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100 articles, 2016-02-20 12:03 1 What to Expect From Mobile World Congress 2016 Mobility editor Lindsey O'Donnell will cover the giant mobility event from Barcelona, Spain. 2016-02-19 21:53:28 1KB www.crn.com (3)

2 Street Fighter 5 review: The expert's verdict Trigger fingers 2016-02-19 16:17:00 11KB www.techradar.com (3)

3 Blockchain: not the Messiah - 16 Feb 2016 - Computing Analysis (2) Blockchain is an ingenious technological development, but it's far from being the saviour many are looking for,Business Software ,Internet of Things,GBG,authentication,encryption,blockchain,identity and access management,Bitcoin,GDS,Fintech,Tom Loosemore 2016-02-23 00:00:00 2KB www.computing.co.uk 4 Cat S60 is the world's first thermal imaging smartphone Firm expects rugged device to take military-grade technology mainstream (2) 2016-02-20 11:27:02 3KB www.theinquirer.net 5 iPhone 5SE price, release date, specs and rumours Apple's 4in smartphone tipped to go on sale on 18 March 2016-02-20 11:27:35 3KB (2) www.theinquirer.net 6 US Department of Defense will upgrade four million PCs to Windows 10 (2) Good luck with that 2016-02-20 04:48:57 2KB www.theinquirer.net 7 Twitter bug potentially exposed 10,000 punters' passwords Thanks guys 2016-02-20 10:34:34 2KB www.theinquirer.net (2)

8 Partners: Ransomware Attack On Hospital Shows Need For Broader Security Strategy (2) This week's high-profile ransomware attack on the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center has health care partners on alert, calling for a more comprehensive security strategy in the vertical. 2016-02-20 10:44:16 3KB www.crn.com 9 Get the Picture? Digital Signage Connectivity and Power Matter Digital signage offers unparalleled opportunities for you to communicate with, advertise to, educate and inform the people you want to reach most. 4226-06-06 00:00:00 1KB www.itworldcanada.com 10 Podcast is live on Twitch The Tech Report Podcast is recording live on Twitch... 2016-02-20 08:49:14 598Bytes techreport.com 11 Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter v2 promises less latency Microsoft has been busy at work with its Surface lineup and accessories... 2016-02-20 08:49:03 1KB techreport.com 12 The TR Podcast gets VISC-y with David Kanter tomorrow evening After a lengthy hiatus, we'll be recording a new episode of The Tech Report Podcast tomorrow evening. Special guest David Kanter, of Real World Technologies... 2016-02-20 08:49:24 1KB techreport.com 13 Leap Motion updates its hand-tracking system for VR It's been almost three years since Leap Motion started shipping its motion controller... 2016-02-20 11:51:30 1KB techreport.com 14 Asus offers its minimalist ROG Sica mouse in white Anyone that was turned off by the black-and-red color scheme of Asus' ROG Sica gaming mouse now has a new option to consider... 2016-02-20 11:51:30 1KB techreport.com 15 Deals of the week: several SSDs and a hot-clocked GTX 970 Howgh! Sitting Metalhead has travelled the plains of online deals, and now he has brought you his hard-earned catch. Today's bounty has plenty of SSD... 2016-02-20 11:51:30 804Bytes techreport.com 16 SanDisk Ultra +Cloud 64GB + 64GB Flash Drive Review USB flash drives (UFDs) are a dime a dozen in the current market... 2016-02-20 11:51:30 5KB www.anandtech.com 17 NVIDIA Announces Tom Clancy’s The Division Game Bundle for GeForce Video Cards NVIDIA has announced that its partners will bundle a free copy of Tom Clancy’s The Division game with select high-end GeForce GTX graphics cards starting... 2016-02-20 11:43:33 2KB www.anandtech.com 18 Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 625, 425 & 435 Mid- and Low-End SoCs Today Qualcomm announced three new SoCs in the mid and low-end Snapdragon lineup... 2016-02-20 11:43:33 2KB www.anandtech.com 19 Microsoft Launches The Business Focused Lumia 650 Today Microsoft launched their fourth phone in the x50 series, with the Lumia 650 being the latest Lumia to roll out of what used to... 2016-02-20 11:44:17 5KB www.anandtech.com 20 AMD to Bundle New Hitman Game with Select FX CPUs and Radeon 390 Series Video Cards AMD announced this week that it will bundle the full version of the new Hitman game with its Radeon R9 390-series graphics cards as well... 2016-02-20 11:44:17 2KB www.anandtech.com 21 Seagate Begins to Ship 2.5-Inch, 7mm Thick 2 TB Mobile Hard Drives with SMR Seagate has started to ship its highest-capacity hard drives for notebooks... 2016-02-20 11:42:12 3KB www.anandtech.com 22 16:10 Lives On: EIZO Releases 24-inch ColorEdge CG2420 and CS2420 Professional Monitors For anyone that loves a 16:10 screen, with resolutions such as 1920x1200 or 2560x1600, there have been relatively slim pickings in the monitor world... 2016-02-20 11:41:59 3KB www.anandtech.com 23 Lucky BREAK: ZX Spectrum Vega+ console smashes crowdfunding target in two days $$$ = > POKE IN i + sharp stick 2016-02-20 08:32:32 2KB www.theinquirer.net

24 Apple gets to fight judge's iPhone-cracking order another day Court delays a deadline for Apple to respond to an order to help the FBI break into an iPhone tied to the San Bernardino terror attack. The feds say Apple's stance is based on "brand marketing." 2016-02-20 11:45:14 2KB www.cnet.com 25 Three announces plans to block ads at a network level Firm wants to give users choice, but publishers are concerned 2016-02-20 11:27:02 3KB www.theinquirer.net 26 Kanye West is mad at the Pirate Bay His album is very popular in pirate waters 2016-02-20 11:27:02 3KB www.theinquirer.net

27 Q&A: CyberArk CEO Talks Acquisition Rumors And Up-And- Coming Privileged Account Management Market CyberArk CEO Udi Mokady sat down with CRN this week to discuss the company's growth trajectory, acquisition rumors and why partners need to take a look at privileged account management solutions for their security portfolios. 2016-02-20 11:53:33 1KB www.crn.com 28 Partners: Cisco Lawsuits Aren't Stopping Arista Networks' Sales Surge Arista Networks and its partners say sales momentum is driving forward regardless of the potential repercussions from lawsuits filed by Cisco in 2014 against the networking startup. 2016-02-20 11:43:03 3KB www.crn.com 29 5 Companies That Had A Rough Week For the week ending Feb. 19, CRN looks at IT companies that were unfortunate, unsuccessful or just didn't make good decisions. 2016-02-20 11:54:06 1KB www.crn.com 30 Three steps towards a hierarchy of needs for smart cities Smart cities face challenges around network connectivity, standardisation and data governance, say IoT experts, and these needs must be met for them to flourish 2016-02-20 11:00:58 1KB www.computerweekly.com 31 IBM will give $5m to boffins who fix the world with AI 'No Terminators allowed,' says IBM. Probably 2016-02-20 10:51:29 3KB www.theinquirer.net 32 Intel denies further delays to 10nm chips beyond 2017 Chip firm moves to halt rumours that Cannonlake may be even later than it already is 2016-02-20 11:00:48 2KB www.theinquirer.net 33 HSBC rolls out voice and Touch ID support to mobile banking customers We'll soon be able to access bank accounts by barking at our smartphone 2016-02-20 11:00:48 2KB www.theinquirer.net 34 Firefox 2.0 for iOS adds 3D Touch and better password management First major third-party browser embraces iOS special features 2016-02-20 11:01:45 2KB www.theinquirer.net 35 Facebook backtracks on removal of Viz page Rude Kid et al not respectful enough for the Zuckerberg advertising panhandle 2016-02-20 10:34:34 2KB www.theinquirer.net 36 University of Greenwich posts students' personal information online ICO says it's casting an eye over the breach 2016-02-20 10:35:03 3KB www.computing.co.uk 37 Syntel CEO: Future Lies In Marriage of IT, Knowledge Process Outsourcing After jumps in revenue and earnings in 2015, Syntel CEO Nittin Rakesh explains why his company’s future is tied to the marriage of IT and knowledge processing outsourcing. 2016-02-20 10:43:24 3KB www.crn.com 38 Windstream Channel Chief: We're Going After Enterprise Business Windstream Channel Chief Jason Dishon sat down with CRN to share the provider's plans to go after enterprise accounts and what that new strategy means for SMB customers and channel partners. 2016-02-20 10:43:43 1KB www.crn.com 39 Fans restore original 'Star Wars' for online release A group of die-hards spent years cleaning a 35mm film print and published it online without George Lucas' later alterations -- or any permission. 2016-02-20 10:35:38 1KB www.cnet.com 40 A 23rd-century tourist guide to the solar system (pictures) By 2200, Mars and Pluto could be on your travel bucket list. As NASA, Elon Musk and others make plans to visit the Red Planet, we've compiled our own list of future interplanetary adventures. 2016-02-20 10:36:41 1KB www.cnet.com 41 Seedstars announces its annual Summit under theme Billion Seedstars has announced its annual summit slated for March 3rd, 2016 at the Swiss Tach Convetion Center a EPFL, Lausanne under theme “Billion”. The global organization with the mission of impacting people’s lives in emerging market through entrepreneurship and technology launched its third edition of the Seedstars World competition in April 2015. More than… 2016-02-20 07:45:31 3KB pctechmag.com 42 10 online resources that will help you learn how to code Most people will try to stay away from programming by simply claiming that; I am not the programming (geeky) type of person, I am not good at coding, Programming is not for us ladies Programming is a waste for time: too many 1s and 0s, I am not even an I.T person, so why think… 2016-02-20 07:00:21 5KB pctechmag.com 43 US government asks Apple to help it brute-force iOS security Apple often touts the security and privacy benefits of its iOS platform... 2016-02-20 04:47:24 3KB techreport.com 44 Dridex-style 'Locky' ransomware is infecting machines via Microsoft Word Looky out for Locky lock menace 2016-02-20 07:57:39 2KB www.theinquirer.net 45 Quick Look: Vulkan Performance on The Talos Principle Following yesterday’s hard launch of Vulkan 1... 2016-02-20 08:01:47 6KB www.anandtech.com 46 A Close Look at IBM's z13s Mainframe for Secure Hybrid Clouds IBM's z13s has advanced cryptography features built into the hardware that allow it to encrypt and decrypt data twice as fast as previous generations. 2016-02-20 08:02:22 1KB www.eweek.com 47 Revisiting The Google Pixel C - Better, But Not There Yet Last month I published my review of the Pixel C... 2016-02-20 08:02:52 3KB www.anandtech.com

48 Leak shows LG G5's major design changes, dual cameras ahead of event The LG G5 due to be announced on Sunday has been shown in full by a regular leaker. 2016-02-20 05:38:00 1KB www.zdnet.com 49 Samsung Pay has roughly 5 million users, China launch planned for March Samsung's mobile payment solution has processed over $500 million dollars in its first six months in the US and South Korea. 2016-02-20 05:03:27 947Bytes www.zdnet.com 50 Examining Soft Machines' Architecture: An Element of VISC to Improving IPC Last week, Soft Machines announced that their 'VISC' architecture was available for licensing, following the announcement of the original concepts over a year ago. VISC,... 2016-02-20 06:59:58 6KB www.anandtech.com 51 The GIGABYTE Z170X-UD5 TH Motherboard Review: An Entry to Thunderbolt 3 At the initial phase of Intel’s Skylake processor launch, a myriad of Z170 equipped motherboards were released to enable the platform. One of the prominent... 2016-02-20 06:51:28 7KB www.anandtech.com 52 Microsoft Patches Surface Book And Surface Pro 4 Sleep Issue When I reviewed the Surface Book, there were a lot of bugs with the software... 2016-02-20 06:51:28 2KB www.anandtech.com 53 MWC 2016: LG to Launch new ‘X Series’ Mid-Range Smartphones, each with a Singular Premium Feature No sooner had I finished writing the news on the LG Stylus 2 announcement had another email landed in my inbox... 2016-02-20 06:51:29 3KB www.anandtech.com 54 StarTech Standalone Hard Drive Eraser And USB 3.0 Dock Capsule Review When StarTech... 2016-02-20 06:52:25 8KB www.anandtech.com 55 Samsung Releases 750 EVO SATA SSD After an accidental leak in November that was spotted by our friends at Tom's Hardware, the Samsung 750 EVO has now officially launched worldwide... 2016-02-20 06:52:25 4KB www.anandtech.com 56 Microsoft Surface Hub delayed again due to 'manufacturing issues' Now unlikely to arrive until April 2016-02-20 06:54:01 2KB www.theinquirer.net 57 John McAfee will solve the iPhone encryption problem or eat a shoe Just him and a bunch of weed-smoking punks 2016-02-20 06:51:17 4KB www.theinquirer.net 58 Galaxy S7 makes on-screen debut ahead of imminent MWC launch Footage confirms microSD slot and 2.5D screen 2016-02-20 03:39:21 2KB www.theinquirer.net 59 Apple reveals critical new detail in its encryption battle with the government Did a changed Apple ID password change everything? 2016-02-20 04:36:00 3KB www.techradar.com

60 Poll: Tim Cook's Encryption Conundrum? Apple CEO Tim Cook is refusing to comply with a court order to unlock an iPhone used in the San Bernardino terrorist attack. Is he right? 2016-02-20 06:59:20 688Bytes www.crn.com 61 Report: Dell-EMC Merger Poised To Win EU Antitrust Approval Dell is set to gain unconditional approval for the deal from the European Commission, which was expected to reach a decision on the proposed $67 billion acquisition by Feb. 29, according to Reuters. 2016-02-20 06:59:50 2KB www.crn.com 62 Channel Beat: What Ingram Micro's Sale To Tianjin Tianhai Means For The Channel In other top stories this week, NetApp announced major layoffs. Also, IBM will restructure its partner program. 2016-02-20 06:59:20 1KB www.crn.com 63 Verizon, Viptela Join Forces For Channel-Friendly SD-WAN Service Telecom provider Verizon and SD-WAN startup Viptela have partnered to create a new Verizon SD-WAN platform, powered by Viptela, for partners and enterprise customers. 2016-02-20 06:59:20 3KB www.crn.com 64 Apple says investigators ruined best way to access terrorist data A backup feature might have provided the FBI with a way to access data from the iPhone of a San Bernardino terrorist. But a change to the Apple iCloud password foiled that idea. 2016-02-20 06:02:52 3KB www.cnet.com 65 The government just took a stand on hoverboards, so what happens now? Hoverboards are getting heat from the government ... and actual fires 2016-02-20 01:28:00 3KB www.techradar.com 66 Smartphone Pricing's Up, But Customers Are Happier J.D. Power reports that costs for smartphone customers have increased, but that these consumers are happier than they've ever been -- especially with AT&T. 2016-02-20 00:06:00 4KB www.informationweek.com 67 The Nintendo NY store grand re-opening was a Mario fan's dream Come for the plushies, stay for the history lesson 2016-02-19 23:41:00 5KB www.techradar.com 68 Mitsubishi is developing a hologram-like 'Aerial Display' One step closer to holograms? 2016-02-19 21:29:00 1KB www.techradar.com 69 Microsoft, Cisco, Intel and others form open IoT standards group The Open Connectivity Foundation will seek to define interoperability standards for the billions of internet-connected devices expected to arrive in the next few years. 2016-02-19 20:08:00 2KB www.zdnet.com 70 Overcoming 5 Major Supply Chain Challenges with Big Data Analytics Big data analytics can help increase visibility and provide deeper insights into the supply chain. Leveraging big data, supply chain organizations can improve the way they respond to volatile demand or supply chain risk--and reduce concerns related to the issues. 2016-02-19 19:28:00 4KB www.computerworld.com 71 Newegg Daily Deals: Storage and RAM Edition! Life if full of waiting, isn't it? You go the DMV to renew your license and have to wait (a really long time). At Disneyland, you stand in line and wait (also a really long time). Same for the grocery store and numerous other places. And to add insult to injury, that aging hard drive in your PC isn't getting any faster. Why not swap it out for an SSD and kill those long wait times that come from transferring large file s? 2016-02-19 19:20:07 1KB www.maximumpc.com 72 Microsoft curtails its support for Skylake-based Windows Embedded 7 and 8 devices Microsoft is tweaking its support for embedded Skylake-based devices running Windows Embedded 7, 8 and 8.1. But support for Skylake-based Windows Server systems remains unchanged. 2016-02-19 19:04:00 939Bytes www.zdnet.com 73 Garmin's new fitness trackers are its most fashionable yet Garmin's latest have both beauty and brains 2016-02-19 17:00:00 3KB www.techradar.com 74 Philips wants to be the next name in OLED TV Also thinks 3D and curved panels are toast 2016-02-19 16:58:00 3KB www.techradar.com 75 Google releases new developer tool for analytics Google announces Autotrack for analytics.js 2016-02-19 16:48:39 2KB sdtimes.com 76 The biggest surprise about will.i.am's new smartwatch? It actually looks good Meet dial 2016-02-19 16:42:00 1KB www.techradar.com 77 10 best mirrorless cameras in 2016 Which is the compact system camera? We rate the best CSCs by price, features and value 2016-02-19 16:30:00 1KB www.techradar.com 78 Volvo prepares to say goodbye to physical car keys At least for Android and iPhone users 2016-02-19 16:29:00 3KB www.techradar.com 79 Garmin announces Vivoactive HR with sleeker design, integrated heart rate monitor, and more Garmin announced successors to the Vivoactive and Vivofit devices with the Vivoactive HR and Vivofit 3. The Vivoactive HR is a compelling GPS sports watch with enhancements consumers have been asking for. 2016-02-19 16:16:00 2KB www.zdnet.com 80 AquaJS framework for Node.js is open source and in beta This Node.js framework handles contracts definitions, generates scaffolding end-to-end, and solves integration issues 2016-02-19 15:35:05 2KB sdtimes.com 81 IBM snags new European clients for Watson supercomputer IBM's artificial intelligence system is being harnessed for two fresh IoT projects across Europe. 2016-02-19 15:00:04 3KB www.zdnet.com 82 Yahoo forms committee to review potential offers And independent committee will form a process to deal with bankers and field strategic offers. 2016-02-19 14:57:35 1KB www.zdnet.com 83 Asus planning big 2-in-1s push spearheaded by Surface clone? Preaching to the convertibles 2016-02-19 14:17:00 2KB www.techradar.com 84 Apple Watch 2 probably won't land until September, and that makes perfect sense If you're holding out for the Apple Watch 2 to appear any time soon, don't hold your breath, because it might not happen until later this year. And this makes perfect sense for Apple to wait. 2016-02-19 14:14:13 2KB www.zdnet.com 85 Microsoft takes Translator offline in Android, snapshot translation to iPhones Microsoft has rolled out new features for its Translate app that make it a stronger contender against Google Translate. 2016-02-19 13:52:58 3KB www.zdnet.com 86 Donald Trump wants you to boycott Apple Donald Trump has called for a boycott of Apple products over its refusal to help the FBI break into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino mass shooters. 2016-02-19 13:52:00 1KB www.computerworld.com 87 Facebook Messenger: Why ads could soon be popping up in your chats Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may just have changed his mind about adverts being the wrong way to make money from messaging. 2016-02-19 12:48:15 2KB www.zdnet.com 88 The Zephyr Project, Google Cloud Vision API, Yahoo’s mobile developer suite and new ArcGIS release- news digest: Feb. 19, 2016 The Linux Foundation has announced a new open-source collaborative effort to build a real-time operating system (RTOS) to power the Internet of Things: the Zephyr Project. According to the organization, IoT devices require software that is scalable, secure and enables seamless connectivity, and developers need the ability to innovate on top of a modular platform … continue reading 2016-02-19 12:44:21 3KB sdtimes.com 89 Sony Xperia Z5 Tablet UK release date, price and specs rumours: Our bold predictions for Sony's new tablet, which could be unveiled on Monday We take a look at what the Sony Xperia Z5 Tablet might offer and what want from the new tablet which could launch at MWC 2016. 2016-02-19 12:29:00 7KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 90 Samsung, Oracle partner to create mobile enterprise solutions The companies plan to work together to push more businesses towards modern-day apps and technologies. 2016-02-19 12:21:23 2KB www.zdnet.com 91 Samsung Gear S2 classic 3G: First eSim lets you switch carriers remotely Samsung's new Gear S2 classic 3G smartwatch is the first IoT device to ship with a GSMA- compliant embedded SIM that can be provisioned over the air. 2016-02-19 11:26:00 2KB www.zdnet.com 92 9 Reasons To Crowdsource Data Science Projects The data science talent shortage has some companies thinking outside the box. Even if your company employs a formidable data science team, you would likely still benefit from third-party ideas or solutions. Data science competitions and other forms of crowdsourcing offer viable means of advancing the art of the possible relatively quickly and cost- effectively. We share some of the possibilities. 2016-02-19 11:01:00 4KB www.informationweek.com 93 São Paulo IT workers union secures salary increase for 2016 Techies in the Brazilian state get pay rise following "the most difficult negotiation of last few years" 2016-02-19 10:36:03 840Bytes www.zdnet.com 94 Remote desktop tool distributed by Comodo enabled privilege escalation Security software vendor Comodo patched a security weakness in its GeekBuddy remote PC support tool that could have enabled malware or exploits to gain admin privileges on computers. 2016-02-19 10:25:00 4KB www.computerworld.com 95 Illumio Brings Active Directory To Dynamic Security Startup Illumio can apply individual security policies to application users on premises and in the cloud. 2016-02-19 10:05:00 4KB www.informationweek.com 96 Linux and breakfast cereal: Why are there so many flavours? I'm sick and tired of hearing about people being confused because there are too many different kinds of breakfast cereal - and Linux - available. It's a good thing and here's why. 2016-02-19 10:00:00 6KB www.zdnet.com 97 Should your NGO be developing a mobile gaming app? Candy Crush Saga, an online puzzle game that challenges the user to match similar candies, has more than 75 million likes on Facebook and at least half a billion downloads on Google Play. Cross-platform availability, “freemium” pricing strategy, continuous levels, and the online game’s casual yet stimulating design is what has contributed to its worldwide appeal.… 2016-02-19 09:44:31 2KB pctechmag.com 98 Google Introduces 'Roll Your Own' Option On Compute Engine Google is now offering Custom Machine Type servers that its customers can configure the way they want. While this option had been in beta, the company is now making the service generally available. 2016-02-19 09:05:00 4KB www.informationweek.com 99 GitHub Project of the Week: TensorFlow Serving Google has announced the release of TensorFlow Serving, a flexible, high-performance and open-source serving system for machine-learning models. The solution was designed for production environments and optimized for TensorFlow, the company’s machine- learning system. “Machine learning powers many Google product features: from speech recognition in the Google app to Smart Reply in Inbox to search in … continue reading 2016-02-19 09:00:51 3KB sdtimes.com 100 The promise of predictive analytics for Web content As companies continue to improve their ability to extract precise and meaningful insights from big data, the importance of using analytics to craft an effective content marketing strategy will only increase. 2016-02-19 08:20:00 5KB www.computerworld.com Articles

100 articles, 2016-02-20 12:03

1 What to Expect From Mobile World Congress 2016 (3) Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona next week, and CRN mobility reporter and assistant editor Lindsey O’Donnell will be reporting from the scene in Spain. More than 94,000 attendees flocked to the event last year, and this year promises big headlines and product releases. Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich will both address the crowds, and O’Donnell expects them to focus on 5G – 5 th generation – mobile networks. “There are going to be a lot of product launches of smartphones, tablet, wearables – things we’ve seen in the past – but I think that we’re going to see a lot of new things,” O’Donnell said. “There’s definitely a discussion about smartphone security, so I think we’re going to see a lot of security solutions.” Virtual reality is also expected to be a hot topic at the congress. In terms of product launches, we could see two new phones from Samsung: the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. The show officially starts February 22nd. 2016-02-19 21:53:28 Meghan Ottolini

2 Street Fighter 5 review: The expert's verdict (3) What a difference a week makes. If you had asked me how Street Fighter V was on the day it launched, you would have witnessed a tirade against Capcom, cursing the studio's very name as inept for being unable to cope with the demand for a sequel in a super popular series on the day it set to launch the damn thing. Fast forward several days and things are much more settled - problems do arise with connecting to the servers sometimes, and there's the odd occasion in which points and progression aren't being tracked, but generally speaking we're well on the way to the game playing how it should have from day one. As a result, I'm a lot more mellow. Actually, I'm a lot more excited - because Street Fighter V can start to be enjoyed exactly how it should be. 'How it should be' will immediately conjure up mental images for the Street Fighter faithful, and they're likely spot on. It's one-on-one fighting, choosing from a cast of 16 delightfully bizarre characters who spend their time hurling fireballs at one another, kicking their opponents in the face or piledriving them through the pavement. It is, basically, one of the purest forms of gaming competition - and at its best one of the most enjoyable. Street Fighter V tweaks and updates things - as you'd expect from a sequel - altering existing favourites like Dhalsim, making him even more of a keep-your-distance fighter, while also adding four new characters to the roster (well, three new, one returning), each bringing his or her own techniques to master. Necali is a beast of a man with wonderful hair, a heavy hitter who suits those looking to deal a lot of damage in a fight while sacrificing mobility. Brazilian Laura might remind me of Super Street Fighter II's DeeJay, but her projectile throwing is backed up by grappler specials - a series first. Elsewhere there's Zangief's smaller, less hairy analogue in the shape of R. Mika. She returns from Street Fighter Alpha 3 with a broader wrestling repertoire, as well as the ability to call in her tag team partner for supers. Finally, we have F. A. N. G. - who looks a lot like the Thin Men from XCOM's reboot. This wiry fellow is very clearly for expert players, mixing weaker, ranged offense with trap-laying poison specials to punish opponents who aren't careful enough in battle. It's a solid mix of new characters and I'm already seeing them being used online a bit - obviously not as much as Dirty Ken and Vanilla Ryu, but what can you do? High level F. A. N. G. play is sure to be a sight to behold. The biggest change to fights, though, comes in the shape of the new V-gauge. This meter sits atop your super bar, filling when you take damage or use a V-skill - the latter being a replacement for Street Fighter IV's focus attacks. Once you've filled enough segments, your V-gauge can be used for a V-reversal - using at least one segment - or a V-trigger, which uses the whole thing. Reversals, as you'd expect, can get you out of a tricky spot; activated while blocking they can (and do when used correctly) turn the tide of battle. Also, they remind you of Street Fighter Alpha's Alpha Counters if you're old enough, which is nice. Triggers, on the other hand, are a decidedly more offensive V-option. By hitting both heavy attack buttons (with a full V-gauge), the player's character enters a powered state, hits with an attack or generally does something that puts them on the front foot. F. A. N. G., for example, starts spewing out a poisonous gas, making him deadly to be near. Ryu, meanwhile, sees a general upgrade to his damage-dealing abilities, along with a powered up Critical Art. Which I keep calling a super, sorry. It's a smart way to introduce new elements to the series without shifting things up too much, while at the same time making the additions interesting enough that they're not just a bit boring (I'm looking at you, focus attacks). This might not seem like a huge overhaul of Street Fighter IV, and you would be correct in thinking that. That in itself is a bit of a surprise, when you look back at the history of the series - and it really hammers home just how much Street Fighter's evolution over the years has been in leaps and bounds. The original game is archaic these days, but was a revolutionary arcade game - even with the gimmicky, pressure-sensitive attack button on some machines. By the time Street Fighter II came around, though, we were presented with a bona fide classic. So much had changed, been updated, added, it was near-unrecognisable beyond a few shared characters and a central theme of battering each other. SFII was perfect for its era: the arcade was king, and competitive play was why most of us traipsed down to those grimy, neon-drenched hovels. Thinking about it, Street Fighter II's trip to the SNES is a part of what shunted it in the direction it took for the third and fourth games. See, Street Fighter III was another departure from what people might have expected. Fundamentally the same experience again, it didn't go for the broad audience the second game had managed to attract; instead opting to target the hardcore players who still remained in the arcades, a dying breed even back then. This was, frankly, a misstep from the perspective of making a popular game. Street Fighter III is adored and was a critical darling, but it didn't have anything like the cultural impact its predecessor did, and I think there would be a few people involved in making the game who would admit doubling down on the faithful over going the accessible route might not have been the best idea, great as the game was. The fact that Street Fighter II had been obscenely popular, though, meant Capcom already knew the formula could work on populist, rather than hardcore terms. It took a long time of licking the finger and sticking it in the air to feel which way the winds were blowing, but by the time Street Fighter IV came out we were met with a near-perfect balance between hardcore, high-level play and accessibility. I think it's important to understand where Street Fighter V stands in that pantheon. Right now Street Fighter IV is the better game, and offers a hell of a lot more bang for your buck. Street Fighter V hasn't re-birthed itself as a totally new experience again, instead opting, for the first time, to iterate. It is, to a long-time fan, a strange situation to be in. But it's not a bad situation to be in, because while it may be lacking some - alright, a lot - of the trimmings, the juicy centre of Street Fighter V is absolutely excellent. The game's just bloody good. Fast and flowing, balanced and (largely) fair, it's everything you want from a one-on-one fighting game. At least in the matches themselves. Outside, it's all a bit threadbare - short story modes for single player, which you'll finish in about half an hour, a survival mode to unlock new costumes and the requisite training mode for honing that frame data knowledge. Beyond that? Not much if you want to play on your tod. More is coming - trials and targets, as well as a more robust story mode, are all to be added at some point in the near future. But what you get out of the box is, at the time of writing, not something the lone player will want to bother with. Anyone looking at Street Fighter V from a multiplayer perspective, however, is both Doing It Right and set for a much better experience. It's here where the game really shines, offering casual and ranked matches alongside the 'battle lounge' - which is just a lobby with a fun name. There's an emphasis on the overall online experience: in-depth stats and rankings telling you all manner of facts about your playing style (I do a lot of ranged attacks, it seems), while replays of your own and other matches foster a closer feeling of an online community all playing together, almost like the arcades of old. Best of all - and this is ignoring those connection issues mentioned earlier - when you're in an online fight, Street Fighter V plays incredibly well. This netcode is sublime, as you would want it to be for something encouraging high-level play, with matches feeling just like it's a local multiplayer match. I don't know what voodoo goes on behind the scenes to make it possible, but gosh darn if it isn't something to behold. At least, when you can connect in the first place. Having said all that, it is still lacking in a number of features - though we do already know eight- player lobbies and a spectator mode will be added soon enough. It does still feel bare, though. One thing does show that at least part of this lack of content is by design: Fight Money. This in- game currency is earned by winning ranked fights and finishing the short story mode, and can be used to unlock new costumes and - importantly - characters when they release. Alternatively, you'll be able to buy another form of in-game currency with real cash in order to fund these unlocks. The free-to-play influence cannot be stopped. Those aforementioned 'coming soon' trials and targets will also be handy to pick up Fight Money, I'd assume, meaning there is a fair chance Capcom isn't trying to stiff anyone with its promise of being able to unlock everything for free. It's just going to take a lot of play time to do so, and those paid unlocks will be a lot more tempting as a result... And so it is Street Fighter V is a game to bring up some confusing, conflicting feelings. It doesn't feel like a huge step like the ones its previous iterations have taken, instead being a refinement and doubling down on Street Fighter IV's broader concepts and appeal. But while it might seem as such from a wider perspective, Street Fighter 5 is much more than a hastily cobbled-together sequel that's trying to disguise its lacking draw. The core is there: the platform to build on is exceptionally solid, and we already know Capcom plans on adding more as the weeks, months and years go by. How well this experiment will go is anybody's guess - Capcom doesn't exactly lead the opinion polls when it comes to fairest DLC practices, but Street Fighter V could be the product to change all of that. For those not looking to the future, firmly focused on what you get on your disc or download, there's room for disappointment. Playing alone is pretty much a waste of time, beyond some hardcore practice sessions, and technical hitches have impacted what is an otherwise exceptional online fighting game. But all things considered, taking into account where the series has been and where it is today, it's a very good game. Threadbare? Sure. Quite obviously not the full-and-fulfilling package we might have expected in the PS3/360 generation? Definitely. But you try to tell me there's no thrill in an expertly-timed parry-super comeback finish with Ryu, and I will tell you precisely why you are wrong. If one week can make such a huge difference to the perception of a game, I can't wait to see what we're talking about when it comes to the Street Fighter V of 2017. Whatever it is in that world of the future, it's going to have been built on strong foundations. Article continues below 2016-02-19 16:17:00 By Ian Dransfield Gaming

