Announcement

DC5m United States software in english 96 articles, created at 2016-11-17 02:04 articles set mostly positive rate 7.0

1 1.4 Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation as a platinum member (4.20/5) "Microsoft and the Linux Foundation may have had our disagreements in the past,", the Foundation's Jim Zemlin said today, "but one thing we've always agreed on is that developers are super-important. " 2016-11-16 16:12 2KB feedproxy.google.com

2 1.6 Microsoft introduces Visual Studio Mobile Center Microsoft has announced Visual Studio Mobile Center, promising a "mission control for (2.14/5) mobile apps", through which you can build, test, distribute and monitor your apps, and add backend cloud services. 2016-11-16 19:42 2KB feedproxy.google.com

3 2.7 Microsoft Photos updated for everyone with Windows Ink support Microsoft finally updated its Photos app for non-Insiders today to include Windows Ink (2.08/5) support. Users will now be able to use a pen or their finger to draw on their favorite photos. 2016-11-16 17:26 1KB feedproxy.google.com

4 2.0 Microsoft offers 'concessions' to EU antitrust regulators over $26.2bn LinkedIn deal (2.06/5) After EU antitrust regulators raised concerns about its proposed $26.2 billion LinkedIn acquisition last week, the European Commission said today that Microsoft has offered concessions over the deal. 2016-11-16 13:48 2KB feedproxy.google.com

5 2.2 Microsoft Pledges to Completely Retire Office 2007 Next Year

(1.05/5) No extension will be given to Office 2007 support 2016-11-16 06:42 2KB news.softpedia.com

6 4.8 Twitter suspends several alt-right accounts Twitter has suspended the accounts of several prominent members of the so-called "alt-right" in an apparent purge. 2016-11-16 18:20 1KB phys.org

(1.02/5)

7 0.8 Google boosts post-Brexit UK with plans for $1 billion London HQ (1.02/5) Following the UK’s decision to leave the EU earlier this year, a number of US companies raised the price of their products as a result of the weakened pound. There were also fears that Brexit could harm foreign investment, but… 2016-11-16 16:15 2KB www.techspot.com 8 2.2 Snapchat has filed for its IPO

(1.02/5) Snap Inc., the recently appointed parent company of Snapchat, is reportedly moving forward with the intent of making its debut on the stock market in early 2017. Sources familiar with the matter tell Reuters that Snapchat has confidentially filed with… 2016-11-16 15:30 1KB www.techspot.com

9 2.8 Budget Android phones found to be sending personally identifiable data to China, regularly (1.02/5) Budget smartphones from some manufacturers reportedly contain a willfully added backdoor, that sends text messages containing details such as location history and call logs to Chinese servers. 2016-11-16 11:04 2KB feedproxy.google.com

10 1.0 iOS Flaw Allows Anyone to Bypass iPhone Passcode and Access Photos and Messages (1.00/5) Critical security flaw found in iOS 8 to 10.2 2016-11-16 19:52 2KB news.softpedia.com

11 0.8 5 mobile apps every network administrator and helpdesk professional need Every IT pro has been there: You're with a user and need access to a tool that lives on a desktop in the office. These five apps eliminate the problem by turning your smartphone into an IT multitool. 2016-11-16 19:51 4KB www.techrepublic.com

12 2.5 AWS rolls out SaaS subscriptions on the AWS Marketplace The new SaaS offerings have no monthly fees or subscription costs and instead lets customers pay as they use on an existing AWS bill. 2016-11-16 19:40 1KB www.zdnet.com

13 5.6 Two creative ways to use Word watermarks Learn how to use Word's easy-to-implement watermarks feature to add creative enhancements to your document. 2016-11-16 19:37 5KB www.techrepublic.com

14 1.4 Teardown of 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar reveals fake speaker grills, fragile Touch Bar Apple hardware is notorious for being difficult to repair and the company’s latest addition, the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, is no exception as the team over at iFixit recently discovered. 2016-11-16 19:30 2KB www.techspot.com

15 4.5 Fantastic Beasts Stickers Come to Google Allo A new set of emoji and stickers gets released 2016-11-16 19:23 2KB news.softpedia.com 16 2.2 Xiaomi's Mi MIX stress test shows impressive durability thanks to its ceramic body Xiaomi's Mi MIX was a surprising last minute announcement that offered a unique bezel-less display. In a new set of tests, the Mi MIX shows it is quite durable, thanks to its ceramic exterior. 2016-11-16 19:00 1KB feedproxy.google.com

17 1.0 Battlefield 1 on PS4 Pro packs higher frame rate for multiplayer advantage Despite Sony claiming that the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro would offer the same multiplayer experience in games, recent Battlefield 1 performance testing has suggested the opposite. 2016-11-16 18:45 2KB www.techspot.com

18 1.0 Windows 10 Insider Preview build 14965 heads to PCs in the Slow ring After releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview build 14965 to PCs in the Fast ring last week, Microsoft has found the Creators Update build to be stable enough to make its way to the Slow ring today. 2016-11-16 18:26 1KB feedproxy.google.com

19 2.9 Report looks into Android device customization, Kony Mobility Platform, and Google makes exploring AI easy —SD Times news digest: Nov. 16, 2016 How Android developers like mobile applications; Kony releases a new technology; Google creates AI Experiments for all explorers 2016-11-16 18:12 4KB sdtimes.com

20 2.7 Amazon will discount its Prime membership by 20% this Friday In order to celebrate its upcoming show, The Grand Tour, Amazon will discount its Prime membership service by 20%. The discount will be a limited offer and will only be available for one day. 2016-11-16 18:10 1KB feedproxy.google.com

21 1.8 Google Makes Machine Learning Available To Enterprise IT At its machine learning event, Google put on a display of APIs for use in automated image analysis and categorization -- and for the translation of 103 languages. The company joins AWS and Microsoft in offering more of these services through the cloud. 2016-11-16 18:05 4KB www.informationweek.com

22 5.0 ZTE Grand X 4 Lands at Cricket Wireless for $129.99, for Sale on November 18

A decent 5.5-inch phone with Snapdragon CPU, 13MP camera 2016-11-16 17:57 2KB news.softpedia.com 23 0.8 Walmart will be selling the NES Classic Edition for a few minutes each day all week If you missed the initial release of the NES Classic Edition late last week, you will be happy to know that Walmart will be restocking the coveted console over the next couple days. 2016-11-16 17:10 1KB feedproxy.google.com

24 0.0 Facebook says it erred measuring audience reach (Update) Facebook on Wednesday said that it is working to fix flaws in its metrics calculations that led to the audience being overestimated at times. 2016-11-16 17:06 2KB phys.org

25 2.2 The Linux Foundation Issues Free E-Book on Open Source License Compliance Best Practices The Linux Foundation today released a free e-book, Open Source Compliance in the Enterprise, that serves as a practical guide for organizations on how best to use open source code and participate in open source communities while complying with the spirit and the letter of open source licensing. 2016-11-16 17:05 4KB www.linux.com

26 2.2 29% off Hubsan X4 RC Quad Copter with Camera - Deal Alert For the currently discounted price of just $37, the X4 from Hubsan is a pretty respectable quadcopter. It's extremely easy to fly, with a 6-axis flight control system and adjustable gyro sensitivity. It features a camera as well. Perfect for a beginner... 2016-11-16 17:05 1KB www.javaworld.com

27 1.7 Facebook identifies additional metrics that have been misreported Facebook said in a blog post published Wednesday that several of its advertising and marketing-related metrics have been miscalculated due to a variety of discrepancies and bugs. 2016-11-16 17:00 2KB www.techspot.com

28 1.3 : Sony’s PlayStation VR is immersive, comfortable, and when combined with the PS4 Pro, incredibly impressive Two years after initially announcing PlayStation VR, Sony has launched PlayStation VR in the UK. PlayStation VR is powered by a standard PlayStation 4 and not a high end PC, so does that mean a lower quality experience when compared to the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift... 2016-11-16 16:58 6KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk

29 3.2 Prynt grabs $7 million for its photo-printing phone case Prynt just raised a $7 million Series A round led by GGV Capital. Prynt turns your smartphone into a Polaroid camera thanks to a phone case that can print.. 2016-11-16 16:52 3KB feedproxy.google.com 30 2.0 NBA 2K17 will reward players for achieving Fitbit goals Surely the inherent irony of never leaving the couch to play a sports video game isn’t lost on many players. And while the occasional innovation like the.. 2016-11-16 16:51 1KB feedproxy.google.com

31 3.3 T-Mobile Announces Black Friday Deals in a Funny Way

Free Galaxy S7 when you trade in a Galaxy S6, and more 2016-11-16 16:51 2KB news.softpedia.com

32 6.2 Virtual Instruments acquires Xangati Combined company creates industry’s first end-to-end application-centric infrastructure performance management and analytics solution 2016-11-16 16:41 4KB sdtimes.com

33 2.0 Microsoft Steps Up Its Commitment to Open Source Today The Linux Foundation is announcing that we’ve welcomed Microsoft as a Platinum member. I’m honored to join Scott Guthrie, executive VP of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise Group, at the Connect(); developer event in New York and expect to be able to talk more... 2016-11-16 16:40 3KB www.linux.com

34 1.1 Google Earth brings its breathtaking views into VR Google may have just launched its major consumer virtual reality effort, Google Daydream, last week, but the company is showing no signs of slowing.. 2016-11-16 16:21 1KB feedproxy.google.com

35 3.2 IBM opens new Cambridge, MA security headquarters with massive cyber range It was a big day for IBM today as it opened its shiny new security headquarters in Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA, complete with what the company is calling.. 2016-11-16 16:00 4KB feedproxy.google.com

36 1.0 Apple makes 2016 MacBook Pro harder to repair and upgrade Apple is obsessed with making its products smaller and lighter -- and this shows with the latest-generation MacBook Pro. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch models are more portable than their predecessors, making the prosumer line a much better choice for road warriors. But,... 2016-11-16 15:54 3KB feeds.betanews.com

37 7.1 Is It Worth the Upgrade? Luckily, the price difference between the two isn't that big 2016-11-16 15:54 2KB news.softpedia.com 38 4.0 Digital transformation not a finite process, says Martin Kuppinger Security, privacy and identity are key to digital transformation, which is an evolutionary process, according to Martin Kuppinger. 2016-11-16 15:30 3KB www.computerweekly.com

39 0.0 OnePlus' new 3T flagship costs 10% more than the 3 in the US, but 21% more in the UK While its new flagship costs 10% more than its predecessor in the US and Europe, the OnePlus 3T is priced 21% higher than the 3 in the UK - four months after a 6.5% Brexit-related price rise. 2016-11-16 15:20 2KB feedproxy.google.com

40 1.6 Best business antivirus: 8 top paid security tools for small businesses

Keep your endpoints safe from harm 2016-11-16 15:10 9KB feedproxy.google.com

41 0.0 Karma ransomware bundles itself with free software downloads A ransomware variant called Karma has been discovered packaging itself with free software downloads. It disguises itself as a program called Windows-Tuneup, which pretends to speed up a computer. 2016-11-16 15:04 2KB feedproxy.google.com

42 1.1 Monitoring Network Load With nload: Part 1 On a continually changing network, it is often difficult to spot issues because of the amount of noise generated by expected network traffic. Even when communications are seemingly quiet, a packet sniffer will display screeds of noisy data. That data might be otherwise unseen broadcast traffic... 2016-11-16 15:00 7KB www.linux.com

43 2.6 Family plans are now available for Amazon's Music Unlimited service As was promised when the company first launched the service, family plans are now available for Amazon's Music Unlimited. It will cost $14.99 per month or $149 per year for up to six people. 2016-11-16 14:50 1KB feedproxy.google.com

44 5.0 Samsung Buys RCS Company to Offer Solutions to Carriers Without Infrastructure

RCS services in the US are not compatible between networks 2016-11-16 14:38 2KB news.softpedia.com

45 2.2 Eve Online is finally offering a free-to-play option Even if you’ve never played Eve Online, you’ll have probably heard stories about it. The MMORPG space sim has been around for 13 years, during which time hundreds of thousands of players have signed up to its $15 per month… 2016-11-16 14:30 2KB www.techspot.com 46 1.9 Apple rumored to be launching three new iPhones next year, one with OLED screen According to a credible new report, Apple is looking to launch as many as three new iPhones in 2017. Each will hit various sizes and price points, with the highest-end one featuring an OLED screen. 2016-11-16 14:18 2KB feedproxy.google.com

47 0.6 Jennifer Cloer on Working with Linus Torvalds, Open Source and Women in Tech “I’ve had the opportunity to be at the forefront of some of the most disruptive technologies in the history of computing, it’s an amazing and unique experience,” said Jennifer Cloer, former Director of Communications at the Linux Foundation. 2016-11-16 14:15 1KB www.linux.com

48 0.4 Finding an online advertising compromise How can the internet balance targeted advertising with privacy concerns? A novel approach to targeted advertising would allow companies to offer users relevant advertisements without having to expend energy tracking and data mining putative customers and without those customers having to compromise their privacy, according to research published... 2016-11-16 14:11 3KB phys.org

49 3.4 Save 81% off this AWS Security Master Class via Neowin Deals With today's highlighted deal, you can save $129 off this AWS Security Master Class. Become an Amazon Web Services Security Wiz in 10 quick hours via Neowin Deals. 2016-11-16 14:02 2KB feedproxy.google.com

50 1.9 S​ lack Enterprise coming early 2017, aims to make sprawl manageable Slack's enterprise version is around the corner and companies will welcome features to better manage the service at scale. 2016-11-16 13:55 2KB www.zdnet.com

51 0.0 Samsung Gear S3 Arrives at T-Mobile on November 18, but It's More Expensive

The carrier will have it for sale for $399 outright 2016-11-16 13:51 2KB news.softpedia.com

52 1.1 Why do iPhone 6 and 6s models suddenly stop working? The China Consumers Association is asking Apple to investigate why certain iPhone models have suddenly stopped working. A "considerable number" of users is reportedly being impacted by the issues. 2016-11-16 13:32 1KB feedproxy.google.com 53 2.7 MSI launches powerful small form factor PC for VR gaming MSI has revealed a new small form factor gaming PC called the Trident, aimed at gamers who want to enter the world of virtual reality without building a massive desktop system. 2016-11-16 13:30 2KB www.techspot.com

54 6.2 GitHub Enterprise Updated to Version 2.8 An upgraded GitHub includes a host of new features including projects tool and code review. 2016-11-16 13:30 4KB www.eweek.com

55 4.3 5 things AIs can do better than us AIs are giving us a kicking in board games and video games, but what else are they good for? 2016-11-16 13:26 6KB www.infoworld.com

56 6.7 CCleaner 5.24 for Windows Now Available for Download

New version of the system cleaning app released today 2016-11-16 13:15 1KB www.softpedia.com

