review . The lack of NFC, a microSD card slot, a removable battery, and quick- and wireless charging means the OnePlus 2 is not a flagship killer. It does have some killer new features though, including USB Type-C, 4G dual-SIM support and some powerful hardware. At the reduced price of £249 (we don't recommend the 16GB OP2), it's an unrivalled deal. Read our OnePlus 2 review . We’re very impressed with the Elephone P9000, which is a great all-round Android phone at an unbelievable sub-£200 price. It’s fast, battery life is good, it’s feature-packed and it even runs Marshmallow. Wireless- and quick-charging-, NFC-, USB-C-, dual-SIM- and microSD support are the icing on the cake. Recommended. Read our Elephone P9000 review . The Xperia Z5 Compact is the best small phone around, but then there's not much competition in this area anymore and there are a number of phones offering decent specs for a lot less. Those looking for Z5 design and specs in a smaller frame will be pleased but it's a shame about the chunky design with the sharp edges. The fingerprint scanner is a great addition and the Snapdragon 810 with almost stock Android provides slick performance. However, the camera isn't as good as Sony makes it out to be. Read our Sony Xperia Z5 Compact review . The HTC One M9 is a genuinely desirable smartphone with the best design and build available in Android land, even with Samsung upping the ante. It's good to see the powerful Snapdragon 810 and more memory, however, some key hardware remains the same meaning M8 users are unlikely to be tempted to upgrade – and the old model is now an attractive buy at around £350. The fact the Galaxy S6 is the same price with more impressive specs is also not a good thing for HTC. Read our HTC One M9 review . A fantastic Android flagship that comes in at an outrageously low price, the Xiaomi Mi 5 has the braun and the beauty to match the greats. Perhaps not a wise choice for first time Android users, but those comfortable in customising the setup will love the excellent-value, gorgeously designed Xiaomi Mi 5. Read our Xiaomi Mi 5 review . There's no doubt that the Xperia Z5 is a solid flagship smartphone from Sony and an improvement on the Z3+. We certainly like the new frosted glass rear cover and the addition of a fingerprint scanner in that slim power button. Once again, the camera is great but it's tough competition out there and arriving late in 2015 means rivals are now available for a decent chunk less. Once the price drops, which it will, this will be a great option for those of you looking for a waterproof flagship with a Micro-SD card slot but we'd like the Full HD screen to be Quad HD and the design just isn't as nice in the hand compared to rivals. Read our Sony Xperia Z5 review . The SE is what many iPhone fans have been asking for, and it's a great upgrade if you're still using an iPhone 5. For 5S owners, things aren't quite as clear cut. If you're not happy with the 5S's performance, the SE should solve that problem. However, unless you really want to shoot 4K videos, you're not going to notice a massive improvement in photo quality. There's a much bigger jump in quality if you're coming from an iPhone 5 (or earlier), however. Make sure 16GB is enough before you order: we'd recommend the 64GB version for most people. Read our iPhone SE review . We're really impressed by the offerings of the iPhone 6s, especially the 3D Touch technology. If it catches on (and we think it will) 3D Touch will completely change how people interact with their iPhones, both in terms of browsing the web and social media as well as when gaming. The camera overhaul is definitely a welcome addition too, especially when you consider Apple hasn't upped the resolution of its iSight camera since the iPhone 4s back in 2011. This works well with Live Photos, a new software feature that captures a gif-like video complete with audio when you take a photo - 1.5 seconds before the photo was taken, and 1.5 seconds after. It doesn't just boast impressive new features, the boosted internals provide us with a much faster iPhone than we're used to, and tasks that would take seconds on our iPhone 6 Plus took a split second on the iPhone 6s. We're excited about the technology the iPhone 6s offers, and what it means for future smartphones. Read our iPhone 6S review . So, what do we think of the Galaxy Note 5? We’re very fond of just about every aspect of the Galaxy Note 5, from its curved and sleek design to its vibrant display and high-resolution camera. It can handle almost anything you can throw at it thanks to its CPU, GPU and 4GB of RAM and we experienced no lag during our testing. The only bad point is that the Note 5 would sometimes falsely detect the S Pen detaching – and to point out such a minor fault says a lot about the quality of the handset. With this being said, we’re both surprised and sad that the Galaxy Note 5 won’t be heading to UK shores any time soon. Read our Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review . The iPhone 6S Plus is a remarkable phone, and it’s without doubt the best iPhone Apple has ever made. Just don't buy the 16GB model which doesn't have nearly enough storage. Few other phones are launching with screens under 5in which – if anything – makes the iPhone 6S look too small and the ‘giant’ 6S Plus normal. 3D Touch can sound gimmicky, but it’s absolutely not. It requires effort to force yourself to use it to begin with, but it quickly becomes second nature and it will be fascinating to see how app developers put it to use in apps and games. If you’ve already got an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus it’s hard to justify the upgrade for 3D Touch and the improved cameras. But for anyone with an iPhone 5S or earlier, there’s a world of difference and it’s a thoroughly worthwhile purchase. Read our iPhone 6s Plus review . Originally, Nexus phones stood out for being excellent value at a price that was low, but not the lowest. They weren't an alternative to flagship phones, but they had the advantage of running stock Android and getting the next version more quickly. The 6P, though, is not only a flagship, but is arguably the best Android phone to buy at the moment. It won't suit everyone due to its size, nor those looking for a phone with dual-SIM slots or a removable battery. There's no support for wireless charging either. But the excellent screen, front-firing speakers, quick charging, great cameras, speedy performance and Android Marshmallow add up to make this a phone that's a pleasure to use. And yes, it's also cheaper than its rivals, so unless you think it's worth shelling out extra on the Note 5, Galaxy S6 Edge+ or iPhone 6S Plus, the Nexus 6P is the one to buy. Read our Google Nexus 6P review . Samsung's Galaxy S6 is the best Android phone of 2015 so far, although we've yet to see what's to come from the LG G4 and Sony Xperia Z4. It's fast, it's well built, it has a gorgeous screen and the software isn't overly intrusive. The fingerprint scanner is vastly improved, the heart-rate scanner a potential draw for some users, and the wireless- and fast charging welcome inclusions. We'd like to see the price come down (which we are sure it will) and it's a shame we've lost the removable battery, waterproofing and microSD support, but these are all things we can live with. Read our Samsung Galaxy S6 review . The LG G5 is one of the most radical phones to come along in a while and we’re glad the firm has shaken things up with the modular design. The G5 is innovative and interesting with unique features but it’s a shame the design and build feels unfinished in areas. It’s a top-notch device which can hold its own with the best phones in performance and cameras, but it’s LG’s modular design which is the real selling point here. There is bags of potential but the future of this is unclear so it’s hard to be definite right now. The G5 is one of the best phones around but for completely different reasons to the Galaxy S7. Read our LG G5 review . The Samsung Galaxy S6 was the best phone of 2015 and, although it’s still early days, the Galaxy S7 is a serious contender for best phone of 2016. Samsung has taken into account what its fans want, addressing the three main areas of concern: removable storage, waterproofing and battery life. It’s also upgraded the core hardware and photography gear, added an always- on display and some useful software. Right now the Galaxy S7 is simply unbeatable. Read our Samsung Galaxy S7 review . The Galaxy S7 edge is no longer the semi-gimmick it was before. Although some of the main features are things from the Galaxy S5 – Micro-SD and waterproofing – Samsung has given fans what they want. It's now a refined, sophisticated and highly desirable piece of technology. The battery isn't removable but the phone lasts longer than before and has seriously powerful specs under the hood. It has almost everything you could want from a phone even though the IR blaster is gone. We're also very impressed with the new camera and unless the screen is too big for you (despite some software features to help out) we think it's worth getting the S7 edge for the extra £70 with its gorgeous looks and extra functionality. Right now, this is the best smartphone money can buy. Read our Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge review .

2016-04-12 15:48 Chris Martin www.pcadvisor.co.uk

45 Trade commission will review contentious Cisco-Arista patent dispute In what will probably be a long series of parries, the International Trade Commission this week granted a full review of certain patents in the now 15-month old patent suit between Cisco and Arista Networks. Specifically the ITC granted full review of the three patents that Arista is allegedly infringing under the initial determination issued by the presiding judge on Feb 2. In February, the ITC made an initial determination that Arista infringed on three Cisco patents in its switches -- patents associated with a central database for managing configuration data (SysDB) and private VLANs. At the time of that ruling Cisco said that “none of the patents have been proposed for or adopted as industry standards. And all patents we asserted against Arista were invented either by Cisco employees who became Arista executives, or by engineers who worked for Arista executives when employed at Cisco.” For its part, Marc Taxay, Senior Vice President, General Counsel for Arista said of the ruling this week: “We appreciate the Commission’s decision to review certain aspects of the Initial Determination. We remain confident in the merits of our case and look forward to presenting that to the full Commission as part of the review process.” Cisco began its legal actions on Dec. 19, 2014 by filing two suits against Arista. One for patent infringement, which charges Arista with violating 14 Cisco patents for 12 features in the Arista EOS operating system. The second suit is for extensive copying of Cisco’s user manuals and command line structures, right down to the grammatical errors within them, Network World wrote at the time. Cisco wants the ITC to issue a limited exclusion order as well as a cease and desist order. Arista in January filed a counterclaim to Cisco’s copyright infringement suit in the U. S. District Court, Northern District of California, for antitrust and unfair competition. Arista alleges Cisco conducts a “bait and switch” with its command line interface in which it claims it is an industry standard and then attempts to penalize competitors for emulating it.

2016-04-12 15:42 Michael Cooney www.itworld.com

46 Apache Storm 1.0 milestone includes native streaming window API Apache Storm hit a milestone release today. The Apache Software Foundation announced version 1.0 of the open-source distributed real-time computation framework for processing large streams of data with a new native streaming windows API. “Window-based computations are common among use cases in stream processing, where the unbounded stream of data is split into finite sets based on some criteria (e.g. time) and a computation is applied on each group of events,” wrote Taylor Goetz, vice president of Apache Storm, in a blog post . (Related: New management tooling on display at Hadoop show ) Windows are often used for functions such as aggregations, joins and pattern matching. In previous releases, users had to rely on their own windowing logic, and there was no way to define a window in a topology. With version 1.0’s native streaming window API, users can specify windows as window length or sliding interval. Goetz also claimed that with version 1.0, Apache Storm runs up to 16x faster with 60% reduced latency than previous releases. Other features of the latest version include: Apache Storm was created in 2011, and graduated to an ASF top-level project in 2014. “Storm makes it easy to reliably process unbounded streams of data, doing for real-time processing what Hadoop did for batch processing. Storm is simple, [and] can be used with any programming language,” according to the project’s website.