3 Blockchain: not the Messiah - 16 Feb 2016 - Computing Analysis (2) Author: John Leonard Source: Computing | 16 Feb 2016 Categories: Business Software Tags: Internet of things | Gbg | Authentication | Encryption | Blockchain | Identity and access management | Bitcoin | Gds | Fintech | Tom loosemore The word "disrupt" is never far away from any mention of blockchain; "revolutionise" puts in a regular... Register FREE to continue reading Access to this premium content is for registered users only. Registration is completely free, quick, and gives you immediate access to our premium online content, magazine and iPad edition. Find out more Register Sign in using the log in area toward the top right of your screen. Computing is the UK’s leading information resource for UK Technology decision makers. Register in two minutes for unlimited access to premium subscriber content including an industry-leading magazine, special reports and market research data, expert analysis and reviews and the industry’s top resource library. Customer services For issues with access to the website please contact: UK: +44 (0)1858 438 800 USA: +001 646 755 7274 Asia: +852 3411 4828 Email: [email protected] Please login or register to continue reading Register FREE to continue reading Access to this premium content is for registered users only. Registration is completely free, quick, and gives you immediate access to our premium online content, magazine and iPad edition. Find out more Register Sign in using the log in area toward the top right of your screen. Computing is the UK’s leading information resource for UK Technology decision makers. Register in two minutes for unlimited access to premium subscriber content including an industry-leading magazine, special reports and market research data, expert analysis and reviews and the industry’s top resource library. Already Registered? Login here 2016-02-23 00:00:00 www.computing.co.uk

4 Cat S60 is the world's first thermal imaging smartphone (2) TRACTOR MAKER Cat has announced the world's first smartphone capable of thermal imaging, which it hopes will take the technology mainstream. The Cat S60 was unveiled just days ahead of next week's Mobile World Congress, and The INQUIRER has had a look at the smartphone before it makes its Barcelona debut. The handset is manufactured by Bullitt and features a military-grade thermal imaging C2 camera module from FLIR, the same used in the Intel-powered Daqri smart helmet , enabling the Cat S60 to show temperature contrasts. The sensor is the smallest of its kind, and can measure surface temperatures from a distance of up to 100ft. It can see through obscurants such as smoke, and is aimed at building professionals, utility workers and outdoor sport enthusiasts. The Cat S60 has some obvious uses, but the firm believes that thermal imaging technology could find its way into 50 to 60 percent of smartphone devices within five years. Bruce Cummings, vice president of brand and creative strategy at FLIR, told The INQUIRER : "We want to make thermal imaging accessible to the general population. GPS is a great example of this: a technology that was used solely in the military space and is now everywhere. "The technology enables you to see in pure darkness, so there’s a host of use cases right through to the consumer space, whether it’s to see if a sausage is cooked when barbecuing, how much gas is left in your tank or to find your pet on a dark night. " And let's not forget that a thermal imaging smartphone could also let you take what Cat calls "thermies" ( below ). We're sorry. Pete Cunningham, head of product at Bullitt, the company that manufactures Cat devices, took a swipe at big-name smartphone makers, which he believes have stalled when it comes to new and innovative features. "What we wanted to do with the Cat S60 was really demonstrate innovation. In the smartphone market you get peaks and troughs when it comes to innovation, and at the minute we’re in a bit of a trough," he said. "We found the perfect partner in FLIR, which is the market leader in thermal imaging cameras. What we’ve done is integrate the technology into a mobile phone. Collectively, we believe that this is going to mainstream the technology in a few years' time, and Cat and FLIR are the first to do it. " The Cat S60 is also the world's most waterproof smartphone, according to the company. The handset can withstand depths of five meters for one hour, it is claimed, allowing it to be used as an underwater camera. That's not all the Cat S60 has going for it. The chunky device runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, and has a 4.7in screen complete with support for wet and gloved fingers. You'll also find 13MP and 5MP cameras, an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage and a beefy 3,800mAh battery. The Cat S60 will be available later this year for €649 (around £500). µ 2016-02-20 11:27:02 www.theinquirer.net

5 iPhone 5SE price, release date, specs and rumours (2) 2016 WILL MARK THE RETURN of the 4in iPhone in the form of the iPhone 5SE, if speculation is to be believed. The handset will reportedly look to those after a cheap, pint-sized iPhone, and will reportedly mimic the iPhone 5C with stripped-back features and a budget price. We've rounded up everything we know about the so-called iPhone 5SE below, and we'll update this article as soon as we hear more. Release date The iPhone 5SE (or iPhone 6C, depending on what rumours you believe), will reportedly be unveiled at a launch event on 15 March , alongside the iPad Air 3 and new Apple Watch models. The 4in iPhone will reportedly go on sale just three days later on 18 March , although Apple apparently won't be putting it up for pre-order. There's no word on a release date yet, but there's talk that the handset will go on sale in April. Price If rumours out of 9to5Mac are to be believed, pricing for the iPhone 5SE will start at $450 for a 16GB model, the same as the iPhone 5S. Specifications A leaked video, if legitimate, reveals that the iPhone 5SE will have a similar design to the iPhone 6S , sporting an aluminium case and the same curved edges and antenna lines as Apple's latest flagship smartphone. A leak via Twitter tipster OnLeaks ( below ) backs this up, showing an apparent iPhone 5SE with an all-metal design. LOL #iPhone6c ... pic.twitter.com/0gxR4bq63n — Steve Hemmerstoffer (@stagueve) December 31, 2015 This suggests that, unlike the vibrantly coloured iPhone 5C before it, Apple's next 4in iPhone will be available in the same space grey, silver, gold and rose gold colours as the top-end smartphone. However, a previous report from TechWeb claimed that the iPhone 6C will feature a few bold colour options, similar to the iPhone 5C. According to 9to5Mac , which first revealed the smartphone's likely iPhone 5SE name , the handset will look more similar to the iPhone 5 than the newer iPhone 6S, although notes that it will feature a curved glass front similar to that seen on Apple's latest top-end smartphones. This report also points to an 8MP and 1.2MP dual camera set up, and notes that it the so-called iPhone 5SE will feature Bluetooth 4.2, VoLTE, and 802.11ac WiFi. Previous rumours have suggested that the iPhone 6C will not include a fingerprint sensor, but the leaked footage seems to suggest that the budget iPhone will have a Touch ID sensor, which means it's likely to support Apple Pay and come with a built-in NFC chip. It's unlikely to come with 3D Touch support, according to rumours. Forbes reported that the iPhone 6C may have a "2.5D" display with curved edges that improves the tactile sensitivity of finger swipes. Apple will apparently use an A8 processor, the same chip that appeared in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. If this is the case don't expect Live Photos, as this relies on Apple's newer A9 processor. However, don't get too down about it just yet, as a new report out of Bloomberg claims the iPhone 5SE will, in fact, pack the same A9 chip as the iPhone 6S , which will be paired with 1GB RAM. Online gossip suggests that the iPhone 6C will feature a 1,715mAh battery, improving on the 1,500mAh offering inside the iPhone 5C. There's also talk of 4G LTE support, and 16GB, 32GB and 64GB storage versions. µ 2016-02-20 11:27:35 www.theinquirer.net

6 US Department of Defense will upgrade four million PCs to Windows 10 (2) THE US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE (DoD) has announced plans to upgrade all of its four million Microsoft-based systems to Windows 10 within 12 months. The DoD spoke out about its aggressive upgrade plans on Wednesday, marking the largest announced enterprise deployment of Windows 10 to date. Microsoft, which has been more than keen for users to update to Windows 10 , has been quick to tout the move as a huge endorsement for the operating system, claiming that the migration will allow the DoD to improve security, lower its costs and streamline its operating environment. "Because the DoD is a prime target of cyber criminals and one of the largest and most complex organisations in the world, its leaders know the importance of securing its baseline systems," said Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of the Windows and Devices Group, detailing the decision on Microsoft's blog . However, the agency is setting itself an unenviable task. Microsoft said that the US secretary of defence has directed all DoD agencies to begin the rapid deployment of Windows 10 to all information systems currently using Microsoft operating systems. This accounts for some four million seats, and the DoD is targeting the upgrade for completion inside a year. Many enterprise firms that have far fewer deployed instances have struggled to migrate away from legacy platforms such as Windows XP , which hit the end of its lifecycle nearly two years ago. These migrations have often taken years to plan and execute, making the DoD's plans ambitious, to say the least. The decision to standardise on Windows 10 is apparently in response to a range of challenges that include the difficulties of managing multiple platforms and devices across the various DoD agencies, plus a constantly shifting threat landscape, a particular concern to an organisation like the DoD which is a prime target of cyber criminals. In fact, DoD chief information officer Terry Halvorsen said that the agency's networks are "getting shot at" virtually every day. The DoD spends about $44bn annually on cyber security and IT, and needed to deploy systems that are more secure, efficient and cost-effective, and standardised on a single platform. Microsoft said that Windows 10 has been certified against specific US government criteria and standards, including the National Information Assurance Partnership Common Criteria Protection Profile for mobile devices. µ 2016-02-20 04:48:57 www.theinquirer.net

7 Twitter bug potentially exposed 10,000 punters' passwords (2) SHORT FORM SOCIAL WATERCOOLER Twitter has stepped in and saved its cat-owning, parent- being, lunch-eating, irregularly-gaming, oft- complaining users from a password recovery bug that dangled their account credentials in harm's way. Some 10,000 people are now saying "Cheers for that, Twitter", apparently, and the firm is keen to point out that as soon as it heard about the password recovery problem, from a third party, it went on and fixed it straight away. "We recently learned about - and immediately fixed - a bug that affected our password recovery systems for about 24 hours last week," said the firm in a Twitter security blog post . "The bug had the potential to expose the email address and phone number associated with a small number of accounts (less than 10,000 active accounts). We've notified those account holders today, so if you weren't notified you weren't affected. "We take these incidents very seriously, and we're sorry this occurred. Any user that we find to have exploited the bug to access another account's information will be permanently suspended, and we will also be engaging law enforcement as appropriate so they may conduct a thorough investigation and bring charges as warranted. " Yeah, yeah, the apology bit. The company also took time out to say that it is not unique in being pronged and that people can do their part in this war by choosing strong and sensible passwords and security-conscious options like two factor-authentication. "While this issue did not expose passwords or information that could be used directly to access an account, it serves as a reminder to us all about the importance of good account security hygiene," the firm added. "If you would like to review the log-ins for your account you can do that at the Twitter data dashboard in your settings. " µ 2016-02-20 10:34:34 www.theinquirer.net

8 Partners: Ransomware Attack On Hospital Shows Need For Broader Security Strategy (2) Solution providers say the recent high-profile ransomware incident at a California hospital should be a warning sign for health care and other businesses to develop a more comprehensive security strategy, one that moves beyond protecting against information theft to also preventing unauthorized changes in information or loss of access. The ransomware attack hit the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center on Feb. 5, when employees first noticed problems with the network. Since then, the hospital has been unable to access its network, any of its electronic health records or electronic communications, forcing it to revert to paper, telephones and fax machines to keep the medical center up and running. Some reports said the incident was caused by a phishing attack, but those reports were not confirmed by the hospital. [Related: Partners Stand Behind Tim Cook Letter Saying Apple Won’t Allow FBI Backdoors Into Encrypted iPhones ] In 2015, there were multiple mega breaches that struck the health care industry, though most were focused around the insurance industry, including such businesses as Anthem, Premera and Carefirst. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, there were 53 reported breaches in the health care and medical provider sectors (with an additional 36 in financial and insurance services). However, this recent high-profile incident shows a different tone of attack, one that requires a much more comprehensive security strategy in health care, said Dan Berger, president of Redspin, a Carpinteria, Calif.-based security solution provider that focuses on the health care vertical. While many security strategies focus on stopping hackers from accessing information, Berger said it's important for health care organizations to focus on what he called the "full definition" of security, including information integrity and availability. "We're starting to see the integrity and the availability of that triad is actually becoming more scary because then you're talking about hackers getting in and maybe changing medical records instead of stealing them, or in this case, they made them unavailable," Berger said. "Losing your personal data is one thing, but disabling the hospital from being able to operate is another. " Reports put the initial ransomware demands at around $3.4 million in equivalent Bitcoin, but the hospital said Wednesday that the demands were actually for around $17,000 in Bitcoin. The hospital said it has decided to pay the ransom, as it was in the "best interest of restoring normal operations. " Ransomware, in particular, is a trend that partners need to be paying attention to, Berger said. According to a recent study by Kaspersky Lab, ransomware was significantly on the rise in 2015, doubling in the number of attacks throughout the year. Berger said he saw sporadic ransomware events throughout the year, but none that are this high profile. However, he said he expects that will change as other hackers look to capitalize on the payout. "I have a feeling this is now the tip of the iceberg," Berger said. 2016-02-20 10:44:16 Sarah Kuranda

9 9 Get the Picture? Digital Signage Connectivity and Power Matter Digital signage offers unparalleled opportunities for you to communicate with, advertise to, educate and inform the people you want to reach most. But no matter how clever, dynamic, up-to-the minute or brand-building your content is, it’s only as effective as the infrastructure that delivers and displays it. Download this paper to learn how you can be confident when maximizing your digital signage system with Tripp Lite’s broad selection of highly cost-efficient, expansion-friendly connectivity, protection and power solutions. 4226-06-06 00:00:00 www.itworldcanada.com

10 Podcast is live on Twitch The Tech Report Podcast is recording live on Twitch. We're talking Soft Machines' VISC processors with David Kanter. Watch us here, or join us on our Twitch page : Watch live video from TheTechReport on www.twitch.tv 2016-02-20 08:49:14 by Jeff Kampman

11 Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter v2 promises less latency Microsoft has been busy at work with its Surface lineup and accessories. Today, the company is releasing a new version of its Wireless Display Adapter , a Miracast-enabled HDMI dongle meant to make it easy to pair a mobile device with an external screen. The company says the previous version of the Wireless Display Adapter was a big hit with users in cases like using a hotel's TV as a laptop screen, streaming movies directly to a TV, or using overhead projectors with a minimum of fuss. The adapter's simplicity certainly helps: connect one end to an HDMI port and the other to a USB port, and that's it. Microsoft says the Wireless Display Adapter v2 has better latency than its predecessor and carries an Intel WiDi certification badge. The adapter can be paired with multiple devices (though not all at once), and it can work at distances up to 23' (or seven meters). Only HDCP-compliant devices running Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 are supported by this dongle. Predictably, MS touts the adapter as an ideal companion to one of its Surface convertibles or phones running Windows 10. The dongle will arrive in March for a reasonable $50. Preorders are up at Best Buy and the Microsoft Store. 2016-02-20 08:49:03 by Bruno Ferreira

12 The TR Podcast gets VISC-y with David Kanter tomorrow evening After a lengthy hiatus, we'll be recording a new episode of The Tech Report Podcast tomorrow evening. Special guest David Kanter, of Real World Technologies and the Microprocessor Report , will be returning to the show to speak with me about Soft Machines' VISC architecture and the performance targets the company released recently. We'll also be answering reader questions about VISC or any other relevant topics that come our way. We'll be recording live at 9:30 PM ET (6:30 PM PT). You can join us on our Twitch channel to ask questions, or post your queries in the comments on this article. We'll try to answer as many reader questions as we have time for. We hope you can join us! 2016-02-20 08:49:24 by Jeff Kampman

13 Leap Motion updates its hand-tracking system for VR It's been almost three years since Leap Motion started shipping its motion controller. Even as the first units shipped, readers here and elsewhere thought that the Leap's hand-tracking was a natural fit for interacting with virtual reality. Yesterday, Leap released the beta version of Orion, a "part hardware, part software" set of improvements to the system specifically designed to complement this year's upcoming VR headsets. Leap claims to have made most of the improvements through software. Owners of Leap Motion controllers can download the Orion beta and, according to Leap, experience lower latency, longer range, and improved hand recognition, even against cluttered backgrounds. The beta also comes with new demos. In the Blocks demo , users can create and manipulate a variety of shapes using what appears to be a fairly intuitive set of gestures. According to Leap, its new interaction engine gives users fine control over stacking, bumping, and throwing virtual objects. Part of the challenge for Leap in the coming year is to develop partnerships with the major VR headset manufacturers. Details are slim, of course, but Leap indicates that they're working to embed Orion into VR headsets. Considering that both Oculus and HTC have invested heavily into their own controllers, it'll be interesting to see who (if anyone) wants to add in support for the Leap. 2016-02-20 11:51:30 by Eric Born

14 Asus offers its minimalist ROG Sica mouse in white Anyone that was turned off by the black-and-red color scheme of Asus' ROG Sica gaming mouse now has a new option to consider. The company has released a version of the Sica that comes in white. This version maintains the minimalist approach that caught our eye on the original Sica. If you're not already familiar, the Sica is an ambidextrous mouse that offers users just two buttons and a mouse wheel. The mouse ships with Omron switches that can swapped out if you prefer the feel and response of a different switch, or if you somehow manage to run over the switches' rated 20-million-click lifespan. The Sica's sides are rubberized to ensure a sure grip, while the mouse's Teflon feet minimize friction. To ensure precise tracking, the Sica mouse houses a 5000 DPI optical sensor capable of tracking speeds upwards of 130 inches per second and accelerations up to 30 g s. Asus hasn't indicated pricing and availability, but the black version of the ROG Sica sells for $60. 2016-02-20 11:51:30 by Eric Born

15 Deals of the week: several SSDs and a hot-clocked GTX 970 Howgh! Sitting Metalhead has travelled the plains of online deals, and now he has brought you his hard-earned catch. Today's bounty has plenty of SSD deals, a cheap overclocked GeForce GTX 970, and a few assorted odds and ends. That's all for today, folks! If you spotted any good deals that Sitting Metalhead missed, please post them in the comments below. 2016-02-20 11:51:30 by Bruno Ferreira

16 SanDisk Ultra +Cloud 64GB + 64GB Flash Drive Review USB flash drives (UFDs) are a dime a dozen in the current market. In order to stand out in the crowd, manufacturers have adopted a two- pronged approach. While one category is devoted to drives that provide maximum possible capacity in a minimal footprint, the other category aims at delivering the maximum possible performance at a reasonable cost. Usually, UFDs are worth a capsule review, since there is really not much to talk about other than performance / endurance and price. However, SanDisk has opted to go with a third strategy for one of their UFD product lines - bundling a 3-year cloud storage subscription along with a commodity USB 3.0 flash drive. The SanDisk Ultra +Cloud drive is the same as the SanDisk Ultra in terms of hardware, and, as we determine further down in the review, performance too. It adopts a retractable design for the USB 3.0 Type-A male port. This avoids the need for a cap and goes a little towards preventing accumulation of dust in the USB connector. However, the sliding mechanism involves pressing down in the middle of the unit. It feels a bit flimsy and is difficult to operate with one hand. The industrial design and external aspects of the drive are pretty much standard for a commodity USB 3.0 flash drive. The gallery below shows some pictures of the packaging and the drive itself. The real difference with the Ultra +Cloud version is the bundled cloud service - SanDisk +Cloud, which we will cover in detail in the next subsection. The Ultra +Cloud drive comes with an installer program for the SanDisk +Cloud service. Since the cloud service offer of 64GB for 3 years is tied to the flash drive, the installer run from the flash drive enables the user to create a new account for the service. The installer program is available for both Macs and Windows PCs. We checked out the cloud feature on a Windows machine. The gallery below shows the sign-up process for the service. The usage process is very similar to that of Dropbox (minus the versioning capabilities and associated usage features). While Dropbox provides context menu items only within the Dropbox shared folder, SanDisk +Cloud adds a permanent one - a 'Copy to SanDisk +Cloud' option. In addition, a separate drive letter is created on the PC that lists everything stored in the cloud without occupying space on the local machine. A program runs in the background in the taskbar that enables users to pull up the current status (usage, upload data amount remaining etc.) and also alter settings such as local cache size and location, drive letter, upload bandwidth etc. The following gallery shows these aspects of the SanDisk +Cloud Windows client program. The cloud storage is also accessible via a browser (for machines on which one can't install the client program / access on someone else's machine). The gallery below shows the browser user interface. Note that the cloud servers are accessed via 'pluscloud.sandisk.com' (we will come to this a little bit later in this section). Additional storage can also be purchased via the browser UI. Like any other cloud service, the SanDisk +Cloud also comes with mobile apps (Android and iOS only). We took the Android version out for a spin on a Nexus 6P. The gallery below presents some screenshots from the Android app. The app allows users to automatically back up photos and videos taken on the mobile device to the cloud. Obviously, this can be restricted to Wi-Fi only. There are also other settings like passcode locks relevant to the usage of the cloud service on a mobile device. Coming back to the cloud platform, it might surprise users to see SanDisk operating a cloud service that actually rivals the facilities provided by established vendors. SanDisk is more of a hardware / systems company and there is an obvious indication that the cloud service is is not a completely outsourced third-party operation. The SanDisk +Cloud service apparently runs on AWS (going by the IP that corresponds to pluscloud.sandisk.com). Going by these clues, it appears that SanDisk has forged a partnership with a cloud service specialist in order to improve the appeal of their UFDs. A little digging around reveals that the cloud operations are actually backed by Bitcasa. Bitcasa has had an interesting history. Initially, they shook the cloud storage market with low-cost direct-to-consumer infinite storage capacity plans. However, that ended up getting nixed towards the end of 2014. Since then, the company has shifted its expertise and focus to OEMs and developers who want a cloud platform / backend for their products and applications. One of Bitcasa's new business models is to tie up directly with device manufacturers in order to cloud- enable various devices such as flash drives, NAS units, mobile devices and the like. This business model will definitely serve Bitcasa well compared to a direct-to-consumer play in a very crowded cloud storage market. 2016-02-20 11:51:30 Ganesh T S

17 NVIDIA Announces Tom Clancy’s The Division Game Bundle for GeForce Video Cards NVIDIA has announced that its partners will bundle a free copy of Tom Clancy’s The Division game with select high-end GeForce GTX graphics cards starting this week and for about a month. The campaign will run in the U. S., Canada, in most of European and a number of Asian countries. To grab a free copy of Tom Clancy’s The Division, you will need to buy a GeForce GTX 970/980/980 Ti graphics card or a laptop featuring a GeForce GTX 970M/980M/980 graphics adapter made by an authorized producer and bought from a participating retailer. The campaign starts on February 17, 2016 and ends on March 21, 2016. The promotional code expires on April 30, 2016, or while supplies last. The offer is valid worldwide, excluding China, but since not all retailers participate, you may choose to buy a GeForce GTX graphics card in a different country (which in some cases causes troubles with activation). Early buyers will get a chance to try open beta of The Division on February 19 – 21, 2016. Tom Clancy's The Division is an online open-world third-person shooter game with survival elements, which is set to be released on March 8, 2016. Gamers will have to fight their way through post-pandemic New York as part of The Division team of tactical operatives in a bid to find the source of the virus and restore order. The game features rather detailed destructive environments as well as dynamic time-based whether system. The official screenshots and videos released by Ubisoft look rather impressive and the game itself requires a powerful PC to play. Ubisoft itself recommends using an AMD Radeon R9 290 or an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 graphics card, hence, you will need something better if you want to play with all the effects enabled in 4K resolution. The Division relies on NVIDIA’s proprietary GameWorks libraries to produce effects like HBAO+ (improved horizon-based ambient occlusion) and PCSS (percentage closer soft shadows) for additional eye candy. Hence, if you do not have a Maxwell-based graphics card, but want to experience the game in its full glory, NVIDIA's offer to upgrade and get a free copy may make a lot of sense for you. The list of participating retailers, board partners and PC makers in the U. S. is located here. Users in Asia and Europe should check this web-site for details about participating retailers. Terms and conditions are located here. 2016-02-20 11:43:33 Anton Shilov

18 Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon 625, 425 & 435 Mid- and Low-End SoCs Today Qualcomm announced three new SoCs in the mid and low-end Snapdragon lineup. At the lowest end we find the Snapdragon 425 offering a very frugal CPU configuration consisting of 4x Cortex A53's clocked in at 1.4GHz. The chipset is aimed at replacing the Snapdragon 410 and 412 and improves on them with an upgrade on the modem block as well as media decoder and encoder capabilities, now enabling 1080p HEVC decode and encode. The Snapdragon 435 replaces the Snapdragon 430 which was only announced just a few months ago and also sees an improvement in the modem block used as we see it now going from UE Category 4 to UE Category 7. On the CPU side we see a 200MHz boost in the frequency of the faster of the two quad-core A53 clusters, now reaching 1.4GHz. In both the Snapdragon 425 and 435 we don't see a change in the GPU but it's possible clocks have changed; unfortunately details on the matter are still sparse. Both the Snapdragon 425 and 435 are manufactured on a "28nm LP" process but sadly it wasn't specified which foundry is manufacturing them. Most importantly comes the announcement of the Snapdragon 625. This is the successor to the Snapdragon 617 which along with the 615 has seen quite a lot of success in mid-range and budget smartphones. The CPUs remain two quad-core clusters of Cortex A53's but now the performance cluster is clocked at up to 2GHz representing a large increase to the 1.5GHz SoCs which the 625 is replacing. The GPU has also been upgraded from an Adreno 405 to a newer generation Adreno 506. The modem again has seen a slight upgrade from an X8 to an X9 block, allowing for an increase in the uplink performance if the network supports it. The biggest surprise out of today's announcements is the fact that the Snapdragon 625 is manufactured on Samsung's/GlobalFoundry's 14nm LPP process. Qualcomm thus is the first vendor to announce a non-high-end SoC to use a new FinFET manufacturing process which is quite astonishing as I hadn't expected vendors be able to do the migration so early on in the technology's lifetime, which may be a positive indicator that we might be seeing FinFET adopted across the mid-range earlier than expected. The new SoC should be sampling to vendors in mid-2016 with availability in commercial devices in the second half of 2016. 2016-02-20 11:43:33 Andrei Frumusanu