57 4.2 Firefox 50.0 arrives for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android, adds new features The open-source browser adds a smattering of new features as it hits the half-century of releases. 2016-11-16 13:07 2KB www.zdnet.com

58 0.7 Koch Industries' investment arm buys more than $2 bln stake in Infor SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 16- The investment arm of Koch Industries, the industrial conglomerate of the billionaire Koch brothers, is spending more than $2 billion to take a significant stake in enterprise software provider Infor, the companies said on Wednesday. Koch Industries, with... 2016-11-16 12:54 4KB www.cnbc.com

59 1.0 How storage can help fight malware [Q&A] We tend to think of storage as being a target when it comes to malware attacks with cyber criminals seeking to steal data or encrypt it to demand a ransom. But in fact technology can make storage part of the solution. We tend to think of storage as... 2016-11-16 12:40 6KB feeds.betanews.com

60 0.8 Sega has created a modern version of arcade favorite Daytona USA Daytona USA, one of the highest grossing arcade games of all time, is long overdue for a sequel and Sega is delivering. 2016-11-16 12:30 2KB www.techspot.com 61 0.0 Here's how the OnePlus 3 and 3T will get OxygenOS 3.5, Android 7.0 Nougat, and other updates OnePlus' messaging about its new 3T flagship and upcoming software updates has been a bit confusing, but we've dug through the info and deciphered the update puzzle to find out what you can expect. 2016-11-16 12:18 4KB feedproxy.google.com

62 1.7 You can save up to £110 on some Surface Pro 4 models in the UK, now available from £699 Chunky discounts are now available on some Surface Pro 4 models in the UK, including £110 off the Core i5 / 8GB RAM / 256GB SSD version, along with savings on the most affordable entry-level tablet. 2016-11-16 12:02 1KB feedproxy.google.com

63 5.9 openSUSE Leap 42.2 Officially Released, Includes GNOME 3.20 & KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS

It's powered by the long-term supported Linux 4.4 kernel 2016-11-16 12:01 3KB news.softpedia.com

64 3.8 Linux Dominates November TOP500 Supercomputer List The latest semi-annual list of the world's top 500 supercomputers was released on November 14, showing little change at the top of the list. 2016-11-16 12:00 954Bytes www.linux.com

65 3.5 BSi opens consultation on government-style information classification standard BS 10010 will provide an information classification standard to sit alongside IT security policies,Security,Software ,security 2016-11-16 11:59 2KB www.computing.co.uk

66 3.6 Singapore tests digital currency system to ease bank payments Singapore will launch a new electronic payment system using blockchain, the technology behind the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, the city-state's central bank chief said Wednesday. 2016-11-16 11:56 1KB phys.org

67 0.4 China bans 'fatty' Kim Jong Un nickname on websites Chinese websites are censoring "Kim Fatty the Third," a nickname widely used to disparage North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, after officials from his country reportedly conveyed their displeasure in a meeting with their Chinese counterparts. 2016-11-16 11:55 2KB phys.org

68 2.0 Eclipse Che cloud IDE joins Docker revolution Eclipse Che 5.0 also adds support for Language Server Protocol and Red Hat's OpenShift 2016-11-16 11:00 2KB www.computerworld.com.au 69 0.9 | Pokémon Sun review: New Pokémon, an improved battle system and lots to do in Alola make Sun and Moon the very best, like no-one ever was With Pokémon Sun & Moon Game Freak brings a new sense of curiosity and wonder to the Pokémon franchise, but has it done enough? Here's what we think, in our Pokémon Sun & Moon review. Pokémon Sun review. Pokémon Moon review. 2016-11-16 10:57 8KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk

70 3.3 Download of the day: DRL Drone Racing Simulator Start your props 2016-11-16 10:51 2KB feedproxy.google.com

71 2.3 Nvidia Game Ready 375.86 drivers cause massive performance issues Nvidia's latest Game Ready drivers, 375.86 WHQL, were supposed to optimize machines for new gaming titles. Instead, the new drivers are significantly decreasing performance and causing flickering. 2016-11-16 10:48 2KB feedproxy.google.com

72 5.9 Antivirus Firms Unite Against Microsoft Push for Windows Defender in Windows 10

Kaspersky receive the support of other security companies 2016-11-16 10:44 2KB news.softpedia.com

73 6.2 Download Drivers for Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga 710-14 2-in-1 Notebook

The available files are compatible with Windows 10 64-bit 2016-11-16 10:40 1KB drivers.softpedia.com

74 1.4 HP unveils the Z2 Mini workstation, 'smaller than a cup of espresso' HP has unveiled a brand new workstation, but this device is focused on design and saving users space. The Z2 Mini is small enough to fit in your bag, but still packs a punch in terms of performance. 2016-11-16 10:32 2KB feedproxy.google.com

75 1.7 Mozilla Firefox 50 trims start-up times, widens download protection Mozilla has released Firefox 50.0 for Windows, Mac and Linux, with Firefox for Android 50.0 due imminently. For the second release in a row it’s launched a week late, but this time the reason behind the pause is different. Mozilla has released Firefox... 2016-11-16 10:30 3KB feeds.betanews.com

76 0.0 Shazam for Mac Keeps the Microphone On Even After Users Manually Turn It Off

This is a feature, not a bug, Shazam says 2016-11-16 10:20 2KB news.softpedia.com 77 3.1 New ransomware taps into social media accounts before demanding users to pay up New ransomware has recently been seen searching victims' computers for illegally downloaded content in addition to social media accounts before threatening them with a bogus penalty notice. 2016-11-16 10:16 2KB feedproxy.google.com

78 4.7 Adobe uses shared responsibility to meet security challenges Adobe has found ways of addressing security challenges of scalability, diverse technology stacks and business criticality 2016-11-16 10:15 2KB www.computerweekly.com

79 1.9 G4S CIO says DevOps shift requires full business buy-in, not just from IT team Nick Folkes says whole business must be made to understand how set-up works,Business Software,Developer,Cloud Computing ,DevOps,Digital Technology 2016-11-16 10:10 3KB www.v3.co.uk

80 0.0 NSA chief admits nation state meddled in US election Did Russia help secure the candidate Putin knew would be easier to handle?,Government,Web,Law,Cloud Computing ,Russia,Hacking 2016-11-16 10:00 2KB www.v3.co.uk

81 2.5 Intel will invest $250 million in self-driving cars over next two years Intel's CEO took the stage at a big auto show yesterday to announce the company's plans for self-driving cars. Intel wants to develop new technology and push the market with a $250 million investment. 2016-11-16 10:00 2KB feedproxy.google.com

82 0.8 Adobe Fined $1 Million for 2013 Hack That Affected Millions of Users The firm will also implement security measures to prevent further breaches and will review policies twice per year 2016-11-16 09:56 2KB news.softpedia.com

83 5.3 Facebook’s ‘unified inbox’ will make it easier for customers to be heard

Brings together Facebook, Messenger and Instagram under one roof 2016-11-16 09:50 2KB feedproxy.google.com

84 0.6 What you need to know about federated identity As we conduct more and more of our work and personal lives using information technology, we have to sign in to lots of different systems. That can mean many different sets of credentials which can be hard to manage. As we conduct more and more of our... 2016-11-16 09:40 7KB feeds.betanews.com 85 1.8 Samsung Galaxy S7 Explodes in Man's Hands, Causes Him Second-Degree Burns

He is now unable to work for at least one month 2016-11-16 09:27 2KB news.softpedia.com

86 1.6 Microsoft's Azure Bot Services make it easy to build your own bot Leading on from the launch of its Bot Framework earlier this year, Microsoft has announced the launch of Azure Bot Service, representing the world's first cloud bot solution. 2016-11-16 09:20 2KB feedproxy.google.com

87 2.2 iPhone 7 Headphone Jack Adapters Start Tearing After Only One Month

Users complaining about dongles already tearing 2016-11-16 09:05 2KB news.softpedia.com

88 2.2 How to Avoid Burnout Managing an Open Source Project Regardless of where you work in the stack, if you work with open source software, there’s likely been a time when you faced burnout and other unhealthy side effects related to your work on open source projects. 2016-11-16 09:00 1KB www.linux.com

89 6.2 The source for Linux information Industry leader Martin Fowler provides some ''value'' in using ValueObjects, particularly small ones. 2016-11-16 09:00 1KB www.linux.com

90 0.0 Huawei P10 Prototype Leaks in Live Images Some specs of the phone have emerged as well 2016-11-16 08:54 2KB news.softpedia.com

91 6.2 Working with Images in Java Explore the key aspects of working with images using the core API library. 2016-11-16 08:15 6KB www.developer.com

92 1.6 Report: Linux, NoSQL, Nginx Set Foundation for AWS App Dominance If you’ve built a new app in AWS, odds are you’re running it on Linux, with a NoSQL data store and Nginx to serve it to your users. 2016-11-16 08:00 1KB www.linux.com 93 3.2 Forward Networks’ SDN Pioneers Want to Make the Network Less Error-Prone Forward Networks, a startup whose founders include software-defined networking (SDN) pioneer David Erickson, is launching today with a management tool to simplify network operations. 2016-11-16 07:00 1KB www.linux.com

94 4.0 PowerApps Launch Programming book reviews, programming tutorials,programming news, C#, Ruby, Python,C, C++, PHP, Visual Basic, Computer book reviews, computer history, programming history, joomla, theory, spreadsheets and more. 2016-11-16 06:33 3KB www.i-programmer.info

95 2.3 The Best Laptops When choosing the right laptop it all comes down to what you are willing to spend and what you plan to use it for. After looking this year's releases and analyzing hundreds of expert and user reviews, we bring you the best of the best in a... 2016-11-16 06:24 20KB www.techspot.com

96 4.2 ASX-listed enterprise imaging provider Mach7 completes AU$9m raise Mach7, a US company which provides diagnostic imaging solutions to medical enterprises, has announced the completion of a AU$9 million capital raise. 2016-11-16 04:05 3KB www.zdnet.com Articles

DC5m United States software in english 96 articles, created at 2016-11-17 02:04

1 /96 1.4 Microsoft joins the Linux Foundation as a platinum member (4.20/5) As we explained in a feature article earlier this week , Microsoft is a very different company today compared with how it used to be. Two decades ago, the idea of the firm enthusiastically embracing open source was unimaginable, but at its Connect() developer conference in New York City today, Chris Wanstrath, CEO of GitHub, highlighted the fact that Microsoft is now the top contributor on that open source community.

It once would have seemed similarly unlikely too that Microsoft would run towards Linux with open arms - but today, Microsoft's Scott Guthrie announced that the company is joining the Linux Foundation as a platinum member.

Of course, in recent years, Microsoft has been strengthening its relationship with the Linux community, including bringing ChakraCore and Skype to Linux in the last few months.

Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, said today that "Microsoft and the Linux Foundation may have had our disagreements in the past, but one thing we've always agreed on is that developers are super-important. " In joining the Foundation, he said that Microsoft will become "better able to collaborate with the open source community to deliver transformative mobile and cloud experiences to more people".

"To the skeptics out there," he added, "what I want to say is a) we'd like to welcome Microsoft to the Linux Foundation, but b) as the largest employer of software developers in the world, and working on all these projects in open source, Microsoft's already there. "

And it looks like this relationship is built to last. Zemlin concluded: "My final thought to you would be: if Microsoft loves Linux, on behalf of the over 800 members of the Linux Foundation... we love you too. " Microsoft and Google bury Microsoft seeks to grow Microsoft doubles down on Microsoft's Linux love affair the hatchet in one small way Azure platform with Linux love, joins foundation leads it to join The Linux infoworld.com products, partnerships infoworld.com Foundation sdtimes.com zdnet.com

Microsoft contributes to open ecosystem by joining Linux Foundation and welcoming Google to the .NET community news.microsoft.com

2016-11-16 16:12 Andy Weir feedproxy.google.com

2 /96 1.6 Microsoft introduces Visual Studio Mobile Center

(2.14/5) This week, Microsoft is hosting its Connect() developer conference, where it's already made a series of announcements for software creators on all platforms. In addition to joining the Linux Foundation as a platinum member , there was plenty of news about its Visual Studio tools too.

Visual Studio for Mac made its official debut today, and a release candidate of its new Visual Studio 2017 suite has also been released. On top of that, the company introduced its new Visual Studio Mobile Center, a range of cloud services and tools to help developers build and manage their mobile apps.

Microsoft describes VS Mobile Center as "a mission control for mobile apps that brings together all the cloud and lifecycle services" needed to enable smooth mobile development. Devs can use it to build, test, distribute and monitor their apps, as well as adding backend cloud services, with the ability to scale them to meet any number of users.

Key features available at launch include:

Microsoft is already working on further additions, including "expanded platform support for Cordova and the Universal Windows Platform, as well as additional cloud services such as push notifications and advanced analytics". Next year, Mobile Center will also integrate new and existing HockeyApp and Test Cloud apps.

To begin using the Visual Studio Mobile Center preview, you can request an invitation now. Once you're approved, you'll be able to sign in with your login details from HockeyApp, GitHub or your Microsoft Account.

Microsoft Visual Studio for Microsoft formally The next versions of Visual Extending Visual Studio "15" Mac is now official, preview announces Visual Studio Studio are here on Windows infoq.com available to download 2017, offers a release ... and Mac feedproxy.google.com candidate infoworld.com feedproxy.google.com

2016-11-16 19:42 Andy Weir feedproxy.google.com

3 /96 2.7 Microsoft Photos updated for everyone with Windows Ink support (2.08/5) It was back in March at Microsoft's Build 2016 developer conference that the company announced Windows Ink , which would be new pen features coming in the Anniversary Update (AU). The firm said that users would be able to draw on maps and pictures via Windows Maps and Microsoft Photos, but while the former was updated in time for the AU , the latter was not.

Almost a month ago, Insiders on the Fast ring finally saw Windows Ink support in Photos , and today, the feature is finally rolling out to everyone. The new version number is 16.1111.10000.0, and all Windows 10 devices will receive it, although it seems that you can't use the pen features unless you're on the Anniversary Update.

When drawing on your pictures, you'll be able to choose from a pencil, pen, or marker. After you're done, you'll find that it will playback what you drew as you drew it, so you'll be able to share it as either a finished image, or as a video.

To download or update your Microsoft Photos app, click here .

Via Windows Central Microsoft Releases When will Microsoft end Windows 7 and 8.1 Preview support for your version of Update Rollups for Windows or Office? December zdnet.com news.softpedia.com

2016-11-16 17:26 Rich Woods feedproxy.google.com

4 /96 2.0 Microsoft offers 'concessions' to EU antitrust regulators over $26.2bn LinkedIn deal (2.06/5) In June, Microsoft announced its intention to purchase professional networking platform LinkedIn, in an all-cash deal worth $26.2 billion. An acquisition of this scale - with a potential impact on competitors - requires regulatory approval, and Microsoft hasn't yet received its blessing to proceed with the purchase from the European Union.