2016-04-12 15:29 Christina Mulligan sdtimes.com

47 Symantec Channel Exodus Continues With Departure Of Americas Channel Chief Symantec has lost yet another one of its top channel executives: Americas channel chief Stephen Thomas has left the security vendor. Thomas has joined Cyberbit Commercial Solutions as vice president of sales for North America. Cyberbit, a subsidiary of Israel-based Elbit Systems, focuses on solutions for protecting critical infrastructure and other high-value assets. The company announced his appointment Tuesday. Sources told CRN that other top members of the channel team have left recently, including Matt Smith, senior director of global partner sales and business development. [Related: Q&A: Symantec CEO On Split, New Security-Focused Channel Vision And Apple Vs. FBI ] Symantec confirmed the departure of Thomas in an email to CRN, as well as naming which executives would be assuming Thomas' role. "We can confirm that Stephen Thomas is leaving the company and we wish him the best. John Sorensen has been appointed the permanent leader of worldwide enterprise sales. Rob Potter will continue to oversee the Americas channel and the management team will report directly into him," a Symantec spokesperson said in an email. The team reporting to Potter includes Scott Lieberman, director of channels and national access resellers; Mo Sabnani, director, system integrators and service providers; and Erick Foy, director of distribution and managed partners. Cyberbit CEO Adi Dar said in a statement that Thomas' appointment will help the company "rapidly grow" its North American commercial cybersecurity business. In an email to CRN, Thomas said he chose to leave Symantec to pursue an opportunity to boost channel and North American sales at Cyberbit. "Symantec is and remains a leader in the cyber security industry. I was presented with an opportunity to bring some extraordinary solutions to the North American market. I appreciate everything that Symantec has done for me," Thomas said. Thomas said in the email that the channel will be "critical" to the company's push in the region. He said he plans to support partners through engagement and opportunity, including setting up tools, programs and platforms to build and maintain strategic practices with Cyberbit. The Symantec channel executive shuffle is happening in a time of significant change for the security vendor, which just completed its split from storage vendor Veritas earlier this year. Symantec has also seen multiple top channel-focused departures in the past six months, including Adrian Jones , executive vice president and general manager of global sales and operations; Tom LaRocca, vice president of global channel programs and sales; and Sean Maxwell , vice president of global sales strategy and field enablement.

2016-04-12 15:20 Sarah Kuranda www.crn.com

48 HTC 10 price, release date, deals and specs THE HTC M10 is finally official, following months worth of speculation and rumours surrounding the One M9 successor. The smartphone sets its sights firmly on the likes of the Huawei P9 and Galaxy S7 with its premium design and 'market-leading' camera set up, and HTC is no doubt hoping that the handset will boost its fledling position in the smartphone market. We've rounded up everything you need to know about picking up the HTC 10. If you're still unsure, check out our HTC 10 hands-on review. Release date Following its unveiling on 12 April, the HTC said the handset will be available in the UK later this month. An official release date has not yet been announced, but Carphone Warehouse tells us that pre-orders will begin on 13 April. Price HTC has become the first to start taking pre- orders for the smartphone. It's only offering the 32GB HTC 10 model at present , and has slapped that with a £569 SIM-free price-tag. Carphone Warehouse has confirmed to the INQUIRER that reveal its tariffs once pre-orders kick off on 13 April. EE and Three have also confirmed that they will be offering the HTC 10 on its respective networks, but have yet to cough on pricing details. Specs Much like the Huawei P9 , the HTC 10's camera set-up is touted as the big selling point. The handset has only one rear-facing camera, compared with the P9's dual Leica-certified set-up, but HTC claimed that the 12MP 1.55um UltraPixel camera, which features the "world's first optically stabilised, larger aperture f/1.8 lens", is the best quality on the market with a DxOMark score of 88. The camera shoots 4K video and features the world’s first stereo 24-bit Hi-Res audio recording, capturing 256 times more detail than standard recordings. This is paired with HTC's new and improved HTC BoomSound Hi-Fi Edition speakers. There's a 5MP optically-stablised f/1.8 camera on the front of the HTC 10 with an iPhone-style 'screen flash' for illuminating your duck-face when taking selfies. Like its HTC One M9 predecessor, the HTC 10 features a unibody metal design with chamfered edges making it just 3mm thick at its skinniest point. There's a fingerprint sensor, which HTC claims unlocks in 0.2 seconds, a USB Type-C port on the bottom, and a 5.2in 2560x1440 Super LCD screen. HTC claimed that the display is 30 per cent brighter and 50 per cent more responsive than on last year's model. It's also tougher, according to HTC, which said that the phone is as tough as the Galaxy S7 , having been subjected to 168 hours of extreme temperature tests ranging from -20C to 60C, plus over 10,000 drop, bend, scratch and corrosion tests. The smartphone uses a Snapdragon 820 processor, despite analysts blaming lacklustre sales of last year's model on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 chip. This new, and not-so-hot chip comes with Boost+, a feature which HTC claims will make the phone faster. For example, a feature called 'game battery booster' slurps less juice during gameplay, while a new PowerBotics system shuts down apps that use excessive power, improving battery life by 30 per cent. The HTC 10 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow topped with HTC's Sense UI. HTC said that it worked with Google to make the skin less heavy, binning duplicate apps and the usual bloatware on HTC devices. It's also more customisable, according to HTC, as the new 'Freestyle Layout' means you no longer have to stick to a grid layout. This lets you put apps and widgets wherever you want them, while removing those that you don't want. The new App Lock functionality makes it more secure, allowing users to unlock any app they choose. The HTC 10 has a 3,000mAh battery that charges to 50 per cent in 30 minutes with HTC's 3.0 Rapid Charger, and 32GB or 64GB of storage expandable by an additional 2TB via microSD slot. The HTC 10 will be available in four colour combinations: Carbon Grey, Glacier Silver, Topaz Gold and Camellia Red. µ

iPhone SE price, release date, deals and specs theinquirer.net 2016-04-12 15:12 Carly Page www.theinquirer.net

49 Apple Watch Sales Declining, Report Finds Apple Watch sales are likely to fall by 25% this year, according to a research note from KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that was obtained by 9to5Mac and AppleInsider. Apple sold approximately 10.6 million units in 2015, and this year it's likely to see sales of fewer than 7.5 million units, according to the KGI report. Apple will report the results of its second fiscal quarter on Monday, April 25. The statement may offer more guidance. The reasons for the drop are twofold, according to Kuo: a still immature wearables market and an Apple wearable that still fails to fully impress. Kuo argues that the device lacks killer applications as yet, and that the form factor has room for improvement, 9to5Mac reported. He also believes that its limited battery life and its reliance on the iPhone for functionality are holding back demand. The KGI report also expects that Apple will treat the Watch with the same interval schedule it applies to its iPhones, providing a major update every other year and focusing on internals on the years in between. It's expected that Apple will introduce its newest Watch during its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which, if history is any guide, is likely to take place June 13 to 17 at the Moscone West center in San Francisco. At the WWDC, Kuo expects news of a larger battery and a display with improved outdoor visibility. Those anticipating a thinner design will have to wait until 2017. That forecast contradicts an April 8 note from analyst Brian White with Drexel Hamilton. While on a "Chinese tech tour," according to a MacRumors report, White wrote that Apple may unveil an "Apple Watch 2 [that] could be 20-40% thinner than the current Watch" at this year's WWDC. Are you prepared for a new world of enterprise mobility? Attend the Wireless & Mobility Track at Interop Las Vegas, May 2-6. Register now! That same report noted that Cowen and Company analyst Timothy Arcurio have also predicted the mid to late June introduction of a thinner Apple Watch. During Apple's first fiscal quarter, CEO Tim Cook said that Apple had expanded its distribution of Apple Watch to nearly 12,000 locations in 48 countries, and that, as expected, Apple "set a new quarterly record for Apple Watch sales, with especially strong sales in the month of December. " The Watch became available on April 24, 2015. Slowing Watch sales could account for the handful of new Watch ads Apple released April 11. Seemingly aimed at a broad demographic, the 13- to 15-second ads feature celebrities including Nick Jonas, Alice Cooper, and Chloe Sevigny. When it comes iPhones, Apple's every-other-year approach -- paired with massive global expansion -- would seem to be working just fine. In the December quarter, Apple sold 74.8 million iPhones, which Cook called an all-time high. "To put that volume into perspective," Cook added, "it's an average of over 34,000 iPhones an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 13 straight weeks. "

2016-04-12 15:05 Michelle Maisto www.informationweek.com

50 Dell-EMC To Leapfrog HPE, Cisco As Cloud IT Infrastructure Market Soars To $29B Dell-EMC, HPE, Cisco Battle For Cloud Infrastructure Market Although Hewlett Packard Enterprise is leading the rapidly growing $29 billion worldwide cloud IT infrastructure market, a combined Dell-EMC merger would leapfrog the leader. HPE captured more than $4.5 billion in cloud IT infrastructure revenue in 2015, owning 15.7 percent of the total market, according to market research firm IDC's new Worldwide Cloud IT Infrastructure Tracker report. But if Dell, ranked No. 2 in the market, and EMC, ranked No. 4, combined their cloud IT infrastructure revenue for 2015, the total would surpass $5.2 billion. "HPE is the leader and has been the leader in this combined space, but there's so many moving pieces," said Kuba Stolarski, research director for computing platforms at IDC, in an interview with CRN. "The Dell-EMC merger, looking just at the positions -- a leader in the server space and a leader in storage -- clearly, that gives you a potential synergy from the customer perspective … but there's still a lot of questions remaining. " Networking giant Cisco is also gaining significant momentum in the market and jostling for position, according to Stolarski.

2016-04-12 15:00 Matt Brown www.crn.com

51 Microsoft's Windows 10 Roadmap reveals upcoming biz features MICROSOFT HAS REVEALED its Windows 10 Roadmap, outlining features aimed at business users that are currently in development, or almost ready to implement on the pushy operating system. The Windows 10 Roadmap site went live over the weekend, according to veteran Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley writing on the All About Microsoft blog. The site provides a valuable snapshot of features recently made available, along with those in public preview or still under development and testing, and even those that have been dropped from Windows 10. A glance at the list shows that multifactor authentication for apps and websites is currently in Public Preview for Windows 10, along with the Edge Extensions feature that lets users download add-ons for the Edge browser . Also in public preview is one of Microsoft's headline features for corporate users of Windows 10. Enterprise Data Protection is intended to give organisations greater control over data through file-level encryption, and leak prevention through policies that govern the applications that can be used to access corporate data, for example. Currently still in development is the Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection service that Microsoft detailed last month. This is a combination of endpoint and cloud-based tools intended to provide a post-breach layer of protection to the Windows 10 security stack. Also listed as still under development are Start menu updates, a way to unlock a PC with a Windows or Android smartphone, and a bunch of features to enhance the usability of Windows 10, including improvements to the Microsoft Passport two-factor authentication system that can use biometrics. Microsoft is working on updates to the Continuum feature that adapts the user experience to the type of peripherals connected, such as enabling a Continuum-compatible phone to display via a monitor connected to a Windows 10 PC. Also under development is a 'Remote Display Experience' that will allow users to control Windows 10 IoT Core applications from any Windows 10 desktop PC, tablet, or phone, while the Windows 10 IoT Core device will be able to get sensor readings from any connected Windows 10 device. Microsoft warned that the roadmap page is for "informational purposes only" and may change at any time without notice. µ