19 Microsoft Launches The Business Focused Lumia 650 Today Microsoft launched their fourth phone in the x50 series, with the Lumia 650 being the latest Lumia to roll out of what used to be Nokia’s smartphone business. In July of 2015, Microsoft wrote down the majority of their acquisition of Nokia, laying off a large portion of the former Nokia employees. CEO Satya Nadella changed strategy on phones, and his new strategy has now been brought to fruition. Rather than the numerous handsets that Nokia was releasing to cover every single part of the market, Microsoft would step back on phone hardware, and focus on three areas instead. The first was the high end enthusiast phones, with are covered by the Lumia 950 and 950 XL announced last October. The low end is served by the $139 original asking price for the Lumia 550. That left just the third market that Nadella wanted to provide for, and that is the business market. Today’s Lumia 650 is being pushed as an affordable business phone. Let’s go over it and see how they did. The first part is pretty easy. It is an affordable phone, with a suggested MSRP of just $199. It’s not the most affordable phone, but that’s not the goal here. The business phone is much more nuanced than price, and needs a bit more investigation. What is going to make a phone successful in the business and enterprise markets is a lot bigger question than whether something is affordable. You need security, manageability, integration with company networks and applications, and more. Windows 10 put a lot of focus into endpoint security, with features like Data Loss Prevention, and integration with VPN functions as a start. Manageability would be handled through MDM solutions such as Microsoft System Center, or In- Tune, and Windows 10 has expanded the manageability of devices running this OS. Application integration can be handled through the Windows Store for Business and enterprises can leverage in-house developers with C# experience to write their own apps. I think on that note it can be successful, but if your company or enterprise leverages third-party mobile apps, it is certainly not a guarantee that there will be an app for Windows 10 Mobile. But what I just described applies to any Windows 10 Mobile handset, and not specifically the Lumia 650. Biometric authentication is supported in Windows 10 Mobile, but not leveraged here. Continuum on Windows 10 Mobile allows you to use your phone as a PC by connecting it to a monitor and keyboard, but that functionality requires USB-C and a more powerful GPU than the Lumia 650 has, so it’s absent. So despite being targeted towards business users, it lacks some of the most exciting functions for a business handset. So let’s stop looking at it as a business phone, and just look at it as a Windows 10 Mobile smartphone. Windows 10 Mobile is of course the latest iteration of Microsoft’s phone operating system, but the new codebase is available for small tablets as well. It officially was released with the Lumia 950 and 950 XL’s launch in November, and many existing Windows Phone 8.1 handsets will be offered this as a no-charge update. It runs all of the apps from Windows Phone 8.1, as well as the new Universal Windows Platform apps designed for Windows 10, assuming the developer targets the app towards the phone screen size. The Lumia 650 is a 5-inch smartphone with a 1280x720 resolution AMOLED display. Luckily, it does support Glance, which is a low power mode where the time and some other information is on the display even when the phone is off (this is all configurable) which is one of my favorite Windows Phone features. It is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 212, which is a quad-core Cortex A7 at 1.3 GHz. This should in theory be a small increase in performance over most of the previous Lumia phones powered by Snapdragon 400, since both used A7 cores but the 212 is clocked a bit faster. The A7 is the older 32-bit chip, but at the moment that’s not an issue anyway since Windows 10 Mobile is currently a 32-bit operating system. The GPU is Adreno 304 in the Snapdragon 212. The Lumia 650 comes with 1 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of storage, with microSD card expansion for up to another 200 GB. Windows 10 Mobile supports moving data to the SD card very easily, and you can set your default save location for apps, music, and more, to the internal or SD storage individually. The camera is an 8 MP sensor, but only 1/4” in size and it lacks the OIS of the higher end Lumia phones. The front camera is becoming more important, and the Lumia 650 has a 5 MP FFC with f/2.2 aperture and a wider field of view. The Lumia 650 features a very thin and light design, coming in at just 6.9 mm in thickness and weighing in at only 122 grams. The removable back can be had in either black or white, and unlike the more expensive Lumia 950 and 950 XL, the 650 features a diamond cut anodized aluminum metal frame around the phone, which should give it a much better in-hand feel. Despite the naming, the Lumia 650, to me, feels like a successor to the Lumia 830 with its metal frame and similar display size. The camera is likely not going to be quite as good, but my one big criticism of the Lumia 830 was the price, and the Lumia 650 comes in under half of what the 830 was sold for when it first launched. They certainly fixed that. I’m not sure where Windows 10 Mobile is headed, and maybe we’ll learn more at Microsoft’s Build developer conference at the end of March. The Lumia 650 will be available in the EU starting today and wider distribution later on. Source: Microsoft 2016-02-20 11:44:17 Brett Howse

20 AMD to Bundle New Hitman Game with Select FX CPUs and Radeon 390 Series Video Cards AMD announced this week that it will bundle the full version of the new Hitman game with its Radeon R9 390-series graphics cards as well as FX 6000- and 8000-series microprocessors. The campaign will run in the U. S. as well as in the EMEA region. To get a free copy of the full version of Hitman, you will need to buy an AMD Radeon R9 390/390X graphics card, an AMD FX 6000, 8000, or 9000-series microprocessor from a participating retailer starting from February 16, 2016, till April 30, 2016, or while supplies last. Vouchers can be redeemed until June 30, 2016. The new game will be officially released on March 11, 2016, but early buyers will be able to try beta version of the game on February 19 – 22. As is frequently the case with these bundled games, Hitman will be making use of AMD technologies, in this case implementing asynchronous shaders that take advantage of AMD’s ACE (asynchronous compute units) found in the GCN graphics processors in a bid to optimize performance under heavy loads. Footage and screenshots from Hitman that have demonstrated so far look rather impressive and the game will clearly take advantage of modern GPUs. AMD claims that the title has been developed with 4K displays in mind, which is a good news for those, who plan to play the title on their current high-end setups. Terms and conditions of the new Gaming Evolved campaign in EMEA are located here , whereas details about the campaign in the U. S. are available at Newegg. If you are interested to get Hitman for free, you should make sure that you buy an appropriate product from a participating retailer (in EMEA ). Images by Square Enix/IO Interactive and AMD. 2016-02-20 11:44:17 Anton Shilov

21 Seagate Begins to Ship 2.5-Inch, 7mm Thick 2 TB Mobile Hard Drives with SMR Seagate has started to ship its highest-capacity hard drives for notebooks. The new HDDs use shingled magnetic recording (SMR) technology with very high areal density as well as slimmed- down mechanics. The new Seagate Mobile HDD 2 TB is the first hard drive to market in a 2.5-inch/7 mm form- factor with such extreme capacity. The hard drive is based on two 1 TB SMR platters running at 5400 RPM and features 128 MB of cache as well as SATA interface. The maximum sustainable transfer rate of the HDD is 100 MB/s, which is considerably lower than that of mainstream mobile hard drives ( 145 – 169 MB/s for Seagate’s own laptop HDDs). Seagate declares 13 ms average seek time for the hard drives. The new HDD weighs 3.17 oz (or 90 grams) and is aimed primarily at mobile computers or bulk cold storage, where you can arguably fit eight drives into a single 5.25-inch bay. Supermicro has an 88-bay 4U rack unit where each drive is hotswappable, though that fits a large PC in the rear; if hot-swappable isn't required, we could be looking at nearly 200+ per storage 4U rack with appropriate backplanes. Three sets of drives will be offered, in 1TB and 2TB configurations: The SMR technology enables areal densities higher than 1 Tbit per square inch, but at the cost of performance. HDDs featuring shingled recording write new magnetic tracks that overlap part of the previously written tracks, which may slowdown writing since the architecture requires HDDs to rewrite adjacent tracks after any writing operation. In order to “hide” such peculiarities of SMR, Seagate has developed special firmware that ensures optimal writing performance. Part of the reason why Seagate installs a massive 128 MB cache on a 2 TB HDD is because the firmware needs it to store data from tracks that have to be overwritten. Alternatively, it is required to alter operating systems and software, which is not economically feasible. Usage of SMR technology is justified in environments that are used to archive cold data that is not updated frequently because write performance of such HDDs may be rather slow. Client PCs both read and record data and it remains to be seen whether performance offered by SMR-based client HDDs will be sufficient for the end-user. The Seagate Mobile HDD 2 TB is around 60% slower than the Seagate Laptop HDD 2 TB based on maximum sustainable transfer rate. Seagate did not disclose whether SMR platters used inside the Mobile HDD 2 TB are made in- house, or by Showa Denko K. K. (SDK), the world’s largest independent producer of hard drive platters. In addition to SMR technology, Seagate used its new mechanics, including new head, preamp, channel and other mechanisms for the Mobile HDD 2 TB HDD. Slimmed down mechanical components allowed Seagate to integrate two platters into a 7 mm hard drive. Seagate did not reveal any information concerning pricing of its new HDDs. While the product is unique because of its form-factor and capacity, its performance is lower compared to other HDDs. It will be very interesting to see how Seagate prices its new HDD, given its pros and cons. Seagate to Ship 5TB HDD in 2014 using SMR - Brief SMR Overview Seagate Mobile HDD Specifications (1TB and 2TB) - Specifications 2016-02-20 11:42:12 Anton Shilov

22 16:10 Lives On: EIZO Releases 24-inch ColorEdge CG2420 and CS2420 Professional Monitors For anyone that loves a 16:10 screen, with resolutions such as 1920x1200 or 2560x1600, there have been relatively slim pickings in the monitor world recently. Any high end or high refresh rate monitor is likely to be of the 16:9 variety (1920x1080, 2560x1440 or 3840x2160) or a 21:9 unit through the ultra-wide 2560x1080 or 3440x1440 monitors. One of the reasons as to why companies who make high end monitors do not produce many 16:10 units was given to me by ASUS: there are simply not enough companies producing the panels. It seems that EIZO has managed to find a couple though, with their new ColorEdge displays. So admittedly these are not particularly consumer style monitors, and EIZO states that they are aimed at the creative industries rather than high refresh rate gaming. The cabinet designs come with a slimmer bezel that EIZO’s previous versions, and come with carrying handles for easier mobility across a working environment. The CG2420 is the higher specification of the two, with a built in self-calibration sensor to maintain color accuracy over time, a higher contrast ratio at 1500:1 and a shading hood as standard. Color sensor on the CG2420 Both units are 1920x1200 wide-gamut 10-bit IPS non-glare displays but use 16-bit look up tables to do so, and offer DisplayPort, HDMI and DVI digital inputs. The wide gamut aspect means that these panels have 99% AdobeRGB coverage, with the CG2420 panel also covering 98 of the DCI-P3 color space. Unfortunately no Rec. 2020 coverage is specified at this time, as the focus seems to be for DCI-P3. Both monitors also come with EIZO’s custom ColorNavigator 6 software for calibration and a quoted time of 3-minutes for color stabilization from power-on. Now, of course there will be users wondering why anyone wants a few extra pixels at the bottom, and why it matters. Typical 16:10 enthusiasts are coders and writers that love them for the extra vertical space, ensuring more content is on the screen at the same time. For media processing and consumption, the user can see the full 1920x1080 video on a 1920x1200 screen and still has space for functional buttons on editing or playback, rather than obscuring part of the video or making the content shrink/expand. As much as 16:10 monitors are rare, laptops even more so, which makes me wonder if I can’t go back to my Dell M4400, except that the battery now lasts 2 hours and it weighs 4kg+. Fingers crossed for a 16:10 laptop sometime soon. EIZO states that these monitors will be shipping from February, although intended markets and pricing are not yet confirmed. Both the CG2420 and CS2420 are backed by a five-year or 30,000 hour (3.4 year) on-time warranty for use and a 10,000 hour warranty on brightness and color. 2016-02-20 11:41:59 Ian Cutress

23 23 Lucky BREAK: ZX Spectrum Vega+ console smashes crowdfunding target in two days MAD PROFESSOR and egg Sir Clive Sinclair has smashed through the Indiegogo target for his new recreation of the ZX Spectrum as a handheld console. Last Christmas saw two rival machines: the ZX Spectrum Vega, endorsed by Sir Clive, and the recreated ZX Spectrum backed by seminal game maker Elite and Sky, the current intellectual property holder of the 1980s computer . The Elite version with its full keyboard fared better in our review , but the Vega team has fought back with a handheld console version called, appropriately enough, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum Vega+. The Indiegogo campaign that will fund the second production run smashed through the £100,000 barrier to stand at £164,338 from 1,534 backers as of midday Thursday. Despite reaching the goal, the campaign will carry on for a further 38 days with special edition versions of the console up for grabs. Thankfully, unlike the Spectrum+, the handheld doesn't carry on its namesake's tradition of having a strange inverted-profile keyboard. In fact, it looks lovely. This time, it's cordless, which was one of our big bugbears last time, and has been designed by Rick Dickinson who designed the iconic originals. It's been developed by Chris Smith, a leading authority on the Spectrum. The Vega+ will have 1,000 games onboard, like the original, and will be compatible with the thousands of abandonware titles that are freely available on the interweb. It will also be possible to connect the device to a telly making it a full successor to the original Vega, but again this will involve a cable. Retro Computers, which makes the device, is part-owned by Sinclair Research, and therefore by Sir Clive, who said: "The present surge of interest in retro products inspired me to plan the Vega+ as a handy games console which can be played anywhere. " The console will cost around £100 retail, and meanwhile, supporters can choose from a number of perks including red, white and blue special editions and even the chance to own the original prototype. All versions are being made in the UK in true Sinclair tradition. Expect to take delivery over the summer. µ 2016-02-20 08:32:32 www.theinquirer.net

24 Apple gets to fight judge's iPhone-cracking order another day Apple for the moment has three extra days to prepare for its defiance of a federal court order. The Justice Department, however, is pushing back. It has filed a motion seeking to have the court issue an order compelling Apple to comply with the original mandate to assist federal agents in their search of the device. The stakes here are high, with the case pitting issues of national security against regard for the privacy of everyday consumers. The standoff also turns up the heat on the simmering tensions over encryption -- the technology that scrambles information to prevent unauthorized readers from seeing it -- between Washington and Silicon Valley. The Justice Department's filing today argues that the order would not create a backdoor, decrypt Apple's phones or give the government the power to compromise the security of personal information. "Apple's current refusal to comply with the Court's Order, despite the technical feasibility of doing so," the filing says, "instead appears to be based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy. " Apple did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The court said it cannot comment on pending cases. Cook has drawn support from high-tech honchos including the CEOs of Google and Twitter, along with privacy watchdogs such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation. To get access to the innards of the iPhone in the San Bernardino case, the FBI wants Apple to build a new version of its iOS software that would bypass the iPhone's security features and create what Cook has described as "the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone's physical possession. " The FBI's plan would bypass security functions that limit how many times you can enter an incorrect password. Currently, an iPhone wipes itself if the wrong password is entered 10 times in a row. With that feature disabled, investigators could enter password after password until they hit on the correct one. Apple is willing to challenge the government all the way to the Supreme Court, according to CBS News, citing unnamed sources. (Editors' note: CBS is the parent company of CNET.) Update 10:22 a.m. PT: Added response from the court. And 12:29 pm PT : Added information on the Justice Department filing. Additional reporting by CNET News' Terry Collins. 2016-02-20 11:45:14 Jon Skillings by

25 Three announces plans to block ads at a network level MOBILE NETWORK Three has caused concern among webmasters and digital publishers with plans to introduce ad blocking on its networks in the UK and Italy. Three said that the move is to "give customers more control, choice and greater transparency over what they receive". However, the greater use of ad-blockers has affected content providers' business models as valuable ad revenue is lost. The INQUIRER has previously written articles exploring possible funding models for the web , but advertising remains the primary source of income for most websites. Three UK chief marketing officer Tom Malleschitz explained that a network-based ad blocker is more effective than apps, which are already banned from some app stores. He added that the move is designed to protect customers from unnecessary data charges caused by receiving irrelevant adverts, and to avoid possible phishing and malware attacks through adverts. It also offers an experience that is not “degraded by excessive, intrusive, unwanted or irrelevant ads”. An ad blocker for Samsung phones was removed from the Google Play Store last week. Three has made it clear that it doesn't want ads to be blocked altogether and is working with advertisers on providing more relevant, targeted advertising that minimises data use and waste. More and more companies are being forced to retaliate with ad blocking countermeasures. Channel 4's All4 on-demand service, for example, will not play video with an ad blocker in place. But the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has warned that Three's move could spell the end for free internet content. Alex Kozloff, the IAB's acting marketing director, said in a statement to The Guardian : “The IAB believes that an ad-funded internet is essential in providing revenue to publishers so they can continue to make their content, services and applications widely available at little or no cost. “We believe ad blocking undermines this approach and could mean consumers have to pay for content they currently get for free.” Existing ad-blocking software has gradually made 'whitelisting' more common as agreements are made to allow adverts that meet certain criteria. The move comes at an interesting time for Three, hitherto the minnow of the non-virtual networks, as the firm awaits clearance on its plan to purchase rival O2 , which would make Three the biggest mobile network in the UK. Coincidentally, O2 is also considering network-level ad blocking. µ 2016-02-20 11:27:02 www.theinquirer.net

26 Kanye West is mad at the Pirate Bay RAPPER AND SELF-SPOKESMAN Kanye West is having quite a week. First he tapped Mark Zuckerberg for $1bn and released a new album, now he has challenged himself to shutting down the Pirate Bay, something that even media companies with serious money behind them have failed to do. West released his Glory of Me (or something) album on Tidal only this week. This less than open move meant that any coin from sales will go straight to a company that he is involved with, and rather limit consumer choice. My album will never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale... You can only get it on Tidal. — KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016 Consumers like a choice, and the album, actually called The Life of Pablo , made its way onto any number of piracy sites. West, though, has gone for the biggest, the Pirate Bay, and declared war on its hardy seamen and their regularly blasted battleship. To be fair (if it is fair) the Pablo thing is high on the Pirate Bay charts, which does suggest that some much needed money is going around, rather than to, West and his family. Mark Zuckerberg invest 1 billion dollars into Kanye West ideas — KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 14, 2016 West has already gone crackers over in-app purchases and tweeted that he is $53m in the red, but once again seized the spotlight to make sure everybody knows that he is man who makes a lot of noise. A report on TorrentFreak pointed out that one does not merely browse into the Pirate Bay in the UK. The album has apparently been downloaded illegally over half a million times, and West has reportedly been going around LA telling people about his plans. A paper local to that kind of thing, Hollywood Life , has 'EXCLUSIVELY learned that [West] is furious - and that has made him not so fun to be around.' This is bad news for Kim Kardashian, whatever that is, but presumably ace work for lawyers with time on their hands who like a challenge. " Kanye is going to meet his legal team to discuss the possibilities of starting legal action against torrent site Pirate Bay ," said the kind of person who takes this kind of thing to Hollywood Life . "He's going to talk to his lawyers and see where he stands, and hopefully Tidal will partner with him in any legal proceedings because it was supposed to be an exclusive release. " The Pirate Bay, putting things bluntly, is not arsed by this threat, and a member of its team told TorrentFreak that West can bring it on. "Kanye West is a blithering twat who has an incredible sense of self-importance. Even diehard fans are saying his new album sucks balls, but as for Mr West suing TPB, good luck Kanye! Our legal department will be waiting," said staff member Spud17. World, please tweet, FaceTime, Facebook, instagram, whatever you gotta do to get Mark to support me… — KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016 No offence, but if West's legal people are anything like his accounting people, he won't get far. µ 2016-02-20 11:27:02 www.theinquirer.net

27 Q&A: CyberArk CEO Talks Acquisition Rumors And Up-And- Coming Privileged Account Management Market The Security Opportunity Security is shifting and companies are starting to move beyond perimeter protections to adopt a post-breach mindset. That shift puts more emphasis on technologies like privileged account management, CyberArk CEO Udi Mokady said in an interview with CRN, and presents a huge new revenue opportunity for the company's partners. That opportunity is largely untapped, he said. Mokady also discussed recent strong earnings reports for the Israeli company, planned investments in the channel and recent acquisition rumors that said the company could be the target of the next Check Point buy. Take a look at what he had to say. 2016-02-20 11:53:33 Sarah Kuranda

28 Partners: Cisco Lawsuits Aren't Stopping Arista Networks' Sales Surge Despite lawsuits from Cisco that could halt the import of Arista Networks' products, Arista reported a whopping 42 percent increase in year-over-year revenues for its fourth fiscal quarter as partners say customers are betting big on the company. "The [Cisco lawsuits] haven’t entered the minds of the customers at this point and it's certainly not going to result in interrupted service or any major game-changing situations at the customer level," said Andrew Fisher, CEO at Myriad Supply, a New York-based solution provider and Arista partner that's ranked No. 289 on the CRN 2015 Solution Provider 500 list. "We just got back from the North American Network Operators Group conference in San Diego and there are definitely a lot of folks that absolutely swear by Arista," said Fisher. "They continue to build phenomenal boxes, there's no doubt about it. " [Related: Top 10 SDN Market Leaders In The Data Center And Enterprise In 2016 ] Santa Clara, Calif.-based Arista beat Wall Street estimates on Thursday by reporting revenues of $245 million for its fourth quarter, which ended Dec. 31, a 42 percent year-over-year increase. Last week, Cisco reported a largely positive second fiscal quarter (which ended Jan. 23), posting 2 percent year-over-year growth to $11.83 billion. But the networking giant saw a drop in revenue for two key target areas of Arista: switching revenue, which fell 4 percent, to $3.48 billion, and its data center business, which declined 3 percent to $822 million. Arista also said 2015 was a record year in sales, nabbing $838 million in revenue, a 43 percent spike compared to 2014. "Arista is really going after it. They're pushing forward trying not to be preoccupied and focused on Cisco," said a top executive from a solution provider and longtime Arista partner, who declined to be named. "Clients aren't talking about lawsuits. They're loving what Arista is selling to them with Ethernet switches and their EOS (extensible operating system) … I don't see momentum slowing. " Steve Milunovich, a financial analyst for UBS, said in a report on Thursday that the lawsuit will continue to loom over Arista's stock for "a few more quarters," but UBS is projecting that Arista's revenue will top $1 billion in 2016. "All four of Arista's major verticals grew in [the fourth quarter], but the cloud vertical saw particular strength, which is expected to continue," Milunovich said in his report. "We see cloud (capital expenditures) growing high teens in 2016 versus four percent in 2015, which helps Arista since it likely generates about 25 percent of revenue from that vertical. " 2016-02-20 11:43:03 Mark Haranas

29 5 Companies That Had A Rough Week The Week Ending Feb. 19 Topping this week's roundup of companies that had a rough week is NetApp, which announced a plan to cut its global workforce by 12 percent in an effort to cut costs. Also making the list were PTC and charges from the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission in an alleged Chinese bribery case, a potentially smaller payday for EMC investors from the acquisition by Dell, an LA hospital that paid up following a ransomware attack to regain access to its IT systems, and a key executive loss for Salesforce.com Not everyone in the IT industry was having a rough go of it this week. For a rundown of companies that made smart decisions, executed savvy strategic moves – or just had good luck – check out this week's Five Companies That Came To Win roundup. 2016-02-20 11:54:06 Rick Whiting

30 Three steps towards a hierarchy of needs for smart cities Undeniably, smart cities are the wave of the future, providing one of the most intriguing and innovative applications for the internet of things (IoT), and offering untold benefits for governments and citizens around service provision, quality of life, security and sustainability in an increasingly uncertain and dangerous world. However the deployment and smooth running of smart city projects have yet to be fully worked out. In the UK alone, several projects – such as Bristol is Open and MK:Smart – are forging ahead with much success. However, they are merely pilots, independent of one another, and it will eventually be crucial for some form of government policy to be laid down. At the IoT Tech Expo fair in London, held in February 2016, a panel made up of a number of smart city advocates and experts debated some of the biggest challenges facing smart city projects. The panel laid out the basic needs that must be met for smart cities to flourish, and deliver on the big promises that have been made. If these needs can be met, then we will be well on our way to truly smart cities. 2016-02-20 11:00:58 Alex Scroxton

31 IBM will give $5m to boffins who fix the world with AI IBM HAS JOINED FORCES with the X Prize Foundation to create a $5m prize to encourage robot- loving clever Dicks to advance artificial intelligence (AI) for the good of mankind. The IBM Watson AI X Prize a Cognitive Computing Competition , announced at the TED conference, which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design rather than being a showcase for soft toys, is as much a mouthful as it is unimaginative. It will be awarded to a team that comes up with AI to solve easy-as-pie problems like climate change and curing the common cold. Competing teams will go head-to-head at IBM's annual World of Watson event, sadly not about Sherlock Holmes' doctor friend, to win interim prizes designed to keep their whistles wet for the big dollar prize at the end. The competition runs until 2020. A team of judges at TED 2020 will award the prize to the AI that helps Earth the most. That's as long as the machines haven't risen up and killed their makers with the sound logic that the world is better off without us. IBM is pretty smug about its own Watson AI cognitive computing and natural-language- understanding system, but the firm clearly wants to see what other people can come up with. We predict that IBM will then will dip into its Scrooge McDuck-like wealth and buy the robo tech to which it takes a fancy. We're still a good few years away from Skynet and other murderous machines, and no one is quite sure exactly what AI can be used for. Facebook wants to use cognitive computing to create a properly helpful virtual assistant and make Cortana and Siri look like simpletons. And the social site's CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants an AI-powered butler similar to Iron Man's Jarvis presumably because he's too busy testing things that socially engineer people . Some folk, like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak , fear that AI will turn us into pets, but IBM sees it as an "entirely new era of computing". "IBM believes this competition can accelerate the creation of landmark breakthroughs that deliver new, positive impacts to people's lives, and the transformation of industries and professions," said the announcement on the X Prize website. The X Prize Foundation has plenty more oddball competitions, including one in partnership with Google to put a robot on the moon. We feel a little sorry for any android put in that situation. Another prize, conjured up with the help of mobile chip maker Qualcomm, aims to create a Star Trek -inspired tricorder, perhaps to monitor the vital signs of strange life forms like Kanye West's ego. Still, we'd quite like to see that tech in an iPhone to tell us when we should perhaps say no to that strange coloured post-work cocktail offered by the gurning guy from sales. µ 2016-02-20 10:51:29 www.theinquirer.net

32 Intel denies further delays to 10nm chips beyond 2017 INTEL HAS moved to quash speculation that its first 10nm chips could be pushed back even further than the second half of 2017, after already delaying them from this year. The chipmaker had planned to introduce the first family of 10nm processors sometime in late 2016. However, technical challenges encountered in shrinking transistors to ever smaller scales led to the launch being delayed until the second half of 2017. Speculation about a further delay was sparked by a recent job vacancy posted on Intel's website. The listing was spotted by journalists at investor website The Motley Fool and implied that Intel will not begin mass production of 10nm components until two years after the posting date. This would not seem to be much of a problem, but Intel has responded by contacting the site with a statement that the job listing was incorrect, and reaffirming that the first 10nm products are still scheduled for delivery in the second half of 2017. Intel's original plan was for the first 10nm chips to be a die-shrink of the current 14nm Skylake processor family, known as Cannonlake. Skylake introduced a new microarchitecture to the established 14nm production process, representing a 'tock' in Intel's 'tick-tock' development model. Cannonlake would then introduce an established architecture to a new production process. However, Intel announced in the middle of last year that, owing to delays in the development of the 10nm process, Skylake will be succeeded by an additional 14nm generation called Kaby Lake, and Cannonlake has been pushed out to 2017. "In the second half of 2016 we plan to introduce a third 14nm product, codenamed Kaby Lake, built on the foundations of the Skylake micro-architecture but with key performance enhancements. Then in the second half of 2017, we expect to launch our first 10nm product, codenamed Cannonlake," Intel chief executive Brian Krzanich said at the time. Despite these difficulties with ever shrinking transistor scales, Intel has said previously that it expects Moore's Law to continue for the foreseeable future, and is actively working on 7nm and 5nm technologies. "We can see about 10 years ahead, so our research group has identified some promising options [for 7nm and 5nm] not yet fully developed, but we think we can continue Moore's Law for at least another 10 years," said Intel senior fellow Mark Bohr in a briefing last year. µ 2016-02-20 11:00:48 www.theinquirer.net