According to Reuters , antitrust regulators in the EU 'expressed concerns' about the deal to Microsoft executives last week, prompting the company to consider its options.

The European Commission said today that Microsoft has offered unspecified 'concessions' to regulators in an effort to allay their concerns. The Commission will deliver a ruling on the acquisition by December 6, when it may approve the deal with Microsoft's concessions, request further changes to the company's proposed purchase, or open a full investigation.

The latter option is obviously the least desirable one for Microsoft, as it would likely include a detailed and time-consuming probe into factors such as the impact of the acquisition on the wider marketplace.

Salesforce called for a full investigation into the deal in October, claiming that it "raises significant antitrust and data privacy issues that need to be fully scrutinized by competition and data privacy authorities in the United States and in the European Union". Microsoft president Brad Smith said that Salesforce's fears surrounding the acquisition were unfounded.

Source: Reuters Microsoft offers Microsoft Working with EU concessions to European over LinkedIn Deal, Says Commission over LinkedIn Facebook Competition Is deal Key computing.co.uk news.softpedia.com

2016-11-16 13:48 Andy Weir feedproxy.google.com

5 /96 2.2 Microsoft Pledges to Completely Retire Office 2007 Next Year (1.05/5) It goes without saying that many still hope to see Microsoft extending support beyond the cutoff date, as it happened with Windows XP, but the company says in a statement that there’s no way Office 2007 would receive updates and security patches beyond October 2017.

The purpose is obviously to convince users to switch to Office 365 or a newer version of the productivity suite, such as Office 2016, which the company is actively working on right now.

What’s important to know, however, is that Microsoft will no longer offer custom support either, so everyone will stop getting updates beyond the October 2017 deadline. Microsoft previously offered custom support to paying customers, such as companies or state department, in exchange for a fee, but this won’t be the case with Office 2007.

“The Office 2007 wave of products will be reaching end of support over the next 12 months, as per Microsoft Lifecycle Policy. After those end of support dates, we will no longer offer custom support on any version of Office products (Exchange Server; Office Suites; SharePoint Server; Office Communications Server; Lync Server; Skype for Business Server; Project Server and Visio),” the company explained.

Microsoft says demand for custom support is dropping, and this is one of the reasons the company wants to completely pull the old Office 2007 suite.

“In the past we have offered custom support for a subset of Office products to customers with Premier support contracts. We have seen demand for custom support decline as more customers move to Office 365. Note that this change applies only to custom support, but does not impact any of the standard support offerings,” the firm says. According to reports , Microsoft is currently considering offering an extension for Premier customers on Exchange 2007 with Service Pack 3, but this might be the only exception the company has in mind.

When will Microsoft end support for your version of Windows or Office? zdnet.com

2016-11-16 06:42 Bogdan Popa news.softpedia.com

6 /96 (1.02/5) 4.8 Twitter suspends several alt-right accounts Twitter declined comment, but noted that its policies forbid violent threats, hate speech or harassment, adding that it will take action against repeat offenders.

Richard Spencer, head of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank, says his personal Twitter account, as well as the accounts for the institute and his magazine, were all suspended this week without notification.

The Twitter accounts of alt-right personalities Paul Town, Pax Dickinson, Ricky Vaughn and John Rivers also were suspended.

Spencer, who is credited with popularizing the term "alt-right," says he didn't tweet anything recently that might provoke a suspension. He calls the suspensions a coordinated attack against users with certain viewpoints.

Explore further: CBS Twitter feeds are compromised

Could alt-right account bans spell the end of Twitter? feeds.betanews.com

2016-11-16 18:20 phys.org

7 /96 7 /96 0.8 Google boosts post-Brexit UK with plans for $1 billion London HQ (1.02/5) Following the UK’s decision to leave the EU earlier this year, a number of US companies raised the price of their products as a result of the weakened pound. There were also fears that Brexit could harm foreign investment, but Google has helped alleviate these worries by announcing a new London HQ and the creation of 3000 jobs by 2020.

Currency fluctuations have seen Apple , HTC , and a host of other firms increase the price of their UK goods this year, but Sundar Pichai believes the country is still an attractive place to do business. Speaking to the BBC , the Google CEO said: "We see big opportunities here. This is a big commitment from us - we have some of the best talent in the world in the UK and to be able to build great products from here sets us up well for the long term. "

Google’s investment, which will reach over $1 billion, will see a new building that’s 10-storeys high with 650,000 square feet of floorspace built near its Kings Cross offices. Google currently has around 4000 employees in the UK; a figure that could almost double to 7000 by the end of the decade.

The new site was first announced over three years ago, but founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin put the project on hold after they called the initial plans, by London-based architects AHMM, “too boring.” Google has been virtually silent on the subject up until now.

The revamped HQ has been designed by Thomas Heatherwick in collaboration with Danish architects Bjarke Ingels Group.

Pichai did warn that Brexit may have complicated “secondary effects” over the long term, but he didn’t go into specifics. He also added that the UK putting restrictions on the number of skilled migrants was a “worry.”

Google Doesn’t Care About Brexit, Plans Major Expansion in the UK news.softpedia.com

2016-11-16 16:15 Rob Thubron www.techspot.com

8 /96 8 /96 (1.02/5) 2.2 Snapchat has filed for its IPO Snap Inc., the recently appointed parent company of Snapchat, is reportedly moving forward with the intent of making its debut on the stock market in early 2017. Sources familiar with the matter tell Reuters that Snapchat has confidentially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the U. S. Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act which allows companies with less than $1 billion in annual revenue to do so in secret.

According to the publication, Snapchat will be valued at $20 billion to $25 billion when it goes public.

Snapchat got its start in 2012 as an ephemeral messaging app and has been instrumental in the rapid rise of messaging apps in general. A study by Nielsen last year found that on any given day, Snapchat reaches 41 percent of all 18 to 34 year-olds in the US. According to its advertising page, more than 100 million people now use Snapchat every day, watching over 10 billion videos per day.

As Reuters points out, investors up to this point have been concerned with the fact that Snapchat’s advertising sales are its only major source of revenue. That may no longer be the case, however, as the company in September unveiled video-capturing glasses that went on sale just last week through a vending machine tour across the US.

Due to their extremely limited nature, we're seeing the $130 Spectacles selling for as much as $1,000 on eBay.

Snap Inc. files to list on US stock market, with possible IPO in March 2017 feedproxy.google.com

2016-11-16 15:30 Shawn Knight www.techspot.com

9 /96 2.8 Budget Android phones found to be sending personally identifiable data to China, regularly (1.02/5) In the past year or so, Android vulnerabilities affecting nearly a billion users have been discovered and Google responded by issuing monthly updates. However, manufacturers might make things difficult for the search giant as some of them are reportedly adding backdoors that ping back data to servers in China.

According to research published by security firm Kryptowire, some Android smartphones from US based smartphone maker, BLU , were found to contain a pre-loaded application developed by Shanghai Adups Technology, which transmitted user data such as text messages, location information and call logs to Chinese servers every 72 hours.

Adups website mentions that it is one of the largest firmware-over-the-air (FOTA) provider with over 200 million smartphones using its update system. The user base of its monitoring application is close to 700 million. It is unclear whether the company is using the transmitted data for advertising purposes or state sponsored surveillance, but collecting such data is a matter of concern for all users.

Kryptowire managed to get a statement from BLU , which is one of the manufacturers found to be shipping the program on its devices. The company said,

According to a representative for Adups in the US, the software was accidentally shipped on the BLU smartphones and was intended only for use in China to flag spammers. Even though BLU has addressed the issue for now, users buying budget smartphones should be aware of the risks involved as these devices rarely receive any updates as well. Also, most BLU phones are made by Chinese OEMs, which can contain such backdoors if not checked thoroughly by quality assurance teams.

Source: Kryptowire , The New York Times via The Verge

Some U.S. Android Phones Have Secret Backdoor That Sends Data to China news.softpedia.com

2016-11-16 11:04 Shreyas Gandhe feedproxy.google.com

10 /96 1.0 iOS Flaw Allows Anyone to Bypass iPhone Passcode and Access Photos and Messages (1.00/5) Discovered by EverythingApplePro and iDeviceHelps, this glitch uses Siri to break into the device, and all it takes is a few simple steps. What’s more important to know is that the same flaw exists on iOS 8 and newer, including 10.2 beta 3, but Apple is very likely to patch it in the next beta now that it has gone public. First and foremost, what you need to do is to find out the phone number of victim’s iPhone, and in case you don’t know it just yet, simply ask Siri “Who am I?” As mentioned, this involves having access to the iPhone you want to break into.

The next step comes down to calling the victim’s phone using the phone number previously obtained from Siri – you can also start a FaceTime call, that will do it too. Click Message and then Custom Message to proceed to the New Message screen when you are allowed to type a reply.

Next, activate Siri using the Home button and say “Turn on Voice Over.” You’ll hear a confirmation message saying “OK, I turned on VoiceOver” and then go back to the message screen.

The next step might not succeed from the first attempt, so you may have to try several times: double tap the bar where you input the caller’s name and then hold, while immediately click on the keyboard. Repeat as many times as needed until you see a slide-in effect on the screen above the keyboard. You can then ask Siri to “Turn off VoiceOver.”

Next, simply type in the first letter of a contact’s name in the top bar, tap the circular “i” icon next to the name, and then create a new contact. Select add photo, choose photo , and you’re in. You should be able to see the gallery just like you’d browse the phone, even though the iPhone is still in the locked state.

Reading messages is possible by simply selecting any contact, and you should be able to see all previous conversations with that contact.

Until Apple fixes this bug, the easiest way to stay safe is to disable Siri on the lock screen. To do this, launch Settings and go to Siri > Access on Lock Screen and toggle the switch to disable.

Apple is most likely aware of the bug already, so expect a fix to be provided in the coming days. The full version of iOS 10.2 will most certainly include a patch against this flaw.

Some U.S. Android Phones Have Secret Backdoor That Sends Data to China news.softpedia.com 2016-11-16 19:52 Bogdan Popa news.softpedia.com

11 /96 0.8 5 mobile apps every network administrator and helpdesk professional need Have you ever had to call the office to get a problem solved? Say a user is locked out in AD, an unknown device is interfering with network quality, or a VM needs rebooting. Those situations can be embarrassing for IT professionals: I've been there. Users lose faith, resolution time ticks up, and tickets keep coming in.

Our ever-increasingly wired world has eliminated a lot of those problems with mobile apps you may not even be aware of. Here are five that can take the place of your desktop or a call to the office.

This category encompasses two different apps because there simply isn't one standard for Android and iOS. Microsoft hasn't released an official Active Directory mobile app so developers have been forced to build their own.

Active Directory Assist for iOS and ADManager Plus for Android are two of the higher rated apps available. Both are free to download but some advanced features require a one-time purchase.

SEE: Help Desk Policy (Tech Pro Research)

IT departments would be well served to give their staff the ability to work AD magic on the road, making the low cost worth it.

Keeping an eye on the machines on a network is typically done using a small client app that runs on workstations which communicate with a central server. Pulseway is yet another RMM platform, but it's designed to be mobile.

With a web portal, iOS , and Android apps available Pulseway is made to unchain the helpdesk and speed resolution times. The mobile app is free, and a trial of the whole suite is available as well.

I used to work in an IT environment that relied heavily on VMware, and I came out of it wishing virtual machines were more stable and easier to work with. If I'd had access to vSphere Mobile Watchlist I might be singing a different tune today. vSphere Mobile Watchlist is an iOS and Android app that allows IT professionals to "remediate problems directly from (their) device" by stopping, restarting, power cycling, pausing, and other steps that typically fix virtual machines.

A word of warning: VMware seems to have fallen behind on keeping the app up to date, at least according to the app's community page . Sometimes unknown machines pop up on a network. It could be a user error or it could be malicious intrusion. Network scanning apps like Fing are designed to help IT professionals figure that out in a hurry.

SEE: Survey: Spending on enterprise mobile apps is up, will continue to increase for the next three years (TechRepublic)

Fing is completely free and if you have an account it can notify you of network changes, new devices, and potential intrusion. It can be used to troubleshoot a variety of issues as well. You can get Fing on iOS and Android and there's no reason you shouldn't.

There's a lot to be said for free or single payment IT management apps, but using multiple services means they're not integrated. If a one-stop app is more your style ITmanager.net is worth checking out.

Designed to be a completely mobile platform, ITmanager.net integrates practically everything you need to resolve issues away from the helpdesk. There are simply too many features to cover in a couple of paragraphs, so check out our review of the whole suite here. Keep in mind that the article is as few years old, and quite a few things have likely changed.

ITmanager.net has several pricing tiers that make it very affordable for the two-person shop all the way up to the largest enterprise.

Also see

2016-11-16 19:51 Brandon Vigliarolo www.techrepublic.com

12 /96 2.5 AWS rolls out SaaS subscriptions on the AWS Marketplace Amazon Web Services announced Wednesday that customers can now subscribe to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Application Programming Interface (API) products directly through AWS Marketplace.

In a blog post, AWS chief evangelist Jeff Barr said the new SaaS offerings have no monthly fees or subscription costs and instead lets customers pay as they use on an existing AWS bill.

"For example, you can buy security services on a per-host basis, log processing on a per-GB-ingested basis, geocoding on a per-request basis, or caching on a per- GB-cached basis," Barr wrote.

Signups are supposedly quick and seamless: Customers choose a subscription plan on AWS Marketplace and receive an email confirmation with login credentials within minutes. The offering is clearly a boon to vendors selling on the AWS Marketplace, as it will allow them greater access the AWS customer base.

At launch, AWS is offering 24 products from 21 sellers, with plans to add "dozens" more over the next few months. The first crop of vendors includes Alert Logic, Aspera, Avalara, Bitium, Cloudinary, Cloudyn, Datadog, Datapath.io, Dome9, Druva, HERE, NetApp, New Relic, Pitney Bowes, Qubole, Dynatrace, Signiant, Solano, Solodev, Sumo Logic, and Trend Micro.

2016-11-16 19:40 Natalie Gagliordi www.zdnet.com

13 /96 5.6 Two creative ways to use Word watermarks A watermark is text or a graphic that, seemingly, appears behind the main document. You've probably seen them used to display status information or possibly warnings, such as draft and confidential. Adding a watermark to a Word document is easy, but there's more to the feature than you might realize. In this article, I'll show you how to add a watermark and then explore two ways you can get more out of the feature than you might think!

I'm using Word 2016 on a Windows 10 64- bit system, but you can use these instructions in all ribbon versions. You can work with your own document or download the demonstration.docx file. Word 2003 also has a watermark feature, but I haven't included instructions for that version here. This article assumes that you have basic knowledge of Word headers and sections.