2016-04-12 14:56 Daniel Robinson www.theinquirer.net

52 Tesla reveals 2017 Model S with front design update, biodefense mode Tesla revealed an updated Model S on Tuesday with a new front design more akin to the Model X SUV and budget Model 3 sedan. The new Model S also comes with further tweaks including a "bioweapons defense mode" like on the Model X. It also adds adaptive headlights, which use 14 LED turning lights capable of three different positions for better illumination on dark roads, and "Next Generation" seats as a $2,500 add-on from the factory. The new changes were shown in an update to the Tesla website and come after the announcement of Tesla's budget Model 3 sedan earlier in April. The Tesla design studio is already reflecting the changes. 2016-04-12 14:53 Jake Smith zdnet.com.feedsportal.com

53 Reports of Windows XP's demise are greatly exaggerated

Windows XP was the first version of Windows to bring together Microsoft's client and server product families. It became immensely popular after its 2001 release. This is all ancient history familiar to any regular TR reader. What you may not realize is that Windows XP is still immensely popular, despite being obsolete and unsupported for nearly two years. Mainstream support for Windows XP ended in 2009 , and Microsoft finally withdrew extended support—including security updates—in 2014. Two years later, between 7.3 and 10.9 % of internet users world-wide are still running the aged operating system, depending on who you ask. That figure is higher than many other operating systems, including OS X and every flavor of Linux. In some regions, like mainland China, as much as a quarter of internet traffic still comes from Windows XP computers. Running an outdated and unpatched operating system is a dire security scenario for an individual, never mind a business. According to Spiceworks' 2016 State of IT report , some 67% of North American businesses surveyed are still using Windows XP in some capacity despite that fact. That number is even larger outside of North America. Not bad for what ESET Security calls a "zombie" OS. Given that upgrading from Windows XP likely means purchasing some new hardware, it's easy to understand why a large business might hesitate to upgrade. Even so, it's difficult to overstate the importance of moving on from unsupported software. For just one example, the 2011 hack of Sony's Playstation Network cost that company $171 million, and it may have been made possible via unpatched software.

2016-04-12 14:36 by Zak techreport.com

54 Intel to ship thumb-sized Compute Sticks with Skylake chips in late April If you've been waiting patiently for Intel's new Compute Sticks with Skylake chips, there's good news: Those thumb-sized PCs will start shipping on April 29. The three Compute Sticks, which have Intel's Core M3 and M5 chips, can turn a TV or display with an HDMI port into a PC. All you need to do is plug the Compute Stick into the HDMI port. The new Compute sticks were announced in January at CES. Starting at $299, the Skylake- based Compute Sticks aren't priced as low as older models but pack the processing power of lightweight laptops. The benefits of Compute Sticks are still debated. These computers rate high in portability but have memory, storage, and port limitations. Users also need to lug around a wireless keyboard and mouse. The $299 Intel Compute Stick STK2m364CC has a Core M3-6Y30 processor running at up to 2.2GHz. It won't come with any OS preinstalled. The $395 STK2m3W64CC will also have the Core M3-6Y30 chip and come with Windows 10. The computer can be ordered on Amazon.com for $359.95, and it will ship on May 6. The most expensive product of the lot is the Compute Stick STK2mv64CC , which is priced at $485. It has a Core M5-6Y57 processor that has a clock speed of up to 2.80GHz. It will not include an OS. It's priced at $479 on BH Photo and Video's website , which says the Compute Stick will be available on May 7. Common features in the Compute Sticks include 64GB of storage, 4GB of low-power DDR3 memory, Intel HD Graphics 515 integrated graphics, an HDMI 1.4b port, 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.2, a USB 3.0 slot and a MicroSDXC card reader. Users will be able to install Windows or Linux on Compute Sticks shipping without operating systems. Intel hasn't announced Chrome OS support for the devices yet. The Compute Sticks with Skylake chips could be targeted at enterprises, which are increasingly using thin clients and want flexibility on what OSes to install. The $485 Compute Stick STK2mv64CC supports Intel vPro, a management and security tool, allowing system administrators to remotely troubleshoot, erase data, or shut down the PC. At CES, Intel also introduced two other Compute Sticks, the $129 STK1A32SC and the $139 STK1AW32SC, with Atom chips code-named Cherry Trail. Those PCs are already on sale.

Intel on the cheap: Chip maker ships $15 IoT developer board computerworld.com 2016-04-12 14:28 Agam Shah www.computerworld.com

55 Verizon to replace copper with fiber optic Internet in Boston Verizon and the city of Boston today announced a $300 million fiber optic cable replacement of copper cable throughout the city over the next six years. The project will increase Internet speeds and help Boston, which has 650,000 residents, expand broadband as part of its priority to ensure every resident has Internet access, Mayor Marty Walsh said in a statement on Tuesday. Business, schools, hospitals and libraries will also be connected. Smart city elements will be added as well, including a trial project to reduce traffic congestion along Massachusetts Avenue. The city and Verizon will partner to experiment with sensors and advanced traffic signal technology to increase safety, measure bike traffic and improve public transit vehicle flow. Future smart city apps could include sensors for environmental conditions, energy efficiency and city lighting management. Verizon will also attach wireless equipment to city street lights and utility poles to boost wireless service for residents. Because of the extremely high bandwidth capability of fiber optic cable, Verizon said the cable can serve as a foundation for future technology, such as 5G wireless. Verizon also operates an innovation center in Waltham, Mass., which will host the company's development and testing of 5G wireless. The company plans to monitor the Boston fiber rollout to help it decide whether to take similar fiber networks to other markets. Verizon also said it will begin a franchise licensing application to provide cable TV to the city through its Fios TV service, relying on the same cable used for Internet access. Similar franchises in other cities have resulted in financial support for public access, including cable TV connections to schools, Verizon said. Similar to how Google Fiber has worked in several cities, Verizon said it will allow residents and businesses to register online to request fiber optic connections, which will help the carrier prioritize where to build. The first communities will be Dorchester, West Roxbury and Dudley Square. The next group will be Hyde Park, Mattapan and other areas of Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. In all, there will be four groups of communities in the phased construction project, and the city has agreed to expedite the permitting process, according to an online description of the project. Verizon didn't specify Internet speeds or costs for Boston, but presumably there will be tiers of service much as Google, AT&T, Comcast and others have provided in other cities. Google Fiber in the Kansas City area goes for $130 a month for speeds of up to 1Gbps plus TV, $70 a month for fiber of up to 1Gbps alone and $50 a month for fiber of up to 100 Mbps. Verizon Fios offered in other cities is available for $69.99 per month for 100Mbps of Internet, with TV and phone, but that service might not be comparable to how Boston's new fiber will operate. Verizon also presented a $100,000 Digital Equity contribution to the city to be used to support access for low-income residents. The money will support a mobile hotspot lending program at the Boston Public Library to be used to support families; Verizon said other details will be provided later.

2016-04-12 14:17 Matt Hamblen www.computerworld.com

56 Nvidia's next generation graphics cards are right around the corner Nvidia is going to reveal its powerful, next generation Pascal graphics cards at Computex, or that's at least that's the word on the rumor mill. As PC & Tech Authority spotted, the next-generation GeForce GTX 1070 and 1080 video cards will be unveiled at the show which kicks off at the end of May. These Pascal-toting GPUs should then hit shelves starting in July, with Nvidia already starting to reduce stock of its existing cards in preparation for the launch of the new models. Obviously there's some pretty major anticipation concerning what Nvidia is bringing to the table, and ditto for AMD, with the rumour mill suggesting that Team Red will also be unveiling its Radeon R9 490/490X cards at Computex. These will allegedly run with Polaris technology and will be going directly up against Nvidia's GTX 1070/1080, although some of the buzz on the net has argued against this match-up, due to the fact that Polaris has a focus on power efficiency – which is great news for laptop GPUs, but could impact the possible performance levels we will see from the R9 490 series (assuming it does indeed use Polaris). But all of this is speculation right now, of course, although it seems increasingly likely that we will see both the R9 490/490X and GTX 1070/1080 step into the ring to face-off in a battle of specs at Computex. In other video card news, AMD's Radeon Pro Duo is expected to be available to purchase in just over a fortnight, but this beefy beast of a dual-GPU card will run to $1,499 (around £1,060, or AU$1,980). Article continues below

2016-04-12 14:14 By Darren feedproxy.google.com

57 HTC 10 is a 'spot on' smartphone that won't save HTC HTC on Tuesday announced the HTC 10 , a $699 Android 6 (Marshmallow) smartphone that seems to touch on all the design and feature wishes of any high-end smartphone customer. However, those plums won't be enough for the HTC 10 to sell well in a crowded Android field, analysts said, even with its 5.2-in. display, fast Snapdragon 820 processor, metal case and superior camera technology. HTC is facing slipping market share and desperately needs to score a success, they said. "Even with a device like the HTC 10, which has a clean design and … improved internals, HTC simply lacks the scale to effectively compete with Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE, LG and Lenovo," said Jack Narcotta, an analyst at TBR. "On paper, HTC has the right strategy and the right products," Narcotta added. "The problem is that the premium Android space is toxic to nearly all Android manufacturers. Only the largest are able to endure there, and HTC is simply outgunned. " Narcotta further predicted that unless HTC's recently announced Vive VR headset "vaults into a billion dollar business, HTC is doomed. " TBR estimated that HTC's U. S. market share last December was less than 4%, and was even less globally. Analyst firm IDC said HTC hasn't been among the top five smartphone makers for several years and ranked 15th globally in smartphone shipments in 2015. It was seventh in the U. S. In terms of sales, Gartner said HTC went from a 2.2% share globally in 2013, down to 1.3% last year. "HTC 10 hits all the high points -- design, music, screen and camera -- but you have to come up with something else to juice the game," said IDC analyst Will Stofega. By comparison, Samsung may have hit on something effective in its marketing of the new Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge smartphones bundled with the Samsung Gear VR. Soon, Samsung will sell the Gear 360, a spherical VR camera. "Samsung has it right with bundling its newest phones with other products that are not overly expensive," Stofega said. Likewise, Huawei and its new P9 smartphone with the Leica branded dual-lens camera, announced last week, could be distinctive enough to make some difference in a highly competitive market, he added. Smartphone companies have always had to find a singular but sometimes elusive quality to market in a new device and then spend marketing dollars to back it up. Innovations, such as flexible and foldable screens and faster 5G wireless, that are clearly different from today's products, will take much longer to arrive, possibly not until 2022. "Right now, it's a very saturated market and there's no special thing coming up, so manufacturers are resting on their laurels," Stofega added. While high-end Android smartphones face competitive problems, there is a general recognition -- even with Apple -- that customers in the U. S., as well as other places, are slow to upgrade to new phones. "Even Apple has to take stock of what's happening in the U. S. and other saturated markets," Stofega said. "You need more than faster speeds and something that's incredibly different, which is not an easy thing to do. " At a recent conference, Stofega said he heard that LTE phones will sell well in Africa in the next year, "but even they don't make up the volumes needed. " Overall, there is smartphone growth, albeit slower than in recent years, so smartphone makers are not about to walk away. But U. S. sales in the last quarter of 2015 were down 6% . At Mobile World Congress in late February, LG Electronics officials were especially candid about the need to find new strategies to sell smartphones. Two years ago, LG said it knew there would be a plateau in smartphone popularity so it launched the G5 smartphone with a modular design, and heavily marketed the phone in the U. S. Even Apple is feeling the impact of customers' putting off smartphone upgrades more often than they once did. Brokerage firm BTIG last week cut its estimates for iPhone sales through 2017, based on long upgrade cycles, and indicated that structural changes are underway for the market. "Upgrade rates [for all smartphones] were lower than we expected in the fourth quarter and driving even lower in the March quarter," wrote BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk. Unlike Samsung and LG, and certainly Apple, HTC is not expected to launch a major marketing campaign with its new HTC 10. "HTC still has some of the best designs out there today, but they don't have the necessary marketing budget to go out there and push and don't spend — or can't spend," Stofega said. "I've always been a fan of their designs. They have always been spot on. " Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies, added that the HTC 10 is "good-looking, but it's not the only one that is. " She said its primary market will be loyal HTC fans who are upgrading from an HTC M7 or M8. Before 2012, HTC was considered a smartphone market leader, but "the market grew up so quickly around it that new competitors were able to quickly gain scale," said TBR's Narcotta. "HTC misfired when it mattered most by changing its strategy [to lower-priced devices] when Samsung and Apple were competing in the premium space, only to change it back again when Samsung's smartphone business began to slow down. " HTC's biggest hope may dwell in markets not directly related to smartphones, like its Vive VR and recently announced partnerships with Under Armour and IBM Watson. HTC in January announced UA Healthbox with Under Armour , a $400 product with a wristband, scale and heart rate monitor for fitness tracking. (Even though the word "health" appears in the name, it is not sold as a federally regulated healthcare product, and is instead intended as a fitness product.) IBM Watson will add artificial intelligence to Healthbox features through the UA Record App, which acts as a fitness trainer, coach and consultant. The app will rely on a database kept by Watson of 160 million Under Armour app users, medical research and more. "Vive VR is relevant to HTC's future because VR is the next step towards how people interface with the world," said Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen. "IBM Watson makes the fitness app even cooler, and that's an example of where the handset companies need to go with services, where a fitness apps links you to other parts of your life. " Nguyen said Vive and Healthbox will matter more to HTC's future than the HTC 10. "Regardless of the HTC 10 device or its hardware features or the brand and vendor behind it, it will be hard to sell. "