33 HSBC rolls out voice and Touch ID support to mobile banking customers MONEY WRANGLER HSBC is rolling out support for Apple's Touch ID fingerprint scanner and introducing voice recognition security for its 15 million UK customers. HSBC reckons that the new security processes will usher in a new era of ‘biometric banking’ to help serial password forgetters access their accounts with body parts or by shouting at a smartphone. The bank wants to use biometric identification services to replace passwords and security questions, which it believes are out-dated and rely on people to remember things. People just can’t be trusted these days. Francesca McDonagh, HSBC UK’s head of retail banking and wealth management, claimed that the rollout of the fingerprint and voice tech is the largest of its kind in the UK. “The launch of voice and Touch ID makes it even quicker and easier for customers to access their bank accounts using the most secure form of password technology - the body,” she said. Apple fans with iPhone 5S models and above will shortly be able to use Touch ID with the HSBC banking app. Rival banks are already in on the biometric game. Barclays has introduced voice recognition and a slightly vampiric vein scanner , but you need pockets as deep as the Mariana Trench before the bank will offer you the service. NatWest and RBS have offered fingerprint scanner identification since last year. The oddly named Atom Bank is a little ahead of the game, allowing customers to log-in to their accounts using face recognition. Hackers are estimated to pilfer around £27bn every year , so boosting online and digital banking security with physical identification seem a pretty good idea to us. But we do worry that more biometric security could create a macabre black market of criminals selling people's fingers, eyes and vocal chords to make a quick buck. µ 2016-02-20 11:00:48 www.theinquirer.net

34 Firefox 2.0 for iOS adds 3D Touch and better password management THE MOZILLA FOUNDATION has released a new version of the Firefox browser for iOS users featuring a number of updates. Front and centre of the new version is the addition of 3D Touch, which provides a pop-up Quick Access menu with options to open the last bookmark, a new tab or a new private tab. There's also 'peek and pop' which lets you preview a tab and take actions on it, such as adding it to a reading list, copying the URL or closing the tab, without actually loading the whole page first. You can now type queries directly into the Spotlight Search Bar on iOS devices and perform a 'find in page' text search by long pressing a text item. Finally, the latest version offers control of your user names and passwords, including those stored locally and those synced across the network. There's a new pop-up that will now appear with each update to tell you what has changed. Firefox for iOS was released in November last year after beta testing, and represented the first time a big name third-party browser had launched on the platform. Like all iOS browsers, Firefox uses the WebKit kernel, which is also used by Safari. This has been a sticking point for developers in the past, and Mozilla refused for a long time to be involved in what it described as a "monoculture". The Mozilla Foundation recently confirmed that it will switch development of its own operating system towards Internet of Things devices having failed to mount a successful battle for market share in the mobile space. Firefox for iOS was one of several innovations to arrive last year from Mozilla, including a 64-bit edition of the desktop browser followed swiftly by desktop notifications and a content blocker for iOS users . µ 2016-02-20 11:01:45 www.theinquirer.net

35 Facebook backtracks on removal of Viz page SWEARY BUT much loved British comic Viz was briefly removed from Facebook because someone somewhere took offence to the content. Viz took this in its stride on Twitter, where it has not been banned, and posted the message it received from the Zuckerberg hit squad and its plans to appeal against the mysterious decision. "Facebook have taken the Viz page down. We can appeal, but if we get it wrong we'll be ‘permanently deleted'. Oo-er," said the tweet. Viz then offered an alternative Facebook page design featuring family-friendly pets, a flower and not a single Finbarr Saunders. Just working on our new Facebook profile. What do you think? Still too offensive? pic.twitter.com/5eJufSNoDe — Viz Comic (@vizcomic) February 16, 2016 Before we even had a chance to check in with Biffa Bacon and ask for comment, Facebook changed its mind, reinstated Viz in all its glory and almost apologised. Viz offered a thank you for its Phoenix-like return by promising not to tone down or compromise its content on Facebook. This should mean that it's funny and puerile on paper and in silicon. Facebook have put our page back up, but rest assured we're not going to tone anything down. pic.twitter.com/7MwywY9WFo — Viz Comic (@vizcomic) February 16, 2016 We have asked Facebook to explain itself and it has. Kinda. The company suggested that an error was made (we are all human), and that it has restored the glories of Buster Gonad et al to the social networking site. "We want Facebook to be a place where people can express their opinions and challenge ideas, including through satire and comedy," Facebook said in a statement. "Upon further review we found that the Viz page had been removed in error. We have now restored it and would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused. " Facebook does occasionally come across troublesome pages and sometimes deals with them efficiently. But The INQUIRER' s second cousin, V3 , reported recently that Facebook was doing nothing to stop the sharing of child abuse material through so-called secret accounts and groups. The firm does seem to be on top of things like whether it approves of people using their real names online , and how empathetic they are about something that happened to one of their online 'friends'. Not to mention advertising and managing the profits from it. Perhaps the firm will get this kind of thing in order soon too. The INQUIRER is on Facebook. This does not mean that we like the site. µ 2016-02-20 10:34:34 www.theinquirer.net

36 36 University of Greenwich posts students' personal information online THE UNIVERSITY OF GREENWICH has revealed the names, addresses, signatures, dates of birth and mobile phone numbers of hundreds of students on its public website in a breach of the Data Protection Act. The posting of the details, all belonging to research students, was reported to the BBC by one of those affected after they found that their personal information could be viewed by a simple Google search. The university insisted that the details have been removed and has released a statement explaining that Louise Nadal, the institution's secretary, is "sorry" about the incident. "I am very sorry that personal information about a number of postgraduate research students has been accessible on the university website," said Nadal. "This was a serious, unprecedented error, in breach of our own policies and procedures. The material has now been removed. " Nadal explained that the university is "acting urgently to identify those affected" and that each person will be contacted individually "to apologise and to offer the support of the university". "At the same time, I am also conducting an investigation into what went wrong. This will form part of a robust review to make sure that this cannot happen again. The findings and recommendations of the review will be published," continued Nadal, before saying that the university is "committed to protecting confidential data". The statement also said that the university is "co-operating fully" with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which told The INQUIRER that it is casting an eye over the data breach. "We are aware of an incident at the University of Greenwich and are making enquiries," an ICO spokesperson said. Michael Hack, senior VP of EMEA operations at file transfer firm Ipswitch, has also had his eye on the incident. He warned that institutions like the University of Greenwich must increasingly watch their backs as new EU rules (namely the General Data Protection Regulation) seek to clamp down on lax data protection. "This type of breach will be penalised by even more severe financial penalties than are currently in place. It is clear that, in this case, there has been a breakdown in policy or procedure - quite likely both," said Hack. "Names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers and signatures were all uploaded to the university's website in a clear breach of data protection regulation. It would have been like a Lottery win for anyone involved in identity fraud. " µ This article was originally published on Computing. 2016-02-20 10:35:03 www.computing.co.uk

37 Syntel CEO: Future Lies In Marriage of IT, Knowledge Process Outsourcing Information technology and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) are destined to combine into one offering, and Syntel is positioned to take advantage of that fusion, the solution provider’s CEO asserted Thursday. "Customers are going to look for an end-to-end play that will deliver business outcomes," Nittin Rakesh said after Syntel reported jumps in revenue and earnings for the fourth quarter and for all of 2015. "We are really well placed. " Following the company's quarterly and annual earnings reports, which were released Thursday morning, Rakesh took questions from industry analysts and explained that Syntel will weather pricing pressures and scaling challenges in the IT market in order to gain position for a future that he believes will see an increased demand for solutions that fuse IT and KPO, in which a client outsources core information-related processes that are key to being competitive. As part of its managed services offerings, Syntel aids with KPO through both its professional staff and automated systems. [Related: Syntel Rolls Out Robotic Automation Platform ] "We are in domain-intensive KPO businesses," he said, "and that has helped us build significant knowledge … in each of the industry verticals that we play in. "We think (that) when you combine automation, business knowledge and customer expectation of business outcomes, you will see a very different kind of service emerge. However, Rakesh said Syntel - No. 36 on CRN's 2015 Solution Provider 500 list - is just starting on its journey toward creating a service that can deliver end-to-end outcomes, even though 2015 was its "favorite year," according to Rakesh. He said Syntel is focused on assisting its clients bridge the "digital divide" and reconcile the technology gap between customer-facing applications the company's clients have and their back-end systems to create an experience that "meets the expectations of digital-era consumers. " Thanks to Syntel's managed services, clients can take advantage of that experience, and thanks to the company's robotic automation platform, SyntBots, which was introduced in February 2015, Syntel can take on much more of its clients' operations while it manages, migrates and modernizes a client's backroom operations to a newer, more digitally mature back-end system. "We are living in a dual-speed world," Rakesh said. "You have to run your core applications but you also need to migrate to a modern infrastructure. If you bundle it together in a managed services construct, customers feel a lot better because you are removing a lot of the operational risk and the execution risk while giving them efficiency. " 2016-02-20 10:43:24 Jimmy Sheridan

38 Windstream Channel Chief: We're Going After Enterprise Business Windstream Turning To Partners Telecommunications provider Windstream is setting its sights on enterprise sales and wants help from its channel partners. Today, Little Rock, Ark.-based Windstream is a product of eight different telecommunications companies, data center and service providers coming together through acquisitions. As such, Windstream has had to evolve its channel strategy as new customers and new geographies came online. When it comes to new business, the company is now focused on enterprise accounts. In December, Windstream sent letters to 171 small-to-midsized business (SMB) customers and their partners explaining that negative or low-margin accounts would be subject to significant rate increases, or these customers were also given the option to move to another carrier without penalty. As part of an ongoing effort, more letters will be delivered to partners and customers in March. But whether these customers ultimately decide to stay or go, Windstream will work to make sure its customers are taken care of, said Jason Dishon (pictured), vice president of channel sales and operations for Windstream. Dishon sat down with CRN to talk about what these changes mean for the channel. 2016-02-20 10:43:43 Gina Narcisi

39 Fans restore original 'Star Wars' for online release If you saw the original 1977 "Star Wars" in theaters or grew up watching it on videotape or laserdisc, you may know every moment by heart. When filmmaker George Lucas began revising scenes in 1997 in what became known as "Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope," some die-hard fans vowed to learn lightsaber skills to one day exact revenge. Fans can already legally buy Episodes IV, V and VI on DVD and Blu-ray, but those are actually the special editions that Lucas altered. If you don't mind scratches and poor sound quality, the unrestored versions of the films from laserdisc were made available as bonus material on a 2006 DVD release. 2016-02-20 10:35:38 Bonnie Burton by

40 A 23rd-century tourist guide to the solar system (pictures) Don't miss a moment from the world's biggest mobile show The CNET team is en route to Barcelona, Spain for the largest wireless show on Earth. In store are more than just new gadgets, but gadgets that you'll actually be able to buy. 2016-02-20 10:36:41 Eric Mack Eric Mack Eric Mack Eric Mack Eric Mack Eric Mack Eric Mack Eric Mack Eric Mack Eric Mack Eric Mack Eric Mack Eric Mack

41 Seedstars announces its annual Summit under theme Billion Seedstars has announced its annual summit slated for March 3 rd , 2016 at the Swiss Tach Convetion Center a EPFL, Lausanne under theme “Billion”. The global organization with the mission of impacting people’s lives in emerging market through entrepreneurship and technology launched its third edition of the Seedstars World competition in April 2015. More than 3’000 startups from Eastern and Central Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America applied to participate in Seedstars World. The international team covered 54 countries, scouting for the best startups around the world and all 54 finalists have been selected to participate in a two day bootcamp, an Investor Forum and the Finals of Seedstars World. A two day bootcamp will have these startups interact with international investors & mentors from top accelerators like The Founder’s Institute and 500 startups,from business strategy consultancies as well as top managers, such as Filippo Bonsanti, Director of Marketing Strategy at Ebay or Jose Achache, Managing Director at AP-Swiss,will coach them on their business model, pitching skills and growth strategy. The “Seedstars World Global Winner” will be named at the finals of Seedstars World and will receive up to USD 500,000 (1,717,500,000 UGX) in equity investment. The best startups in other sectors such as travel and space will also be rewarded with equity investments and grants. Around 1000 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, corporate executives, business angels, government officials, journalists and startup enthusiasts are expected to join for an amazing experience in Switzerland. This year, in addition to the $500,000 (1,717,500,000 UGX) investment track prize for the Seedstars World Global​ Winner a new track was added this year. This Travel investment track is powered by lastminute.com group , who will invest up to USD 500,000 (1,717,500,000 UGX) in the best travel startup, accelerating the startup’s growth with their industry know-how and long standing expertise in the industry. Inmarsat & AP-Swiss will also award a USD 50,000 (171,750,000 UGX) grant to the best startup developing an application or services leveraging satellite technology. HUBLOT, the official Timekeeper, will reward the most innovative startup with a watch of considerable value of USD​ 20,000 (68,700,000 UGX). 2016-02-20 07:45:31 Joanitah N Nalubega

42 10 online resources that will help you learn how to code Most people will try to stay away from programming by simply claiming that; They are probably a number of reasons why most people might hate/not like programming. I have been in programming class and some days you won’t understand a thing your lecturer is saying. However, Programming comes in various language and you can start with what will be easy for you. I started with C and C ++. Then I did move on to Java, Python and JavaScript. “A programming language is a formal constructed language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer.” There are over hundreds of programming languages and it’s not that you can master all of them. However, there are some languages that you need to master like; Java , C Language, C++, PHP , Python, Ruby, JavaScript and SQL. These are the most used programming languages all around the programming world. According to LifeHacker, 5 best programming languages for first-time learners are; Java, Ruby, Python, C/C ++ and Java Script. So any first-time learner can start with this. In Uganda, they’re fewer programmers compared to most of other countries and most of these fall within the 20 -32 age bracket. There are even fewer women taking an interest in programming in Uganda. Some say programming is a waste of time. Some will prefer a shopping day to writing a few lines of code. However, organisations like Women in Technology Uganda (WITU) and GDG Girls are working hard to see that more women and girls learn how to program & basics of IT. Learning to code does not matter what gender you are, what matters is whether you are interested or not. Nowdays, people are backing away from coding, simply because they are now templates. Templates we introduced to ease one’s work. All one needs to do is look for a template whether paid or free and download it and it’s ready for use. The rest is mostly a Copy & Paste job hereafter. Some of the programming work that used to be necessary has been cut out for the developer, for example WordPress, Joomla, Bootstrap and Drupal have paid and free templates for use when designing websites. This has made some programmers a bit lux. You can learn to program whether; you register for a class, person training, and online studies. There are number of website out there that teach you to do this from scratch. Here is a list of some websites that can get you started with the programming lessons/classes; Code School is an online learning destination for existing and aspiring developers that teaches through entertaining content. Code.org increases diversity in computer science by reaching students of all backgrounds where they are — at their skill-level, in their schools, and in ways that inspire them to keep learning. CodeAcademy We’re committed to building the best learning experience inside and out, making Codecademy the best place for our team to learn, teach, and create the online learning experience of the future. Code Avengers Our team includes a mix of school teachers, academics, software developers, designers and business people from families of educators, united by one mission: to use technology to create optimal learning experiences for YOU. edX Open edX is the open-source platform that powers edX courses and is freely available. With Open edX, educators and technologists can build learning tools and contribute new features to the platform, creating innovative solutions to benefit students everywhere. Treehouse believes in the democratization of technical education. There are currently too many barriers, economical and psychological. Treehouse students learn at their own pace and become job ready within months at a fraction of the cost. Udacity With industry giants Google, AT&T, Facebook, Salesforce, Cloudera, etc. Udacity offers Nanodegree programs and credentials, designed so professionals become Web Developers, Data Analysts, Mobile Developers, etc. Their students acquire real skills through a series of online courses and hands-on projects. GitHub is how people build software. With a community of more than 12 million people, developers can discover, use, and contribute to over 31 million projects using a powerful collaborative development workflow. MIT open courseware MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity. Through OCW, students find additional resources to help them succeed; and independent learners enrich their lives and use the content to tackle some of our world’s most difficult challenges. Code Combat If you want to learn to program, you don’t need lessons. You need to write a lot of code and have a great time doing it. 2016-02-20 07:00:21 Nathan Ernest Olupot

43 US government asks Apple to help it brute-force iOS security Apple often touts the security and privacy benefits of its iOS platform. The company takes a variety of measures to ensure that users' data is protected, like device encryption that's on by default and a trusted chain of execution to ensure the integrity of Apple software running on a phone or tablet. Problem is, suspected criminals use iOS devices, too, and law enforcement agencies in the United States have long desired an easy way around those privacy protections. Apple has steadfastly resisted building that sort of skeleton key or backdoor into iOS, because it's generally understood that building backdoors into cryptosystems weakens them. Even so, that hasn't stopped the US government from continuing to demand that kind of access to Apple devices. That conflict is now boiling over. A court order issued yesterday as part of the investigation into the 2015 San Bernardino terror attack compels Apple to provide the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation with a "signed iPhone Software File, recovery bundle, or other Software Image File" that can be loaded onto an iPhone 5C seized as part of the investigation. The court says that software should perform the following actions: As the basis for its order, the government cites the All Writs Act , which says in part that "the Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law. " Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly responded to this order in a fiery statement published this morning. He says the company "has no sympathy for terrorists," and that it's cooperated with the FBI's investigation so far. Cook says that the company has turned over relevant data that's in Apple's possession, and that it's made Apple engineers available to the FBI to advise the agency on its options for the investigation. Now, though, he says "the U. S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone. " While the government has requested that any solution that Apple makes run only on the iPhone in question in this case, Cook says that assurance makes no sense. If the company creates a method of back-dooring this particular iPhone, he argues, that same method could be used to unlock any number of iPhones. Worse, he suggests, is the potential that malicious actors would seek to exploit the same vulnerability once it's revealed as a useful attack vector in the first place. Cook further argues that the FBI is creating a dangerous precedent by doing an end-run around legislative action from the United States Congress and instead seeking what he calls an "unprecedented use" of the All Writs Act. He fears that if this legal justification is considered allowable, it would create "chilling" precedents that would be used to justify surveillance acts like intercepting users' messages, granting government access to users' personal data, or using a phone's microphone or camera, all without the user's knowledge. Apple says that it plans to oppose the order. According to the court, the company has five business days to respond if it believes that the conditions of the order are "unreasonably burdensome," so we'd expect a detailed response soon. 2016-02-20 04:47:24 by Jeff Kampman

44 44 Dridex-style 'Locky' ransomware is infecting machines via Microsoft Word SCOUNDRELS ARE using the Dridex security migraine to shake money out of people, because that's the sort of thing the internet is all about these days. Dridex is a banking malware nightmare already , but the addition of ransomware, which we know companies will pay, makes it even worse. It is security firm Proofpoint that has popped up to spoil our lunch break with this information. "Proofpoint researchers have discovered a new ransomware named 'Locky' being distributed via Microsoft Word documents with malicious macros," said the firm in a Dridex insecurity alert . "While a variety of new ransomware has appeared since the end of 2015, Locky stands out because it is being delivered by the same actor behind many of the Dridex campaigns we have tracked over the past year. " That actor, who we shall consider to be a swine, is sending phishing emails with an attachment that looks kosher but ain't. It might try to swing past you disguised as an invoice. However it sneaks through, it will make itself known and present itself as a pain in your backside. Infection is going to lock you out of large range of file types, and the bad news is that Proofpoint can't even confirm that the data is unlocked after payment. This suggests that you can't trust a hacker. Who'da thought that? "The actors behind Locky are clearly taking a cue from the Dridex playbook in terms of distribution. Just as Dridex has been pushing the limits of campaign sizes, now we're seeing even higher volumes with Locky, rivalling the largest Dridex campaigns we have observed to date," said Proofpoint. "The ransomware encrypts files based on their extension and uses Notepad to display the ransom message. Additionally, it replaces the desktop background with the ransom message. "If the user visits the .onion links specified in the ransom message, s/he is instructed to buy bitcoins, send them to a certain bitcoin address, and then refresh the page to wait for the decryptor download. We have not confirmed if the decryptor will actually be provided if the user pays. " µ 2016-02-20 07:57:39 www.theinquirer.net

45 Quick Look: Vulkan Performance on The Talos Principle Following yesterday’s hard launch of Vulkan 1.0 – drivers, development tools, and the rest of the works – also released alongside Vulkan was the first game with Vulkan rendering support, The Talos Principle. Developer Croteam has a history of supporting multiple rendering paths with their engines, and the 2014 puzzle-em-up is no different, supporting DirectX 9, DirectX 11, and OpenGL depending on which platform it’s being run on. Now with Vulkan’s release Croteam has gone one step further, implementing early Vulkan support in a beta build of the game. Since this is the first game with any kind of Vulkan support, we wanted to spend a bit of time looking at what Vulkan performance was like under Windows. Games with full support for Vulkan are still going to be some time off, as even with game dev participation in the standardization process it takes time to write a solid and high efficiency rendering path for these new low-level APIs, but none the less it gives us a chance to at least take a peek at the state of Vulkan on day 1. To be very clear here this is an early look at Vulkan performance; Croteam admits from the get- go that their current implementation is very early , and is not as fast as their now highly tuned DirectX 11 implementation. Furthermore The Talos Principle is not a title that’s designed to exploit the CPU utilization and draw call improvements that are central to Vulkan (unlike say Star Swarm when we first looked at DX12). So with that in mind, it’s important to set reasonable expectations of what’s to come. On the driver side of matters, both AMD and NVIDIA released Vulkan drivers yesterday. As is common with new API releases, both drivers are developer betas and either lack features or are based on older branches than current consumer drivers, however the NVIDIA driver has passed Vulkan conformance testing. AMD and NVIDIA will be integrating Vulkan into their release consumer drivers in the future as they improve on driver quality and catch up with the latest driver branches. Finally, for our testing we’re using our standard GPU testbed running Windows 8.1, in part to showcase Vulkan on a platform that can’t receive DirectX 12. As the release of AMD’s drivers was unexpected – we had already begun preparing for this article earlier in the week – we don’t have results for very many AMD cards, but as this is a quick look it gets the point across. Update 02/19: By request, I've also added Fury X numbers to our comparison to showcase high- end AMD performance We’ve gone ahead and run our full collection of cards with Ultra settings at both 1080p and 720p to showcase a typical gaming workload and a lighter workload that is much more unlikely to be GPU limited. We’ve also gone ahead and run our two most powerful cards, the GeForce GTX 980 Ti and Radeon R9 Fury X, at 1440p to also showcase a more strictly GPU-bound scenario. As expected from Croteam’s comments, at no point here does Vulkan catch up with DirectX 11. This is still an early rendering path and there’s no reason to expect that in time it won’t get up to the speed of DX11 (or even surpass it), but that’s not the case right now. The real reason we set about to run these tests was not to compare early Vulkan to DX11, but rather to compare Vulkan to the API it succeed, OpenGL. OpenGL itself isn’t going anywhere – it is the DirectX 11 to Vulkan’s DirectX 12, the API that will remain for non-guru programmers who don’t need the power but need easier access – but as OpenGL suffers from many of the same performance bottlenecks as DX11 (plus some whole new ones from a 24 year legacy), there’s clear room for improvement with Vulkan. To that end the results are more promising. As compared to The Talos Principle’s OpenGL renderer, the Vulkan renderer is not all that different in performance in clearly GPU-bound scenarios. But once we start looking at CPU-bound scenarios, even in a somewhat lightweight game like The Talos Principle, Vulkan pulls ahead. This is especially evident on the GTX 980 Ti and R9 Fury X at 1080p, and across a few different cards at 720p. This offers our first sign that Vulkan will indeed be capable of bringing its desired CPU performance benefits to games, perhaps even in games where they’re not explicitly pushing the draw calls limits of a system. These performance results do also highlight some performance issues as well. The two slower AMD cards – both of which have 2GB of VRAM – see some unusual performance regressions. Based on our experience with DX12 and Mantle, it seems likely that on these settings The Talos Principle is approaching full VRAM utilization, leading to the occasional drop in performance. Just as with DX12, developers have near-full control of the GPU, and will need to manage VRAM usage carefully. Radeon R9 285 Running via Vulkan As for image quality, the rendering path that Croteam has implemented appears to be every bit as good as their existing paths. Both AMD and NVIDIA cards exhibited great image quality that was comparable to the baseline DX11 rendering path. And admittedly we weren’t expecting any differently, but it means there are no image quality affecting bugs that we’ve picked up on in our testing. That said, these Vulkan drivers are classified as betas by both AMD and NVIDIA, and this is not a misnomer. We encountered issues with drivers for both parties, particularly in NVIDIA’s case where we couldn’t successfully run a Talos benchmarking session twice without rebooting, otherwise the game would crash. So coupled with the known limitations for these drivers, it goes without saying that these drivers are really only for testing and development purposes, and that AMD and NVIDIA will need to knock out some more bugs before integrating Vulkan support into their release drivers. Overall with this being the third low-level API release in the past two years (and a rebirth of sorts for Mantle), for our regular readers there aren’t any great surprises to be found with Vulkan as implemented on The Talos Principle. Still, the results do show promise. Khronos has set about creating a new cross-platform low-level API, and this early preview of Vulkan shows that they have achieved their basic goals. Now it will be a matter of seeing what developers can do with the API with more developer time and in conjunction with further driver improvements from AMD, NVIDIA, and the other GPU vendors. 2016-02-20 08:01:47 Daniel Williams, Ryan Smith

46 A Close Look at IBM's z13s Mainframe for Secure Hybrid Clouds IBM continues to prove that the mainframe is very much still alive and well, this time by announcing a system that delivers the security of data encryption without slowing down system performance to midsize organizations. The new system, the IBM z13s, is optimized for hybrid cloud environments and can help secure information and transactions better than before, company officials said. IBM highlighted the new mainframe at its PartnerWorld Leadership Conference in Orlando, Fla., this week. IBM also announced new security partnerships and integrated innovations for the mainframe, such as security embedded into the hardware. The new z13s has advanced cryptography features built into the hardware that allow it to encrypt and decrypt data twice as fast as previous generations, protecting information without compromising performance. Additionally, IBM is integrating mainframe technology with IBM Security software solutions to create a more secure foundation for a hybrid cloud infrastructure. And IBM is offering a new Cyber Security Analytics service to z Systems customers that can help identify malicious activity by learning user behavior over time. 2016-02-20 08:02:22 Darryl K. Taft

47 Revisiting The Google Pixel C - Better, But Not There Yet Last month I published my review of the Pixel C. While I thought it was a very interesting tablet, in the end I was unable to give it any sort of recommendation due to the severe software bugs that were present. To me, this was quite surprising, as Google has a relatively good track record when it comes to the software on the Nexus devices. During the review process I reached out to Google to voice my concerns about the issues. What both concerns me and gives me hope for the Pixel C is that Google was readily aware of most of the problems I brought up. It concerns me because I think the appropriate decision would have been to delay its release, but it gives me hope that these issues will be fixed. During my discussions with Google, I was offered the chance to test a new unit that would run a new unreleased build containing fixes that Google planned to release to the public in the future. Given the fact that the Pixel C has solid hardware that's only let down by buggy software, the chance to see Google's improvements before they are officially released presented a great opportunity to revisit the Pixel C and determine if Google's upcoming changes can change my original verdict about the device. It seems that instead of releasing a large patch, Google has instead included these fixes with their February security bundle for the Pixel C. With it, the build number has changed from MXB48J to MXB48T, and we're looking at a slightly newer version of the Linux kernel. Before getting into my testing and experiences with this updated Pixel C, it's worth going over the major issues that I identified during my initial review. By far the most significant problem was the dysfunctional touch input. Taps wouldn't register, swipes wouldn't register or would register as taps, and in general the touch screen was just not usable. This is something that Google was aware of, and has claimed to address in this new firmware. The second big issue was the stability and performance of the software. I encounted so many app crashes and entire OS crashes that I ended up losing a page of the review that I was writing on the Pixel C, and I was forced to abandon any attempts to do so due to the high likelyhood of it occurring again. While the app and OS crashes seemed to happen at random, there were two very important applications that consistently had problems. The first was PCMark, and the second was our build of GFXBench with an infinite battery test. PCMark consistently crashed at some point during its battery test, leading me to abandon my attempts to get a final result after having the test crash several times. GFXBench presented an issue where the detection of charging would cause the test to stop. I suspected that this related to the inductive charging used for the keyboard, but I couldn't confirm it. The purpose of this article is to take a look at the new Pixel C unit provided by Google, and compare it to the one sent for the original review with the launch firmware. The main area of focus will be Google's work to fix the performance, touch input, and connectivity problems, along with some comparions that we rarely get to do due to the nature of single device sourcing. After looking at the areas where Google has made improvements, along with the areas where work is still needed, I've be able to reevaluate my original verdict on the Pixel C, and hopefully the changes will be enough to make it a tablet that is worth recommending. 2016-02-20 08:02:52 Brandon Chester

48 Leak shows LG G5's major design changes, dual cameras ahead of event Major design changes are coming to the LG G5, according to Evan Blass, a renowned mobile leaker who posted the images Friday on Twitter and then promptly took them down. The leak shows the over-all design of the device, which is believed to be all metal to compete with the iPhone 6s and upcoming Galaxy S7. Furthermore, the rear camera setup is shown to have dual cameras, said to provide a 135-degree wide-angle lens view. Inside the LG G5 will feature a Snapdragon 820 CPU with 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage, according to VentureBeat. Recent spy shots have hinted the device will feature USB-C for charging and data transfer, and the latest image leak on Friday shows a fingerprint sensor on the rear of the device. LG is expected to announce the LG G5 at its media event on February 21. The announcement could come ahead of Mobile World Congress next week, where Samsung and other competitors will show off their latest mobile plans. There's no word on when the LG G5 will ship. A hit is desperately needed by LG's mobile division to turn a meaningful profit - something it hasn't done in a year. 2016-02-20 05:38:00 Jake Smith