First, you need to know how to insert a watermark, such as the one shown in Figure A. With the document open, do the following:

A watermark is a shape—not true text. Using the preset options, the watermark is limited; you can open the header to select it, and then resize it, move it, and rotate it.

Inserting a preset watermark is certainly easy, but occasionally, you'll want more flexibility. When that happens, you can insert a custom watermark. Simply repeat the above process, but at step 3, choose Custom Watermark to open the Printed Watermark dialog, shown in Figure C. Using these options, you can insert a graphic or custom text. When inserting a graphic, navigate to the file and insert it. Word offers lots of formatting options for custom text.

When inserting a custom watermark, you have access to several format and position options. We won't discuss them here because they're self-explanatory; explore them later. You might never need any more than the basic feature, but you can do a bit more with them.

You can use a custom watermark to insert customized text or a graphic, but Word will still position it in the center of the page. That behavior can be problematic if you're working with columns, and you want the watermark to appear behind each column. Fortunately, it can be done, and you might be surprised how easy it is! Use the instructions above to insert a watermark as you normally would. In this case, consider using a custom watermark for the sake of experience. I used a logo and unchecked the Washout option so it's easier to see. With a watermark in your columnar document, as shown in Figure D , open the header by double-clicking the header section and continue as follows:

Most likely, you were expecting something more convoluted. Fortunately, accommodating columns is an easy task. It doesn't matter how many columns you have—copy a watermark for each column and position them as needed. In addition, you can use the rotation handle. The two watermarks don't have to be the same text or graphic, nor do they have to be in the same position or direction.

With a little thought, you can probably come up with several ways to use watermarks in nontraditional ways. Figure G shows the result of dragging a watermark into a document's margin. Doing so required no special skills. Using what you've already learned, simply add the watermark, resize it if necessary, and then move it where you want it!

Figure H shows the same technique in use to add a descriptive section tab. This technique works only if your document employs sections. (To display the section break code, click Show/Hide in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.)

As before, add a watermark. Then, to change the watermark for the next section, do the following:

If a watermark disappears, check your header options

Enabling either in a section can have unexpected results. The easiest solution is to select the page where the watermark is missing and re-add it, but it might remain problematic. Or, check the Show Document options as follows:

To the best of my knowledge, there's no way to use a watermark to block the document's text. Disabling the washout option when inserting the graphic or text will make the watermark easier to see, but it will still have some degree of transparency.

You can't insert a watermark is Word's browser version; nor can you view an existing one.

I answer readers' questions when I can, but there's no guarantee. Don't send files unless requested; initial requests for help that arrive with attached files will be deleted unread. You can send screenshots of your data to help clarify your question. When contacting me, be as specific as possible. For example, "Please troubleshoot my workbook and fix what's wrong" probably won't get a response, but "Can you tell me why this formula isn't returning the expected results? " might. Please mention the app and version that you're using. I'm not reimbursed by TechRepublic for my time or expertise when helping readers, nor do I ask for a fee from readers I help. You can contact me at susansalesharkins@gmail.com.

2016-11-16 19:37 Susan Harkins www.techrepublic.com

14 /96 1.4 Teardown of 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar reveals fake speaker grills, fragile Touch Bar Apple hardware is notorious for being difficult to repair and the company’s latest addition, the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar , is no exception as the team over at iFixit recently discovered.

In its teardown of the 13-inch MacBook Pro, iFixit had little trouble getting into the notebook and even removing the trackpad. Moving past the twin heatpipe cooler, the mainboard reveals that both flash storage and RAM is soldered in place meaning you’re stuck with the configuration you initially purchase.

This is the first MacBook to ship with a Touch ID fingerprint reader (located just above the Delete key and to the right of the Touch Bar). It's coated in sapphire crystal which, while a boon for security (the sensor, not the sapphire), is a pain to replace as it is linked to a chip on the motherboard. Replacing it could require help from Apple or even a new logic board.

Elsewhere, the teardown specialists found that the MacBook Pro’s speaker grills on either side of the keyboard are largely cosmetic.

Gimmicky or not, the real star of the show is the Touch Bar and as you may have guessed, it’s not exactly easy to get to or remove. In fact, after breaking out (no pun intended) the iOpener heat tool, the team accidentally broke the Touch Bar as the digitizer separated from the display while trying to remove it. These guys are pros and if they couldn’t get it out with damaging it, odds are you won’t be able to either.

All things considered, iFixit awards the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar a paltry repairability score of one out of 10 (the higher the number, the easier it is to repair). Apple’s latest earned red marks for its proprietary pentalobe screws, a battery that’s solidly glued in place, the fact that the processor, RAM and memory are all soldered to the logic board, the difficult-to-replace-without-breaking Touch Bar and a Touch ID sensor that doubles as the power button.

On the bright side, one can remove the trackpad without first removing the battery.

Images courtesy iFixit

2016-11-16 19:30 Shawn Knight www.techspot.com

15 /96 4.5 Fantastic Beasts Stickers Come to Google Allo Today, the search giant announced that J. K. Rowling's fans will be offered a nice surprise in the form of Fantastic Beasts stickers.

The Fantastic Beasts stickers are obviously inspired by the film that's just been released in the cinemas. You can download them now for free. Speaking of download, Google is making it easier to find new sticker packs, so when a friend is sending you a sticker from a pack that you don't have yet, you can tap on that sticker in order to download the entire pack.

Also, the latest version of Google Allo comes with a new feature that should make it easier to users to find and send the perfect emoji in every situation.

All you need to do is tap the Smart Smiley button and as you're typing your message Allo will suggest relevant emojis and stickers.

So, depending on what you type, you might see various emojis being suggested to you by the Allo app. According to Google , the emojis and stickers will change based on the words you write, but also on “the sentiment of your message.”

Last but not least, Google announced that a new set of themes for Allo chats is now available for download. The latest update adds background themes, so you can switch them depending on your mood.

Google notes that all these features along with the new content will be rolled out to both the Android and iOS version of Allo starting today.

They will be available worldwide over the next few days. Keep in mind though that the Smart Smiley feature will only work in English, though support for additional languages will be added in the future.

2016-11-16 19:23 Andrei Vlad news.softpedia.com

16 /96 2.2 Xiaomi's Mi MIX stress test shows impressive durability thanks to its ceramic body As we reach the end of the year, typically things tend to wind down as companies prepare themselves for the upcoming year. While a majority of product announcements rarely offer surprises, Xiaomi was able to impress with its Mi MIX bezel-less handset that it debuted towards the end of last month. It comes as no surprise that the handset proved popular, selling out in a mere ten seconds. As it finally starts arriving into the hands of eager consumers, the Mi MIX has been put through a stress test and actually proves itself to be more than just a great looking handset.

YouTube user JerryRigEverything has been conducting many stress tests over the past couple years, offering a gamut of punishment for newly released devices. The channel put Xiaomi's Mi MIX through its paces - exposing it to heat, bends and its infamous scratch test. Luckily for the Mi MIX, the handset offers high durability thanks to its unique ceramic exterior. The ceramic exterior offers a polished glossy look, but can also survive quite a bit of abuse, unlike the more recently released Apple iPhone in Jet Black.

Source: YouTube

2016-11-16 19:00 Timi Cantisano feedproxy.google.com

17 /96 1.0 Battlefield 1 on PS4 Pro packs higher frame rate for multiplayer advantage Despite Sony claiming that the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro would offer the same multiplayer experience in games, recent Battlefield 1 performance testing has suggested the opposite.

Digital Foundry put Battlefield 1's multiplayer modes through a series of performance tests, discovering that the game runs 10-15 frames per second faster on the PlayStation 4 Pro than its slower sibling. The performance advantage to the PS4 Pro was 47 percent on average, resulting in minimum frame rates increasing from 32 to 47 FPS in some situations.

While the PS4 Pro didn't always achieve its 60 frames per second target, Digital Foundry said the game "offers more visual feedback and crisper response" on Sony's faster hardware. The difference was particularly noticeable in 64-player matches, where the weak hardware of the PlayStation 4 can struggle to keep up with the game.

A 10-15 FPS advantage may not seem like much, but when a game routinely runs below 60 FPS on a console, the extra frames provided by the PS4 Pro will deliver a smoother and more responsive experience. This could lead to a multiplayer advantage, as gamers using a PS4 Pro could find it easier to spot enemies and respond to threats.

The advantage won't be present for all gamers, particularly those who aren't very good at Battlefield 1 in the first place. But hardcore gamers might want to play on the PS4 Pro for the slight advantage its increased performance provides.

2016-11-16 18:45 Tim Schiesser www.techspot.com

18 /96 1.0 Windows 10 Insider Preview build 14965 heads to PCs in the Slow ring Last week, Microsoft released Windows 10 Insider Preview build 14965 to PCs and phones in the Fast ring. Today, the company announced availability of that build for PCs in the Slow ring too.

While Fast ring builds are at the bleeding edge of Windows 10 development, the Slow ring is reserved for those who like to test previews but who prefer more stable builds. The last build to head to PCs in the Slow ring was in early October; build 14931 was the first Slow ring preview of the upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update , previously referred to by its development codename, Redstone 2.

But there's still no sign of a Creators Update preview for Windows 10 Mobile devices in the Slow ring. The most recent Insider Preview for phones in the Slow ring was build 14393.448 - but that build was from the Redstone 1 development branch (now known as the Anniversary Update ).

The Windows 10 Creators Update is expected to be released for all PCs, phones and other devices early next year .

2016-11-16 18:26 Andy Weir feedproxy.google.com

19 /96 2.9 Report looks into Android device customization, Kony Mobility Platform, and Google makes exploring AI easy— SD Times news digest: Nov. 16, 2016 The Application Developers Alliance has conducted a story on Android device customization and consumer choices, and they found that apps tend not to be exclusively used, and almost all Android users customize their phone and their home screen. The report also found that most Android users prefer their new devices to come with apps “ready to go” and preloaded.

This means that there is a significant amount of competition in the mobile app industry, and it can be difficult for developers to get their apps on the home screen of devices, according to the report. Also, the study found that many Android users download a lot of apps. Some prefer basic functions of apps, like e-mail, and others prefer as many apps as the device may hold. About 32% have downloaded more than 26 additional apps on their device, with 6% downloading more than 60 apps.

The full report is available here .

Kony’s updates its Mobility Platform Kony, an enterprise mobility company, introduced new updates to its Kony Mobility Platform, including a new omnichannel technology called Kony Nitro.

The new technology makes it easy for app developers to build hybrid and web apps that work across all devices and operating systems. Developers will be able to use visual design and development tools so they can deliver new apps to their users. Instead of having to learn a new solution, developers can use the Kony platform to “blend together” native, web and hybrid applications, according to the company.

Kony Nitro’s cross-platform JavaScript API allows enterprises to use resources and open support for technologies like Angular, Cordova, and third-party services like JavaScript frameworks, according to the company. Kony Nitro also comes with new capabilities like flexible app development, 100% access to native Android and iOS features, and more open web standards.

More information can be found here .

Amazon QuickSight generally available Amazon announced its fast, cloud-powered business analytics service called Amazon QuickSight is now generally available for all customers. For those uploading Excel files, connecting to databases and accessing third-party applications, QuickSight can deliver fast and responsive query performance to users.

QuickSight offers a two-month free trial with a perpetual free tier for one user in an account with 1GB of SPICE capacity, according to an AWS update. Once a user has built in a dashboard, they are able to access QuickSight via their browser or iOS mobile app. Then users can share their insights with their team.

Google makes it easier to explore AI Google wants to make it easier for anyone to explore AI. In order to open up AI to everyone, the company has created a site called AI Experiments, which showcases simple experiments so anyone can play around with the technology.

“The experiments show how machine learning can make sense of all kinds of things—images, drawings, language, sound and more,” wrote Alexander Chen, creative director at Google’s Creative Lab. “They were made by people with all different interests—web developers, musicians, game designers, bird sound enthusiasts, data visualizers—with everyone bringing their own ideas for how to use machine learning.”

Coders will be able to make their own experiments with AI Experiments since many of the projects are built with things like TensorFlow or Cloud Vision API. Developers can submit something they made by visiting AI Experiments , and more experiments from Google Arts & Culture can be found here.

2016-11-16 18:12 Madison Moore sdtimes.com

20 /96 20 /96 2.7 Amazon will discount its Prime membership by 20% this Friday Amazon's new motoring show, The Grand Tour, is set to arrive and reintroduce the world to the trio of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May of Top Gear fame. In order to celebrate, the company will offer a discount on its Prime membership starting on November 18.

For a limited time, those who sign up for a new Prime membership starting at 12AM ET on November 18 will be able to take advantage of a 20% discount. The membership is traditionally priced at $99, but will be available for $79 until 11:59PM PT of the same day.

If unfamiliar, Prime membership grants access to free two-day expedited shipping, Amazon's music and video streaming services and much more. The discount won't be exclusive to the US, as the UK will also have access to this promotional discount where the price of Prime will be reduced from £79 to £59.

The Grand Tour will be exclusive series to Amazon which will air a new episode each week over the next 12 weeks.

Source: Amazon via CNet | image via Amazon

2016-11-16 18:10 Timi Cantisano feedproxy.google.com

21 /96 1.8 Google Makes Machine Learning Available To Enterprise IT Machine learning may be right around the corner as part of your IT infrastructure, whether you think you're invested in such a technology or not.

Google wants intelligence emanating from machine data to be as readily available as the results of a keyword search.

Now, the company is taking steps to make it happen.

It's offering machine learning interfaces with open APIs for independent or enterprise programmers to use with their applications. These include Cloud Vision API, Cloud Natural Language API, and Cloud Translation API.

The search giant is also building data analysis capabilities into common Google applications, such as Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. As a spreadsheet accumulates device information, for example, an Explorer feature can examine its patterns and generate a chart that describes them for the period of time contained on the spreadsheet.

Google product managers demonstrated the capability at a machine learning event at Google's San Francisco offices Nov. 15.

Machine learning won't be quite as simple to execute as search, but Google is trying to dispel the notion that you'll need a platoon of data scientists before you launch your first machine learning application.

The Cloud Vision API can be used to tap into an image analysis service that can identify many entities included in the image, such as a car, a sailboat, a landmark, or an animal species. Or it can search for one face across many images. It can categorize and catalogue images, following the directions of an administrator.

Cloud Vision API can also analyze images for emotions on display, doing sentiment analysis that can be used in marketing or analysis of the feelings associated with logos in various settings.

The Cloud Vision API can be trained by a company's application for what it wishes to look for in images. It can also sharpen its results with repeated use, said Rob Craft, group product manager for the Google Cloud Machine Learning services, at the San Francisco event.