2016-04-12 14:12 Matt Hamblen www.computerworld.com

58 Optiv Security Bets Big On Identity And Access Management Market With Advancive Acquisition Optiv Security, formerly Accuvant and FishNet Security, has made its first acquisition move as a combined company, revealing Tuesday that it had bought identity and access management consultancy Advancive. Terms of the deal, which closed Friday, were not disclosed. Advancive, based in Pasadena, Calif., focuses on providing services and solutions around identity and access management. That's an area that Denver-based Optiv is looking to place a big bet on in the coming year, Bryan Wiese, vice president of identity and access management, told CRN. The identity and access management space is one of Optiv's fastest-growing business practices, he said, with 40 percent to 50 percent year-over-year growth for the past three years. [Related: Optiv Security Joins Identity Defined Security Alliance ] "For Optiv, this is a big thing," Wiese said. "From here on, we are going to continue to see a lot of growth from an identity and access management perspective. " The acquisition nearly doubles Optiv's current identity and access management practice, Wiese said, adding 35 new employees to Optiv's 50 and adding new capabilities around services and solutions. In particular, Wiese said, Advancive brings new vendor specialties around Ping Identity and RSA, adding to Optiv's expertise with CyberArk and SailPoint. Advancive also adds capabilities around managed security services for identity and access management and global consulting and services capabilities with the company's offshore office in Bangalore, India. Those capabilities will prove key for Optiv, Wiese said, as the market for identity and access management continues to grow and change in the coming years. According to research firm MarketsandMarkets, the identity and access management market is expected to grow from $7.2 billion in 2015 to $12.8 billion in 2020. Wiese said Optiv is already seeing "a ton" of growth in the space, driven by customer demand for better solutions in response to many recent breaches that involved identity issues. "Within Optiv, we're aligning our messaging and focus and growth around growing identity to address those concerned customers," Wiese said. "We're doing this, not just to tackle the growth we're seeing but position us for bigger, larger growth going forward. " Advancive co-founders Art Poghosyan and Alex Gudanis will take new positions at Optiv to help spearhead some of those areas that the company sees as key in the identity and access management market going forward, Wiese said. Poghosyan will now serve as vice president of managed identity and access management at Optiv, building from the ground up a practice around managed security services for identity and access management. Gudanis will be responsible for running a new intellectual property development group at Optiv, focused on adding value through product integrations and solutions. The integration of the two companies will take place over the next 120 days, Wiese said. That process will include combining customer bases as well as internal people from a culture, process and benefits perspective. Wiese said there are no plans to relocate employees at this point. "Even though this is an acquisition from a company perspective, it's really a merger," Wiese said. "We will merge everything from a delivery methodology perspective, tools perspective and people perspective over the next 120 days. " The result, he said, will be a "new, shiny, better identity and access management consultancy" within Optiv. The Advancive acquisition "certainly won't be the last" move by Optiv to grow inorganically in the coming months, Wiese said. He declined to comment on what other areas Optiv might be looking to make acquisitions in.

2016-04-12 14:05 Sarah Kuranda www.crn.com

59 The Week in Mac Apps: Make your iTunes window just the right size with Moom This week’s roundup of new Mac apps includes Moom, a tool for making your app windows the perfect size (and keeping them that way). Plus, apps for making gorgeous photo collages, tracking the moon’s patterns, and more. Read on! Any astronomy fans in the house? Natalia Gavrylova’s $2 Deluxe Moon Pro helps you keep track of the moon’s movements in the sky alongside its phase, eclipses, and position. The apps offers a beautiful interface with data relevant to Earth’s celestial companion, and can even provide detailed information about horoscopes, Zodiac circles, and significant events. Leo Mesentsev’s $5 E-Book Viewer offers a unique reading experience for your favorite ebooks right on your desktop. The app allows you to completely customize type elements like fonts, backgrounds, margins, and much more. It also supports interactive content and videos, and can be used in full-screen mode. As an added bonus, it lets you export your content—including any comment or bookmark you may have added—into a convenient PDF. Roberto Piccirilli’s $3 Folder Sizes sports a simple interface that shows information about each folder on your Mac, with an intuitive bar chart that shows their sizes relative to each other. The app displays a handy list of every directory that can be found on your Mac, and allows you to remove or compress unwanted data to free up room on your hard drive. Many Tricks’ $10 Moom ( Mac App Store Link ) allows you to resize your windows at will using your mouse or keyboard. Moom adds a convenient pop-up menu right by your window’s zoom button, from where you can reposition and resize according to several different configurations. It lets you specify different settings for multiple screens, and saves your layouts between reboots. ZipZapMac’s $20 Periscope Pro ( Mac App Store Link ) gives you remote access to your Mac’s camera—an ideal way to monitor your home whenever you are out and about. The app can either record a continuous feed, or use motion detection technology to only capture video when something happens within the camera’s field of view. The recordings can be saved to a local hard drive or synchronized to your Dropbox account. Photo & Video Labs’ $2 Photo Wall lets you turn your pictures into beautiful collages using a variety of geometric pattern templates. The app includes a variety of background images that you can use to spice up your photos, offers a full set of layout and framing tools to customize your collages, and can save its output in one of several common image formats. Many Tricks’ $5 Time Sink ( Mac App Store Link ) helps you optimize your time by tracking your app usage. Time Sink generates graphs that show when and how often you use each app, can be set up to automatically group similar software into categories like “Internet browsing,” and is even capable of exporting the data it generates into a spreadsheet for further analysis. Doist’s Todoist ( Mac App Store Link ) lets you organize all your tasks, appointments, and schedules in one convenient place. Todoist features a gamification system that helps you stay on track by giving you points when you achieve your goals; integrates with Google Drive, Cloud Magic, and other popular cloud systems; and lets you share your projects and lists with friends and family via email or over the web. Mr. Fridge Software’s Wokabulary ( Mac App Store Link ) uses a multilingual database of words to help you improve your vocabulary. The app allows you to quickly look up word definitions, and helps you practice your language skills with fun quizzes and word puzzles. You can also update its database by adding new words, and it synchronizes everything across multiple devices through iCloud.

2016-04-12 14:00 Marco Tabini www.itnews.com

60 Whoa. ASRock confirms 10-core Core i7, outs other models too ASRock, the honey badger of motherboard makers, just flagrantly outed Intel’s most anticipated enthusiast chip of the year: a 10-core Core i7 CPU. Sure, we’ve seen dribs and drabs of leaks for months, including Intel’s own accidental disclosure of the Core i7-6950X last week, but no vendors had confirmed the actual core count until now. “The most unmissable part of Intel Broadwell-E is the flagship Core i7-6950X, which will be the first deca-core processor for the commercial market,” ASRock said in a press release on its website. And yeah, there’s more. ASRock went on to confirm the rest of the line up too. ASRock just confirmed that the upcoming Core i7 will have 10 cores. One can’t help but wonder if all the leaks are somehow condoned by Intel to help stoke the the hype-train engine. I asked Intel to comment on ASRock’s confirmation and was given the boiler-plate response that the company does not comment on unannounced product. Accidentilaly on purpose? This is the Intel support site listing for the unannounced Core-17 6950X processor. It’s since been pulled. Besides Intel’s own accidentally (on purpose?) slip, which confirmed that the Core i7-6950X would hit speeds of up to 3.5GHz and have 25MB of cache, MSI “leaked” news, too. Earlier this month, MSI said its X99 motherboards were ready for Broadwell-E. MSI’s press release, however, was far more coy and used screenshots and performance numbers from a Xeon chip instead. Gigabyte also quietly added “Support 2016 Q2 coming new CPU” in a BIOS update pushed out in January. So obviously, this has been the worst-kept secret. The only real unknown is how much Intel will charge for the CPU. When the chip first popped up on the leak radar, many people assumed the price would be $1,000. Intel has basically charged a grand for its top-end processor since the days of the first quad-core “Bloomfield” Core i7-965 Extreme Edition. That price held when Intel added two more cores to the Core i7-990X. Several generations later, when Intel “gave” consumers two more cores still, for a total of eight in the Core i7-5960X, the price remained $1,000. With the 10-core Core i7-6950X though, there are indications Intel may ramp up the price to $1,500. Again, Intel has never confirmed nor talked about the CPU on the record, but rumors of the higher price have been hot and heavy since January. That has consumers balking. But Intel may have good reason for the increase. Intel’s top-end Core i7 chips have always just been repurposed Xeon chips with a few features turned off. Intel makes serious bank off of Xeons and doesn’t want to cannibalize those sales. If the 10-core Xeon is coming in at a higher price, that could funnel down to the i7-6950X. The real wild card in all this is AMD’s Zen. This will be the company’s first major CPU launch in years. Redesigned from the ground up and rumored to pack from two to 32 CPU cores, as well as adopting an Intel-like Hyper-Threading technology, Zen could pose the first true competition to Intel’s high-end CPUs since the days of the Athlon FX-51. What we do know for sure today, thanks to ASRock, is that Broadwell-E will indeed have 10 cores. The chip is expected to launch at Computex in June.