49 Samsung Pay has roughly 5 million users, China launch planned for March Apple Pay vs. Google Wallet: hands-on experiences at McDonald's Apple launched its new virtual wallet service with the iOS 8.1 update yesterday while Google has had its system running for a couple of years. ZDNet's Matt Miller took two devices to McDonald's and was able to pay without a real wallet. 2016-02-20 05:03:27 Jake Smith

50 Examining Soft Machines' Architecture: An Element of VISC to Improving IPC Last week, Soft Machines announced that their 'VISC' architecture was available for licensing, following the announcement of the original concepts over a year ago. VISC, in a nutshell, is designed as a solution to improving the number of instructions per clock a single thread can process in a given time, which potentially makes it a very interesting design in an era where IPC gains are harder and harder to realize. The concepts behind their new ‘VISC’ architecture, which splits the workload of a single linear thread across multiple cores, are intriguing and exciting. But as with any new fundamental change in computer processing, subject to a large barrage of questions. We were invited to a presentation and call with the President and Chief Technical Officer Mohammed Abdallah and the VP Marketing and Business Mark Casey, and I put a number of questions on the lips of analysts to them. Any discussion about processor performance over the last couple of decades has involved several factors, including getting better performance through an increased power budget, a higher frequency, extracting instruction level parallelism (ILP), getting better at minimizing delays through better branch prediction, or adding more cores and improving thread level parallelism (TLP). Each of these methods have varying degrees of success at increasing performance – long-time readers will remember the Pentium 4 days of hitting a frequency and power wall which then switched the focus to efficiency. Some tasks, like graphics, are inherently parallel and can take advantage of multiple hundreds or thousands of cores, or the software can be optimized. However, the nature of most software code and instructions is that they are single threaded by nature, and their performance relies on how fast the instructions can be processed within a single thread. The main way of increasing performance, or in this case the instructions per unit frequency (instructions per clock, or IPC), is to expand the CPU architecture to allow more commands to be processed at once. Moving from a 3-wide out-of-order architecture to a 5-wide out-of-order architecture theoretically allows for a 66% increase in instruction throughput if (and only if) the code is sufficiently dense enough to extract those operations, and the other features in the architecture can ensure all the operations are fed every clock cycle. The problem with moving to a wider architecture is typically power and design complexity. As shown by various chip designs over the years, the wider the architecture the more silicon has to be set aside for assets like buffers, re-order windows and caching. If there is a silicon budget and enough power headroom, we see designs like the six-wide Intel Skylake cores or the seven wide NVIDIA Denver cores able to extract peak performance when code is written that matches the hardware. However the potential downside of a wide architecture is that it remains inefficient for sets of instructions that only need a 2-wide or a 3-wide architecture. Alternatively, if multiple programs or threads want to use the hardware, then a single core is inaccessible to additional threads while the first thread is still in use (though this can be avoided somewhat by simultaneous multithreading or SMT which will let another thread have access when the first has encountered a stall such as waiting for L1/L2 memory). As a result, modern designs also include a number of cores to handle the multile thread/multiple program scenario. Generally speaking this works well, especially with high-performance cores, but it becomes a bit of an issue itself when much of the world’s hardware is actually composed of many cores that have poor single threaded performance. Older Core 2 / Conroe systems, basic Bulldozer, or ARM Cortex-A7 designs are (still) widely used and often ship with multiple cores to allow for multiple programs at once. And while they can scale up with additional threads to the number of cores they offer, if any single or lightly-threaded software needs more performance, those extra cores are not used or are only minimally beneficial overall. This brings us to Soft Machines, whose VISC architecture aims to change this. I should start by saying that despite the similarities to other architectural names, VISC is not an acronym. I asked directly and it is merely a noun for the purposes of trademarking. People can interpret it as a ‘virtual instruction set computing’ or something similar, but the company doesn’t apply any acronym to the letters. But a virtual instruction set is a good description here. For the most part, processor architectures were traditionally built around either CISC (complex) or RISC (reduced) instruction sets and execution models, while more modern designs (e.g. Intel Core) are increasingly a mix, or so-called ‘CRISC’ design. The difference between CISC and RISC boils down to the fact that simpler designs can be more power efficient, but complex designs can do more complicated things in fewer cycles, all the while CRISC essentially meets the two paradigms in the middle in an attempt to gain the benefits of both, though not without inheriting some of the drawbacks as well. VISC, for lack of a better description, is a RISC design using a custom instruction set over a translation layer which allows a single thread of operations to be dispatched over multiple physical cores. The base diagram looks something like this: Here is an example of a VISC design with four physical cores. The design can handle four ‘virtual cores’ or threads as well, but what makes the VISC design different is that when the virtual core has a thread of instructions, it can use the resources of any physical core. Thus, if each physical core is a 4-wide out-of-order design, if a thread running on a virtual core can utilize the resources of all four cores essentially making a giant 16-wide design, then under VISC can do so. This should instantly throw up a number of questions on ‘What!? How?! Why?! Power? Frequency? Performance? Efficiency? Complexity?’ and as well as many others in the industry, we had the same questions. 2016-02-20 06:59:58 Ian Cutress

51 The GIGABYTE Z170X-UD5 TH Motherboard Review: An Entry to Thunderbolt 3 At the initial phase of Intel’s Skylake processor launch, a myriad of Z170 equipped motherboards were released to enable the platform. One of the prominent features of Z170 was the ability to support Thunderbolt 3 when the motherboard also used Intel’s Alpine Ridge Controller and was certified. GIGABYTE had the initial exclusive on the controller, but has had to wait for TB3 enabled devices to hit the market. While we’re still waiting, we tested the GIGABYTE Z170-UD5 TH motherboard, which comes in at $208 and is arguably one of the cheapest ways to get dual Thunderbolt 3 ports as standard. Skylake-K Review: Core i7-6700K and Core i5- 6600K - CPU Review Comparison between the i7-6700K and i7-2600K in Bench - CPU Comparison Overclocking Performance Mini-Test to 4.8 GHz - Overclocking Skylake Architecture Analysis - Microarchitecture Z170 Chipset Analysis and 55+ Motherboards - Motherboard Overview Discrete Graphics: An Update for Z170 Motherboards - PCIe Firmware Update Price Check: Intel Skylake i7-6700K and i5-6600K - Skylake Price Check (2/16) ( $500 ) The GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 Review ( $250 ) The ASUS Maximus VIII Impact ( $240 ) The ASRock Z170 Extreme7+ Review ( $230 ) The MSI Z170 Gaming M7 Review ( $208 ) The GIGABYTE Z170X-UD5 TH Review (this review) ( $165 ) The ASUS Z170-A Review To read specifically about the Z170 chip/platform and the specifications therein, our deep dive into what it is can be found at this link . Since the launch of the initial Thunderbolt controllers, we have frequency postulated as to what the addition of the controller adds to the cost of the motherboard. Of course, the motherboard manufacturers pay Intel’s set pricing depending on how many units ordered and if there’s an exclusive contract. We were told at the launch of the Skylake ecosystem that the Thunderbolt 3 controller, Alpine Ridge, was costing GIGABYTE similar to the price of the ASMedia USB 3.1 controller – about $8-12. Typically this means by the time it gets to the end-user, after distribution and retailer markups and tax, it can be a $20-$25 add-on to the standard motherboard. We can see the effect: the GIGABYTE Z170X-UD5 on Amazon.com is listed as $202 MSRP and the UD5 TH is listed as $225 MSRP , or +$23. However, due to sales, stock, interest or other factors, the UD5 TH is currently (2/16) running at $208. At this price, the Z170X- UD5 TH comes in as one of the cheapest Thunderbolt 3 equipped motherboards you can by. The Intel Alpine Ridge controller which enables Thunderbolt 3 is actually a multifunctional bit of silicon. As well as supporting TB3 over USB Type-C (meaning DisplayPort or storage), it can also support USB 3.1 at 10 Gbps over Type-C, HDMI 2.0 and Power Delivery 2.0. Each of these features needs to be enabled in hardware, so not all Alpine Ridge (AR) motherboards support all the features, which makes any AR implementation somewhat confusing. For example, in the Z170X-UD5 TH, the AR controller gives two Type-C ports, suitable for TB3, USB 3.1, and usually some form of fast charging (Amazon says 36W, but the GIGABYTE website does not confirm this). Technically this motherboard also has HDMI 2.0, but this is provided by a different chip (the MCDP2800, an LSPcon) entirely. Nice and simple, right? Aside from all this, the low cost to Thunderbolt 3 is rather interesting. Users can either buy a TB3 equipped motherboard like this, or buy an add-in card which can cost $40+ and take up a slot on a motherboard (some motherboard bundles come with one). Typically Thunderbolt is seen as a premium interface, limited to high end storage, displays and docks, suggesting that anyone buying a PC with TB3 equipped is not going to be pinching pennies. Nevertheless, the Z170X- UD5 TH is a fully functioning motherboard for Skylake processors in its own right, and if the difference between the base model and the TB3 equipped version is only $6, it becomes one of those add-ons ‘in case I ever get a TB3 device’. Easy. The motherboard as it stands is still in the mid-to-high end of GIGABYTE’s product stack. From the Ultra Durable line, the UD5 sits above UD3 and below UD7, enabling some features but not going overboard. The $210-$220 price point, while above the average selling price of a motherboard, is often a strong battleground for mainstream enthusiasts willing to spend >$900 on a full system build. On the base specifications we get a single M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 slot that also supports M.2 SATA, six SATA 6 Gbps ports with three SATA Express, Intel’s I219-V network controller and an upgraded audio solution through Realtek’s ALC1150 audio codec. The PCIe slots are split x8/x8 from the CPU for SLI or Crossfire, but also use one of GIGABYTE’s newer features in the form of a PCIe brace/guard. This has been equipped on motherboards above a certain value to assist in rigidity for heavy (>1kg) PCIe devices that might cause the slot to warp over time, or for when the system might be in motion with GPUs installed. There is a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot from the Z170 chipset as well with the guard, but this shares bandwidth with the M.2 slot (only one can be enabled at a time). The PCIe slots also have an extra power connection via a SATA connector to provide extra when two large GPUs are in use. Like other GIGABYTE motherboards, a TPM and COM header come as standard, but this motherboard also gives two USB 3.0 headers from the chipset and another four ports on the rear from the chipset. Two USB 3.1 ports come in the form of the USB Type-C, and if that wasn’t enough USB ports there are a further four USB 2.0 on the rear and two USB 2.0 headers (headers are via a USB hub). For enthusiasts, a series of voltage check points are also provided. On the software side, for whatever reason GIGABYTE removed the HD mode of their BIOS with the version we used; ultimately no massive loss, with the classic mode being arguably easier to use but not as aesthetically smooth in the lower resolution. The software is improved for Z170 with the App Center's new interface, giving easier access to a large number of GIGABYTE’s apps. For performance, the Z170X-UD5 TH seemed to be a bit of a mixed bag. We’ve discussed MultiCore Turbo on Intel motherboards at length before (where the CPU Turbo mode is applied no matter what the CPU load is, giving better results at the expense of power), and it would seem that the UD5 TH applies this feature on select results but not all of them. For example, video encoding and 7-Zip encoding were MCT enabled, but WinRAR encoding and ray tracing were not. This affected our low end GPU in the gaming tests and our power draw test, but the more powerful GPUs were unaffected. System level feature performance was also mixed – the default boot time for the Z170X-UD5H was the best we’ve seen so far on Skylake, along with idle power consumption, but deferred procedure call latency was poor, idle-to-load power draw was the highest we’ve seen and we were unable to get a reliable audio reading. USB 3.0 performance was reasonable, but for some reason we were unable to get a measure of the Alpine Ridge USB 3.1 performance (the same issue with previous AR equipped boards). In The Box and Visual Inspection BIOS Software System Performance (Audio, USB, Power, POST Times on Windows 7, Latency) CPU Performance, Short Form (Office Tests and Transcoding) Gaming Performance 2015 (R7 240, GTX 770, GTX 980) Conclusions 2016-02-20 06:51:28 Ian Cutress

52 Microsoft Patches Surface Book And Surface Pro 4 Sleep Issue When I reviewed the Surface Book, there were a lot of bugs with the software. Some of them have been pretty minor, and Microsoft has been updating the firmware and drivers on it since before it was launched. Most of the issues have been sorted out, but there was still one issue which seemed to be elusive to the teams at Intel and Microsoft. The Surface Book would not always sleep, or, I should say, when it went to sleep it would actually use much more energy than when it was being used. Often times I would close the lid on the Surface Book and after a minute or two I’d hear the fans kick in, and the device would get very hot to the touch. This was an even bigger issue if you closed it and put it in a bag, since the bag would just trap all that heat. This bug was so severe that I could not recommend the Surface Book at the time of the review. Apparently this bug can also strike the Surface Pro 4 , but the two review units that I had never suffered from the same sleep bug issue as the Surface Book. Today there is good news, or at least the chance of good news. Microsoft has released a firmware update which directly tackles the sleep issue. Normally firmware updates get released with little fanfare, but head of Microsoft’s hardware division, Panos Panay, has written a blog post letting everyone know that there is a firmware update. It’s not too often that the head of a division steps up and writes release notes, so clearly he felt that this issue was a big enough one to make a statement, and to be clear it is that big of an issue. Whether or not this fixes the issue will remain to be seen, but I’m updating the Surface Book at the moment and will report back in time, but hopefully this solves it. As I said in the review, the Surface Book is solid hardware that was let down by software, and assuming this update does fix the major issue with the latest Surface models, it will be much easier to recommend it to others. Here is everything listed in the release notes for today’s update: If anyone owns the Surface Book or Surface Pro 4, I would highly recommend installing this. According to Microsoft the update is being rolled out right now, so if you don't see it in your region just check back soon. Source: Microsoft Devices Blog 2016-02-20 06:51:28 Brett Howse

53 MWC 2016: LG to Launch new ‘X Series’ Mid-Range Smartphones, each with a Singular Premium Feature No sooner had I finished writing the news on the LG Stylus 2 announcement had another email landed in my inbox. On the back of the mid-range model with a stylus, LG is to launch a whole new series of smartphones called the ‘X’ series. These are essentially mid-range devices, but with one premium component more akin to a high-end device. In this instance, LG is initially going to offer an ‘X cam’ and ‘X screen’, each with obvious high-end upgrades. The X cam (there’s no capital C in the name) will be using dual cameras on the rear to allow for better depth-of-field effects, color accuracy and image quality. That being said, the second dual camera is only a 5MP implementation and I imagine we will find our more at the LG press conference at Mobile World Congress next week. Unfortunately LG doesn't seem to want to share a photograph of the rear to show the camera as of yet. The front of the X cam will also feature ‘3D Bending Glass’, providing a curved finish on the front and designed to sit more comfortably in the hand. The X cam fits into the mid-range specifications in the other areas – a 5.2-inch 1080p screen, an octa-core 1.14 GHz SoC (presumably dual quad ARM Cortex A53s), a 2520 mAh battery and a 16GB/2GB storage plus memory combination. X cam on left, X screen on right The X screen brings a feature from LG’s high end V10 model down to the mid-range: instead of dual cameras this time we get dual screens. The main screen is a 4.93-inch 720x1280 screen, which is fairly common in smartphones of this segment, but this is enhanced through a 1.76-inch 520x80 secondary screen above it and off to the right. This screen is always-on, and runs almost separately to the main phone software allowing users to check status and adjust calls without disrupting the software on the main screen. The rest of the specifications run similar to the X cam, except the 1.2 GHz quad core SoC which looks similar to the Snapdragon 410 in the Stylus 2. Again, similar to the Stylus 2, specifications may be adjusted depending on region, although Asia, Europe and Latin America will be the first markets. One thing to note is that both units do not advertise microSD slots as of yet, which may or may not just be a PR oversight which we are trying to confirm. We will most likely hear more information, pricing and release dates during LG’s press conference at Mobile World Congress next week. The concept of a mid-range product with a single high-end component is actually rather intriguing, and opens up the possibility of a high-end SoC in a device, or 128 GB of storage in a mid-range, or 5000 mAh as that key component. 2016-02-20 06:51:29 Ian Cutress

54 54 StarTech Standalone Hard Drive Eraser And USB 3.0 Dock Capsule Review When StarTech.com first offered up their USB 3.0 Standalone Eraser Dock for review, it took me a little while to really figure what it was for. The name is long and a bit confusing, but that's because this device fulfills two mostly separate roles. In one mode, it's a normal USB to SATA drive dock that allows for easy access to bare 2.5" or 3.5" drives. The rest of the time, it's a specialized standalone gadget for securely erasing and overwriting drives. Erasing a hard drive can mean any of several things. If you just want to make a clean OS installation to a drive that already contains some data, then wiping the filesystem headers and partition tables will render the drive "empty" as seen by software not intended for data recovery. If you're decommissioning a computer that was used to handle classified information, you might be required to use an external degaussing coil or simply destroy the drive in question. In a context with less severe requirements for rendering the data inaccessible, the usual method is to overwrite the entire drive one or more times. Solid state drives complicate things due to their use of wear leveling and substantial spare area. In general, multiple writes to the same logical block address will not go to the same physical flash memory cells. A single pass of writing fresh data to the drive could leave 10% of the old data physically intact and accessible to somebody with the right tools. The limited program/erase cycle count of flash memory makes multi-pass overwrite schemes undesirable. To enable a reasonable and thorough erase procedure, virtually all SSDs support the ATA Secure Erase command or its SAS or NVMe equivalents, allowing a computer to simply instruct the drive to erase itself in whatever manner is appropriate for that drive. Most SSDs use a shortcut for implementing Secure Erase: whether or not the user is taking advantage of the drive's encryption capability, all data written to the flash memory is encrypted. When the user requests a secure erase, the drive throws out the encryption key, generates a new one, and marks all previously in-use blocks as ready for garbage collection. The old data is effectively inaccessible once no copies of the encryption key exist, and the drive doesn't have to erase every single block of flash or even all the blocks that were in use. Different drives and controllers may vary in how many blocks they erase during the Secure Erase process, but both an immediate full erase and a just-in-time approach can work. Secure Erasing a solid state drive has a side effect that we rely on when testing SSDs: it functions as a whole-drive TRIM operation. When the drive knows that all the data has been discarded, its wear leveling process no longer has to move any older data out of the way when it encounters a block that isn't empty; it can erase the block as soon as (or before) it's needed and immediately write the incoming new data. Thus, a Secure Erase eliminates the write performance penalty that drives suffer from when their spare area gets filled and the garbage collection process can no longer keep pace, resetting the drive to the performance it had when new. Secure Erase is also more reliable for this purpose than a whole-drive TRIM, since TRIM commands are hints the drive is allowed to ignore. However as essential as the Secure Erase function is for a SSD, performing a Secure Erase on a drive installed in a PC can be surprisingly difficult. Out of the box, Windows and OS X provide no mechanisms for issuing Secure Erase commands. Many SSD vendors provide tools that include a secure erase feature, but there's no cross-vendor tool for Windows. The easiest method is usually to boot into a Linux live image that has the necessary tools, though some motherboards have a UEFI Secure Erase tool. Furthermore, many systems lock drives on boot to prevent a Secure Erase by accident or by a malicious program (since it's irreversible), so power cycling the drive by putting the system to sleep may be necessary to get it to accept the erase command. The actual Secure Erase process takes less than two minutes on every SSD I've tested, but rebooting to another operating system makes it a much longer and more error- prone process. The dock's erase methods include a quick erase to just overwrite partition tables, a one-pass all zeros overwrite, and several multi-pass overwrite procedures based on various government standards. There's a custom erase option where the user can specify the number of passes and what kind of data to write on each pass (random, or a specified byte value). The eraser dock also supports issuing the ATA Secure Erase and Enhanced Secure Erase commands for drives that can erase themselves (this includes most SSDs and many hard drives). During a Secure Erase operation, the dock displays the elapsed time and a countdown based on the time required as reported by the drive. For every SSD I've tested, this has been a very pessimistic estimate: consumer drives usually report 2 minutes and take 10-20 seconds or up to a minute for a filled 1TB TLC drive, and some enterprise drives report that an hour will be needed but finish in under two minutes. For the erase modes based on overwriting, the situation is less pleasant. Big drives naturally take a long time to wipe, but the dock takes longer than it should. During an all-zeros single-pass erase, it reports a speed of 120-125MB/s, well below what the drives are capable of sustaining. For the 3TB hard drive I had on hand, this means a full wipe would take almost 70% longer in the dock than it would if performed by my PC, though I didn't test either of those to completion. Unlike for Secure Erase, these time estimates are all too realistic. As this product is intended for organizations that have strict data security standards, naturally it also has a logging mechanism. The eraser keeps an internal record of its erase jobs, and has a serial port to output to a reciept printer or a computer (neither is bundled). After each erase operation or when chosen from the menu, the eraser dock prints out a summary of the operation. This makes it trivial to establish an auditable paper trail documenting when and how each drive was processed. The dock is also capable of formatting a drive and saving a log file containing a little more information for each drive than the above receipt sample. Navigating the menus is straightforward. The display is 16 characters by two lines, and the four buttons are up, down, OK and ESC. The erase options and USB link are all on the root menu, and there are submenus for managing the log data and configuring the device. In addition to retaining the log data and current time, the dock will also remember the user's preferred default option, so in most cases erasing a drive is as simple as powering on the dock, inserting the drive, and pressing OK. Internally, the eraser dock is powered by a Xilinx Spartan 3 FPGA with 64MB of external DDR2 and a VIA Labs USB3 to SATA 3Gb/s bridge chip. The bridge chip supports USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP), but I was unable to get that to work on the StarTech Eraser Dock. The dock is supplied with a 60W power brick and four different AC power cords, so the one SKU is suitable for use in most countries. That all adds up to a hefty bill of materials to support a niche usage, and the price tag reflects that: $283.99 direct from StarTech.com , and $223.07 from Amazon.com . Given the limitation of SATA 3Gb/s speeds for communicating with the drive and the overhead of USB Mass Storage Bulk-Only protocol for communicating with the host computer, the dock's performance as an external storage device is limited. I've tested the Eraser Dock's performance against an internal SATA connection using both a solid-state drive (Samsung 850 Pro 2TB) and a mechanical hard drive (Seagate Barracuda 3TB ST3000DM001). 2016-02-20 06:52:25 Billy Tallis

55 Samsung Releases 750 EVO SATA SSD After an accidental leak in November that was spotted by our friends at Tom's Hardware, the Samsung 750 EVO has now officially launched worldwide. Since the introduction of their first consumer TLC SSD with the 840, Samsung's consumer/retail SATA SSD lineup has consisted of two product families: the MLC-based Pro drives, and the TLC-based 840 and EVO drives. With the 750 EVO, Samsung is creating a new budget-oriented product line that makes them a participant in the race to the bottom that they had been avoiding by positioning the 850 EVO as a mid-range SSD. There are several design choices that help minimize the cost of the 750 EVO, aside from the expected choice of TLC over MLC. The MGX controller it borrows from the lower capacity 850 EVOs is a dual-core version of Samsung's usual triple-core architecture. The 750 EVO will only be available in 120GB and 250GB sizes, so there won't be any sticker shock of higher capacities and the PCB only needs to be large enough to accommodate the needs of the 250GB model. Both capacities are listed as having 256MB of DRAM, where the 850 EVO 250GB has 512MB of DRAM. But the most significant aspect of the 750 EVO is that it doesn't use 3D NAND. It may come as a surprise that the 750 EVO marks a return to planar NAND. Samsung has proudly led the industry in transitioning to 3D NAND, but they haven't entirely abandoned the development of planar NAND flash. Earlier this month they made two presentations at ISSCC of their R&D accomplishments: one about a 256Gb TLC built on their 48-layer third generation V- NAND process, and one about a 128Gb MLC built on a 14nm process. The 750 EVO uses a 128Gb 16nm TLC, a larger die based on the same process as the 64Gb MLC we found in the SM951. The 16nm TLC NAND is the successor to Samsung's 19nm TLC that had a troubled tenure in the 840 EVO. More than a year after launch, 840 EVO owners started reporting degraded read speed when accessing old data that had not been written recently. Samsung acknowledged the issue , then provided a firmware update and Performance Restoration tool less than a month later, but had to issue a second firmware update six months after that. The 750 EVO inherits the results of all the work Samsung did to mitigate the read speed degradation, and there's no reason to expect it to be any more susceptible than the competition using similarly dense planar TLC built on Toshiba's 15nm process or Micron's 16nm process. The 750 EVO's performance specifications are almost identical to the 850 EVOs of the same capacity. The 4kB random write latency is a little bit worse, but read speeds are the same and any other differences in the write performance of the 15nm flash are masked by the SLC write cache. The reduced warranty period of three years is typical for this product segment, and while the write endurance specifications may look quite low, they're sufficient given the capacity and intended use. It's nice to see that the 750 EVO keeps the encryption capabilities fully enabled, as many budget drives lack hardware encryption support. Given the aforementioned similarities with the 850 EVO, it should come as no surprise that the 750 EVO is in part a replacement. The previously announced and now imminent migration to Samsung's 48-layer V-NAND won't apply to the 120GB 850 EVO, as the 256Gb per die capacity would mean building a drive with only four flash chips. That is undesirable from both a performance standpoint and from a packaging standpoint—Samsung will otherwise have no reason to stack fewer than 8 dies per package. A few online retailers are listing the 750 EVO already, albeit with limited or no stock. The MSRP of $54.99 for the 120GB model and $74.99 for the 250GB model is about $10 cheaper than what the 850 EVO is currently going for, and any sales below MSRP will make for a very competitive price. 2016-02-20 06:52:25 Billy Tallis

56 56 Microsoft Surface Hub delayed again due to 'manufacturing issues' MICROSOFT HAS DELAYED the release of the Surface Hub for the second time, and the 84in tablet will not now arrive until April. So says a report at CRN , which has heard from a Microsoft representative and sources in the reseller industry that the Surface Hub won't be available for another two months, despite the company's promise of a January 2016 shipping date . Much like the setback from September to January, the delay is thought to be down to "manufacturing issues". Microsoft's Windows and Surface lead Ryan Asdourian told CRN : "I think with any product, one of the things that's super important to us is quality. "We are making sure a product like this releases with the highest level of quality when it ends up in customers' hands. " Microsoft confirmed the delay in a statement, but said that, while it's missed the January target, the Surface Hub will still arrive with customers "early" this year. "We are still on track to ship the first Surface Hub devices to customers early this year," a Microsoft spokesperson said. "We are excited about the impact this new category of device will have on transforming how people collaborate at work. " Microsoft didn't name a date, but Will Hegan, EMEA sales director at AVI-SPL, told CRN that he expects the Surface Hub to start shipping in April and then to have full stock allocated in June. "The reality is in the UK we probably won't see stock until April, but by June they should be up to the full run rate where they can fulfil any orders," he said. Hegan added that, despite the delays, the Surface Hub has seen a fair amount of interest among potential buyers, and that he has already taken "a lot" of pre-orders in the UK. Microsoft's Surface Hub is available in 55in and 84in models priced at £5,709 and £16,269 respectively. µ 2016-02-20 06:54:01 www.theinquirer.net

57 John McAfee will solve the iPhone encryption problem or eat a shoe COLOURFUL SECURITY CHAP John McAfee has swung into the Apple iPhone unlocking row with a superhero-like solution. McAfee has seen the chat, and heard the talk and is ready to act. He has promised to crack the iPhone log-in process to save Tim Cook and the government the trouble - in just three weeks. Publicity shy chap that he is, McAfee has set himself a challenge. If he does not do this he will look pretty silly, and not just because he has set himself the penalty of eating a shoe. McAfee once relied on his privacy , and it is unclear how impressed people will be if he does burst into this privacy wrangle and break it open. Business Insider gave him the platform and he ran with it. He makes it very clear in a blistering op-ed that he can fix this problem. McAfee, like Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft chief legal officer Brad Smith, thinks that the iPhone breakdown is a bad idea. But it seems that he is happy to help the government go to hell in a handcart if only to prove what mad skills he has. "No matter how you slice this pie, if the government succeeds in getting this backdoor, it will eventually get a backdoor into all encryption, and our world, as we know it, is over. In spite of the FBI's claim that it would protect the backdoor, we all know that's impossible," he wrote. "There are bad apples everywhere, and there only needs to be one in the US government. Then a few million dollars, some beautiful women (or men), and a yacht trip to the Caribbean might be all it takes for our enemies to have full access to our secrets. " That is one way of putting it, and in a very John McAfee way. He rails on, though, explaining that, while this is bad, he can put an end to it. Things get a bit wild, and McAfee said that the FBI does not have the manpower to do what he and his posse of weed smoking, pierced hackers could do in a short time. "With all due respect to Tim Cook and Apple, I work with a team of the best hackers on the planet. These hackers attend Defcon in Las Vegas, and they are legends in their local hacking groups, such as HackMiami," he said. "They are all prodigies with talents that defy normal human comprehension. About 75 percent are social engineers. The remainder are hardcore coders. I would eat my shoe on the Neil Cavuto show if we could not break the encryption on the San Bernardino phone. This is a pure and simple fact. "And why do the best hackers on the planet not work for the FBI? Because the FBI will not hire anyone with a 24in purple mohawk, 10-gauge ear piercings, and a tattooed face who demands to smoke weed while working and won't work for less than $500,000 a year. " McAfee may also have solved the skills crisis here, but we imagine that most workplaces would baulk at a herd of grass smokers working in any department, never mind the haircuts. "Cyber science is not just something you can learn. It is an innate talent. A room full of Stanford computer science graduates cannot compete with a true hacker without even a high-school education," he said, before we all stopped making eye contact and started slowly moving away from him. "So here is my offer to the FBI. I will, free of charge, decrypt the information on the San Bernardino phone with my team. We will primarily use social engineering, and it will take us three weeks," he added in closing. "If you accept my offer you will not need to ask Apple to place a backdoor in its product, which would be the beginning of the end of America. "If you doubt my credentials, Google 'cybersecurity legend' and see whose name is the only name that appears in the first 10 results out of more than a quarter of a million. " µ 2016-02-20 06:51:17 www.theinquirer.net