Google has reduced the price on use of Vision API by 80%, thanks in part to Google's greater reliance on its custom ASICs, known as Tensor Processing Units, Craft said. The TPUs provide a 10X improvement in performance per watt of electricity consumed, he noted.

TPU hardware plugs into the hard drive slot on a Google server. It's optimized to process data in TensorFlow data sets. TensorFlow is a software library that Google developed for handling machine intelligence data. It's made the library open source code.

The Vision API is now generally available. It's a primary example of how Google is offering services on the Google Cloud Platform that make artificial intelligence and machine learning results more accessible.

Indeed, Diane Greene, senior vice president for Google Cloud Platform, kicked off the event by saying Google will "democratize" machine learning through its simple-to-use services.

[Want to see how machine learning affects IT? Read What eBay's Machine Learning Advances Can Teach IT Professionals .]

Another example is the Google Cloud Translation API, which is now available in premium form, although it remains in beta. It will become generally available sometime in 2017.

Google employs a neural net service to perform translations of 103 languages. The process can determine the speaker's context and produce translations more likely to make sense than previous automated systems could.

"We've done a lot of science in that area," said Craft in an interview after the event. Google is reducing the price for use of the API for volume users. The company has also posted a list of prices. Both Amazon Web Services (through its QuickSight announced a year ago) and Microsoft are also offering more AI services through their cloud services.

2016-11-16 18:05 Charles Babcock www.informationweek.com

22 /96 5.0 ZTE Grand X 4 Lands at Cricket Wireless for $129.99, for Sale on November 18 The Chinese company collaborates with just about all carriers in the country, so it doesn't matter which one you prefer, you'll always find a ZTE smartphone available for purchase at your favorite carrier.

The newest smartphone launched by ZTE in the U. S. is the Grand X 4. The handset will be available for purchase at Cricket Wireless for just $129.99, starting November 18.

Although you'll probably find many Android smartphones in other countries that priced to sell for less than $100 even though they have better specs, the ZTE Grand X 4 does seem a good deal for a market like the U. S.

According to ZTE , its mid-range Grand X 4 smartphone is equipped with a 1.4GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor, complemented by 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory (expandable via microSD card).

The Chinese company hasn't yet listed the phone on its US website, still, the press statement points to a non-existent link. Hopefully, potential customers will be able to find out more about the Grand X 4 as soon as ZTE provides a valid link.

In the front, ZTE's mid-range handset packs a secondary 5-megapixel camera for selfies, while under the hood there's a 3,140 mAh battery. The phone comes with a USB Type-C port in tow and runs Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.

For those who already own the ZTE Grand X 3, the sequel looks like a solid upgrade, so if you want to remain loyal to this brand, you can go ahead and upgrade to the Grand X 4.

2016-11-16 17:57 Andrei Vlad news.softpedia.com

23 /96 0.8 Walmart will be selling the NES Classic Edition for a few minutes each day all week After Nintendo announced its NES Classic Edition console during the summer, it was almost certain that it would become one of those hard to find items of the holiday season. Unfortunately, in the United States, retailers did not offer a pre-order process and instead left those wanting a unit to hunt around for the scarce product on release day. Luckily, if you missed the chance to obtain an NES Classic Edition last week, Walmart will be holding a limited sale of the item over the next couple of days.

The retailer will be holding an online sale of the NES Classic that will start daily at 2PM PT. The website will offer a limited number of consoles and will replenish the next day at the same time. Naturally, it won't be easy to get one, but it is better than waiting for stocks to replenish from other retailers at random unknown intervals. The sale started on November 14 and will continue until the 18th.

If you happen to miss out on the online sale, Nintendo has pledged that it will have more supply available over the coming weeks. If you are located in the US, be sure to head to the Walmart website at 2PM PT for a chance to purchase a unit. Good luck!

Source: Walmart via Ubergizmo

2016-11-16 17:10 Timi Cantisano feedproxy.google.com

24 /96 0.0 Facebook says it erred measuring audience reach (Update) It was the second time in months that Facebook acknowledged problems with assessing the reach of content at the leading online social network, a key factor in luring crucial advertising.

In September, Facebook said it had overestimated the average amount of time spent watching videos over the course of the previous two years.

Facebook said a software bug went live in May that let repeat visits to online pages of companies or brands be counted as though someone new was taking a look each time.

The software did not "de-duplicate" visits as intended, causing calculated averages for visits during seven- or 28-day periods to be inflated by 33 percent and 55 percent, respectively, according to Facebook

The social network also said that since August it has been overestimating by about seven percent the time spent on news stories published using its Instant Articles tool. Facebook added that a stricter standard being used for tabulating when paid ads are viewed in news feeds at the social network was expected to reduce "reported reach" by an average of 20 percent.

On the other hand, Facebook said it had been undercounting the number of videos watched to completion, and expected a fix to boost that number by 35 percent.

The erroneous metrics were not those used to determine ad prices at the social network, according to Facebook.

However, the reach of content at Facebook is important to advertisers or companies when it comes to evaluating the potential impact of marketing campaigns.

The social network has an interest in maintaining advertiser confidence with reliable audience metrics. Facebook makes the bulk of its money from online advertising.

Facebook on Wednesday said it was taking steps to make information about its reach more reliable and transparent.

"We know that having access to reliable metrics is important to the millions of partners who use our services to grow their businesses," Facebook said in a blog post.

"As our products evolve to meet the needs of the people and businesses that use them, our metrics will also evolve. "

Facebook also promised more collaborations with data-tracking companies such as comScore and Nielsen to ramp up third-party verification.

Explore further: Facebook apologizes to advertisers for counting error

2016-11-16 17:06 phys.org

25 /96 2.2 The Linux Foundation Issues Free E-Book on Open Source License Compliance Best Practices The Linux Foundation today released a free e- book, Open Source Compliance in the Enterprise , that serves as a practical guide for organizations on how best to use open source code and participate in open source communities while complying with the spirit and the letter of open source licensing.

Written by Ibrahim Haddad, Ph. D., vice president of R&D and the head of the open source group at Samsung Research America, the new e-book aims to improve understanding of issues related to the licensing, development, and reuse of open source software. Haddad is responsible for overseeing Samsung's open source strategy and execution, internal and external collaborative R&D projects, and is a former manager at The Linux Foundation. ​

The book’s nine chapters take readers through the entire process of open source compliance, including an introduction to the topic, a description of how to establish an open source management program at their organization, and an overview of relevant roles. Examples of best practices and compliance checklists are provided to help those responsible for compliance activities create their own processes and policies.

“We frequently hear from organizations contributing to or simply using open source software about the desire to comply, but uncertainty about how best to do so,” said Mike Dolan, VP of strategic programs at The Linux Foundation. “Although it is sometimes viewed as a challenge, with better education on the topic, compliance can be easier for all involved in open source. This ebook, along with other efforts such as our free Compliance Basics for Developers training course, is one way we are working to help close the knowledge gap and make compliance easier for everyone.”

As combining and building upon open source software components has become the de facto way for companies to create new products and services, organizations want to know how best to participate in open source communities and how to do so in a legal and responsible way.

Under this “multi-source development model” software components can consist of source code originating from any number of different sources and be licensed under different licenses. As a result, the risks that companies previously managed through company-to-company license and agreement negotiations are now managed through robust compliance programs and careful engineering practices.

Open source initiatives and projects provide companies and other organizations with a vehicle to accelerate innovation through collaboration. But there are important responsibilities that come with the benefits of teaming with the open source community: Companies must ensure compliance to the obligations that accompany open source licenses.

“Open source compliance is the process by which users, integrators, and developers of open source observe copyright notices and satisfy license obligations for their open source software components,” according to the book.

It lists several advantages for companies that achieve open source compliance including:

A technical advantage, because compliant software portfolios are easier to service, test, upgrade, and maintain

In the event of a compliance challenge, having a compliance program can demonstrate an ongoing pattern of acting in good faith

Help in preparing a company for possible acquisition, sale, or new product or service release

Verifiable compliance in dealing with OEMs and downstream vendors.

To learn more about the benefits of open source compliance and how to achieve it, download the free e-book today! 2016-11-16 17:05 www.linux.com

26 /96 2.2 29% off Hubsan X4 RC Quad Copter with Camera - Deal Alert Lets start here: the Hubsan X4 quadcopter is just $37 after the current 29% discount on Amazon, where it averages 4 out of 5 stars from over 500 people ( read reviews ). So if you've been thinking about buying a quadcopter, you don't have a whole lot to lose on this one. The X4 is lightweight and durable, with an optional protection ring included that's designed to keep it safe through the inevitable crash. A 6-axis flight control system with adjustable gyro sensitivity make it very easy to fly, and there's an expert mode that allows for flips. It even has a camera onboard that records to micro SDHC. Of course it's no DJI Phantom 3 , but I repeat: the Hubsan X4 is $37. See the discounted Hubsan X4 now on Amazon.

2016-11-16 17:05 DealPost Team www.javaworld.com

27 /96 1.7 Facebook identifies additional metrics that have been misreported Facebook said in a blog post published Wednesday that several of its advertising and marketing- related metrics have been miscalculated due to a variety of discrepancies and bugs.

The social networking giant identified four specific metric areas – Page Insights, full-length videos watched, time spent viewing publishers’ Instant Articles and referrals within the Facebook Analytics for Apps dashboard – that have all been misreported in some way or another.

For example, in Page Insights, Facebook said its 7-day summary in the overview dashboard will be 33 percent lower on average while 28-day summaries will be 55 percent lower. Also, the average time spent per article in Instant Articles has been over-reported by as much as eight percent since August 2015. The findings don’t really have an impact on Facebook’s users. Instead, it’s the advertisers and marketers that are taking the hit as they’ve been led to believe that Facebook’s ad platform – and by proxy, their ad campaign – has been performing better than it actually has.

That’s kind of a big deal when you consider that advertising as a whole accounted for 78 percent of Facebook’s $7.01 billion in total revenue during the most recent quarter. Worse yet, this isn’t the first time Facebook has admitted it goofed metrics as the company revealed in September that it overestimated video view times by as much as 80 percent.

Facebook said today that it has been working for months to improve ad reporting and will continue to do so through the creation of a Measurement Council.

2016-11-16 17:00 Shawn Knight www.techspot.com

28 /96 1.3 : Sony’s PlayStation VR is immersive, comfortable, and when combined with the PS4 Pro, incredibly impressive By

Lewis Painter | 4 hours ago See full specs

£349.99

Price comparision from , and manufacturers

Sony’s PlayStation VR headset has been a talking point ever since it was first revealed in 2014, boasting the ability to provide a great VR experience without the need for a high-end PC. In fact, the PlayStation VR headset is compatible with any of the 44 million PS4s around the world, according to the company, along with the newly redesigned PS4 and of course, the PS4 Pro. After over two years of waiting, the PlayStation VR headset is finally here. I’ve spent some time with Sony’s PlayStation VR, and here’s what I experienced. Also see: HTC Vive review

Also see: Best Black Friday Games Deals

After years of secrecy, Sony announced earlier in 2016 that the PlayStation VR headset would be available to buy around the world from 13 October 2016. That date has come and gone, and the VR headset is now readily available to buy from several retailers – although demand is high. During the PlayStation VR event at GDC 2016, Sony CEO Andrew House announced that the PlayStation VR headset will set gamers back £349, £200 less than the £549 Oculus Rift and over £400 cheaper than the £759 HTC Vive – in fact, HTC’s offering costs over double the amount of Sony’s headset. Users interested in investing in a PlayStation VR headset can pick one up on Amazon for £349.99. Amazon isn't the only option though - Zavvi also offers the PlayStation VR for £349.99 , although it’s out of stock at the time of writing. While the price point attracted applause from those present at the event, all was not as it seemed as the CEO left out one vital piece of information. Yes, the PlayStation VR headset will cost £349 in the UK, but it doesn’t come with a PlayStation Camera, a vital element that’s required for VR use. The official PlayStation 4 Camera costs £39 on Amazon at the time of writing, which brings the total cost of the PlayStation VR headset to £389 – still a competitive price for a VR headset, but not as cheap as first thought. If buying the headset and camera separately isn't for you, you'll be happy to know that Zavvi is offering a PlayStation VR & PlayStation Camera bundle for £399.98 but like with the standard listing, it’s out of stock at the moment.

It’s the same story with the PlayStation Move controllers too, although these aren’t required to use the VR headset as all VR content will be compatible with Sony’s DualShock 4 controller. Despite the fact that the PlayStation Move controllers used with the PlayStation VR are the same controllers used with the PS3, the Move batons are currently being sold on Amazon for £60.

Read next: Complete guide to VR

The PlayStation VR headset is mainly white with black accents, and is clad with blue lights used to track the headset in conjunction with a number of built-in sensors. It’s fairly bulky and before using the headset for the first time, I assumed that it’d be pretty heavy too – however, I was mistaken.

I was surprised at just how lightweight the PlayStation VR headset was, especially when considering the size. It’s not as sleek and sexy as, say, the Oculus Rift, but it’s lightweight and comfortable. I experienced no irritation around the edges of the headset where it came into contact with my skin (with the nose being an issue with some headsets), even when using the headset for hours at a time.

Why? I’m sure that it has something to do with the plastic headband used by the PlayStation VR headset, compared to the fabric headbands used by the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. The solid headband provides enough support to allow the adjustment of the distance between the display and the headband. This means that the headset can be fastened into place without your eyes being covered, then you simply pull the display towards your eyes when you’re ready to get started.

It also means the headset isn’t tightly fastened to your face, helping to alleviate sweatiness and skin irritation over time – two common issues in VR. It may not seem like a huge point to make, but it shows that Sony has considered all elements of use when designing the headset, even the way you put it on and take it off. It also means that glasses-wearers can use the PlayStation VR with no problem – something I can personally attest to.

Light leakage isn’t much of an issue with the PlayStation VR headset either, as the headset features several soft rubber flaps around the edges of the HMD that mould to the shape of your face when wearing the headset. This ingenious design feature allows the headset to stop light leaking into the headset without it being so close to your face that it becomes uncomfortable to wear.

Like many other VR headsets on the market, the PlayStation VR headset is wired and must be plugged into a PlayStation 4 console to be used. The cable was long enough for us to sit comfortably far away from the TV, and as many PlayStation VR games are to be played sat down, it’s not as much of an issue as it is with the room-scale tracking HTC Vive. The cable features headset controls, much like the in-line media controls found on many smartphone headphones, offering a headphone jack for your headphones along with volume controls and a power button.

One complaint about the design of the headset? It’s a bit complicated to put on - at first, anyway. When I first tried to put the headset on, it took me around five minutes (including on-screen prompts showing me how to do it) to properly fasten the headset and align the display, while I had no such issue with the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. It means that it’s a little awkward to show to friends and family at first, however, much like riding a bike, once you find the knack for it, you’ll be able to put it on with ease.