2016-04-12 13:54 Gordon Mah www.itnews.com

61 Event: The 13th Annual East AfricaCom 2016 The 13 th annual East AfricaCom is set to take place at Radisson blu,Nairobi Kenya on the 18 th – 19 th May, 2016. East AfricanCom which is part of the knowledge & networking division of Informa PLC presents a forum for high level networking across telecoms, broadcasting, enterprise ICT and the entire digital community to translate meetings and experiences into real business gains. It represents the most radical region of the continent for mobile and digital communications, mobile money and ICT development. East AfricaCom has an exciting and educative topics which will cover everyone of their target audience such as: how to launch a TV channel in the digital world for the broadcast media, how to gain edge from streamlining technical and infrastructure operations to investing in service delivery, transforming the digital enterprise through the CIPO forum, putting mobile and increasing video at the centre of the consumer’s experience for enterprises that want to retain their customers. This event brings a wide range of benefits to its audience among others; business partnerships, one to one meetings, evening networking and transformational exhibitions. Regulators, operators ISPs, digital leaders, innovators will use East African com to discuss high level infrastructure projects, broadband and LTE rollout, reducing costs of 3G networks and also point out the key challenges for rural telecoms and connectivity hinderances across the region. ICT leaders and heads of technology at SME’s and large corporations will also gather at this event to discuss how quality ICT is a necessity tool for enterprises and large corporations to transform into efficient digital businesses. A wide range of speakers will grace the event such as: Bobbie Mellor ; Government Campaign Manager Vodafone Group, Yvonne Makolo ; CMO MTN Rwanda, Larry Mdowo ; Technology Editor & Anchor NTV Kenya, Mark Lisboa ; Vice President StarTimes Kenya, Katherine W. Getao ; ICT Secretary Ministry of ICT Kenya, Thibaud Rerolle ; Chief Technical Officer Safaricom and many more. This event is only FREE for regional operators and regulators (senior level). For applications, bookings and registration, follow their link .

2016-04-12 13:51 PC Tech pctechmag.com

62 DataStax enters graph market DataStax today moved into a new database market with the announcement that it will be releasing the DataStax Enterprise (DSE) Graph datastore later this year. The new database is built on the foundations of Apache Cassandra and the Apache TinkerPop Project. DSE Graph is a distributed graph database, meaning it can be hosted in multiple datacenters while still keeping data coherence. It’s designed to run on a cluster for maximum scale-out potential. Martin Van Ryswyk, executive vice president of engineering at DataStax, said that the DSE Graph is a bit different from traditional graph databases. This is particularly apparent when it comes to how the DSE Graph is queried. (Related: HPE introduces new Machine-Learning-as-a-Service offering ) “The graph language you write graph traversals with is different from what people are used to,” he said. “The DataStax team has built and committed to using Apache TinkerPop’s Gremlin query language. Almost all our competitors will be using that. Neo4j uses Cypher. They made a play to make that open, but it’s not truly open. We’ve given ours to the Apache Foundation.” The DSE Graph is also the product of the Aurelius acquisition made by DataStax last year, which brought the TitanDB graph database into the company’s stable. The back end for that database was interchangeable and could be switched between NoSQL solutions. For DSE Graph, however, Cassandra is the storage engine of choice. DSE Graph, however, does not end with just a distributed graph database. The DSE Graph suite also includes analytics tools to allow developers and administrators to get the information they need back out of the datastore. “We also integrated deeply with Apache Spark,” said Van Ryswyk. “If you want to compute major statistics of the graph, or to compute recommendations over the entire graph, you cannot do that at runtime over the graph. We use Apache Spark to distribute those computations. The nice thing about DSE Graph is that it uses Gremlin. We take those queries and compile them down to the most efficient execution engine, be it Cassandra for real-time or Spark for analytics. The other interesting integration point we have is Apache Solr. DSE Graph provides full a text search implementation based on Apache Solr.” DSE Graph will be generally available sometime during the second quarter of this year.

2016-04-12 13:45 Alex Handy sdtimes.com

63 'Your face is big data:' The title of this photographer's experiment says it all Got privacy? You may think you do, but a recent experiment by a Russian photographer suggests otherwise. In a project entitled, "Your face is big data," Rodchenko Art School student Egor Tsvetkov began by photographing about 100 people who happened to sit across from him on the subway at some point. He then used FindFace , a facial- recognition app that taps neural-network technology, to try to track them down on Russian social media site VK. It was ridiculously easy to find 60 to 70 percent of the subjects aged between 18 and 35 or so, he found, although for older people it was more difficult. Along the way, he learned a whole lot about the lives of complete strangers. Acting "like a Web stalker" was "uncomfortable for me," Tsvetkov said via email. Then again, "my point in this art project is to show how technology breaks down the possibility of private life," he said. "It shows us the future. " More details and photographs from Tsvetkov's experiment can be found on Russian photography-focused website Birds in Flight. A common area of application for artificial intelligence , facial-recognition technology is now used by numerous police departments. Racial biases have been cited among the technology's potential downsides, even apart from privacy implications. Facial-recognition technology is one of the top three privacy issues of our time, said Beth Givens, executive director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. "Capturing facial characteristics can be totally unobtrusive to those individuals whose faces are captured," Givens explained. "They have no way of knowing it was done. "

2016-04-12 13:24 Katherine Noyes www.itworld.com

64 Microsoft's Project Madeira turns Outlook into a small- business productivity hub Microsoft's Project Madeira shows how the lines continue to blur between what an app is and what a service is. In this case, the Project Madeira basic business apps for Windows, iOS, and Android exist within Outlook, so users can access them without ever leaving Microsoft’s email program. If that seems confusing, consider how the Outlook apps for iOS and Android include a calendar, but without breaking the calendar portion out as a separate application. That’s how Madeira works. Technically, Microsoft defines Project Madeira as a public cloud service (or software as a service) for Windows , iOS or Android devices, running on top of Microsoft Azure. It just happens to run within Outlook. The Madeira services are designed for small businesses with 10 to 100 employees—small enough, according to Microsoft, that they have neither the incentive nor the funds to invest in an enterprise resource planning system. Microsoft promises that Madeira will include financials, dimensions, sales and purchase management, inventory, CRM (opportunity management), multi-currency, and business insight. Eventually, Microsoft promises third-party developers will create extensions for Madeira, which will be sold in an apps marketplace. For now, Project Madeira exists as a “public preview,” Microsoft said. The service is scheduled to become generally available in the U. S. during the second half of 2016, with other countries to follow.

2016-04-12 13:23 Mark Hachman www.itnews.com

65 This 3D printer can rival standard manufacturing on the factory floor Start-up Carbon began shipping its industrial- grade 3D printer with the expectation that big- name companies will soon be using it to replace traditional forms of manufacturing. Last year, the Silicon Valley company emerged from quiet mode to announce its technology : a machine that can create objects 25 to 100 times faster than other 3D printers. Carbon is not selling its M1 3D printer outright, but instead is offering it through a subscription price of $40,000 per year, which includes a service and maintenance plan. Similar to existing stereolithography (SLA) rapid prototyping processes, the Carbon M1 3D printer uses an ultraviolet light projector under a light-sensitive resin pool to harden the liquid and then pulls the object from the pool. The three-year-old company based in Redwood City, Calif. said its Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) printing process can create objects in minutes compared to the hours a typical 3D printer requires. Kirk Phelps, Carbon's vice president of product management, said the M1 can print production- ready parts that can achieve price parity with traditional manufacturing methods with runs of up to 45,000 units. Because the cost of parts is amortized over an entire run, the more parts made, the less each unit costs. So Carbon is estimating price parity for production runs of around 45,000. Many parts can print at 200 to 350 millimeters per hour, Phelps said. "A thin-walled duct for the aerospace industry can print at 500 millimeters per hour," he added. "There are lots of applications in the automotive and aerospace industries with 45,000 part runs," Phelps said. Compared to traditional manufacturing methods such as injection molding, 3D printing carries with it no upfront capital costs other than the machine itself. There is no engineering of steel or aluminum tools for each new part runoff and engineering costs are reduced because modifying designs can be done with CAD software that is transferred directly to 3D slicer software for printing. Similar to existing stereolithography (SLA) rapid prototyping processes, the Carbon M1 3D printer uses an ultraviolet (UV) light projector under a light-sensitive resin pool. As the platform moves upward, the projector moves light along cross sections of the liquid polymer, solidifying it as it goes and forming objects. The difference between CLIP and traditional SLA is that instead of a UV light or laser drawing the design on each layer of the liquid polymer pool, CLIP projects an entire cross section of the object across the pool, something akin to a slideshow that instantly creates a hardened layer of the object. "All other 3D printing techniques are just 2D printing over and over again -- hence, the layers and the weaker mechanical properties," Phelps said, referring to the layer-by-layer additive- manufacturing process. " CLIP's process is completely continuous, meaning there are no layers -- growing parts rather than printing them layer by layer. " While traditional approaches to additive manufacturing (3D printing), such as fused filament fabrication (FFF) or selective laser sintering (SLS), make trade-offs between surface finish and mechanical properties, the M1 produces high-resolution parts with engineering-grade mechanical properties and surface finish, the company claims. A pipe printed with Carbon's M1 3D printer. "This product lays the groundwork for addressing major gaps in additive manufacturing as we work with our customers to continually innovate and push the boundaries of product design and production," Carbon CEO Joseph DeSimone said in a statement. Phelps compared the M1's production quality to that of injection molding or urethane casting, where molten metal or liquid resin is poured into a cast where it hardens. Carbon offers seven resins from which the M1 can print objects; the resins range from rigid and semi-rigid materials to high-temperature resistant resins and rubbery plastics that meet the specifications for commercial running shoes. A 3D-printed turbine. For example, Carbon's Cyanate Ester-based resin is a high-performance material with heat deflection up to 219 degrees Celsius (426 degrees Fahrenheit). The Cyanate Ester resin is designed for automotive under-the-hood applications, such as ducting, electronics and other industrial components. Carbon has been working with beta customers in industries such as auto, aerospace, medical and athletic apparel, including a number of Fortune 500 companies. BMW, for example, uses the M1 3D printer to make the name badges on some of its models, which were formerly produced using injection molded thermoplastic. Ford has also tested Carbon's M1 for printing engine duct work, Phelps said. The difference between Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) and traditional stereolithography 3D printing is that instead of a UV light or laser drawing the design on each layer of the liquid polymer pool, CLIP projects an entire cross section of the object across the pool. "With our technology, because we have this incredibly high functional, high temperature material, they're really excited to be printing ducting that performs just like the injection-molded duct," Phelps said. The M1 is being used to shorten product development cycles, address new lightweight, high- strength geometries, and produce customized medical devices, Carbon said. "The medical device community is using that material in sterilizable applications," Phelps continued. "I'm not aware of any 3D printer in the world -- SLS included -- that can do something like that. "