58 Galaxy S7 makes on-screen debut ahead of imminent MWC launch THE GALAXY S7 has made its video debut ahead of its MWC unveiling next week that confirms the return of the microSD slot. The footage ( below ), which has frustratingly been filmed in portrait mode, comes via Android Authority and provides the first proper look at the Samsung Galaxy S7 . The video doesn't show us much that we didn't already know, of course, given the number of leaks surrounding the smartphone. However, Samsung fans will be pleased to see that the Galaxy S7 will feature a microSD slot unlike last year's Galaxy S6 , an omission that didn't go down well with many. This additional feature will, according to the shaky footage, arrive in the form of a two-in-one SIM tray, enabling you to slot in a microSD card alongside the SIM card. The video also shows that the Galaxy S7 will have a slightly different look to its predecessor with added 2.5D glass and a bigger home button. An accompanying report at Android Authority said that the handset will also have added water resistance, although it's currently unclear whether this is an IP68 or IP67 rating. Beyond that, though, expect the same metal and glass frame as the Galaxy S6. We also get our first glimpse of Samsung's updated TouchWiz UI, which will sit atop Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Adding weight to previous rumours, the leak also points to a 12MP rear-facing camera, a bigger 2,800mAh battery and a microUSB port, showing that Samsung is holding off on making the move to USB Type-C. This is probably for the best given recent reports. The Galaxy S7 will be unveiled in Barcelona on 21 February. Samsung will reportedly kick off pre-orders immediately after the MWC launch, and the handset is expected to arrive on the shelves two weeks later on 11 March. µ 2016-02-20 03:39:21 www.theinquirer.net

59 Apple reveals critical new detail in its encryption battle with the government A critical new detail has emerged in Apple's ongoing battle with the FBI and, now , the US Department of Justice. According to senior Apple executives, speaking anonymously on a call with reporters, someone reset the Apple ID password linked to the iPhone 5C used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook soon after the government seized the device. A San Bernardino Health Department employee (Farook worked for the department and the iPhone was its property) seemingly changed the password. This eliminated any chance of the phone backing up data the feds want to access to iCloud, the Apple executives said. In a motion filed Friday, the DOJ indicated a San Bernardino Health Department worker had changed the Apple ID password, but it offered no more than a mention of this in a single footnote. "[N]either the owner nor the government knew the password to the iCloud account, and the owner, in an attempt to gain access to some information in the hours after the attack, was able to reset the password remotely, but that had the effect of eliminating the possibility of an auto- backup," the footnote read. Now, Apple finds itself resisting government demands that it build a backdoor into its iPhone software. The DOJ's motion asks a court to compel Apple to comply with an earlier court order that it assist the FBI by creating a special version of iOS, and calls Apple's refusal a "marketing strategy. " Apple spoke out in response to the DOJ's motion. It said that it began working with the government in January, and that it proposed four options to recover the iPhone data (which are outlined in the same DOJ footnote). One suggestion was to connect the iPhone to a known Wi-Fi network, possibly triggering a backup. Apple suggested the government first try Farook's home and then his workplace. Apple engineers assisted in the process, the executives said, but they discovered it wasn't feasible. It was then that they learned the password had been changed, and with it went what was probably the government's best chance of accessing the encrypted data it's now asking Apple to help it retrieve. The executives said they decided to reveal these details now because the government made the recovering methods it discussed with Apple public in today's filing. The company execs reiterated that creating a backdoor to the iPhone would put all Apple customers' privacy at risk, and create a master key for encryption that could be used on any number of devices. There's a chance an iCloud backup never would have happened after the iPhone was in the government's possession regardless of the password. The feds have data from iCloud backups prior to October 19, 2015, but after that the backups stop, and authorities think Farook may have disabled them. However, there's no way to know that, and now, it's too late. Via Wired , BuzzFeed Article continues below 2016-02-20 04:36:00 By Michelle Fitzsimmons Mobile phones

60 Poll: Tim Cook's Encryption Conundrum? Tell Us What You Think: Is Apple's Tim Cook correct in his decision to fight a judge's order to unlock the iPhone of a terrorist? Yes No 2016-02-20 06:59:20 CRN Staff

61 Report: Dell-EMC Merger Poised To Win EU Antitrust Approval Dell's proposed acquisition of EMC appears ready to win antitrust from the European Union. The European Commission, the executive body of the EU, is expected to give its unconditional approval of the deal by Feb. 29, according to a Reuters report. In an emailed statement to CRN, a Dell spokesman would not comment specifically on the report, but said, "The EMC transaction is on schedule under the original timetable and the original terms. "[ [Related: Dell Official Reaffirms Progress On Deal To Buy EMC] "It is certainly fun and interesting to watch the drama play out on a daily basis," said Scott Winslow, president of Waltham, Mass-based Dell partner Winslow Technology Group. "We have great interest in seeing how it plays out, yet at the same time we have goals to hit for the quarter and for the year, a pipeline to close, and customer problems to solve, so we pretty much have to keep our heads down and focus on the task at hand. " "At the end of the day, we think the deal is going to happen because it seems that both parties want it to happen," Winslow said. "We are betting on a successful outcome to the acquisition and organizing our efforts around that outcome. " The acquisition, originally pegged at $67 billion when it was announced in October, would be the largest in the history of the tech industry, and it's expected to close between May and October. The deal's value has been driven down by VMware's declining share price, which has dropped by more than 40 percent in the last four months. EMC owns 80 percent of VMWare. Dell recently pushed back against reports that claimed the deal had hit a snag with the group of banks arranging financing for the acquisition. Dell expects to take on as much as $49.5 billion in debt to make the deal happen, and has plans to begin paying down that debt aggressively in the first 18 to 24 months after the transaction closes. Part of that debt pay-down includes selling off business units, and Dell is close to unloading its Perot Systems unit. Dell is in an exclusive, 30-day negotiating period with Tokyo-based NTT for the Perot unit, which Dell bought in 2009. 2016-02-20 06:59:50 Matt Brown

62 Channel Beat: What Ingram Micro's Sale To Tianjin Tianhai Means For The Channel Chinese Logistics firm Tianjin Tianhai will acquire Ingram Micro, the world’s largest distributor, for $6 billion. The announcement came this week, and will reshape the entire technology market. Ingram said the deal will enhance its geographic reach, and partners believe it could benefit the channel. We can expect the acquisition to close in the second half of this year. NetApp will layoff 12 percent of its global workforce, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company announced this week. The layoffs come as NetApp refocuses on all-flash storage and Clustered Data Ontap. The company’s Q3 revenue was down more than 11 percent to $1.39 billion from $1.55 billion in the same quarter last year. IBM will revamp its channel program in a big way, shifting its focus from products to solutions. IBM unveiled the restructuring at its PartnerWorld Leadership Conference this week. The program will focus on cloud and cognitive computing and introduce new skills, benefits, and digital assets. The program will go into effect in January 2017. 2016-02-20 06:59:20 Meghan Ottolini

63 Verizon, Viptela Join Forces For Channel-Friendly SD-WAN Service Telecom giant Verizon is bolstering its hybrid networking capabilities. The carrier has partnered with software-defined-WAN startup Viptela and the two have developed a new SD-WAN platform and managed service for Verizon partners and enterprise customers. The new SD-WAN Verizon service, powered by Viptela and announced Thursday, will allow enterprise customers and channel partners to use both private and public connections, such as MPLS, wireless LTE, and broadband for their applications. SD-WAN is becoming more interesting to businesses because it allows different connections to be used based on the bandwidth requirements, geographic location, or even performance and reliability expectations of a latency-sensitive application. SD-WAN can save a business money if an application can be dynamically rerouted to a cheaper connection. [Related: Here's Who Made Gartner's 2016 Global Network Services Magic Quadrant ] Kingcom, a Portland, Ore.-based national Verizon platinum partner who exclusively sells Verizon products and services, just began selling SD-WAN solutions a few months ago. The provider is already seeing high interest from its own partners in selling these solutions, said Michael Wolfington, vice president of West partner sales for Kingcom. "SD-WAN is a key strategic focus for us in 2016 and beyond. It's the next evolution of MPLS," Wolfington said. Kingcom is in the process of training its own channel partners to build awareness around these offerings. According to Wolfington, the partnership between Verizon and Viptela shows that Verizon is focusing on heavily building out its hybrid WAN portfolio. "Verizon is betting on [SD-WAN] and believes it will really be a game-changer for the next year," he said. The SD-WAN service will give partners a centralized platform they can use to provision and customize specific services for their end customers. Partners can also choose to let Verizon manage these customers on the same platform, said Viraj Parekh, managing director of product innovation and managed services for Verizon. "In addition to cost, what SD-WAN really offers is agility … over the traditional networking model with very fixed assets where you have to plan for changes or new applications for months, which becomes [time-consuming] and expensive," Parekh said. Verizon is already seeing a great deal of interest from its channel partners for SD-WAN capabilities. The partnership will also give Viptela access to Verizon's large channel of partners, he said. 2016-02-20 06:59:20 Gina Narcisi

64 Apple says investigators ruined best way to access terrorist data There might have been an easier way. The idea was foiled, the executives say, because the password to the terrorist's iCloud account was reset shortly after the FBI took possession of the phone. That meant iCloud and the iPhone couldn't recognize each other, the executives said. Apple has already provided the FBI with access to Farook's iCloud backups through mid-October, when he apparently stopped backing up his phone to iCloud servers. The data left on the phone is encrypted with 256-bit AES security, the same standard used to protect US government computers. One of the FBI's key arguments forcing Apple to unlock the phone is that agents believed Farook intentionally stopped backing up his work phone to Apple's iCloud service to keep some information secret, according to the February 16, 40-page Department of Justice request that led to the court order. In January, while assisting the FBI and the Department of Justice with the ongoing investigation, Apple engineers suggested a simpler idea than bypassing the iPhone's passcode security. They recommended that the iPhone be connected to a known Wi-Fi network such as one in Farook's home or workplace and plugged into a power source so it could automatically create a new iCloud backup overnight. If successful, that backup might have contained the missing information between the October backup and December 2, when the San Bernardino massacre occurred. It wasn't clear whether the auto-backup idea would work, but the FBI never got the chance to try, Apple said. According to senior Apple executives, the password reset meant that someone would need to log in to the phone and enter the new password before it could sync with Apple's iCloud servers again. That wouldn't be possible without knowing Farook's iPhone passcode, which is the very thing the FBI hopes to obtain by compelling Apple to modify its software and bypass its own security features. In the court order, a federal judge offered Apple the ability to use "an alternate technological means," if one existed, to provide the FBI with access to Farook's iPhone data. According to Apple, the auto-backup scheme was the best idea to date. On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook said company engineers had been advising the FBI and cooperating with the investigation, but that the call to rewrite iOS would create a "backdoor" into the iPhone that hackers and malicious governments could use to undermine the privacy and security of all iPhone users. CNET's Terry Collins contributed to this report. 2016-02-20 06:02:52 Sean Hollister Connie Guglielmo by

65 The government just took a stand on hoverboards, so what happens now? The government is cracking down on hoverboards! Okay, to be fair, it's not so much "cracking down" as it is setting some new safety standards, and not so much "hoverboards" as it is those self- balancing scooters that are known to have a penchant for exploding. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has made a public proclamation urging consumers, importers and retailers to ensure that, from now on, self-balancing scooters brought in, sold, and used in the United States comply with voluntary safety standards. Moving forward, the CPSC will deem hoverboards that don't meet certain safety standards defective and, should they continue to pose a risk to the American public, threaten to seize or recall them. Is the government being an overly strict mother, banning 'boards in an effort to make the country less radical? Cool your jets, as the CPSC's proclamation isn't completely without reason, and is still touting voluntary self-regulation over getting Johnny Law involved. It's worth pointing out that the federal agency doesn't seem to consider hoverboards inherently dangerous. Rather, the scooters that pose a significant fire risk are the ones that are getting the stink eye from the US government. According to the CPSC's findings, over 50 cases of scooter-started fires have been reported across 24 different states in the span of just two and half months. $2 million in damages was amassed, including the destruction of two homes and a car. The safety standards that the CPSC is urging buyers and sellers to adhere to refer to the hoverboards' electrical systems, primarily the use of lithium ion batteries. Lithium batteries, while compact and powerful enough to charge hoverboards, have a reputation for immolation when housed in cheaply-made products. The US Postal Service already set a ban on shipping hoverboards by air this past holiday, citing lithium batteries as a fire hazard. Private companies such as Amazon also recalled several brands, and this year's CES banned the two-wheeled firestarters from the show floor. While regulatory groups in the US government are beginning to turn a disapproving eye to hoverboards, this proclamation is far from an outright ban on the self-balancing scooter. From what we can gather, the government's response appears to be in the vein of, "Hey, we can't have any more hoverboards exploding on us, so double-check to make sure yours are legit so that we don't have to get ourselves involved. Cool? Cool. " For the consumer, this means that if you already own a model of hoverboard - and it doesn't meet safety standards - you may receive a product recall or draw the ire of your local fire marshal. For those still looking at getting a hoverboard, expect to shell out a bit extra as the cheaper, more volatile brands will more than likely be taken off shelves soon. That said, we hope you already value not catching on fire more than saving a few bucks. For the rest of you who are waiting for a "real" hoverboard, you'll just have to save up 20 grand or wait for the streets to be paved in magnets . Article continues below 2016-02-20 01:28:00 By Parker Wilhelm World of tech

66 Smartphone Pricing's Up, But Customers Are Happier Buying a smartphone is more expensive than it used to be, but customers are happier with the process than they've ever been, according to two J. D. Power studies released Feb. 18. One study measured purchasing from full-service carriers, while the other measured buying from more limited-service, contract-free carriers. In each case, six factors were measured, in order of importance -- store sales representative, website, offerings and promotions, phone sales representative, store facility, and cost of service - - and satisfaction was calculated on a 1,000- point scale. In both instances, customer satisfaction was up 6 points over respective 2015 studies. In the case of the full-service carriers, the rating reached 803, the highest satisfaction level since the inception of the study in 2004. In the case of the non-contract carriers, the rating reached 791, again the highest since the segment was added to the study in 2009. That's despite an average increase of $31 (for a total of $276), from the 2015 study of full- service carriers six months earlier. "Even with a notable increase in out-of-pocket costs for the customer, overall satisfaction has hit an all-time high," Kirk Parsons, a senior director at J. D. Power said in a statement. "While this may seem counterintuitive," he continued, "wireless service providers have been aggressively offering more data plan minutes, with some even tethered to unlimited usage plans, to offset the high cost of ownership. " What was the highest ranking of the four leading full-service carriers? That honor went to AT&T, which scored 813, and did particularly well in the offers and promotions and the phone sales representative categories. T-Mobile was hot on its heels, with 812, while Verizon Wireless scored 797, and Sprint scored 784. Among the contract-free carriers, TracFone took the crown with a score of 802, followed by Virgin Mobile with 796, and Cricket with 795. In 2013, T-Mobile, under the direction of a new CEO, churned up an industry that had settled on a model of subsidized devices tied to two-year contracts. T-Mobile separated the cost of its services from its devices and eliminated the two-year contracts that had become de rigueur around the time of the first iPhone's debut on AT&T. That rise in cost to customers, said the firm, is due in part to equipment installment plans (EIPs) - - plans that allow full-cost devices to be "leased out" over a period. Another contributor is the rising cost of flagship smartphones like Apple's iPhone 6S Plus and Samsung's Galaxy line. While customers have taken on these additional costs, the new models increase customer's perception of added value and have improved the overall purchase experience, said the study. [Read AT&T's 5G Plans Include Software, Education, Empathy .] Unlimited data plans also have a strong, positive impact on customer satisfaction, the reports found, having "a halo effect on satisfaction in all other factors. " Customers with unlimited data plans reported a "satisfaction with cost" that was 52 points higher than customers without unlimited data. Additional findings included that nearly everyone preferred to purchase a device in-store. Some 69% of full-service customers made their purchases in a store, compared to 43% over the phone and 53% online. Among non-contract customers, 60% of transactions happened in a store and 34% were over the phone. That said, the non-contract customers were in and out more quickly. While the full-service experience takes approximately 48 minutes, the non-contract experience was, on average, a full five minutes faster. Does your company offer the most rewarding place to work in IT? Do you know of an organization that stands out from the pack when it comes to how IT workers are treated? Make your voice heard. Submit your entry now for InformationWeek's People's Choice Award. Full details and a submission form can be found here. 2016-02-20 00:06:00 Michelle Maisto

67 67 The Nintendo NY store grand re-opening was a Mario fan's dream At 8:45am, I arrived on the scene of the Nintendo NY (its new name) store grand re-opening, only to walk past hundreds of fervent Nintendo fans in the approach to Rockefeller Center in New York City. Well-equipped to handle this sort of thing, the patrons casually chatted (argued) about which Super Smash Bros. character is best and passed the time with their New Nintendo 3DS's. The front door hasn't changed much in the remodeling. Come to think of it, the Nintendo logo hasn't changed in some 40 years. Talk about brand identity. While the illustrious creator of Nintendo's most-beloved game franchises couldn't make it to the store opening, designer Shigeru Miyamoto christened its hallowed halls with a custom sketch. I'm still not sure what Shiggy's getting at with his John Hancock, though. The Master Sword of The Legend of Zelda fame now seemingly has a permanent home in New York. (Temple of Time, eat your heart out.) Even members the press (myself included) couldn't help but get some face time with the man of the hour. I sure hope that suit had air conditioning inside. Mario, the voice of Mario – Charles Martinet – and a fan wearing a Mario hat? I don't think it gets more meta than this. (Martinet went on to do this sort of thing for hours, bless his insanely happy heart.) Well, then you clearly haven't been to New York. Naturally, the Nintendo NY store has these things in spades, from the latest releases to the more obscure. Looking for that one Splatoon amiibo (for some reason)? These guys definitely have it. Oh, and if you're looking for that – pardon the cliche – epic Mega Yarn Yoshi, the Nintendo NY store seems to have those on pallets, too. Just look at it! Honestly, I wish I could see the kids' faces when they first walked into the store. Nintendo's managed to transform the store into a veritable wonderland for Mario fans. From the goofy pillars that are supposed to be mountains (I think?) to the gigantic Piranha Plants in the windows, the Nintendo NY story is oozing more of Mario's charm than ever. Speaking of which, here's the man of the hour now up on the second floor. Though, between this guy and the giant suit downstairs, I'm starting to wonder whether Mario can actually make any other face. Then again, I'd have a constant cheeser if I were Super Mario, too. Nintendo has always taken the opportunity to highlight Mario's history from within the Nintendo NY store. But, with Super Mario Maker out there now, the House of M has opened up about the past even more. What you see here are "planning sheets" for the original Super Mario Bros. This is where Shiggy and his team would literally map out the levels of the game – on paper. Honestly, this isn't a far cry from the storyboard work you see animated movie houses, like Pixar, do before hitting the silicon. Have you ever seen so many Pikachu in one place? Probably not. The Pokemon fan in your life would likely swoon before placing a foot on the final step of the second floor. Don't worry, if somehow-even-cuter characters – like Kirby – are more your fancy, Nintendo's got that covered, too. There's enough swag in this place to make the oldest fan let out a hearty nerd squeal. True story: I saw a man seemingly twice my age take a photo with Charles Martinet. This stuff is powerful. I'll be honest, I didn't even know this many variations on the Game & Watch – Nintendo's first handheld gaming gadget – existed. That's nine different devices before the Game Boy arrived. Speaking of which, here's every type of Game Boy ever made. Even the one that survived a blast or two in the Gulf War is present and accounted for. This Virtual Boy in a glass case is almost as if Nintendo is saying, "We were down with VR before it was cool. " If anything, it shows that the firm isn't afraid to highlight its past – pockmarks and all. Not many kids were lucky enough to have the R. O. B. toy that released alongside the original Nintendo. That's partly because it worked with just two games and stayed on shelves for a terribly short time. The Nintendo NY store grand re-opening was, again, like walking into Nintendo's own little take on Disneyland. That's not just because of the countless bits of memorabilia, but also that it grants a glimpse into the company's storied history. If you call yourself a game fan and ever have the chance to make it out to New York City, make this one of your stops. 2016-02-19 23:41:00 By Joe Osborne Gaming

68 Mitsubishi is developing a hologram-like 'Aerial Display' Mitsubishi is developing a hologram-like display that projects images in mid-air, with aims for it to be ready by the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games. Though not quite a hologram, the company explains it creates a floating image by using a beam splitter to divide light into transmitted rays and reflected rays, which bounce off of a retro- refractive sheet. The divided beams then meet to create an image measuring 56 images diagonally. Light is projected from the screen, which sits on the floor, while the beam splitter sits about 1 meter away from it. The retro-reflective sheet bounces the divided light from the splitter to create the hovering image that you can stick your hand through, or even walk through. However, Mitsubishi explains that people may find it difficult to focus on such floating images, as we are not yet accustomed to viewing aerial images displayed without physical cues. To combat this, the company is using visual cues on the wall behind where the midair image will appear so people will know where to look. Mitsubishi believes this tech could end up being used in public spaces and possibly as early as the 2020 Olympic games. The company says it could also be used as a way to communicate with people remotely, though you probably shouldn't expect to see it in homes for many more years yet. Article continues below 2016-02-19 21:29:00 By Farrha Khan World of tech

69 Microsoft, Cisco, Intel and others form open IoT standards group Microsoft is leading a band of tech titans in the formation of a new Internet of Things standards group. The Open Connectivity Foundation ( OCF ) will seek to define interoperability standards for the billions of internet-connected devices expected to arrive in the next few years. Founding members include Microsoft, Cisco, Electrolux, General Electric, Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, ARRIS, and CableLabs. "We have helped lead the formation of the OCF because we believe deeply in its vision and the potential an open standard can deliver," wrote Terry Myerson, EVP of Windows and Devices Group, in a blog post. "Despite the opportunity and promise of IoT to connect devices in the home or in businesses, competition between various open standards and closed company protocols have slowed adoption and innovation. " Obviously, the OCF is not the first attempt by technology companies to form an IoT standards group. Remember the Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC)? The group was formed in 2014 in an effort led by Samsung, Intel and Broadcom. The new OCF is now basically a rebrand of the OIC. A click to the OIC website automatically redirects to openconnectivity.org. Up until now the OIC was in competition with the Allsee Alliance , another IoT standards group formed in 2013, with members such as Microsoft, Electrolux, and Qualcomm -- all of whom are now part of the OCF. There's also the two-year-old Industrial Internet Association formed by Intel, IBM, ATT, Cisco, and GE. It's not immediately clear whether membership in one group negates the other, or if the OCF is aiming to merge all of the groups together. Nevertheless, Microsoft is making a major push for the IoT with Windows 10 and Azure, so supporting a group of like-minded tech players is a logical and necessary step. As it currently stands, the IoT is made of a hodgepodge of open standards and proprietary technologies that connect all of the "things", creating a fragmented ecosystem that, as Microsoft said, is slowing the whole industry down. It's also worth noting that Microsoft's longtime frenemy Apple has remained absent from any IoT standards group thus far. 2016-02-19 20:08:00 Natalie Gagliordi

70 Overcoming 5 Major Supply Chain Challenges with Big Data Analytics Sixty-four percent of supply chain executives consider big data analytics a disruptive and important technology, setting the foundation for long-term change management in their organizations (Source: SCM World). Ninety-seven percent of supply chain executives report having an understanding of how big data analytics can benefit their supply chain. But, only 17 percent report having already implemented analytics in one or more supply chain functions (Source: Accenture). Even if your organization is among the 83 percent who have yet to leverage big data analytics for supply chain management, you’re probably at least aware that mastering big data analytics will be a key enabler for supply chain and procurement executives in the years to come. Big data enables you to quickly model massive volumes of structured and unstructured data from multiple sources. For supply chain management, this can help increase visibility and provide deeper insights into the entire supply chain. Leveraging big data, your supply chain organizations can improve your response to volatile demand or supply chain risk, for example, and reduce the concerns related to the issue at hand. It will also be crucial for you to evolve your role from transactional facilitator to trusted business advisor. Leveraging master data management (MDM) at the scale of big data ensures that high quality and accurate data is driving your insights. MDM technology helps you explore the hidden relationships and gain insights that weren’t possible in the past. Here are some examples how big data relationship management provides opportunities along the supply chain: Spend Matters recently published 5 data-driven supply chain challenges for 2016. Prioritizing the development of a big data analytics strategy will help your organization overcome these supply chain challenges: Over 90 percent of dissatisfied customers will not do business with a brand that failed to meet their expectations (Source: customerthink.com). In the age of the customer, offering the right product, to the right person at the right time and place is key to gaining (or retaining) customer satisfaction and loyalty. Smart organizations will leverage big data to get a full 360-degree view of your customer to better predict customer needs, understand personal preferences, and create a unique brand experience. Cost efficiency, cost reduction, and spend analytics will continue as top business priorities in supply chain management. Embedding big data analytics in operations leads to a 2.6x improvement in supply chain efficiency of 10 percent or greater, according to Accenture. Sixty-one percent of companies regarded as leaders in supply chain management consider supply chain risk management very important. Those same leaders also recognize the need for capabilities that provide greater visibility and predictability across their supply chains (Source: Accenture). Big data can help assess the likelihood of a problem and its potential impact, and support techniques to identify supply chain risk. Combining the analysis of historical data, risk mapping, and scenario planning can enable a risk management approach for early warning. Traceability is often directly linked to supply chain risk. For 30 percent of companies, traceability and environmental concerns continue as the biggest issues to watch for (Source: Ethical Corporation). Traceability and recalls are by nature data-intensive. Big data has the potential to provide improved traceability performance; it can also reduce the thousands of hours involved with accessing, integrating, and managing product databases that capture products that should be recalled or retrofitted. Ninety percent of companies say that agility and speed are important or very important to their business (Source: SCM World). The ability to quickly and flexibly meet customer fulfillment objectives is rated the second most important driver of competitive advantage across all industries. Embedding big data analytics in operations can have an impact on organizations’ reaction time to supply chain issues (41 percent) and can lead to a 4.25x improvement in order- to-cycle delivery times, according to Accenture. 2016-02-19 19:28:00 Antonia Renner

71 Newegg Daily Deals: Storage and RAM Edition! Master PDFs with these free software tools We talk with game developers to get their ideas and opinions about VR input Here's (almost) all the power tools you'll need to make your own PC case 2016-02-19 19:20:07 Maximum PC Staff

72 Microsoft curtails its support for Skylake-based Windows Embedded 7 and 8 devices Microsoft CEO Nadella: Windows 10 is an IoT play too Windows 10 is a key part of Microsoft's plan to be more of an Internet of things player. The catch is that few people see Microsoft putting the pieces together. 2016-02-19 19:04:00 Mary Jo Foley