Price comparision from , and manufacturers

OnePlus 3T confirmed | OnePlus 3T UK release date, price, preorder & specifications: The flagship…

1995-2015: How technology has changed the world in 20 years

Why logos are going retro iPhone 8 release date rumours UK | iPhone 8 specs: iPhone 8 screens 'will be biggest yet, and curve'…

2016-11-16 16:58 Lewis Painter www.pcadvisor.co.uk

29 /96 3.2 Prynt grabs $7 million for its photo-printing phone case Prynt just raised a $7 million Series A round led by GGV Capital. Prynt turns your smartphone into a Polaroid camera thanks to a phone case that can print instant photos. In addition to the hardware component, Prynt also has a nifty app that lets you scan photos to view short video clips.

The Prynt phone case started as a popular Kickstarter project , raising more than $1.5 million. You can now find the device on Amazon and in various stores, such as Best Buy, Target and Urban Outfitters. It costs $150. The startup also makes money on paper orders in the app, as well.

But why should you buy a Prynt instead of a Fujifilm Instax or any instant photo-printing device? Prynt has a couple of differentiating factors.

First, compared to an Instax camera, you take Prynt photos with your smartphone. In addition to the physical photo, you can also save the photo to your camera roll and use it in other apps. This is smart, as I’ve seen dozens of people take digital photos of tiny Instax photos.

Second, Prynt is trying to invent a new format. When you take a photo with the Prynt app, your phone will also record a short video clip of what happens after you take the photo. The startup stores those video clips on their servers.

Anyone can then download the Prynt app and “scan” a photo by pointing their phone camera at a Prynt photo to view the video. It doesn’t just play the photo, it projects the video on top of the photo in a sort of augmented reality viewfinder. This is more or less similar to Apple’s live photos, but with sound.

I’ve played with the device and I wouldn’t necessarily call it a smartphone case. It’s a bulky add- on that turns your phone into a cumbersome device — you can’t put it in your pocket, and it’s a lot less practical to send a text once you’ve plugged the Prynt to your phone.

If you’re using a smartphone case, you’ll have to remove it first to use the Prynt. I started using the Prynt at a music festival. But then I removed it because I didn’t actually need the case to take photos — the Prynt is just a printer after all.

When it comes to the augmented reality video format, this is the best part of the Prynt case. I enjoy looking at old photos and playing the videos with the Prynt app. I think this format would look great with a wall of photos. It’s a great way to relive fleeting memories.

With today’s funding round, the company plans to partner with more online and offline retailers, iterate on the product front and hire more people. I’m quite curious about what’s next on the hardware front. I’d personally like to see a standalone Bluetooth or Wi-Fi printer so that I don’t have to plug the device to my phone.

2016-11-16 16:52 Romain Dillet feedproxy.google.com

30 /96 2.0 NBA 2K17 will reward players for achieving Fitbit goals Surely the inherent irony of never leaving the couch to play a sports video game isn’t lost on many players. And while the occasional innovation like the Wii, Kinect and VR have offered some opportunity to add a little movement to the process, the act of simulating one of the more athletic major league sports has remained a sedentary one.

A new partnership between Fitbit and game publisher 2K is less elegant than the above examples, but it’s something, offering players in-game bonuses on NBA 2K17 for achieving certain goals with their fitness trackers. It’s a pretty literal take on the whole notion of wearable gamification. Hitting 10,000 steps in a day, for example, will provide access to a temporary boost to a player’s on-court performance, including agility, dunks and layups. All in all, not a bad set of skills for the fairly low bar of walking around five miles a day.

The system utilizes the Works with Fitbit program, integrating it into the gameplay on both the PS4 and Xbox One. It will be enabled on the game starting Black Friday — just in time to burn off the previous night’s turkey dinner.

2016-11-16 16:51 Brian Heater feedproxy.google.com

31 /96 3.3 T-Mobile Announces Black Friday Deals in a Funny Way So, if you plan on purchasing a new smartphone, you might want to take into consideration T- Mobile's Black Friday deals , which have been announced in a funny way.

But first things first, so, T- Mobile confirmed that starting November 18 through November 20 (3 days only), a family of four can get two lines free at the Un-carrier. The deal is available for both new and existing T-Mobile customers, whether they're adding a smartphone or tablet.

Moreover, starting next week on November 24 through November 27, T-Mobile has great deals on Samsung and LG smartphones and tablets.

“For that Person Suffering from #PhoneShame,” as T-Mobile puts it, the carrier offers a free Samsung Galaxy S7 after 24 monthly bill credits when they trade in a Galaxy S6, Galaxy Note 5 or other devices.

Also, “for the Techie that Needs the Latest in VR,” T-Mobile offers a free Gear VR and $50 Oculus app store gift card when they buy a Samsung Galaxy S7 (including the free one from the previous offer) or Galaxy S7 edge .

Furthermore, “for the Parents Who Need a Moment's Peace,” T-Mobile prepared a free Samsung Tab E or LG Gpad X tablet after 24 monthly bill credits with a T-Mobile ONE tablet plan.

“For the Audiophile / Headbanger,” the UE Boom 2 wireless speaker will be $70 off, so T-Mobile customers will be able to purchase one for just $129.99. The LG Tone Pro 760 Bluetooth headset will also be discounted and available for just $39.99.

Last but not least, “for Any & Everyone,” there will be $50 off the mophie Powerstation Mini, which means you'll be able to get one for a mere $9.99 (80% discount). 2016-11-16 16:51 Andrei Vlad news.softpedia.com

32 /96 6.2 Virtual Instruments acquires Xangati Virtual Instruments , the leader in infrastructure performance management, today announced it has acquired Xangati, a hybrid cloud and virtualization performance management company. The acquisition creates the industry’s first application- centric infrastructure performance management platform that is real-time, cross-domain, and empowers IT teams to ensure application performance and availability as they digitally transform their businesses.

Xangati’s products enable a self-healing, self-optimizing hybrid data center, complementing Virtual Instruments’ deep expertise and experience in IT infrastructure performance analytics. Together, the offerings deliver unparalleled application infrastructure performance and availability management by providing comprehensive, correlated real-time insight for any server, network interconnect or data store across the entire data center.

Virtual Instruments and Xangati address a gap in existing application and infrastructure performance monitoring approaches by providing comprehensive visibility and actionable analysis across the compute, network and storage infrastructure in the modern hybrid data center. The combination of Virtual Instruments and Xangati gives IT teams control of application performance delivery and infrastructure spend within private or public clouds on legacy or hyperconverged platforms.

The Xangati acquisition is the second significant transaction in 2016 for Virtual Instruments. Earlier this year, the company merged with leading storage performance analytics provider Load DynamiX. Virtual Instruments continues to see widespread and increasing demand.

“Our mission is to create a world where applications and infrastructure perform better together, and this acquisition supports that goal for our Global 2000 customers. By adding Xangati’s monitoring and advanced analytics expertise to Virtual Instruments’ capabilities, we are even better positioned to help companies assure performance, increase availability, and optimize the cost of application and service delivery,” said Philippe Vincent, CEO of Virtual Instruments.

“The combination of Virtual Instruments, Load DynamiX and Xangati has now created a company with the scale, expertise and capabilities to lead the market for next-generation performance and availability solutions,” said John Kim, managing partner of HighBar Partners, lead investor in Virtual Instruments.

“EMA Research shows that more than 90 percent of enterprises are unable to predict or reliably monitor application performance within today’s complex hybrid infrastructure environments. Virtual Instruments has been a leader in application-centric storage infrastructure monitoring and performance analysis for many years and with the acquisition of Xangati, the company now owns all the critical parts to offer a single solution for proactive virtualization, server, network, storage and cloud performance management,” said Torsten Volk, managing research director, Enterprise Management Associates.

As a result of the acquisition, Virtual Instruments will enhance its existing capabilities in infrastructure performance monitoring with:

Deeper visibility into key environments:

Advanced analytics:

“IT architects, applications delivery and infrastructure operations teams need a holistic approach to proactively ensure the performance and availability of their constantly evolving hybrid data centers,” said Jagan Jagannathan, founder and chief technology officer of Xangati, and now chief innovation officer of Virtual Instruments. “Now that Xangati is part of Virtual Instruments, these teams will have a shared view into how changes in application behavior and infrastructure affect application performance, complementing application performance management (APM) solutions. This unparalleled visibility across the digital landscape will help enterprises scale and adapt.”

“We have been using the Xangati products as the foundation of our NovaMonitor real-time network infrastructure monitoring service for our customers, which has allowed us to offer differentiated high-value services,” said Jason McGinnis, president of NeoNova, a leading provider of subscriber and network solutions for regional broadband providers. “The combination of Virtual Instruments and Xangati is compelling as it will enable us to offer a broader range of monitoring services with complete end-to-end infrastructure visibility.”

More information on the acquisition can be found at www.virtualinstruments.com .

2016-11-16 16:41 SD Times sdtimes.com

33 /96 2.0 Microsoft Steps Up Its Commitment to Open Source Today The Linux Foundation is announcing that we’ve welcomed Microsoft as a Platinum member. I’m honored to join Scott Guthrie, executive VP of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise Group, at the Connect(); developer event in New York and expect to be able to talk more in the coming months about how we’ll intensify our work together for the benefit of the open source community at large.

Microsoft is already a substantial participant in many open source projects and has been involved in open source communities through partnerships and technology contributions for several years. Around 2011 and 2012, the company contributed a large body of device driver code to enable Linux to run as an enlightened guest on Hyper-V. Microsoft has an engineering team dedicated to Linux kernel work, and since that initial contribution, the team has contributed improvements and new features to the driver code for Hyper-V on a consistent basis.

Over the past two years in particular, we’ve seen that engineering team grow and expand the range of Linux kernel areas it’s working on to include kernel improvements that aren’t specifically related to Microsoft products. The company is also an active member of many Linux Foundation projects, including Node.js Foundation, R Consortium, OpenDaylight, Open API Initiative and Open Container Initiative. In addition, a year ago we worked with Microsoft to release a Linux certification, Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate Linux on Azure.

The open source community has gained tools and other resources as Microsoft has open sourced the. NET Core, contributed OpenJDK, announced Docker support in Windows Server, announced SQL on Linux, added the ability to run native Bash on Ubuntu on Windows , worked with FreeBSD to release an image for Azure, and open sourced Xamarin’s software development kit and PowerShell. The company supports Red Hat, SUSE, Debian and Ubuntu on Azure. Notably, Microsoft is a top open source contributor on GitHub.

The Linux Foundation isn’t the only open source foundation Microsoft has committed to in 2016: in March, the company joined the Eclipse Foundation. A Microsoft employee has served as the Apache Software Foundation’s president for three years.

Linux Foundation membership underscores what Microsoft has demonstrated time and again, which is that the company is evolving and maturing with the technology industry. Open source has become a dominant force in software development--the de facto way to develop infrastructure software--as individuals and companies have realized that they can solve their own technology challenges and help others at the same time.

Membership is an important step for Microsoft, but it’s perhaps bigger news for the open source community, which will benefit from the company’s sustained contributions. I look forward to updating you over time on progress resulting from this relationship.

2016-11-16 16:40 www.linux.com

34 /96 1.1 Google Earth brings its breathtaking views into VR Google may have just launched its major consumer virtual reality effort, Google Daydream, last week, but the company is showing no signs of slowing development on other platforms as it looks to give VR some broader use cases.

Today, Google announced on its blog that it’s bringing Google Earth to virtual reality by way of the HTC Vive. “With Earth VR, you can fly over a city, stand at the top of the highest peaks, and even soar into space,” the post detailed. It’s not quite the metaverse, but this launch gives Google a major avenue to highlight virtual reality-optimized experiences like 3D flyovers with an interface that is planet-sized. Google detailed that specific experiences will bring you to the Amazon River, the Manhattan skyline, the Grand Canyon, the Swiss Alps and other locations.

The scope of this project is notable but it isn’t Google’s first experience that they’ve created for desktop virtual reality. The company’s 3D painting title, Tilt Brush, has been a favorite amongst virtual reality enthusiasts due to the creative experiences offered, as well as Google’s continued efforts in redefining the application through subsequent updates.

Earth VR will first be launching first for HTC Vive through the Steam store and will be available for free.

2016-11-16 16:21 Lucas Matney feedproxy.google.com

35 /96 3.2 IBM opens new Cambridge, MA security headquarters with massive cyber range It was a big day for IBM today as it opened its shiny new security headquarters in Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA, complete with what the company is calling the first commercial cyber range.

A cyber range is a network security testing environment, and is typically run by the military or military contractors. This one, dubbed X-Force Command, however, is much more than a couple of terminals in a lab. It is a massive setup with seats for 36 operators. It features audio, video and a simulated Fortune 500 company operation with the goal of giving the user a realistically simulated cyber crisis.

It includes nearly a petabyte of data running in a data center underneath the cyber range, and includes all the kinds of operations that you would have running in a typical enterprise, such as email servers, supply chain software, employees using the internet and so forth.

The idea behind the cyber range is to simulate an actual cyber event to show security personnel, C-suite executives or anyone just how prepared (or more likely unprepared) they are to deal with a massive breach.

“We are putting you into a simulator that is so realistic that your pulse will race, and you will be stressed, and you will learn how to make critical decisions in a crisis,” Caleb Barlow, vice president of security at IBM explained.

The cyber range is part of a broader security strategy by the company. Over the last couple of years, it has purchased at least seven security properties, including Resilient Systems earlier this year , which helps companies prepare for a cyber attack before they happen.

While Barlow said the cyber range wasn’t being positioned as a sales tool, so much as an awareness-raising device, it is designed to show people in stark terms what happens during a breach, and how they might react after an incident — especially if they are unprepared.

The simulation can help you understand the different aspects of breach response, such as how quickly you report the event to regulators and government officials, what happens if the breach leaks to the press (as often happens) and how to deal with all of this with the company in crisis mode. Obviously, if you have thought this through beforehand, and have a plan in place, a playbook if you will, you are going to be in a better position than trying to react to all of the different pressure points in the heat of the moment.

It’s not a coincidence of course that this is all the kind of stuff Resilient has built into its solutions. In addition, it wouldn’t be IBM without a consulting piece, and they have built a team of consultants to help customers prepare for an attack and deal with the aftermath.

Wendi Whitmore was brought on board seven months ago to run the IBM X-Force IRIS Team, a group of consultants picked for their expertise in cybersecurity. Whitmore herself has almost 15 years of cyber experience, including stints with the Air Force, Mandiant and CrowdStrike.

She says the goal of her team is to help companies deal with massive breaches after they occur, but they also want to work with companies on how to prevent them. While she acknowledges blocking smaller breaches is probably not possible, she believes that, with proper preparation, a company can prevent a massive company-wide, Sony-style breach — and that is what her team is trying to do.