2016-04-12 13:09 Lucas Mearian www.computerworld.com

66 Lucidworks View released, Microsoft’s Global CSS Property Usage, and Keras 1.0— digest: April 12, 2016 Lucidworks, a search and analytics software company, today released Lucidworks View, an extension to its flagship product Fusion. It allows companies to create custom search-driven applications that use Apache Solr and Apache Spark. Companies that build a recommendation-driven e-commerce site, or a searchable customer service portal, can use Lucidworks View to give their customers access to information while still utilizing their everyday business tools. Another big change with this release is that it connects and creates value from data sources, allowing companies to build data-driven experiences, according to the release. “Our aim is to eliminate the costly, time-consuming complexities usually associated with the front- and back-end development of intelligent apps, moving companies quickly from the question, ‘What do I do with my data?’ to the statement, ‘Data drives every part of the business,’ ” said Will Hayes, CEO of Lucidworks. The capabilities of Lucidworks Fusion and View include: Microsoft’s Global CSS Property Usage Microsoft is releasing a new tool to help developers collect and analyze data internally. The company has introduced Global CSS Property Usage on Microsoft Edge Dev, designed to give users insight into how CSS properties are used across the Web. The solution uses two crawlers to do this: The first looks at Edge’s point of view, and the second is a new Azure-based Interop Crawler that looks at CSS properties through any browser. “This is more efficient and accurate than having to instrument our browser with no-op APIs that we don’t support just to see their relative usage across the Web,” wrote Greg Whitworth, program manager for Microsoft Edge, in a post . Keras 1.0 released with progress on the development front Keras, a deep learning library for Python, introduced Keras 1.0 with new features on the development front, as well as news for the Keras community. Keras 1.0 isn’t a patch on top of the previous version; instead, it’s a rewriting of Keras nearly from scratch, according to the Keras Blog. Keras 1.0 maintains backward compatibility with new features and better design under the hood, according to the blog. Keras 1.0 provides deep learning accessibility and a set of building blocks for building deep learning models faster. An important feature that Keras highlights is the functional API, which is a new way to define Keras models. A short guide on how to get started with the functional API can be found here. Some other new features include better performance, modular metrics, and a better user experience. Since code has been rewritten from scratch, the end user has been kept in mind throughout all stages of development, according to the blog. There is a library UX with two components, the APIs and the ability to understand error messages. Yahoo is for sale Bidders are ready to pick up Yahoo, as the company reportedly has interested parties wanting to purchase the longtime Internet company, said CNN Money . The CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, would like to see Yahoo trudge along through its struggles, reported CNN, but bidders like Daily Mail and Time Inc. are ready to make an offer. Yahoo has given interested parties until April 18 to make their offers. Technology companies like Google and Microsoft are also looking into bidding for other pieces. Private equity firms General Atlantic, TPG and KKR are also widely reported to be considering buying Yahoo. After April 18, Yahoo will decide if it likes any of the offers and go from there. If it turned down those offers, Starboard Value, an activist hedge fund, said it would nominate an entirely new slate of directors at Yahoo’s upcoming shareholder’s meeting this spring, said CNN. Flexera Software solution provides visibility into cloud services Flexera Software announced the launch of FlexNet Manager for Cloud Infrastructure. It will give organizations centralized visibility into their cloud services use and allows them to optimize utilization and control costs. This first release of FlexNet Manager focuses on optimization of Amazon Web Services (AWS), and it will import usage and billing data from multiple accounts to deliver a centralized view of all AWS accounts across the enterprise, according to a company announcement . The cloud dashboard that goes along with this launch provides a view of an organization’s use of cloud resources. Cloud usage analysis and reporting allows organizations to eliminate waste and increase speed. Additionally, according to the company, FlexNet Manager for Cloud Infrastructure helps companies: Node.js Foundation survey finds ‘Full Stack’ is in demand Nearly 50% of Node.js developers using container technology saw strong growth in the cloud, front end, mobile and devices, according to a Node.js User Survey Report. This survey is the first of its kind according to the Node.js Foundation . The survey identified that Node.js is emerging as a universal platform or language used for Web applications, IoT and enterprise. The report takes a look at the technologies that are being used with Node.js in production and language preferences for front-end, back-end and IoT developers. Some key findings from the survey include 45% of developers responded saying they use Node.js with the technology of containers. Also, 58% of respondents said they are IoT developers that use Node.js with Docker. Although Docker is a server technology, many IoT developers (58%) are using Node.js with Docker, compared to only 39% of back-end developers. This means that the new IoT world also is quickly adopting containers and microservices, according to the survey. Facebook to provide students with developer training Facebook and coding boot camp Dev Bootcamp have announced the creation of a scholarship designed to improve access to technology careers for minority and underrepresented communities. The F8 scholarship is available to prospective Dev Bootcamp students. It was created with a US$250,000 donation from Facebook and was combined with contribution from Dev Bootcamp. The scholarships will cover full tuition for 20 women and other underrepresented minority students so they can join the Dev Bootcamp program in San Francisco. Applications open today and close on May 2. Enrollment of the selected Facebook F8 Scholars starts in early June.

2016-04-12 13:04 Madison Moore sdtimes.com

67 PCWorld's April Digital Edition: Today's Hottest Hardware The onslaught of tech information is relentless. Stay on top of the latest with PCWorld’s Digital Edition. Available as single copies or as a yearlong subscription, it highlights the best content from PCWorld.com—the most important news, the key product reviews, and the most useful features and how-to stories—in a curated Enhanced Edition for Android and iOS, as well as in a Replica Edition. The Enhanced Edition includes videos and other interactive features—all designed for consuming on your tablet. The Replica Edition is a PDF-like version that’s enabled for your mobile device’s touchscreen. We review today's hottest hardware: HP's Spectre X360, Samsung's Galaxy S7 and the Sapphire Nitro R9 Fury. Plus, we show you how to speed up Windows 10 and test the CPU cores really needed for PC gaming. Current subscribers can visit PCWorld.com/directions to learn how to access PCWorld on any device and start reading the April issue right away. We're also excited to announce that we upgraded our system for customer service and downloading issues. A password needs to be created and attached to your account. Go to pcworld.com/customer to create a password for your account. Not a subscriber? With the PCWorld Digital All-Access Pass, you get access to the digital magazine on as many devices as you’d like as an Enhanced Edition or Replica Edition. Depending on your tablet reading preference, choose Replica (digital version in a PDF-like format) or Enhanced (added interactivity)—or download both and see what you prefer. Subscribe today, or to learn about other purchasing options visit PCWorld.com/magazines .

2016-04-12 12:59 PCWorld Staff www.itnews.com

68 Zuora ups the ante and takes it (again) to the old-school vendors Zuora is an interesting vendor -- founded by one of Salesforce 's earliest executives, Tien Tzuo , the company was set up to deliver upon the promise of the so-called subscription economy. Tzuo is a long-time subscription economy prophet and, listening to him over the years, it would be easy to assume that in the future every possible transaction will be based on a subscription paradigm. Of course, it isn't quite that simple and many organizations are more than happy to continue using their traditional billing approaches, but what is true is that increasingly it is a general requirement from organizations that they will have increasing flexibility about how they package and price their products and services. The broader space is particularly interesting with a number of pure billing vendors (joining Zuora are Aria, Vindicia and Monexa among others) as well as vendors who tick of this functional space as part of a broader contract management solutions -- vendors like Icertis, Apttus and SteelBrick. if that wasn't enough competitive tension, we also have the enterprise resource planning ( ERP ) vendors stepping up and suggesting that they, too, fulfill this need -- in particular cloud-based vendors FinancialForce and NetSuite have been singing from this song sheet for awhile. And then, just as we were starting to get our heads around the way the ecosystem works, Salesforce comes along and acquires SteelBrick, causing no end of pain to Apttus (who, like SteelBrick is/was a strong Salesforce partner). Zuora was also caught in the crossfire of the SteelBrick deal and many of us were waiting to see how the company would respond. Which is why it is particularly interesting to be watching the conversation at Subscribed Zuora '16 , the company's annual conference. At the event, Zuora is announcing the latest release of its product, which it includes within the broader space of relationship business management (RBM). Particular highlights of this release include unified subscriber insights, a pricing engine that supports any monetization model, and capabilities for managing complex global organizations with multiple locations and business entities with diverse revenue streams. The release also includes "subscription economy dashboards," visualizations that blend traditional and customer- centric business health metrics. “We are seeing a once-in-a-century shift happening where digital transformation is giving rise to a whole new set of subscription-based business models,” said CEO Tzuo. “The most successful brands in the world today are those harnessing digital technology to deliver new sources of value for customers, and the winners will be those who pair digital innovation with subscriber-centric business models and hyper-agile business practices.” Tzuo goes on to justify his perspective on why these new subscription tools are becoming so critical. "New business models create new challenges that legacy order-to-cash systems were not designed to address," Tzuo believes, “Established enterprises today are running on legacy systems developed for a pure-product era. These systems can’t support subscriber-centric business models and don’t easily adapt to the rapid iteration and innovation required in today’s market.” And Zuora seems to be delivering. The company has raised a quarter of a billion dollars in funding and used that cash to fuel over 600 employees spread across 15 offices. All of those resources have seen Zuora pick up over 800 large enterprise customers and seen 6 times growth in the value of transactions being pumped through their system (a metric that admittedly does more for the ego than the bottom line, since it doesn't really indicate Zuora 's own financial standing). The company is also releasing a piece of research that it commissioned from MGI Research that suggests there is a $102 billion total addressable market for the variety of software tools tailored for the subscription economy. Of that, Zuora's total addressable market is predicted to be around the $15 billion mark. There is a massive amount of positioning going on in this space and Zuora is a well-funded and well-regarded vendor. Whether that translates into long-term success is going to be an interesting thing to watch.

2016-04-12 12:57 Ben Kepes www.computerworld.com

69 The Great Availability Challenge: Bridging The Gap Between Business And IT Availability -- a characteristic that describes whether a resource is operable and capable of performing its designated function -- is a frequently discussed topic in the IT sector. In today’s world, in which everyone has a mobile device and is connected all the time, enterprises must offer always-on services to stay competitive. Thus, availability has become relevant to the business as well as to IT. Unfortunately, the gap that often exists between business and IT is one of the greatest hindrances to availability. Understanding Availability From Different Perspectives In my role as an availability consultant, I regularly use a model that distinguishes availability requirements on the following three levels: Availability is relevant on all these levels, but depending on their backgrounds, people tend to use different terms to express availability requirements. Working from a central model will help create a foundation for business and IT to understand each other. Getting Clarity On Availability Requirements Understanding and then harmonizing the requirements across the business, service, and component view is key to ensuring overall availability needs are met. I have seen mismatches in many cases. In engagements with IT organizations, I often see situations in which high availability is realized for all types of components regardless of whether they are critical for the business. This leads to unnecessary costs and can become a competitive disadvantage. On the other hand, if an IT solution is built in a way that is below the required availability level, the business risk can be higher than expected. Clarifying the availability requirements is important to understanding whether the actual implementation truly satisfies what is needed. An assessment should start from the business perspective, include IT services, and then define the availability for the individual IT components. These requirements must be translated into a level-specific language to ensure a common understanding. Use cases and what-if scenarios are good ways to help facilitate the alignment between stakeholders. Agreeing On Improvement Measures A clear understanding is necessary to conduct risk assessments and make investment decisions. Putting IT investments into the perspective of business requirements and ensuring the traceability of IT operations or maintenance activities back to business relevance is important for any organization since it helps IT leaders demonstrate their business acumen and contributions to a company’s overall success. Once everyone knows and understands the required availability across all levels, agreements can be made on the improvement measures that should be taken.