73 Garmin's new fitness trackers are its most fashionable yet Garmin’s Vivo lineup of fitness tracking wearables has received quite the fashionable update. Both the Vivofit and Vivoactive have been overhauled to better stand out from the crowded market with refreshed looks, promising battery life and the ability to automatically detect and begin tracking exercise with Move IQ. This built-in feature intelligently detects what sort of exercise you’re doing. You can start walking, running, biking, swimming, or use the elliptical, and the Vivofit 3 should be able to track it without any input on your part. Speaking of which, the new Vivofit 3 looks to carry on the winning formula put forward by Garmin’s Vivofit 2. It’s sporting the same year-long battery life, accurate step tracking and water resistance as before. What has changed about the Vivofit 3 is its design – and for the better. The hot-swappable tracker features a smaller, backlit display, but the overall presentation looks a bit sleeker than the previous model. Much of the visual improvements don’t come with the tracker itself, but the bands you can place it into. Garmin’s Vivofit 3 is set arrive on store shelves in Q2 2016 (anywhere from April to the end of June) and will set you back $99 (about £69, AU$139) for the most affordable package, which includes the standard black or white band (seen above). If you want to spice things up, there are some other bands that are more suave – and, with that – more expensive. For $109 (about £76, AU$153), you can opt for a camouflage band instead. The “Gabrielle bundle” includes the quilted black and wavey white bands, but adds another ten dollars to the price tag. You can buy bands separately, too. There are just a ton of bands you can buy for this thing, OK? Similar to the Vivofit 3, the Garmin Vivoactive HR – a new suffix to the name that stands for “heart rate” – touts a new and improved design over its predecessor. It resembles the Fitbit Surge rather closely, but boasts a slimmer-looking band and a more richly-detailed, colored touchscreen. It, too, features Move IQ to track exercise without any input, but goes a step further, with built-in GPS and a heart rate tracking that measures both your passive and active readings. The Vivoactive HR is a clear step up from what the Vivofit 3 can offer. You’ll get notification support through your paired smartphone and Garmin Connect, which lets you compare activity and compete with friends, coming through on the screen. But, with the added, more advanced features comes the worry of worse battery life. The Vivoactive HR can last for up to eight days, Garmin claims, but only if the GPS is turned off. Once turned on, it lasts a mere 13 hours – fairly respectable, but quite the difference. Garmin didn’t go to the same lengths to pretty up the Vivoactive HR as the Vivofit 3, but there are extra colors to choose from. The Vivoactive HR will also ship in Q2 2016, but for $249 (about £173, AU$350), and you can pick up an extra band for $29 (about £20, AU$40) We’ve reached out to Garmin for official worldwide pricing and availability, and we’ll update this article accordingly once we hear back. Article continues below 2016-02-19 17:00:00 By Cameron Faulkner Wearables

74 Philips wants to be the next name in OLED TV Philips has been lifting the lid on its 2016 range of TVs, as well as talking about what the future holds. And that future is apparently set to be OLED-lit. At a recent event Philips' TV guru, Danny Tack, hinted that now is the time for the company to start getting its OLED on. "OLED's price is coming down," Tack is reported to have said. "When you look a year back it was three times the price of an expensive, premium LED TV. Sooner or later, OLED will grab the top of the market, and HDR is one of the drivers. If we do not adapt now, we will have to do it in a year or two when others have jumped on that wagon. " At the moment only LG and Panasonic are out there making OLED TVs, but both are made using LG's own panels. Philips is set to follow that trend, as only LG has the real manufacturing chops to produce the necessary screens in the sort of size and capacity TVs need. "It's no secret that the panels we're using are from LG," explained Tack. "There are hardly any other suppliers. Ours will be the same price as LG's – it would be stupid to go lower in price – but we will be putting our own picture processing on top of LG panels. The price will be roughly the same, but we will give people a better experience. " That's largely what Panasonic was able to do with its astounding OLED TV; taking an LG panel and using its own electronics and processing to produce a picture that was even better than LG could produce natively. However the Panasonic TV is also incredibly expensive. If Philips can match LG's pricing, but still deliver a better viewing experience, it could have a winner on its hands. Unlike the 2016 range of LED screens, some HD and some Ultra HD, there is no real time frame for Philips to hit the OLED trail, though we expect to see something more on this when Philips comes to show off its next-gen TVs later in the year. Philips's Danny Tack has also pronounced the death of 3D. "3D is dead," Tack is reported to have said. "There are no 3D sources and nobody really wants 3D. It also complicates your TV a lot. The consumer need simply is not there. Even LG has announced it's not doing 3D anymore. Can you imagine? " And realistically the curve is likely to follow with only one manufacturer giving any credence to the value of curved screens. We've spoken to both Sony and Philips recently about the few curved TVs they produce and are always told that the curve only features in their ranges because they need to be seen to have that option. But with LG focusing more on flatscreens for its next wave of OLED TVs, Philips is likely to follow suit and only bring a flatscreen version to market. Via What HiFi? Article continues below 2016-02-19 16:58:00 By Dave James Television

75 Google releases new developer tool for analytics Google is updating its analytics portfolio to keep up with the ever-changing Web. The company announced Autotrack for analytics.js, a new solution designed to give developers new tools to track their data. “The Web has changed a lot since the early days of Google Analytics. Back then, most websites actually consisted of individual pages, and moving from one page to the next involved clicking a link and making a full-page request,” wrote Philip Walton, developer programs engineer at Google, in a blog post. “But the Web of today is much more complex and varied than it used to be. In addition to traditional, static websites, we have full-featured Web applications. User interactions aren’t limited to clicking links and submitting forms, and a ‘pageview’ doesn’t always mean a full-page load.” (Related: Glibc bug patched by Google ) Walton notes that while developers know they can do more with Google Analytics, they don’t make it a priority to learn new features, and Autotrack aims to solve that problem. The solution features outbound link and form tracking; URL change tracking for single page applications; declarative event tracking; and media query tracking. According to Walton, anyone can use Autotrack to track their sites, but the library is optimized for sites that don’t customize current analytics implementations. In addition, the Autotrack library is open source in order for developers to provide feedback, give suggestions, understand how advanced features work, and have a starting point when creating an analytics solution. “[Autotrack] attempts to leverage as many Google Analytics features as possible while requiring minimal manual implementation. It gives developers a foundation for tracking data relevant to today’s modern Web,” Walton wrote. 2016-02-19 16:48:39 Christina Mulligan View all posts by Christina Mulligan

76 The biggest surprise about will.i.am's new smartwatch? It actually looks good Will.i.am's track record as a technology entrepreneur isn't the greatest (see i.am+ foto.shoto , Puls ), but that hasn't stopped the musician from launching a new wearable, called dial. Unlike most smartwatches on the market, dial takes a 3G SIM card which allows it to make calls and send texts as well as tell the time, show notifications and provide a personal assistant- like service. It uses a conversation based interface called AneedA, which works in a similar way to Siri and Google Now, allowing you to bark orders at your wrist - if that's something you can see yourself doing. Full specs are currently unclear, but we do know that dial sports a 1.63-inch display, a Qualcomm processor and a camera. It may be new, but it's not exactly an original idea. Wearables such as the Samsung Gear S2 3G , Gear S and the cancelled LG Watch Urbane LTE harness the power of a SIM to free them from the constraints of a smartphone. The bad news? dial is exclusive to UK network Three, so if you're outside the United Kingdom, or a Brit who doesn't want to join Three, you won't be able to get this wearable on your wrist. There's currently no word how much dial will cost, but Three does say it'll be available sometime during the Spring. Article continues below 2016-02-19 16:42:00 By John McCann Wearables

77 10 best mirrorless cameras in 2016 The X-T10 makes access to Fuji's terrific X- mount system affordable See more Fuji X-T10 deals The brilliant E-M10 II ticks boxes you probably didn't even know about See more Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II deals Full-frame DSLR-style stunner with 5-axis stabilization built in See more Sony A7 II deals Classic handling, beautiful images – the X-T1 doesn't put a foot wrong See more Fuji X-T1 deals Amazing features, impressive results, inspired thinking… but not cheap See more Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II deals If you can get past its somewhat bland styling, the G7 has a LOT to offer See more Panasonic Lumix DMC-G7 deals Is it a stills camera or a 4K video camera? The GH4 is brilliant but conflicted See more Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH4 deals Sony's top box-shape CSC has an electronic viewfinder and super-fast AF See more Sony Alpha 6000 deals Panasonic's flagship CSC has a brand new sensor, but it's pricey See more Panasonic GX8 deals Nikon's pint-sized CSC has a smaller sensor but plenty of charm See more Nikon 1 J5 deals 2016-02-19 16:30:00 By Rod Lawton Cameras

78 Volvo prepares to say goodbye to physical car keys Volvo plans to ship vehicles in 2017 without physical keys. Instead, Volvo wants to replace the old key and key fob with an app that stores unique digital keys. While some automakers offer the ability to lock, unlock and remote start cars using an app and subscription service, these features require the car to have an always-on cellular connection. There's also a delay from when you issue a command before the car gets it. The Volvo app will not have these shortcomings. Instead of cellular connectivity, which is also available, the Volvo app relies on Bluetooth connectivity when the phone is near the car. When you approach the car, your smartphone should automatically pair with the car, if you have the right digital key stored, making locking, unlocking and engine start functions accessible. If you loan your car to friends or family, the Volvo app lets you instantly share a digital key so you don't have to meet with them to hand off the keys. This could also make things easier for company vehicles shared by multiple people, especially if it's a work truck and everyone gets a company issued rugged Caterpillar S60 to match. Volvo plans to offer the digital key technology as a limited test run via car sharing service Sunfleet, exclusively at the Gothenburg airport in Sweden this spring. Sunfleet isn't the first pilot run of Volvo's digital key technology, however. The company offered in-car deliveries for holiday shopping in Gothenburg, Sweden, which relied on the digital key technology to gain access to Volvo's. Volvo doesn't want to confirm which vehicles will ship without physical keys, but says the Sunfleet pilot program will feature a mix of old and new models. The press images supplied by Volvo show the latest XC90 and S90, so expect those two gorgeous Swedes to get the technology. I find the technology really cool and would love to never have to use physical keys ever again, but there's the issue of battery life. There are days where my phone just sits on my desk, which has plenty of charge to go through the day, but there are days where I'm on my phone non-stop with emails or playing Final Fantasy IX. The potential of being locked out of your car because your phone is dead, so you have to ask for a charge, seems silly to me. I wouldn't be opposed to having the option to use a digital key if I wanted, but shipping a car without a physical key can present problems. I'm not sure how Volvo expects drivers of digital key cars to valet their cars without a physical key. I feel like asking the Valet to download an app on their phone, then send them a physical key is too much hassle, instead of leaving the keys in the car and getting out. Volvo is demoing the digital key technology at Mobile World Congress 2016 at the Ericsson booth. Expect the technology to be available for the masses in 2017, for Android and iOS, sorry, Windows Phone users, there's no love from the Swedes for you. Article continues below 2016-02-19 16:29:00 By Tuan Huynh Car tech

79 Garmin announces Vivoactive HR with sleeker design, integrated heart rate monitor, and more Garmin announced the Vivoactive successor, the Vivoactive HR , that includes Garmin's new integrated heart rate monitor and an improved form factor. Garmin also announced the Vivofit 3 tracker with 1-year battery life. Last year I visited the Apple Store to try out an Apple Watch and then ordered a Garmin Vivoactive instead, see my full review. After a couple of weeks though, I returned the Vivoactive because it was missing a couple of things I found important in a daily tracker and GPS sport watch. The new Vivoactive HR has a sleeker form factor compared to the boxy Vivoactive while increasing in thickness to support the integrated heart rate technology, powered by Garmin Elevate. The display has also been improved, which was one area that disappointed me with the original Vivoactive. This touch screen display is sunlight readable with a resolution of 148 x 205 pixels. The new Vivoactive HR also now tracks floors climbed, which is a metric that is very important to me and one that very few devices track. It has auto sleep monitoring, automatic daily step goal adjustments, auto pause while running, pace alerts, a 5 ATM water resistance rating, and smart notifications from your smartphone (email, text, social networks, calls, etc). The battery life for GPS mode has been extended to up to 13 hours, was previously 10 hours, while the smartwatch mode with the 24/7 heart rate is listed at eight days. The smartwatch battery life is a bit shorter now, was three weeks, because of the heart rate monitoring feature. Battery life performance easily beats all smartwatches and is longer than most GPS sports watches as well. The Garmin Vivoactive HR also supports Garmin's growing Connect IQ ecosystem. You can install Connect IQ watch faces, apps, widgets, and more to extend the functionality of the Vivoactive HR while also personalizing it for your needs. It will be available in Q2 2016 for the same original price as the Garmin Vivoactive last year, $249.99. The new Garmin Vivofit 3 will also be available in Q2 for a price of $99.99. The Vivofit 3 is similar to the Vivofit 2 with additional support for intensity minutes and Move IQ. Move IQ is Garmin's technology that automatically detects and records activities without any user interaction required. 2016-02-19 16:16:00 Matthew Miller

80 80 AquaJS framework for Node.js is open source and in beta An open-source framework wants to tackle the challenges presented by moving to microservices and speed up application development so programmers do not have to spend as much time building software infrastructure. AquaJS is a framework for Node.js that was created at Equinix, which provides carrier-neutral datacenters and Internet exchanges for interconnection. AquaJS was developed to provide a way to start microservice-based application development. It is built with open- source modules, along with a few in-house modules, such as including architecture and design, programming best practices, technology, and deployment and runtime. (Related: Express comes to the Node.js Foundation’s incubator program ) AquaJS components are grouped into three sections: microservice, orchestrator and plug-ins. The microservice component allows developers to create microservices based on service definitions in YAML (a data serialization language that takes concepts from other programming languages). According to an Equinix blog post, AquaJS “scaffolds and stitches together the entire service infrastructure, including database connectors.” Because of this, developers need not bother with the routing and validations. The microservices are orchestrated based on workflows defined for each API contract request. Orchestration capabilities allow development of customized endpoints, so the request and response model can be optimized for each channel to account for requirements, according to the blog. AquaJS developers can extend the capabilities of the framework by loading plug-ins, which are node modules. AquaJS’ core features are developed as plug-ins so developers can extend any third-party node module as a plug-in. A general release is expected in a month. 2016-02-19 15:35:05 Madison Moore View all posts by Madison Moore

81 IBM snags new European clients for Watson supercomputer IBM has announced the addition of two new European clients which are harnessing the power of Watson cognitive computing. On Friday, Big Blue said an industrial player and substantial company in the electrical field have teamed up with IBM to capitalize on the IBM Watson supercomputer's capabilities for use with Internet of Things (IoT) technology and data analytics. The news comes on the heels of the tech giant's acquisition of Truven Health for $2.6 billion. Announced earlier this week , the purchase is intended to bulk up Watson Health, an aspect of the Watson program which tracks healthcare-based costs and quality. The first client is KONE, an Espoo, Finland-based developer of elevators and escalator technology. KONE said Watson will be used in tandem with IBM's cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) platform to connect, monitor and optimize the firm's running of millions of escalators, doors and turnstiles in cities worldwide. Specifically, the supercomputer and platform will be used to analyze the vast amounts of data KONE's products collect for maintenance purposes, and in order to identify and predict problems before downtime occurs and service engineers must be called. Henrik Ehrnrooth, President & CEO of KONE said the agreement will permit the development of "new solutions like remote diagnostics and predictability [which] means we will deliver even better services to our customers, and great experiences for the people who use our equipment. " The second client is Fingrid, Finland's main electricity transmission grid operator. IBM's technology will be connected to a network of sensors in a new project called ELVIS, designed to improve visibility in the electric grid across the country. ELVIS is due to be used by network operators to keep electricity flowing across Fingrid's 14,000 km electricity grid. It is hoped the system will improve cost efficiency, and the data collected and analyzed by Watson can be used to better day-to-day and long-term management of electricity supplies, maintenance, and safety. Marcus Stenstrand, grid manager at Fingrid Oyj commented: "Today's power systems are getting more and more complex. At the same time as there is a growing requirement that power must be available all the time. We must therefore be able to do fast large-scale fault investigation thereby reducing the impact on people and businesses all over Finland. We realized that we needed to combine near-real-time big data analytics with external factors such as weather to respond to these kinds of situations better and ensure the highest levels of service for our customers. " As today's core services become more complex and become connected via grids and IoT technology, more and more companies are likely to use Big Data and analytics to improve their businesses, services, and efficiency as a whole. As such, platforms and systems such as IBM Watson will lure more and more clients to the fold for a range of uses across business, medicine, research and other industries. Last year, IBM announced a fresh $3 billion wave of investment into IoT solutions. 2016-02-19 15:00:04 Charlie Osborne

82 Yahoo forms committee to review potential offers Yahoo has formed a strategic review committee as the company explores various strategic alternatives such as selling its media business. The primary role of the committee is to remain independent and engage with bankers on how to separate Yahoo from its Alibaba stake. The committee will also form a process to engage with potential buyers. Yahoo is currently restructuring and shutting down various properties to improve focus. The strategic review committee is working with Goldman Sachs & Co. Inc., J. P. Morgan and PJT Partners as its financial advisors. According to CEO Marissa Mayer, the plan is to work on strategic alternatives at the same time it carries out its turnaround plan. Yahoo said it won't disclose anything more until it reaches a deal or decides not to pursue one. 2016-02-19 14:57:35 Larry Dignan

83 Asus planning big 2-in-1s push spearheaded by Surface clone? It looks as if Asus is going to launch its own Surface clone, at least according to speculation driven by a recently published document from the company. Notebook Italia stumbled across a slide in the document (which was released after an Asus investor conference had finished) that shows Asus' sales forecast for 2-in-1 hybrid devices, with the firm aiming to up the number of units shifted by no less than 50% this year. The slide contains images of existing Asus hybrid machines dotted about, but also an apparently new model which looks very similar to Microsoft's Surface. It's a slim looking tablet with a keyboard accessory and a kickstand just like Redmond's convertible, with the Asus logo clearly visible on the kickstand at the rear, and on the bezel of the tablet around the front. No actual spec details are available right now, of course, but you can glean a couple of things from the picture. There's clearly a rear-facing camera top left, and on the left-hand side you can see three ports – they look like two standard USB ports and a smaller USB Type-C connector, although it's difficult to tell given the image quality. There's no sign of a stylus here, though, but presumably that will be a definite inclusion. It's hardly surprising that Asus would be thinking of pushing harder with 2-in-1s, given that several analytics firms have predicted huge rises in sales of these devices in the near future. IDC for example reckons these machines will make a big impact throughout 2016. Microsoft's Surface has been doing very well lately, too, with Redmond's tablet shipments apparently increasing by 50% last year – exactly the target Asus is looking to achieve for this year, funnily enough. If this Surface lookalike does indeed exist, hopefully we'll be hearing about it soon enough. We'll likely be seeing a lot more hybrids in general throughout 2016 – even Huawei is planning its own Surface-killer convertible which it's rumoured will be unveiled this weekend at MWC. Via: Neowin Image: Notebook Italia Article continues below 2016-02-19 14:17:00 By Darren Allan Tablets

84 Apple Watch 2 probably won't land until September, and that makes perfect sense Apple has created an expectation amongst users and tech pundits alike that products need to be updated yearly. The rumor mill has been suggesting that the updated Apple Watch 2 would appear this March. However, the current crop of rumors all suggest that this might not be the case. Sources claim that while the iPad Air 3 and iPhone 5se are expected to make an appearance in March, Apple Watch fans might have to make do with new bands, including a range on new Sports Bands, and a black version of the Milanese Loop band. It makes perfect sense for Apple to hold back on releasing an update to the Apple Watch until later on this year because it's really not under any pressure from the competition to do so. There isn't a product in the smartwatch arena that comes close to the Apple Watch either in terms of features or sales. It doesn't make sense for Apple to be tweaking the design of the Apple Watch yearly if the device is selling reasonably well. But there are a few of other reasons, and these are more important in the long term. The first is that Apple branded the Apple Watch - particularly the high-end Edition models - as luxury items, and it needs to be careful not to give off the impression that high-end luxury is something that changes based on a yearly schedule. That timeless feeling that people get from buying a luxury item does not fit in well with the idea of a product becoming obsolete in a year. Another factor is that Apple won't want to change the Apple Watch 2 too much because at this stage in the game it's more important to get more users on board than it is to be selling upgrades to existing users. At this stage, it's about expanding the user base, and that means that product upgrades have to be gradual. And finally, there's the fact that there's only so much functionality that can be crammed into a smartwatch. It doesn't have the long-term arc of say a smartphone or a tablet. There's not an awful lot that can be crammed onto a wrist - a small camera, Wi-Fi capability, and such - so it's counterproductive for Apple to keep to an aggressive yearly upgrade schedule with the Apple Watch. 2016-02-19 14:14:13 Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

85 Microsoft takes Translator offline in Android, snapshot translation to iPhones Microsoft's new offline translation feature employs the same AI system used in the Skype and Bing Translators, scaled down for mobile devices. Microsoft has updated its Android and iOS Translator apps with features that aim to put it on par with Google's Translate. The updated Android Translator app released on Thursday will make it more convenient to use when you're overseas and don't want to pay for costly roaming data. Microsoft's new offline translation feature comes thanks to its new deep neural network-powered offline translation engine, which works with downloadable language packs. It's the same artificial-intelligence system that Microsoft has put to use in Skype Translator and Bing translator, only scaled down for mobile devices. Separate packs are available for translation from English to Chinese Simplified, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Vietnamese. Microsoft says in a blogpost it's working on expanding language choices and asserts that its offline translations will be almost as good as online ones. It will be up to users to decide whether Microsoft's Android app really is "significantly better than any offline translation experiences available previously". Google Translate is the translation app to beat. It now supports 103 languages, compared with Microsoft's 52. Google introduced offline translations with the aid of language packs in 2013 and last year rolled out live translation on the iPhone, which translates text instantaneously on a screen once it's in the camera's field of view Google boasted last year that the feature was enabled by the same mini neural net it uses to train the machine to interpret text. Microsoft rolled out a similar feature in an update for the iPhone yesterday, although it is slightly less sophisticated than Google's app. The new optical character recognition engine in the iPhone app allows users to take a snap of text, on top of which the app overlays the translation. Image translation on iOS supports Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish For now, offline translation is available only to Android, while OCR is only on iOS. But Microsoft plans to bring each feature to both platforms in the near future. 2016-02-19 13:52:58 Liam Tung

86 Donald Trump wants you to boycott Apple Donald Trump has called for a boycott of Apple products over the company's refusal to help the FBI break into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino mass shooters. It's not the first time he's waded into the debate. "To think that Apple won't allow us to get into [the] cell phone," Trump said two days earlier on "Fox and Friends. " "Who do they think they are? " The FBI wants Apple to help it break into a smartphone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife, killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, on Dec. 2. FBI Director James Comey has said the shooters were inspired by "foreign terrorist organizations. " The FBI says it needs access to the data to fully investigate the attack and find any possible collaborators. Apple has resisted , saying the move would set a dangerous precedent and compromise security for all its customers. "Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices," CEO Tim Cook said in an open letter Monday. It's unknown if Trump's supporters will heed his suggestion. The outspoken businessman and television personality has already tussled with the Pope this week after the religious leader suggested Trump is " not a Christian. " 2016-02-19 13:52:00 James Niccolai

87 Facebook Messenger: Why ads could soon be popping up in your chats Adverts may start appearing soon but Facebook says it doesn't want Messenger to become spammy. As Messenger creeps up towards the one billion active user mark, details have emerged revealing Facebook's plan to introduce advertising to the chat platform by June. According to an internal Facebook document obtained by TechCrunch , Facebook will let businesses send ads as messages to people who previously started a chat thread with that company. Facebook also has a suggestion on how to approach the introduction of adverts. The document advises businesses to kick off conversations with consumers now, so they'll be able to send ads once the feature arrives. Over the past year, Facebook has launched a number of features to encourage conversations between consumers and businesses, such as Businesses on Messenger. Facebook doesn't appear to be too concerned by revelations it would introduce ads to Messenger. Although it declined to comment on the document, Facebook said it didn't want Messenger to become spammy. "Our aim with Messenger is to create a high-quality, engaging experience for 800 million people around the world, and that includes ensuring people do not experience unwanted messages of any type," Facebook told TechCrunch. The document also confirms Facebook the existence of its new short URL, which instantly opens a chat thread with a business. Canadian carrier Rogers is trialling the URL, offering a shortcut to a customer-service agent. Other details of Facebook's revenue-generation plans started to emerge after its other messaging app, WhatsApp, which now has one billion users, dropped its annual $1 subscription fee . The company is exploring non-ad based revenue by offering messaging between users and businesses that "You want to hear from", such as a bank using WhatsApp to issue a personal fraud alert. Given that reaching one billion users appears to be attainable for Messenger this year, it would seem the time is ripe for the introduction of new ways to generate income from the platform. According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's comments over a year ago, he wanted WhatsApp and Messenger to reach a billion users before turning them into real businesses. It's not known how Facebook will approach ads in Messenger, but the document says the message should flow on from previous discussions. 2016-02-19 12:48:15 Liam Tung

88 88 The Zephyr Project, Google Cloud Vision API, Yahoo’s mobile developer suite and new ArcGIS release- news digest: Feb. 19, 2016 The Linux Foundation has announced a new open-source collaborative effort to build a real- time operating system (RTOS) to power the Internet of Things: the Zephyr Project. According to the organization, IoT devices require software that is scalable, secure and enables seamless connectivity, and developers need the ability to innovate on top of a modular platform that easily integrates with embedded devices regardless of architecture. The project will focus on modularity and security, and include developer tools to help advance the Zephyr RTOS. Early supporters of the project include Intel, NXP Semiconductors, Synopsys, and UbiquiOS Technology Limited. “Developers today have many choices when it comes to platforms,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. “The Zephyr Project will offer a modular, connected operating system to support the smallest footprint for IoT devices. We invite developers to contribute to the Zephyr Project and to help advance a customizable embedded open-source RTOS to advance IoT. By hosting this at the Linux Foundation, we look forward to the cross-project collaboration among Linux and this community.” Google releases beta of Google Cloud Vision API Google is giving developers the ability to understand the contents of their images with the newly announced Google Cloud Vision API. The beta release allows developers to access insights from their images, detect inappropriate content, analyze emotional attributes, and detect text within the images. During the beta phase, users will have a 20-million-images-per-month quota. “Google Cloud Vision API is our first step on the journey to enable applications to see, hear and make information in the world more useful,” wrote Ramanathan, product manager of the Google Cloud Platform, in a blog post . Yahoo updates mobile developer suite Yahoo is announcing updates and new features to help developers grow their apps and build their businesses. The company has redesigned its Flurry product to make it more intuitive for analyzing data. In addition, the Flurry app has been updated with the newly redesigned Flurry dashboard. 2016-02-19 12:44:21 Christina Mulligan View all posts by Christina Mulligan