The company seems fixated on this idea of helping companies to prepare for breaches. It has devoted $200 million this calendar year to its security operation, which has included opening the new security headquarters and building the cyber range. To date, the security division has 8,000 employees worldwide and generates $2 billion worth of business. The company wouldn’t reveal how many would be housed in the Cambridge office, but said much of the security executive team would be based there.

2016-11-16 16:00 Ron Miller feedproxy.google.com

36 /96 1.0 Apple makes 2016 MacBook Pro harder to repair and upgrade Apple is obsessed with making its products smaller and lighter -- and this shows with the latest- generation MacBook Pro. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch models are more portable than their predecessors, making the prosumer line a much better choice for road warriors. But, knowing that Apple does not always give without taking away, what is the catch?

Well, in the quest to improve the new MacBook Pro line, Apple has made them harder to repair and upgrade. The company is not renowned for making laptops that are easy to service, but with the 2016 MacBook Pro line it is taking things to the next level.

According to iFixit, which has taken apart both the standard (referred to as the "Escape Edition") and Touch Bar-enabled 13.3-inch MacBook Pro models, you cannot change the SSD anymore or replace certain components without breaking them first.

The SSD is now part of the logic board, which no doubts aids in making the 2016 MacBook Pros thinner and lighter. This means that if you believe that you will need more storage down the road it is probably best to shell out for a storage upgrade before pulling the trigger on one.

It also means that if it fails, for whatever reason, you will have to replace the whole logic board, which, as MacBook users know, is not cheap. You can be looking at an eye-watering bill, unless your situation is covered by the warranty or accidental damage insurance.

I do not think many MacBook owners have gone through the hassle of upgrading the SSD, so this is unlikely to affect the vast majority of prospective buyers. But, what is more problematic is the repairability aspect, which is worse on the Touch Bar models than on the "Escape Edition".

"Our efforts to separate the OLED panel from the upper case resulted in the digitizer separating from the display. You live and you learn", says iFixit. "Adding insult to injury, the Touch Bar flex cable is routed underneath the upper case, making removal just a tad bit more annoying than we expected".

The iFixit report also notes that "the Touch ID sensor doubles as the power switch, and is paired with the T1 chip on the logic board. Fixing a broken power switch may require help from Apple, or a new logic board". This shouldn't probably surprise us, because Apple does not like it when you mess with Touch ID. And, for good reasons.

Both the standard and Touch Bar 2016 MacBook Pros have in common a "very solidly, glued into the case" battery assembly, which makes it much harder to replace the battery. These things start to lose capacity after a while, and it looks like a fix may involve a trip to a repair shop.

Unsurprisingly, Apple's design has led the iFixit team to give its 2016 MacBook Pro laptops a one out of 10 repairability score. That is the lowest that a device can get. Does this matter? Probably not.

Consumers and prosumers who are eyeing a 2016 MacBook Pro likely have a different set of priorities in mind than repairability and upgradeability. Despite my criticisms , Apple will manage to sell a ton of these, because, quite frankly, the latest-generation MacBook Pro line is very appealing in that segment and very hard to beat if you are already living an Apple lifestyle.

2016-11-16 15:54 Mihăiţă Bamburic feeds.betanews.com

37 /96 7.1 Is It Worth the Upgrade? The OnePlus 3T does indeed come with many improvements over the previous model, but as we've already mentioned earlier, they might not be that big in the grand scheme of things. First of all, the phone packs the most powerful mobile processor available on the market, the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 821. It doesn't come with a larger amount of RAM, but customers now have the option to purchase the 128GB model that sells for $479. In comparison, the regular 64GB variant costs $439, while the OnePlus 3 still sells for $400.

Another major improvement over the OnePlus 3 is the impressive 16-megapixel front-facing camera, which can take much better pictures than the 8-megapixel photo snapper included in the previous flagship.

According to OnePlus, the 3T's rear 16-megapixel camera features a protective sapphire lens, whereas the OnePlus 3 does not have such a protection. Also, the OnePlus 3T's camera features improved electronic stabilization, something that the previous model lacks.

Even though both OnePlus high-end smartphones pack 16-megapixel cameras, the Chinese company claims the 3T's snapper offers a better video recording experience.

Speaking of improvements, OnePlus notes that while the 3T does not ship with Android 7.0 Nougat on board, it does come with a new Oxygen OS 3.5.1 version that offers a much smoother experience to users, and more customization options.

The good news is OnePlus has confirmed that it will provide an Android 7.0 Nougat update to both high-end phones by the end of the year.

Let's not forget that even though both are the same when it comes to size and weight, the OnePlus 3T packs a larger 3,400 mAh battery inside.

Below, we've put the main specs of these devices side by side, so you can decide if it's worth the upgrade. We still believe that the OnePlus 3T is more appealing for those who own a much older OnePlus smartphone or newcomers.

2016-11-16 15:54 Andrei Vlad news.softpedia.com

38 /96 4.0 Digital transformation not a finite process, says Martin Kuppinger Digital transformation is not a process that will see the world move from one state to another and then be over with, according to Martin Kuppinger , principal analyst at KuppingerCole.

“Every industry is likely to undergo digital transformation , but it is a continuous process of evolution to doing things differently in a digital era,” he told the Eema ISSE 2016 security conference in Paris. Kuppinger said digital transformation is inevitable because it is being driven by a wide variety of things linked to three areas of capability: innovation, agility and organisational flexibility.

Ever-increasing cyber attacks demand greater organisational flexibility, as does the ever- changing regulatory landscape and the advent of ubiquitous connectivity.

“If you look at security, we still have IT divisions. In many cases, the CIO is the boss of the CISO, but the CISO should never be in the CIO’s line of management. That is fundamentally wrong,” said Kuppinger.

“At the same time, IT is still siloed. But in reality, we have IT everywhere in the business. There is no way a siloed 1980s-style IT organisation will work in a 2020-ready organisation,” he said.

According to Kuppinger, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), will bring about a lot of organisational changes to anyone doing business in Europe.

“The GDPR brings into scope a lot of things that have been previously overlooked, such as how decisions are actually made based on automatic profiling processes, which means that the GDPR will become critical to everything not based on deterministic rules,” he said.

The need for innovation capability is also linked to ubiquitous connectivity, as well as the transition from products to services and the changing competitive landscape.

But changes in the competitive landscape, together with the trend towards more dynamic business partnerships, are creating the need for greater agility.

“Old-school organisations which move very slowly are under pressure because they tend to be unwilling to innovate, and even some carmakers lack the willingness to innovate,” said Kuppinger. “They are used to having petrol or diesel engines and moving away from that is tough for them.”

On the broadest level, he said digital transformation is also being driven by the emergence of the internet of things (IoT), smart manufacturing and the need for improved business interactions with customers.

“There are good reasons why consumer identity management is currently a very hot topic,” said Kuppinger.

“In general, we need to improve our handling of customers, our identity and privacy, and our abilty to retain customer relationships in an increasingly competitive market,” he said.

According to Kuppinger, there are seven key enabling technologies for digital transformation:

“Security and privacy are central technologies in which we must have digital transformation, but there is also identity and big data, which are related to security and privacy ,” said Kuppinger.

“But while we have a lot of tools for creating data, we do not have sufficient tools for the governance of big data to control what happens with it,” he said.

The major topics in digital transformation, said Kuppinger, are consumer identity and security and privacy, which must be included in everything by design. 2016-11-16 15:30 Security Editor www.computerweekly.com

39 /96 0.0 OnePlus' new 3T flagship costs 10% more than the 3 in the US, but 21% more in the UK Yesterday, OnePlus unveiled the 3T , an updated version of its flagship 3 handset that it launched earlier this year. The 3T features a more powerful Snapdragon 821 processor , rather than the 820 in its predecessor, along with a larger 3400mAh battery, compared with 3000mAh in the 3.

The company also raised the price of the new handset over that of the earlier model - but Brits planning to buy the OnePlus 3T are facing a price increase that's more than twice as large as in other markets.

OnePlus already increased the UK price of the 3 in July by 6.5% , pushing it up from £309 to £329 , citing currency fluctuations following the UK's 'Brexit' referendum decision to leave the European Union. OnePlus has now priced the 3T at £399 in the UK - that's £70 higher than the 3, an increase of 21% over its predecessor.

But in the United States, the OnePlus 3 was priced at $399, while the 3T will launch for $439 - an increase of $40, or 10%. In eurozone markets, the price difference is identical, rising from €399 for the 3, to €439 for the 3T.

The greater price difference in the UK between the old and new models is likely to be a further consequence of the fall in pound sterling against the US dollar following the referendum. Many companies operating in the UK that do their business in dollars have seen their costs increase, prompting them to adjust their prices accordingly. Dell and HP both raised their UK prices by 10% this summer, and Microsoft also increased some of its prices there by up to 22% last month.

2016-11-16 15:20 Andy Weir feedproxy.google.com

40 /96 1.6 Best business antivirus: 8 top paid security tools for small businesses If you're looking to protect your company PCs from malware then you could just equip each one with your preferred free antivirus package. You'll get a reasonable level of protection, and it might well seem like you're keeping costs to a minimum.

Of course you'll have to manually install each copy. And train every user in its operation. And rely on them to let you know if there are any problems. And hope they won't turn off particular functions – or remove the whole package if they think it's getting in their way. The software may be free, but it could still have some major costs attached.

If you have plenty of systems to protect – 10 or more, let's say – it could make more sense to choose a business security solution. These can often be remotely installed over the network, and offer a central management console to monitor devices, and create fine-tuned security policies to enforce your preferred settings.

Best of all, the price per installation can sometimes be cheaper than even our recommended best home antivirus packages. So, what's on offer? We've checked out eight of the best business antivirus tools around in order to find out.

Most offer discounts if you buy a two or three-year package, so where possible we ordered them by their 10 PC, two-year package prices to maximise your savings. You can, of course, choose whichever package suits your needs best when buying.

All prices below are for one-year and five end points. You can of course customise these on the vendor's website.

Great value back-to-basics protection for your PC

If Avast Endpoint Protection looks cheap, that's because it's the most basic business product the company offers – there's core antivirus, browsing protection and remote management for PCs only. That may well be enough, though, and even if it isn't, moving up to the Endpoint Plus edition will get you a firewall, spam filter and server protection while still remaining good value.

The web-based management console covers the basics only: remote installations, updates, plus there's a scheduler for automatic scanning, real-time security alerts, and so on.

The antivirus protection you get is generally rated as good by independent testing, with Avast's engine blocking 99.7% of threats in AV-Comparative's September 2016 Real-World Protection report. If value for money and simplicity are key factors, Avast Endpoint Protection could be a sensible choice.

High grade professional protection for servers and desktops

Symantec Endpoint Protection's first benefit is the company's Insight file reputation technology, an effective way to detect and block even the very latest undiscovered threats.

Other layers of protection include antivirus, behaviour monitoring, intrusion protection, a firewall, and the 'Power Eraser' to remove stubborn threats and repair your system.

Symantec's security policy options are a real highlight. You can set application blacklists or whitelists, control file and Registry access, restrict and control access to external media, and more, then monitor systems and enforce policies from a central console.

While there's no bundled protection for mobile devices, the package runs just about everywhere else: PCs, Macs, and a host of virtual environments and Linux distros.

Symantec Endpoint Protection isn't cheap, but if you need its high-end features and policy control options then it still looks like a good deal to us. Market leading detection rates at a bargain price

If reliable protection is a top priority, Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security needs to be on your shortlist. Bitdefender products are loved by the independent testing labs, highly rated for malware detection, removal, performance and usability.

Most of the features work automatically – antimalware, firewall, web advisor, URL filtering – but you can also customise the product to control user actions. You're able to restrict access to certain websites and applications, block the transmission of sensitive information, remotely deploy the product to unprotected systems, and allow or deny users the ability to modify their security settings.

All this is managed from a central console where you can control and monitor remote users, create and apply custom security policies by user, location (the product adapts when users are outside the company), and more.

Easy-to-use antivirus for small business

Avira Antivirus for Endpoint is the company's main small business product. It takes all the core features you'd expect – antivirus, baseline network protection, web filtering – and extends them with file server protection and optimisation, along with application whitelisting and blacklisting.

Avira's Online Essentials web console lets you manage your devices. This is simpler than some of the high-end competition, but that's not necessarily a disadvantage, and there's some useful functionality here: drive partition reports, licence management, remote deployment, and assorted mobile phone tools (antitheft, phone finder, and more).

Avira Antivirus for Endpoint doesn't have the longest of feature lists, but it's easy to use, and offers excellent protection, regularly matching competitors like Bitdefender and Kaspersky in AV- Comparative's Real World tests.

Kaspersky's latest offering shields PCs and mobile devices

Endpoint Security Cloud is Kaspersky's latest small business product, which comes ready to protect Windows PCs, file servers, Android and iOS devices.

The desktop side of the package has all the usual quality Kaspersky modules – antivirus, antispam, a firewall, more – but the mobile security technologies are even more impressive. There are tools to detect insecure devices, control password rules, manage camera use, filter unwanted calls and texts, and remotely lock or wipe data from lost devices.

That’s topped off with an easy-to-use web console managing network and Bluetooth configuration, internet access policies, device settings and more.

There's impressive levels of protection, too. Kaspersky Endpoint Security Cloud came first out of four contenders in AV-Comparatives' October 2016 Business Security Test, detecting and blocking 100% of known malware and exploits. The package also produced an above-average five false positives, so overall, it put in some impressive results.

The fastest, most lightweight antivirus solution around

Webroot SecureAnywhere products stand out immediately for being incredibly lightweight: they're tiny (2MB disk space), install so quickly you'll barely notice (from 5 seconds), and consume the absolute minimum of system resources.

Scans are fast, too, and because just about everything is done in the cloud, there are no bulky updates or definitions to download – you're always up-to-date.

Other features include behaviour monitoring, an outbound firewall, along with identity and privacy protection. These don't always have the power and options of other tools, but they're implemented with real intelligence, and generally cope well with day-to-day tasks.

A cloud-based console enables tracking all your installations, and the package runs on just about any Windows or macOS system.

Factor in the price and Webroot looks very appealing to us, but it really is a product you need to try for yourself to understand the benefits. If you're interested, grab a copy of the trial and see what it can do for you.

Feature-packed antimalware for desktops, servers and VMs

F-Secure Client Security Standard is a popular endpoint protection tool, highly rated by the independent testing labs.

Antivirus is just the start. There's also a firewall, intrusion detection, web filtering, online banking protection and device control.

If you need more, the Premium edition adds a software updater to scan for missing patches, and an option to restrict a user's web access by category. Whatever version you buy may be deployed and managed from a central console.