2016-04-12 12:40 Jens Rathgeber www.informationweek.com

70 50% off Tripp Lite Rotatable Outlet Surge Protector Power Strip - Deal Alert If you're in the market for a full featured power strip with surge-protection, this model from Tripp Lite may be worth reviewing, especially given the current 50% discount. The TLP608RUSBB averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from nearly 600 customers ( browse reviews ). With a list price of $54, you can purchase now via Amazon for just $27.12 . The strip is mountable, and its 6 outlets are rotatable, so it can be placed anywhere and each cord is conveniently free to run in its own direction. Also convenient is its 8 foot long cord and 2 built-in USB charging ports. The most critical spec though may be the AC surge protection which guards against voltage spikes, and comes backed by a lifetime warranty and $50,000 Ultimate Lifetime Insurance for any connected components damaged by a power surge. If you need one, or need to upgrade your existing ones, jump over to Amazon to access this deal and review buying options.

2016-04-12 11:59 DealPost Team www.infoworld.com

71 Facebook wants you to be chattier with new chatbots SAN FRANCISCO -- In the next decade, Facebook will continue to focus on connecting people around the world, and it will do so by using artificial intelligence, virtual reality and chatbots. That's the message from Mark Zuckerberg, co- founder and CEO of Facebook, speaking at the company's F8 developer conference today. "We are building the technology to give everyone the power to share anything they want with everyone else," Zuckerberg said to an enthusiastic audience of about 8,000 developers, analysts and news media. "The path forward is to connect. That's how we make progress together. " In one of the most anticipated announcements, Zuckerberg took the wraps off chatbots and said he hopes the technology will change the way businesses connect with their customers and how people communicate in general on the Internet. Chatbots are programs that largely use artificial intelligence to simulate conversations with humans. The technology will be included in the company's Messenger app, though analysts expect it to be built into Facebook's search service, as well. "How do you communicate with business? " Zuckerberg asked during his keynote. "You probably interact with dozens of businesses every day and some are probably pretty meaningful to you. But who likes calling a business? And you shouldn't have to install a new app for each business you deal with. There's got to be a better way. " Facebook's A. I.-powered chatbots are designed to make it seem as if the user is connecting with a person in a natural conversation. For instance, Zuckerberg noted that CNN will be using a chatbot to send readers a daily digest of stories that of interest to them. The stories will arrive in Messenger, and as people use the chatbot, the program will get smarter and deliver news stories even more pinpointed to the user's interests. He said 1-800 Flowers will be one of the first businesses to use Facebook's Messenger chatbots. "if you want to send flowers, you don't have to install a new app or enter your credit card again. You just send a message," Zuckerberg said. "Now to order from 1-800 Flowers, you never have to call 1-800 Flowers again,. " Facebook's CEO also touched on a topic the company has been spearheading for several years – worldwide Internet connectivity. Zuckerberg said there are three main reasons that people don't have access to the Internet, regardless of where they live. About 1 billion people don't have access because they don't live near a network, another because they can't afford it, and still 2 billion people don't have access because they don't understand why it would be worth the effort and expense. To get more people connected, Facebook is working on ways to make networks cheaper, to build apps that use less data and to bring connectivity to remote areas. For instance, the company is set to launch its first satellite in a few months to connect Sub-Saharan Africa. As for A. I., Zuckerberg said Facebook wants to share its advances with other developers to help propel the technology forward. "What's so exciting about A. I. today is that researchers are using a lot of the same technology we are using. Astronomers are finding new planets, Scientists are diagnosing diseases … We want to make it easier for you all to take advantage of all the advances we're making in A. I. When your A. I. systems get 10 times better, you can be 10 times better at diagnosing diseases. This way we can all make faster progress together. " Virtual reality also is a big research area for Facebook. According to Zuckerberg, since the company started shipping the Gear VR late last year, hundreds of apps have been built for the platform and users have watched more than 200 million hours of video on it. "Eventually, we'll have what look like normal-looking glasses that can give you virtual and augmented realty, overlaying images," he explained. "A lot of things we think about as physical objects, like a TV to display an image, will just be a one-dollar app that you use with your glasses. " CNN will use a chatbot to send users a daily digest of stories. The stories will arrive in Facebook's Messenger app.

Facebook advances chatbots on Messenger with new developer tools itnews.com 2016-04-12 11:49 Sharon Gaudin www.itnews.com

72 Hortonworks Data Platform delivers industry-leading security and governance integration for Hadoop Hortonworks, Inc. , a leading innovator of open and connected data platforms, today announced several key updates to Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP). HDP allows customers to accumulate, analyze and act on information derived from data, and is 100% open source. The following advancements to the platform will be highlighted at Hadoop Summit Europe, April 13th-14th in Dublin: Integration of Comprehensive Security and Trusted Governance For the first time, Apache Ranger for security and Apache Atlas for data governance are integrated to empower customers that define and implement dynamic classification-based security policies. In this technical preview, available now , enterprises can use Atlas to classify and assign metadata tags, which are then enforced through Ranger to enable various access policies. In addition, Atlas now provides cross-component lineage, delivering a more extensive view of data movement across multiple components. Automated Provisioning for Hadoop in Any Cloud Cloudbreak allows enterprises to simplify and automate the provisioning of clusters in the cloud and fine tune their use of cloud resources. Cloudbreak 1.2 is available now. It expands support for OpenStack for private cloud and Windows Azure Storage Blob (WASB) for Microsoft Azure, and comes with the ability to run scripts either prior to or after cluster provisioning. Simplifying Cluster Operations The upcoming release of Apache Ambari features pre-built dashboards for HDFS, YARN, Hive, and HBase with key performance indicators for cluster health. The collective knowledge of Hortonworks’ support and engineering teams has captured nearly a decade’s worth of operational best practices in this release to help customers improve troubleshooting and speed time to resolution when issues occur. Visualization for Data Science

2016-04-12 11:38 SD Times sdtimes.com

73 73 Vector Software launches most comprehensive Ada software quality solution for marketplace Vector Software , the world’s leading provider of innovative software solutions for embedded software quality, announced today the latest release of VectorCAST/Ada. VectorCAST/Ada is a dynamic software test solution that automates Ada unit, integration, and system testing, necessary for validating safety-critical embedded systems. This newest release of VectorCAST/Ada incorporates many new features and enhancements including: Stub By Function: Stubbing of functions can now be dynamically controlled on a per-test-case basis in VectorCAST/Ada. This allows testing to be performed on one individual function in complete isolation from its dependent functions. Change-Based Testing: New Change-Based Testing functionality built into VectorCAST/Ada allows engineers to quickly and easily assess the impact of a source code change on not only their code but the entire software application. Code Coverage Analysis: Code coverage analysis support for Ada 2012 allows engineers to gauge the effectiveness of tests by identifying which areas of an application were exercised during a test. Ada Language Support: VectorCAST/Ada incorporates the four versions of the Ada language standard: Ada 83, Ada 95, Ada 2005, and Ada 2012. “Organizations developing safety-critical applications require tools that help them improve time- to-market and reduce development and verification costs through structural code coverage analysis,” commented John Paliotta, chief technology officer at Vector Software. “VectorCAST/Ada enables engineers to quickly and easily assess the impact of a source code change on not only their code, but the entire software application.” “Vector Software is enriching the Ada ecosystem significantly thanks to this new version of VectorCAST supporting Ada 2012,” said Cyrille Comar, AdaCore president. “This is good news for the increasing number of high integrity developers choosing to follow the programming-by- contract paradigm.” AdaCore has been a longtime partner of Vector Software.

2016-04-12 11:36 SD Times sdtimes.com

74 IBM puts Watson to work on cancer with new patient-advisor tool IBM is developing a new weapon in the battle against cancer that will put Watson to work in a new way. Partnering with the American Cancer Society, IBM is building a virtual advisor that uses machine learning to give patients personalized information and advice. The advisor will begin by looking at the type of cancer the patient is suffering from, the stage of the disease and the treatments administered so far. Using that and other data, it will try to offer care advice and answer patients' questions. A person with breast cancer, for instance, could ask the advisor what might be causing her pain. Having learned from the experiences of people with similar characteristics, the tool can respond with information about symptoms and options for self care based on the patient's situation. Over time, the advisor will become increasingly personalized as it learns more about the user, resulting in recommendations that match her preferences, such as for online support groups over telephone calls. To create the tool, IBM and ACS will tap their massive combined stores of data and use it to train Watson. Included in that data will be Cancer.org's 14,000 pages of detailed information on more than 70 cancer topics as well as the ACS National Cancer Information Center’s aggregated data about self- management, support groups, wellness activities and cancer education. The tool will also surface insights from IBM's Watson Health Cloud . "It’s about providing the right information to the right people at the right time,” said Gary Reedy, CEO of the American Cancer Society. More than 1.6 million Americans are diagnosed with cancer each year. IBM's effort is one of several in the tech industry that aim to make it easier to share and analyze large amounts of data to help treat patients and, ultimately, advance cures for diseases. Intel has a project called the Collaborative Cancer Cloud , for instance, which will allow hospitals and universities to more easily share genomic, imaging and clinical patient data for research purposes. Ultimately, ACS and IBM aim to integrate their patient advisor with IBM’s existing Watson for Oncology offering for doctors. In related news, IBM on Tuesday also launched a new program called the IBM Health Corps that aims to help communities address health challenges around the world.

2016-04-12 11:36 Katherine Noyes www.itnews.com

75 Updated: Oculus significantly delays many Rift pre-orders It seems like the TR staff may have been lucky to get our Oculus Rift when we did. Today is the day that Oculus promised to update order statuses for Rift pre-orders, and it would seem that many woke up to bad news in their inboxes. The r/oculus subreddit is aflame this morning with tales of early pre-orders being bumped one to two months from their original projected ship dates. So far, Oculus hasn't offered a reason for these delays, but it would seem the "unexpected component shortage" that the company originally offered as the cause of slow pre-order fulfillment is more severe than one might have thought. The news may not be good for backers of Oculus' Kickstarter, either. In another post to Reddit , the company claims that it's set aside a "separate allocation" of the headsets for its Kickstarter backers. Even so, shipping projections for those folks have been switched to "TBD. " The company says it's fulfilling Kickstarter rewards at a "regular cadence," and it claims to have fulfilled a "large number" of those rewards already. To be fair, Oculus didn't charge pre-order buyers in advance for their Rifts, so it's not like the company is holding money hostage as it sorts out its supply chain. All that's really at issue is buyers' disappointment that Rifts won't be in their hands sooner. Still, this troubled launch is hard to watch for a platform that's still finding its legs. We'll be keeping our ears open for an official statement from Oculus on these issues. Update 4/12/2016 12:10 PM: Oculus provided the following statement to Polygon regarding the company's revised shipping dates:

2016-04-12 10:52 by Jeff techreport.com

76 Chunks is the Vive's Minecraft from Rust dev Facepunch Facepunch, the developer of Rust, has been working on Chunks for the HTC Vive for about 10 months. It is unashamedly Minecraft -like, to the degree that it was codenamed Vivecraft. But though Minecraft is a sure thing for the Rift , its future on the Vive is uncertain. In Chunks, "you can build cities and monuments while you're the size of a giant, then shrink yourself to walk inside what you built. " That excites me. The thought of exploring spaces built by my own fair hand almost convinced me to buy-in to VR before my bank balance got the better of me. Chunks aims to differentiate itself from Minecraft in its moddability and shareability. Whatever you build can be shared via the Steam Workshop. Furthermore, the sandbox itself is written in the modding system —the source code for Chunk's tools is open and editable using C#. Like so many other creative sandboxes, Chunks is in Early Access , and Facepunch is frank about its condition. "It doesn’t have a shitload of stuff to keep you super engaged yet. There’s a bunch of quality of life stuff we need to do. Some menus are confusing. Some of the tool controls are confusing. We’re totally aware of all this stuff. But it’s cool and has a ton of potential. " Facepunch ought to have learned a thing or two from the long development of Rust , however, so unless Mojang announces Minecraft for the Vive tomorrow, this block builder is likely your safest bet.