89 Sony Xperia Z5 Tablet UK release date, price and specs rumours: Our bold predictions for Sony's new tablet, which could be unveiled on Monday Sony doesn't release a new tablet on a regular basis but could we be getting a new one very soon? Sony is going to announce something on Monday at MWC 2016, and this could be that something. Here's what we know about the Sony Xperia Z5 Tablet in terms of release date, price and specs rumours. See also: Best tablets 2016. ALSO SEE: HOW TO WATCH SONY MWC 2016 LIVE STREAM | SONY MWC 2016 LIVE BLOG After launching a trio of flagship Xperia Z5 phones , Sony is due to update its Android tablet range and it's likely we could be just a few short weeks away from seeing it in the flesh. Here we'll discuss what the firm's next iPad rival might offer. As you can see below, there's something of a pattern when it comes to Sony launching a new 10in Xperia Z tablet with a new model arriving at MWC every year since 2013. The odd one out is the smaller Z3 Compact which was announced at IFA in Berlin. • Xperia Tablet Z – MWC 2013 February • Xperia Tablet Z2 – MWC 2014 February • Xperia Tablet Z3 Compact – IFA 2014 September • Xperia Tablet Z4 – MWC 2015 March Based on this, there's a good chance we'll see a new tablet at MWC 2016. We say this even though we've not seen any leaked details as phones are more commonly the stars of internet leaks. The more complex question is what model it will be. Sony hasn't skipped a generation number yet so there's a good chance it will be the Xperia Z5 Tablet but the device didn't arrive with the phones therefore there's a slim chance it could be the Xperia Z6 Tablet but our money is on the former as the Xperia Z6 smartphone is unlikely to arrive until later in the year and Sony won't want a tablet with a similar name to make it seem old. The first bit of information we have from an outside source comes from a Japanese Sony store manager who suggests in a blog post that current Wi-Fi only models of the Xperia Z2, Z3 Compact and Z4 will be effectively discontinued in March. He also states a new model is 'pending' via a message received from Sony marketing. " Three models for sale is completed in March 2016, with respect to the new product, currently pending," it says directly translated. We'll discuss what kind of tablet the Z5 Tablet will be later in the specs section. Products by Sony have historically been pretty pricey but we're hoping for a more competitive strategy from the firm this time around. The price tag for the Xperia Z4 Tablet (RRP) is a whopping £499 making it more than an iPad Air 2 which is never a good comparison. Granted, that price includes the Bluetooth keyboard dock but not 4G. That model costs a portly £579. Whether the Z5 Tablet is a full-size 10in tablet or a smaller Compact version (see below), will have a large impact on the price. Either way we hope that Sony can make it more affordable and at least match the equivalent iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab. We hope that Sony will choose to launch both a 10in Xperia Z5 Tablet and a smaller 8in Xperia Z5 Tablet Compact giving consumers a better choice. However, the firm hasn't launched two Xperia Z Tablets together before so we may well be looking at just the one which would be a shame. With no leaked information on a possible Xperia Z5 Tablet we're speculating based on our knowledge of Sony's launches over the years. The Xperia Z5 Tablet in its theoretical 10.in form which we expect would use the same 2K (2560x1600) resolution as the current generation but there's a chance that Sony might bump it to 4K following on from the Xperia Z5 Premium. That resolution would certainly make more sense on a larger screen but we don't think it needs to go any higher than it already is. A Xperia Z5 Tablet Compact would likely use the same 8in (1200x1920) screen from the Z3 Tablet Compact designed to be used in portrait instead of landscape. The 7in size for smaller tablets seems to be pretty much extinct with around 8in being the size of choice nowadays. With a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 in the Z4 Tablet, it would make sense for Sony to jump to the new Snapdragon 820 in the 2560x1600 Xperia Z5 Tablet, no matter what the screen size. The chip is set to be in a large amount of phones and tablets this year. A Micro-SD card is pretty much a given but we hope that Sony offers more internal storage with the current model offering only 32GB. We wouldn't be surprised if the Xperia Z5 Tablet started at 32GB also but higher capacities wouldn't go amiss. Many devices are thought to come with 4GB of RAM this year and it wouldn't surprise us if this is true of the Xperia Z5 Tablet. Design is always a big factor when it comes to Sony products and you can bet that the Xperia Z5 Tablet, whether 10- or 8in, will be nicely thin and light. The firm likes grabbing headlines for 'world's XXX tablet' (fill in the blank). Can Sony make the device much thinner with the Z4 Tablet (above) at 6.1mm? Probably not. Waterproofing is pretty much a guarantee since it's been a feature of every Xperia Z device (phone or tablet) since the original smartphone. It's a big selling point for the range and won't be going away any time soon if you ask us. We also don't expect the design to change too much. Looking back at the Xperia Z range over the years indicates that only small tweaks will be made. We could be wrong but that's how it looks and if we're right then those chunky bezels won't be going anywhere either. Although they don't look particularly stylish they do mean you can hold the tablet comfortably without getting in the way of the screen; plus for the 10in model smaller bezels would mean a smaller keyboard to match the size which wouldn't be ideal. One of the key new features of the Xperia Z5 phones is the fingerprint scanner which is cleverly integrated into the flat power button on the side. It would make sense for Sony to bring this over to the tablet side but where it would be placed it tricky to guess. It's pretty easy to predict that the Xperia Z5 Tablet will come pre-loaded with Android 6.0 Marshmallow , the latest version. What we'd like to see is some better customisation from Sony for productivity, especially if the new model is a 10in device with a keyboard dock. Users, quite rightly, are calling out for better multi-tasking and it's something we totally agree on. Although we're putting out money on Android, there's a small chance that Sony could make a Windows 10 tablet. We say this because of the large amounts of tablet arriving which are taking on Microsoft's Surface Pro 4. It might not be a copy with a kickstand and such like but may simply be the same as the Android version but with Windows 10 installed, again giving consumers the option. After all, Samsung recently announced the Galaxy TabPro S so Sony could respond with something similar. Let us know what you want from the next Xperia Z Tablet in the comments below and vote in the poll. We'll update this article with any rumours or leaks and the official information as and when it is available. 2016-02-19 12:29:00 Chris Martin

90 Samsung, Oracle partner to create mobile enterprise solutions Samsung and Oracle have announced a partnership aimed at developing tools for enterprise users to create mobile apps and software. On Friday, Samsung and Oracle revealed the agreement, which is focused on legacy systems and integration -- specifically, how to seamlessly shift businesses from old, outdated technology to the cloud, modern IT infrastructure and mobile solutions. The agreement will bring together Oracle's enterprise software portfolio and cloud solutions, as well as Samsung's mobile device technologies. The firms have already begun working with system integrators to push mobile enterprise software and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions forward, including a predictive maintenance solution -- powered by the Samsung Gear S2 and Oracle -- used by HCL Technologies for enterprise asset maintenance, and Softbang's contract approval system, which runs through Samsung Gear S wearable devices. Sri Ramanathan, Group Vice President at Oracle commented: In addition, the tech giants are also collaborating on an expanded set of plugins and code samples for Apache Cordova, a mobile application development framework which can be used by enterprise clients for mobile business apps. The new set of plugins will support Oracle Mobile Application Framework and Oracle JavaScript Extension Toolkit developers, as well as the larger Apache Cordova community as a whole. In November last year , Samsung Pay executive Injong Rhee revealed a swathe of new features for the mobile payment system intended to lure businesses away from rival Apple Pay, including in-app purchases, gift cards and membership deals. 2016-02-19 12:21:23 Charlie Osborne

91 Samsung Gear S2 classic 3G: First eSim lets you switch carriers remotely The eSIM specification lets consumers switch providers but keep using the same SIM. Samsung's new Gear S2 classic 3G will be the first device available that comes with a GSMA- compliant embedded SIM (eSIM), which lets users remotely activate a carrier subscription. The GSMA eSIM specification aims to make it easier for consumers to manage carrier subscriptions for multiple devices, such as watches, others wearables and tablets, by allowing consumers to activate these devices under a single mobile subscription and without removing the SIM. Samsung says its new Gear S2 classic 3G , which begins shipping in March, will be the first device with the eSIM. So instead of having a separate subscription for the watch, owners can configure it to share their smartphone's subscription. The eSIM specification lets consumers switch providers but keep using the same SIM. However, given that smartphones are the primary device for mobile subscriptions, this capability isn't a particularly meaningful feature of the specification released today. According to GSMA , a separate specification for the remote provisioning of SIMs on "any mobile device" will be released in June. GSMA released the eSIM specification today, which now has been backed by Apple, Microsoft, LG, Huawei, Sony and Samsung, as well as chip-makers, SIM-card makers and most of the world's largest carriers. "The initiative does not aim to replace all SIM cards in the field, but is instead designed to help users connect multiple devices through the same subscription and will help mobile device manufacturers develop a new range of smaller, lighter mobile-connected devices that are better suited for wearable technology applications," GSMA said in a statement. As it notes, the remote provisioning aspect of the eSIM is also to support small M2M environments, where a SIM card may be soldered to a device, thus requiring "over the air" provisioning. However, the specification also supports removable SIMs. The association has been working over the past year to convince device makers, mostly Apple and Samsung, to support the initiative. Notably, Apple had already delivered this capability for the iPad with Apple SIM in 2014. 2016-02-19 11:26:00 Liam Tung

92 9 Reasons To Crowdsource Data Science Projects Data science competitions aren't new, but their communities are growing rapidly and the problems they're solving are changing over time. Generally speaking, data science competitions are being used for ideation and discovery, model and algorithm refinement, and for recruiting top talent. The competitions are a good option for startups and SMEs that need access to specialized resources, but can't justify in-house resources. They're also popular among established companies that have formidable data science teams. Data science community Kaggle and professional services firm Booz Allen Hamilton are currently conducting the second annual Data Science Bowl. The topic of last year's competition was ocean health. This year's topic is cardiac health. [Before you quit your current job to go to a startup, find out if it's really a fit for you. Read 10 Signs You're Not Cut Out to Work at a Startup.] " The level of engagement of the people participating is really impressive. They're on the forums talking about the data a lot, so lots of engagement around the problem, which is really exciting to see," said Steven Mills, chief data scientist at Booz Allen Hamilton, in an interview. More organizations are attempting to leverage machine learning and AI in new ways, and they're using competitions to advance the state of the art. The competitions are attracting the attention of top researchers, data scientists, and individuals who want to develop new problem-solving skills. "We're seeing a shift from machine learning and data science being done on text to more sophisticated kinds of data," said Kaggle cofounder and CEO Anthony Goldbloom, in an interview. "People are putting out image, text, and speech challenges because they know the problems can be solved. " Yelp sponsored a competition in cooperation with data science competition host DrivenData. The goal of the competition was to predict where restaurant health code violations would likely be found in a six-week period. The top modelers predicted what inspectors would find, which DrivenData compared to what the inspectors actually found. Using the winning algorithms, DrivenData and a Harvard researcher determined that the City of Boston could catch the same number of violations it currently did with 30%-50% fewer inspections. "In this case, you have a handful of inspectors and a lot of restaurants, so you can target those inspections where they'll be most useful to the communities [the City of Boston] is trying to protect," said Greg Lipstein, cofounder of DrivenData, in an interview. Brand-name companies are also using other crowdsourcing alternatives, such as Spare5. Spare5 is a micro-task platform that breaks Big Data problems into miniscule pieces and assigns them to iPhone app users who want to trade their expertise for a modest amount of cash. Its community members help clean data, tag images, and classify content. They also help improve search accuracy, conversions, and cross-selling, among other things. "Machines can perform millions or billions of calculations in parallel, but a computer is only as useful as its ability to interact with people. To interact with people, computers need to understand us, and to understand us they need training data," said Matt Bencke, cofounder and CEO of Spare5, in an interview. "More big companies are trying to use machine learning and AI to take advantage of huge amounts of data, but the challenge is the scarcity of high-quality training data. " While competitions and other forms of crowdsourcing are growing in popularity, it isn't always obvious why a company should consider those options. Here are nine of the most compelling reasons. Rising stars wanted. Are you an IT professional under age 30 who's making a major contribution to the field? Do you know someone who fits that description? Submit your entry now for InformationWeek's Pearl Award. Full details and a submission form can be found here. 2016-02-19 11:01:00 Lisa Morgan 1 of 10 1 of 10

93 São Paulo IT workers union secures salary increase for 2016 Four classic IT jobs that are moving to the back burner Because of its unrelenting pace, IT can be a brutal profession on those who crave stability and tradition. These four formerly hot job roles are a perfect example, as they fade, morph, and change. 2016-02-19 10:36:03 Angelica Mari

94 Remote desktop tool distributed by Comodo enabled privilege escalation Security software vendor Comodo has patched a security weakness in its GeekBuddy remote PC support tool that could have enabled local malware or exploits to gain admin privileges on computers. GeekBuddy installs a VNC (Virtual Network Computing) remote desktop service that allows Comodo technicians to connect to users' PCs and help them troubleshoot issues or clean malware infections. The application is bundled with Comodo products like Antivirus Advanced, Internet Security Pro and Internet Security Complete. While it's not clear exactly how many PCs currently have GeekBuddy installed, Comodo claims the tech support service has had "25 million satisfied users" so far. Google security engineer Tavis Ormandy recently discovered that the VNC server installed by GeekBuddy is protected by an easy-to-determine password. The password consisted of the first eight characters from the SHA1 cryptographic hash of a string made up of the computer's Disk Caption, Disk Signature, Disk Serial Number and Disk Total Tracks. The problem with using such disk information to derive the password is that it can easily be obtained from unprivileged accounts. Meanwhile, the VNC session that the password unlocks has admin privileges. This all means that anyone with access to a limited account on a computer with GeekBuddy installed can leverage the local VNC server to escalate their privileges and take full control of the system. This is also true for any malware programs that run on unprivileged accounts or for exploits in sandboxed software. According to Ormandy, the poorly protected VNC server can be used to bypass Google Chrome's sandbox, Comodo's own application sandbox and Internet Explorer's Protected Mode. An attacker might not even need to reconstruct the password, because its value is already stored in the registry by the Comodo software, Ormandy said in an advisory. The Google Project Zero researcher reported the issue to Comodo on Jan. 19 and disclosed it publicly Thursday after Comodo informed him that the problem was fixed in GeekBuddy version 4.25.380415.167 released on Feb. 10. According to Ormandy, the company said that over 90 percent of installations have already been updated. This is not the first time that GeekBuddy has exposed computers to risks. In May 2015, a researcher reported that the GeekBuddy VNC server did not require a password at all , making privilege escalation even easier. The inadequate password found by Ormandy was probably the company's attempt to fix the previously reported issue. In early February, Ormandy reported that Chromodo, a Chromium-based browser installed by Comodo Internet Security had the same-origin policy disabled. The same-origin policy is one of the most vital security mechanisms in modern browsers and prevents scripts running in the context of one site from interacting with the content of other websites. For example, without it, a malicious website opened in one browser tab could access a user's email account opened in another tab. Comodo's first attempt to fix the same-origin policy issue was unsuccessful, its patch being trivial to bypass, according to Ormandy. The company eventually deployed a complete fix. Over the past year, Ormandy has found critical vulnerabilities in many endpoint security products, raising questions about whether security vendors are doing enough to detect and prevent such errors in their development process. 2016-02-19 10:25:00 Lucian Constantin

95 Illumio Brings Active Directory To Dynamic Security Sophisticated thinking about facility security recommends that protections exist not only at the perimeter of Fort Knox but also in its core, where the gold is stored. In modern data center terms, that would mean not only protections in perimeter firewalls but also near the core where the applications are running. Young security firm Illumio is taking that idea and running with it, using an approach it calls Adaptive Security Platform. ASP watches application operations and formulates rules to govern what types of traffic it can receive based on what it learns. Illumio is extending that approach more deeply into the organization through a concept it calls Adaptive User Segmentation, an abstract term for the process of drawing up rules that fit profiles of individual users of an application. To do so, it has integrated the ASP platform with the information in Active Directory and equipped its core rules engine to make use of that information, the company announced Feb. 17. The security platform was launched in October 2014. One of the parties that's paying attention to the results is financial services firm Morgan Stanley, an early adopter of ASP. Others taking a venture capital stake in Illumio's position include Accel Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, Data Collective, Formation 8, and General Catalyst Partners, as well as individual investors such as Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Virtual Instruments CEO John Thompson, and Yahoo founder Jerry Yang. They're backing the company with $142.5 million. The heart of the platform is a Policy Compute Engine, explained CTO P. J. Kimer, co-founder of Illumio, in an interview with InformationWeek. The Policy Compute Engine collects context from the operation of a running application, develops an understanding of how it should operate, and formulates rules governing what types of traffic can access it. [ Want to see how Illumio would fit into a VMware environment? Read VMware Moves Open Door For Security Partners . ] In the past, the traffic governed was the traffic coming from other applications and outside systems. With the integration of Active Directory, the engine is generating policies for groups of users. In its ability to seek out information about application operations, the engine functions more like a search engine than a firewall, Kimer said. And its ability to detect changing conditions and automatically create rules to match the new environment makes it more dynamic than a rules-governed firewall. The policy engine can get a target application to honor the rules because its server's operating system has had a software package, a Virtual Enforcement Node, embedded in it. If the application is handling sensitive healthcare data, then the policy engine will have a rule that forbids the application from being installed in a new location across the Canadian border, for example. Canada has a law against exporting private healthcare data to servers in the United States. The policy engine formulates policies that govern Active Directory groups based on their permissions and roles. The Virtual Enforcement Node enforces the policy on the user's traffic by detecting in which group the current user resides. Policies governing the user can match the sensitivity of the application and represent finer-grained restrictions and controls than the general purpose classification in Active Directory. The approach reduces the attack surface of an application, eliminating many of the seemingly obvious avenues that are exploited by hackers and intruders or internal employees going astray. An employee with access to three of four applications on a server can be barred from accessing the fourth, even if the members of his group, according to Active Directory, are supposed to have access to all four. Illumio is moving security away from perimeter infrastructure and closer to the application compute layer, Kimer said. "We're taking the user entitlement in Active Directory and making it part of the security graph," he noted. Are you an IT Hero? Do you know someone who is? Submit your entry now for InformationWeek's IT Hero Award. Full details and a submission form can be found here. 2016-02-19 10:05:00 Charles Babcock

96 Linux and breakfast cereal: Why are there so many flavours? Is Linux like a bowl of cereal? I mean, how the heck is that supposed to work? By getting rid of established products, reducing selection, and making considerably less effort to please a variety of tastes, they are going to become more successful? That doesn't sound like much of a business plan to me. Let's consider the range of products we are talking about. There are the very basic ones, like simple Corn Flakes. Nothing fancy, nothing added, no sugar-coating, no extra bits of fruit. These are available in name-brand, store-brand and even no-name generic versions. Does that bother anyone? Is anyone working themselves into a frenzy because they don't know how to decide between these? I don't think so. Let's get more concrete. I live in Switzerland, where one of the largest online shops is Le Shop , run by Migros. I just went there and entered "Corn Flakes" in the search box. It returned with 119 matching products. Disturbing? No. What would I do if I were actually shopping at this point? I would probably choose something based on my past experience with this product, or similar products. If I had no relevant experience, I would examine some of the products listed, checking on specific things that interest or concern me - ingredients, sugar content, additives or whatever. After looking through some number of them I would have a pretty good idea of what was available, and I would pick one to try. Then what would happen? I would take the chosen product home, and eat it for breakfast the next morning. If I absolutely hated it and couldn't stand the thought of eating another bowl of it, then I might toss it after just a day or two. But of course, so far I have only considered "simple" Corn Flakes - one kind of breakfast cereal. We don't really get away that easily, do we? There's a lot more to consider, even within the Corn Flakes family - Frosted Flakes, Crunchy Nut... so now, is it panic time? Look them over. See what they have to offer. If all else fails make a blind choice, take it home and try it. If you don't like it, try again. I could go on, of course, because I have barely scratched the breakfast cereal surface. But I think that you can see that so far, the same basic procedure works every time, no matter how many different versions and variations you have to choose from. But that's certainly not the only way to proceed. On one of my trips to the U. S. some time ago, my sister-in-law gave me Honey Bunches of Oats for breakfast - it was her favorite cereal. I absolutely loved it. So there is a completely different selection mechanism: I didn't really "choose", I simply tried something based on the recommendation of a friend. But that's still not all, because I just thought of something else: at some point in your shopping you might be offered a free sample of one of these products, either to try right there on the spot or to take home and try at your leisure. Or suppose that the supplier decided to make a major change to the recipe, and they discontinued the previous recipe. Lacking a reasonable selection of alternatives, users would be at the mercy of the supplier, and would have to either accept the change, or give up breakfast cereal. Most people would not think this is an acceptable situation. Now, suppose that rather than trying to decide what to have for breakfast tomorrow morning, you were thinking about what operating system you want to use on your computer. The first thing you should realize is that there are actually a lot fewer different Linux versions than there are of breakfast cereals (or automobiles, or television sets, or almost anything else you might be shopping for). In fact, going back to my example of getting a free sample to try out, with the widespread availability of Live CD/DVD/USB images, you can try Linux without even disturbing whatever operating system is currently loaded on your computer. You can basically get a free sample of almost any version of Linux, any time you want it, without having to wait for a special offer or promotion. The recommendation from a friend situation that I mentioned is also a very good approach to choosing a Linux distribution. This could be a real friend or family member who is actually using Linux, and helps you get started with it. But it could also be some crazy guy who writes a Linux blog, and spends ridiculous amounts of time trying out different distributions and describing the results. If you have an interest in some specific area or application, such as multimedia production/playback, security, embedded systems or whatever, there are lots of descriptions and hands-on tests of the available distributions. Finally, you have one more major advantage when evaluating, choosing and using a Linux distribution. Unlike most commercial products, you are likely to have a direct channel to the developers, maintainers and/or experienced users of whatever distribution you choose. In fact, you could make this one of your selection criteria, so that you would know going in that there would be experienced help and advice available, free of charge, if you needed it. To summarize, the very simple point I am trying to make here is that variety and selection are not a problem, they are an advantage! As consumers, we deal with them every day, in nearly every product that we acquire. So why do we hear never-ending complaints about there being too many different Linux distributions? I honestly can't understand it. 2016-02-19 10:00:00 J.A. Watson

97 Should your NGO be developing a mobile gaming app? Candy Crush Saga , an online puzzle game that challenges the user to match similar candies, has more than 75 million likes on Facebook and at least half a billion downloads on Google Play. Cross-platform availability, “freemium” pricing strategy, continuous levels, and the online game’s casual yet stimulating design is what has contributed to its worldwide appeal. Now, it appears charities looking to raise brand awareness or capture a wider audience are taking notes. After all, the world of mobile gaming has started to catch on in the humanitarian and development industries. Browse through the Apple Store and you’ll stumble upon a number of socially minded games made by or for nongovernmental organizations and foundations. There’s an app to save rhinos made by Swedish digital agency Hello There for the Perfect World Foundation, Sustainaville which works much like Farmville by Save the Children International, and Canadian-based startup Decode Global’s Get Water! in partnership with Charity:Water. [ Devex ] 2016-02-19 09:44:31 PC Tech Magazine

98 Google Introduces 'Roll Your Own' Option On Compute Engine Google is offering for the first time the option of rolling your own server on the Google Compute Engine cloud. Customers may configure a server with exactly the virtual CPU and memory that they want, as opposed to selecting one from a table of preconfigured instances, such as those offered by Amazon Web Services and other cloud providers. Google calls the option Custom Machine Type instances. It was made generally available Feb. 17. Amazon has a wide selection of 39 different instance types, but it doesn't allow the customer to simply configure one the way he or she wants to. Google Custom Machine Types were first introduced Nov. 18 and have been available through the Google Developer's Console as beta instances for the past four months. In announcing their general availability, a Google spokesman claimed not only are Custom Machines more flexible, but cheaper than their Amazon counterparts. "When choosing a virtual machine type, major cloud providers force you to overbuy, since MVs usually come in powers of two. You need to buy 8 vCPUs, even when you only need 6. Today this ends. With Custom Machine Types, you can create virtual machines with the shapes (i.e. vCPU and memory) that are right for your workloads," wrote Google's Sami Igram, product manager for the Google Cloud Platform, in a November blog post. With Custom Machine Types, a customer can create a server with from 1-32, virtual CPUs (the vCPUs must be assigned in even numbers) and assign it the amount of memory desired. Each virtual CPU can be given up to 6.5GBs of memory. Google also offers pre-configured virtual servers, like other providers and offered an example of when a Custom server would be a better deal than what it calls its Standard server type. The n1- standard with eight vCPUs and 30GB of memory would cost $204.40 if it ran continuously over the course of a 730-hour month. The next size up, an n1-standard with 16 vCPUs and 60GB of memory, would cost $408.80 over the same period. A Custom Machine Type sitting in the middle of these two with 12 vCPUs and 45GB of memory would cost $321.75. The hourly rates amount to $0.28, $0.441, and $0.56, respectively. By gearing the virtual machine to what a customer actually needs, 21% is shaved off his hourly rate with the Custom instance over the larger n1-standard instance. By adopting the Custom approach, "our customers have saved an average of 19%," wrote Igram in a Feb. 17 blog post announcing general availability. Google, like Amazon, charges for the amount of time a virtual machine runs, but it measures that time by the minute instead of the hour. In a Jan. 8 blog post , Miles Ward, Google Cloud Platform global head of solutions, compared the price of a Custom Machine Type with two vCPUs and 8GB of RAM to the Amazon Web Services "M4 Standard," although there's no such instance in the AWS matrix chart. The basic M4 appears to be the M4 Large, with two virtual CPUs and 8GB of memory. The Custom costs $54.82 for a month's worth of use to the AWS M4 Large's $87.60. But such comparisons are hard to make without a clear definition of what constitutes a virtual CPU for each, down to the gigahertz speed of the chip behind the virtual CPU. [Want to learn about early 2016 AWS price cuts? Read Amazon Starts 2016 with three price cuts .] "Rest assured Google continues to be the price/performance leader in public cloud," Ward wrote in January after an announcement by AWS of three price cuts. "As you can see, we're anywhere from 15-41% less expensive than AWS for compute resources... " Regardless of the exact price comparison, many customers will feel they are getting the better end of the deal if they configure what they want and pay for only what they configure. Google has instated an innovation in the cloud that Amazon may one day have to emulate. Does your company offer the most rewarding place to work in IT? Do you know of an organization that stands out from the pack when it comes to how IT workers are treated? Make your voice heard. Submit your entry now for InformationWeek's People's Choice Award. Full details and a submission form can be found here. 2016-02-19 09:05:00 Charles Babcock

99 GitHub Project of the Week: TensorFlow Serving Google has announced the release of TensorFlow Serving , a flexible, high-performance and open-source serving system for machine-learning models. The solution was designed for production environments and optimized for TensorFlow, the company’s machine-learning system. “Machine learning powers many Google product features: from speech recognition in the Google app to Smart Reply in Inbox to search in Google Photos,” wrote Google software engineer Noah Fiedel in a blog post . “While decades of experience have enabled the software industry to establish best practices for building and supporting products, doing so for services based upon machine learning introduces new and interesting challenges. Today, we announce the release of TensorFlow Serving, designed to address some of these challenges.” According to the company, with TensorFlow’s ability to run multiple models at large scale, it enables model life-cycle management, experiments with multiple algorithms, and efficient use of GPU resources. The project aims to make it easier, faster and safer to take a model into production while using the same server architecture and APIs. “TensorFlow Serving uses the (previously trained) model to perform inference: predictions based on new data presented by its clients,” wrote Fiedel. “Since clients typically communicate with the serving system using a remote procedure call (RPC) interface, TensorFlow Serving comes with a reference front-end implementation based on gRPC, a high performance, open- source RPC framework from Google. It is quite common to launch and iterate on your model over time as new data becomes available, or as you improve the model. In fact, at Google, many pipelines run continuously, producing new model versions as new data becomes available.” The project is available on GitHub through the Apache 2.0 open-source license. It is written in C++, provides support for Linux, and uses minimal overhead. More information is available here . Top 5 projects trending on GitHub #1. Free Code Camp : Still trending! Featured in our GitHub project of the week many moons ago. #2. 30 Days of Swift : 30 days of 30 tiny Swift projects. #3. Hosts : A repository that consolidates several reputable host files from a variety of sources. #4. diff-so-fancy : Builds on output of Git contrib’s diff-highlight to upgrade your diffs’ appearances. #5. Awesome Postgres : Inspired by Awesome MySQL, a list of PostgreSQL software, libraries, tools and resources. 2016-02-19 09:00:51 Christina Mulligan View all posts by Christina Mulligan

100 The promise of predictive analytics for Web content Data is increasingly available, accessible and decipherable. You probably use it every day to help make personal decisions: tracking calories on your iPhone, browsing recommended movies based on what you’ve already viewed, seeing advertisements on your laptop and smartphone based on your browsing behavior and more. These insights are based on data collected from you -- and they are used to predict actions you might take in the future. In much the same way, predictive analytics enable content creators to use data to help them reach a particular audience. By mining data on numerous consumer preferences, including consumers’ purchasing history, reading preferences and browsing history, writers and editors would be able to figure out what type of content a target audience will find most valuable. “Seismic shifts in both technology and consumer behavior during the past decade have produced a granular, virtually infinite record of every action consumers take online,” Wes Nichols explained in the Harvard Business Review. “Add to that the oceans of data from DVRs and digital set-top boxes, retail checkout, credit card transactions, call center logs and myriad other sources, and you find that marketers now have access to a previously unimaginable trove of information about what consumers see and do. The opportunity is clear.” One important aspect of analytics is figuring out why people are visiting your site, and what content encourages them to stay. Research at one website showed that content analytics generated 77% more pageviews than content produced without analytics, meaning that predictive analysis can be leveraged to help companies create content that will more effectively grab their consumers’ attention. That’s because understanding who clicks on what content, or how long they stay there, can help content marketers create content that resonates with their audience. The effective use of content analytics can also dramatically improve a company’s ROI, often yielding improvements of up to 30% in marketing performance. So what is stopping digital publishers from applying the principles of predictive analytics to their audience to determine what content might resonate best? In a post for Medium , Parse.ly CTO Andrew Montalenti draws parallels between the predictive analytics models developed for financial markets and the media industry. “Content measurement is similar to market measurement: fast-moving time series ticks, loaded with important metadata, full of peaks and troughs [. . .] millions of correlations exist between trends in the content ecosystem. Traditional Web analytics products are the Wall Street equivalent of the raw market feed.” The challenge, of course, being that monetization is much more complicated in media companies. And actionability is not clearly defined for digital publishers: Data has mostly provided a rear-view mirror perspective. That’s why predictive analytics is so difficult in the media industry versus other areas. But Montalenti paints an interesting picture: What if we turned every editor and writer into a content trader? “Imagine: a content trading desk. Content suggestions stream on the screen. Based on topical trends, editors can make ‘buy’ or ‘sell’ decisions. ‘Buy’ means invest in content creation / licensing and grant it appropriate seed traffic. ‘Sell’ means starve it of attention and let it disappear from view.” To improve the ROI of your content marketing strategy, it is critical to understand what is working —and what isn’t. You need to understand what content is resonating most with your target audience and what metrics matter in the realm of digital publishing ; then you must use those metrics to refine your strategy. You can use comments, likes, shares, tweets, inbound links and more to measure engagement, views, downloads, social chatter and referral links that will help you to quantify brand awareness. Using analytics to measure how your content is received by your intended audience should always be a priority. As companies continue to improve their ability to extract increasingly precise and meaningful insights from big data, the importance of using analytics to craft an effective content marketing strategy will only increase. The uses of data are constantly expanding and improving, from engaging with consumers using real-time data to effectively leveraging audience insights by using audience reading paths. And while nothing is stopping digital publishers from applying the principles of predictive analytics to their audience to determine what content might resonate best, the challenge is to make the data immediately actionable. 2016-02-19 08:20:00 Sachin Kamdar

Total 100 articles. Created at 2016-02-20 12:03