2016-04-12 10:35 By Angus www.pcgamer.com

77 10 Internet of Things companies to watch It’s good to be an Internet of Things startup these days. Cisco forked over $1.4B for IoT platform provider Jasper in February. Nokia Growth Partners has raised a $350 million IoT-focused investment fund. And IoT startups are pulling in tens of millions in venture funding. Verizon, in its new “State of the Market: Internet of Things 2016” report , states that its venture arm estimates that while consumer-oriented IoT firms pulled in 15% more funding than enterprise- focused ones in 2014, it is enterprise IoT startups that are now raking in the big bucks. Verizon Ventures says enterprise IoT startups attracted 75% more funding than consumer IoT upstarts last year and that enterprise IoT startups are expected to grab 2 to 3 times as much funding as their consumer counterparts this year. “As I looked at IoT about a year ago, it became very clear that the path to revenue was a very long one in the consumer IoT space unless you’re a hardware business -- and we’re not in the hardware business,” says Ed Ruth, a director at Verizon Ventures , explaining his outfit's interest in enterprise IoT. “So we started digging into the industrial or enterprise IoT space and what became very clear was that there were a number of enterprises that needed answers today to known problems that traditional frameworks weren’t quite solving.” Here’s a look at some of the IoT newcomers, both enterprise and consumer, that have caught our eye. And just to keep the list manageable, we’ve limited it to those companies that have announced venture funding since mid-2015, with an emphasis on more recent investments. We realize this list, ordered alphabetically, is not all-encompassing… Filament Tap gives wireless life to old equipment Greenwave founder & CEO Martin Manniche

2016-04-12 10:30 Bob Brown www.itworld.com

78 AT&T won’t sell the HTC 10 in stores If you’re an AT&T subscriber with an eye towards the HTC 10 , you’ll probably have to buy one online. That’s because it turns out AT&T won’t be selling the latest flagship in carrier stores. Verizon, T- Mobile, and Sprint have all signed on, though they haven’t revealed pricing schemes with their various monthly installment plans. You can use the HTC 10 on AT&T, you’ll just need to buy it unlocked directly from HTC and then activate it in-store or transfer your SIM card. There are certainly some benefits to doing this, as this will free you of carrier bloatware and being stuck on AT&T’s pitiful update cycle. HTC is one of the more responsible handset makers when it comes to updates, so you’ll probably have a device that won’t languish for months in update purgatory. However, it also means paying the full unlocked price of $699, which could be a tough sell given the rave reviews for the Galaxy S7 Edge and S7 .

2016-04-12 10:23 Derek Walter www.itnews.com

79 Google open source hybrid cloud gets new OpenStack backup driver Google kicked up its plans for creating a hybrid cloud based on open standards -- namely OpenStack -- another notch this week. The company announced in a blog post the release of a small but strategic software component that allows instances of OpenStack's new Mitaka edition to back up data to Google Cloud Storage. Google's Cinder OpenStack block storage abstraction layer uses drivers to talk to different storage providers. It also includes provisions specifically for backup services, so storage providers can designate targets when backing up Cinder volumes; Google Cloud is simply one possible backend among many. Google is touting the low cost and relative ease of using Google Cloud Storage plus OpenStack Mitaka plus its Cinder driver to create an object storage system for existing applications. One of the supported storage types is Google's "cold data storage" system, Cloud Storage Nearline , which can be used for cheap long-term data retention and costs 1 cent per gigabyte per month. If you're upgrading OpenStack to Mitaka, the Google driver is included by default. Google's hybrid cloud platform built on open standards is being assembled in pieces. OpenStack was one such piece; another has been Docker-style containers as an open standard for delivering applications in a portable format and running them at scale. A component like Google's Cinder driver is another part of the puzzle. Since a hybrid cloud is meant to seamlessly span local and remote data centers, it makes sense to have a native option for local resources to back up to remote ones. The one gap in Google's plan is on the private end of the hybrid cloud, where Google's pieces have very different levels of adoption. OpenStack, despite efforts to retool and become easier to work with, still is used primarily by verticals like telecoms and isn't drawing as many enterprises. Containers, though, enjoy far broader adoption, in large part because they have more uses and take less work. Google plans to continue hedging its bets, building a hybrid platform that can leverage as many of its pieces as possible. It joined the OpenStack Foundation and Cloud Native Computing Foundation to better enable the development of components for that hybrid cloud. The enterprises that use OpenStack can expect Google to continue providing pieces that complement what they build on-premises.

2016-04-12 10:15 Serdar Yegulalp www.infoworld.com

80 Box launches Box Zones, aims for EU, Asia expansion Box on Tuesday launched Box Zones, an effort to store data locally across Europe and Asia via Amazon Web Services and IBM. The company's Box Zones is designed to address local data storage requirements and enable customers to centralize content and store it in Germany, Ireland, Singapore and Tokyo. In addition, Box Zones will allow the company to expand its international customer base. Chris Yeh, senior vice president of product at Box, said Box Zones is part of a larger build out designed to scale the company globally. "We had customers that operated outside the U. S. already, but they were storing data with us in the U. S. data centers," said Yeh. "We've been working on Box Zones for the past year to have more flexibility. " Box Zones lines up with Box KeySafe and Box Governance to allow enterprises to deploy the service in multiple ways. In a nutshell, Box is arguing that it is not a storage company but a content platform with enterprise features to bolster collaboration. According to Box, it has 57,000 businesses using its service and many of them are multinational and need to comply with local data laws. Box Zones will also support the integrations already in place with Office 365 and Salesforce. The product will launch on Amazon's S3 service in May and then roll out to IBM Cloud later this year. Yeh added that the Box Zones will add other cloud provider options in the future.

2016-04-12 10:00 Larry Dignan zdnet.com.feedsportal.com

81 Truck Simulator patches deliver hefty new features SCS has dropped massive updates for American and Euro Truck Simulators, allowing you to look the part of the long-distance haulier at last. Whether on the autobahn or interstate, know that those at car level will be dangerously distracted thanks to Ultimate Wheel Customisation. In addition to tires and disks, hubs, hub covers and nuts can now be tweaked to your taste. Making more substantial modifications easier, Steam Workshop support has finally arrived. If you're thinking of getting into the modding business yourself, SCS has released the Steam Workshop Uploader via Steam itself to tie your creations seamlessly into the new service. You've got a dedicated wiki to lend a hand too. Finally, both games get tweaks and fixes:

2016-04-12 09:43 By Angus www.pcgamer.com

82 Sumo Logic’s new platform powered by machine learning technology While there are several architectural and modern application life-cycle changes, one thing that is growing exponentially is machine data. With the right visibility, machine data could help digital businesses keep up with their modern applications by giving them access to metrics data in real-time continuous intelligence. To help companies learn from machine data, Sumo Logic , the cloud-native analytics service, today announced its first machine data analytics platform that unifies logs and metrics. As a way to keep up with these constant architectural changes, and to manage the volume of the data that exists, this platform will analyze structured metrics data and unstructured log data together in real-time. (Related: Machine learning takes center stage at RSA Conference ) Sumo Logic’s new platform allows teams to handle the structure types of log and time-series metrics data natively, which makes viewable log and metrics analytics available in real-time through graphical, interactive dashboards. The data can be viewed side-by-side, and it’s available as a cloud native service. Suku Krishnaraj, vice president of product marketing at Sumo Logic, said that the combination of architectural complexity, the speed at which software development is moving, and the exposure companies have to microservices, machine data is growing and introducing new challenges to organizations. He said teams who are responsible for building, running and securing modern applications need real insights as to how the users are actually using a service. From surveying its customers, Sumo Logic found that a majority of them are still using siloed tools for monitoring and troubleshooting. Krishnaraj said that organizations are finding the process of switching from different tools to be difficult, and that they are seeking one single integrated platform for metrics and monitoring. The platform can also help development teams since cross-functional development teams and operational teams are supporting their microservices, and they need to have visibility across all of the machine data. “Their developers are creating their own custom metrics, their own custom logs, they know exactly what to look for, but they are having a context switch between all of these different applications even though they make the cross functional switch themselves,” said Ben Newton, principal product manager at Sumo Logic. Key features of the new platform include:

2016-04-12 09:00 Madison Moore sdtimes.com

83 BAE Systems sounds security klaxon over Qbot malware STEADY YOURSELVES. The security threat diviners at BAE Systems have warned of a modified instance of Qbot that is bad news for you and your systems. Qbot, not to be confused with Qbert, is a type of malware that makes its unwelcome presence felt at organisations globally. BAE (not the internet bae) explained that Qbot makes efforts to infect, update and hide itself in systems, and is very good at its job. There has been a lot of malware before it , so perhaps it is paying attention. Qbot has infected over 54,000 PCs at thousands of organisations, but BAE has had a chance to have a good look at it and find its weaknesses. "BAE Systems' analysts discovered that a number of modifications had been made to the original Qbot malware to make it harder to detect and intercept," the company said. "These included a new ‘shape changing', or polymorphic, code which meant that each time the malware's code was issued by the servers controlling it, it was compiled afresh with additional content, making it look like a completely different program to researchers looking for specific signatures. "In addition, automated updates to the malware generated new encrypted versions every six hours, outpacing efforts to update software on customer computers and helping the virus to spread. The new Qbot also checks for signs that it is running in a ‘sandbox', a tool used to spot malware before it reaches users' inboxes. " BAE added that the criminals, apparently a professional outfit, target universities, hospitals and police departments, most of which will not have the means to deal with the threat. "Many public sector organisations are responsible for operating critical infrastructure and services, often on limited budgets, making them a prime target for attack," said Adrian Nish, head of cyber threat intelligence at BAE. "In this instance, the criminals tripped up because a small number of outdated PCs were causing the malicious code to crash rather than infect them. It was this series of crashes that alerted the organisation to the spreading problem. "This case illustrates that organisations must remain alert to, and defend against, new and evolving cyber threats. Qbot first came to light in 2009, but this new version is equipped with advanced tools to escape detection and infect quickly. " µ

2016-04-12 08:05 Dave Neal www.theinquirer.net

Total 83 articles. Created at 2016-04-13 06:03