There are some issues here, in particular the fact that F-Secure's engine is more likely than most to flag legitimate software as malicious. But overall F-Secure Client Security Standard offers good protection for a reasonable price, and it's certainly a product worth thinking about.

Accurate antivirus that doesn't need signatures

Sophos Endpoint Protection Advanced is a powerful tool which uses many technologies to keep you safe. It blocks dangerous URLs, and is capable of detecting and removing exploit code, analysing behaviour to uncover even the very newest threats, and identifying endpoint connections with malicious servers to find compromised systems.

The results can be impressive, with the core engine doing an above-average job of blocking zero day threats, yet raising almost no false alerts at all.

There's a price to pay for this kind of safety, though: Sophos Endpoint Protection's background activities can noticeably impact your PC's performance.

There are some business-friendly features to compensate, including DLP along with device and application control, although other packages give you more at a much lower cost.

2016-11-16 15:10 By feedproxy.google.com

41 /96 41 /96 0.0 Karma ransomware bundles itself with free software downloads Another ransomware variant has recently been discovered, which pretends to be a freeware utility tool called Windows-TuneUp.

Dubbed 'Karma,' the crypto-malware was discovered by slipstream/RoL , a security researcher. The ransomware is one of many other malware that disguise themselves as legitimate software , this is of course in order to trick unsuspecting people into downloading them.

This time around, Karma masks itself as a utility program to optimize the Windows system. The program 'includes' tools like a disk cleaner, a RAM booster, a registry editor, and an unwanted software uninstaller. The user will be presented with performance statistics as well, making it seem even more real.

The program is bundled with other downloadable software from the internet. Through this, users get a hold of the program, which gets their system infected. A pay-per-install system is utilized within Karma, where an advertiser pays the publisher a commission for every install of free programs bundled with adware.

Once installed, Karma checks if it is running on a virtual machine. If this is affirmative, it then terminates. If not, it will start to connect to its command and control (C&C) server where it will retrieve encryption keys, scan all drives including those on a network, and then finally encrypt hundreds of file types. It will append a.karma extension to every file it encrypts.

Fortunately, according to Bleeping Computer , the C&C server has already been shut down. This means that if a user is infected, it will not start encrypting files as it cannot connect to its server.

Even though the ransomware is now inactive, this shows us how important it is to be careful about the things we download on the internet. Be wary as well with software that may seem too good to be true, as they could contain malware that could harm our computers.

Source: Bleeping Computer via Graham Cluley

2016-11-16 15:04 Justin Luna feedproxy.google.com

42 /96 1.1 Monitoring Network Load With nload: Part 1 On a continually changing network, it is often difficult to spot issues because of the amount of noise generated by expected network traffic. Even when communications are seemingly quiet, a packet sniffer will display screeds of noisy data. That data might be otherwise unseen broadcast traffic being sent to all hosts willing to listen and respond on a local network. Make no mistake, noise on a network link can cause all sorts of headaches, because it can be impossible to identify trends quickly, especially if a host or the network itself is under attack. Packet sniffers will clearly display more traffic for the busiest connections, which ultimately obscures the activities of less busy hosts. You may have come across the excellent nearly real-time networking monitoring tool, iftop , in the past. It uses ncurses via a console to display a variety of highly useful bar graphs and even accommodates regular expressions. An alternative to iftop is a powerful console-based tool called nload. Such network monitoring tools can really save the day if you need to analyze traffic on your networks in a hurry.

In the past when I’ve been tasked with maintaining critical hosts, I’ve left the likes of iftop and nload running in a console throughout my working day. Spotting real-time spikes is essential if you’re struggling for bandwidth capacity or if you suspect that a specific host might be attacked thanks to historical attempts.

Thankfully, with nearly real-time graphical interfaces -- even displayed over a standard console - - there’s little eyestrain involved either. During times of heightened stress, such as when a host was being attacked, I’ve used these tools in one window alongside other console windows. That way I can simultaneously show the continually changed output of network-sniffing tools in both a text and a graphical form. I find that by running different filters through each tool and changing them periodically as my field of focus evolves means that digging down into the data that is of most interest is much easier. Ultimately, I end up with a clear picture of who is using the network and, most importantly, for what purpose.

The nload packages can be found in a number of software repositories. On Debian derivatives, you can use this command to trigger your package manager’s installation process:

On Red Hat derivatives, use this command:

In the same way that iftop uses the “ncurses” package to output “graphics” to your console without the need of a GUI, the flexible nload switched to using ncurses, too, back in 2001. Your package manager should take care of any dependencies in this regard so there’s no extra package installation work involved.

Once you have a working installation, all you need to do to run the package is use this command:

The results of such a command is the simple but useful output as shown in Figure 1.

The ability to split a single console window into two parts, one half for ingress (inbound) traffic and the other for egress (outbound) traffic is clearly of significant use. The clarity you immediately gain is invaluable, especially if you’re trying to diagnose an attack of some description. Also shown in Figure 1, at the top, are the adjustable options to alter your display on the fly, without stopping nload in its tracks.

If we only wanted to focus on one specific network interface, then we could run nload as follows:

You can, however, add more than one network interface to the same console window for a useful comparison. In this case, we would use the following command:

As you can see in Figure 2, this can give a useful insight into which of our network interfaces are under the highest load and without squinting at the output of a packet sniffing tool.

Now that we’ve got an idea of how malleable nload is, let’s look at some of the configurations options available.

Years ago, I remember debating the effectiveness of making your traffic statistics update faster than the default setting. Tools that use Simple Network Monitoring Protocol (SNMP), such as RRDTool and MRTG (and indeed tools that use the “pcap” library, such as iftop), use averages to populate the display you are presented with. In short, a quicker refresh frequency may lower the accuracy of the output from such tools. If you are interested in the intricacies of such a statement, I encourage you to read more about such matters online.

I mention this for good reason. Before we continue, one caveat is that the “screen refresh” frequency is a different animal altogether to the “averages” used during the collection of statistics. When it comes to nload, however, the two are separated for clarity (unlike with other applications). The clever author keeps things simple, which is very welcome.

From what I can tell from the manual, the “-a” option is for changing the period used for measuring “averages,” which (I am guessing) affects the calculations behind the scenes. The refresh frequency, however, is for “screen display,” in terms of tweaking it to suit your display needs as we’ve just mentioned. Both ultimately relate to how the majority of real-time statistics are collected and then displayed between them. In case it causes confusion with nload, the screen refresh period is referred to as the “refresh interval.”

The manual goes to some length to explain that lowering the refresh interval to less than the default 500ms is not that wise. It states: “Specifying refresh intervals shorter than about 100 milliseconds makes traffic calculation very unprecise.”

This confirms my experience with other traffic collection software, too. The sophisticated nload goes on to reassure us with this additional comment: “nload tries to balance this out by doing extra time measurements, but this may not always succeed.”

I couldn’t confirm what its exact effect is on other settings, but within the Options Window (the box seen at the top of Figure 1), there is a “Smoothness of average” setting, which you may have some success in changing to affect your accuracy. Fear not, following some trial and error, you shouldn’t have too many problems now that you’re armed with the terminology and the difference between the two key adjustable parameters.

When I’m learning a new tool, I tend to run a few tests between machines and monitor how the tool reacts at both ends of a connection -- to avoid a few headaches. Usually, I would send a small amount of data, stop and start the connection, and then try and saturate the network link (or at least put it under significant levels of stress) and repeat this a few times. Coupling your new-found knowledge of how a tool will ultimately react to differing scenarios -- having tuned the refresh frequency (and potentially the averages used for traffic calculations) to suit your needs -- is the best way to battle-harden a tool in my experience.

In the next article, I’ll look at some specific examples of launching nload with various options.

Chris Binnie is a Technical Consultant with 20 years of Linux experience and a writer for Linux Magazine and Admin Magazine. His new book Linux Server Security: Hack and Defend teaches you how to launch sophisticated attacks, make your servers invisible and crack complex passwords.

Advance your career in system administration! Check out the Essentials of System Administration course from The Linux Foundation.

2016-11-16 15:00 www.linux.com

43 /96 2.6 Family plans are now available for Amazon's Music Unlimited service Amazon is launching family plans for its Music Unlimited service today, something that the company promised it would do when it launched the music-streaming service last month. Pricing will be $14.99 per month or $149 per year for Prime members, while non-Prime members will only have the option to use the monthly pricing.

The new plans are only available in the United States right now, as the service only launched in the UK earlier this week. Family plans in the country are listed as coming soon, but when they are available, they will cost £14.99 per month or £149 per year.

The app will offer personalized service and recommendations to each of the up to six members of the account. Here is the full list of plans:

The new plans are live now, and you can sign up for them here. If you haven't tried out Amazon Music Unlimited, you're entitled to a 30-day free trial, which can be useful if you have an Alexa- powered device to use voice commands with.

2016-11-16 14:50 Rich Woods feedproxy.google.com

44 /96 44 /96 5.0 Samsung Buys RCS Company to Offer Solutions to Carriers Without Infrastructure The acquisition is meant to strengthen Samsung's position in North America and the company's commitment to RCS. For those unaware, RCS is a messaging standard set by GSMA (GSM Association) designed to enable the sending of texts, group chat, as well as the sharing of media files.

However, the main difference between RCS and other messaging apps is the fact that the former allows users to communicate on any network of carriers that already have RCS infrastructure active.

By acquiring the Canadian company, Samsung plans to offer RCS solutions to those carriers that lack these services. According to the South Korean company, its acquisition will help the deployment of RCS-enabled networks at a faster pace.

In the United States , some carriers already offer RCS messaging, but the service is only compatible with a handful of smartphones. Not to mention that RSC messaging is not compatible between various carriers' networks, which means you will only be able to use it with people that are on the same network as you.

It remains to be seen how Samsung will be able to juggle with this major issue when it comes to RCS messaging in the United States.

It's also worth noting that Samsung confirmed that the newly acquired NewNet Canada would continue to operate independently as a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Canada. The leadership will be maintained as well.

2016-11-16 14:38 Andrei Vlad news.softpedia.com

45 /96 2.2 Eve Online is finally offering a free-to-play option Even if you’ve never played Eve Online , you’ll have probably heard stories about it. The MMORPG space sim has been around for 13 years, during which time hundreds of thousands of players have signed up to its $15 per month subscription. But with the latest expansion, Ascension, Eve Online is finally offering a free-to-play option.

The update splits players into two categories : those who wish to pay the subscription fee are classed as Omega clones, while anyone who wants to experience Eve for free are Alpha clones. As is the case with other MMOs that offer F2P and paid-for tiers, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic, there are some limitations on free accounts. While Alpha clones can still explore the massive Eve universe and join any of the numerous groups that occupy it, they only have access to Tech 1 frigates, destroyers, and cruisers, along with basic industry ships. Additionally, Alphas have slower training speeds than the Omegas; their skill queues are limited to 24 hours instead of being infinite; and players can only have one active account at a time.

“Access to trading, industry, and exploration skills will allow Alpha pilots to explore the vast, mysterious universe, harvest its raw materials, fulfil their shrewd economic dreams, and construct the war machines that make Eve battles famous,” CCP says.

One of the main complaints with Eve was how inaccessible the game proved for new players; throwing newbies in at the deep following such a brief introduction often saw them quit and never return. But Ascension introduces a tutorial story that should help newcomers get accustomed to the complex game mechanics. It lasts between 2 and 5 hours, and it’s designed so players can take a break in the middle.

Ascension brings other changes to Eve, including new ships, NPC mining fleets, and graphical improvements. You can see the full patch notes here.

Introducing a F2P option to Eve could see the game’s player numbers swell. The subscription was a big barrier for those wishing to take part in the MMO’s epic space battles. And with the addition of a story tutorial making it more accessible, there’s never been a better time to take that first step into Eve’s amazing universe.

2016-11-16 14:30 Rob Thubron www.techspot.com

46 /96 1.9 Apple rumored to be launching three new iPhones next year, one with OLED screen For a long time now, we’ve been hearing that next year’s iPhone models will bring a brand-new design and radical features , to mark the line’s 10 th anniversary. Now, a credible report is shedding a bit more light on what to expect from Apple, come 2017.

Rumors have been swirling for a long time that pointed to Apple adopting OLED panels for at least some of its devices next year , and a new report from KGI Securities is reinforcing that notion. According to the note sent to investors, KGI analysts believe Apple will launch as many as three new iPhones in 2017, with different configurations and hitting various price points. Accordingly, the company’s lineup might look something like this:

All the new phones would feature a brand-new design, one that supposedly goes back to the all-glass build, last seen on the iPhone 4 models. Wireless charging, bezel-less screens, and no Home button have all been rumored as possible features as well, but none of them are confirmed at this point.

The addition of an OLED screen to the iPhone is a very interesting, and credible, possibility at this point, and there’s speculation that this will create a new top-tier niche phone, that might hit even higher price points.

We’re just shy of one year away from the expected launch of the iPhone 8 models, or whatever the devices end up being called, so you can bet we’ll learn more as we move into 2017.

Source: 9to5Mac

2016-11-16 14:18 Vlad Dudau feedproxy.google.com

47 /96 0.6 Jennifer Cloer on Working with Linus Torvalds, Open Source and Women in Tech “I’ve had the opportunity to be at the forefront of some of the most disruptive technologies in the history of computing, it’s an amazing and unique experience,” said Jennifer Cloer, former Director of Communications at the Linux Foundation.

I have known Jennifer Cloer from the very early days, even before the Linux Foundation was formed. She is among the most influential women in the tech world, especially in the open source world. I have been planning to start a series of interviews of those women who made it into CIO’s most influential women in Tech list. When I approached Jennifer, I learned about a development in her career that made this story even more interesting. Cloer is moving out of the Linux Foundation and venturing into a new world of her own.

Read more at CIO.com

2016-11-16 14:15 www.linux.com

48 /96 0.4 Finding an online advertising compromise Tracking cookies and automated profile of internet users allow commercial concerns to create targeted advertising for users of social media and other websites. However, the privacy issues surrounding such approaches to marketing worry many people. Researchers in the UK have examined the implications of an alternative approach that would give users back some control of their personal information but allow companies to offer them advertising that would be precisely targeted and perhaps meaningful to the users. The solution lies in what computer scientist Reuben Binns of the University of Oxford refer to simply as a Self-Authored Interest profile.

Binns explains that much of the content we see on the internet, advertising and product and service recommendations in particular are fed to us on the basis of algorithms that track our internet history and behaviour. Needless to say, this causes friction between companies and consumers and has led to the emergence of ad-blocking software, the need for "do not track" and cookie crumblers for browsers. These are perceived as allowing users to take back some control of their privacy.

Many users do not want to see any advertisements at all and many do not want to be tracked. However it is usual that free online services rely on revenues from advertising and would not survive if they could not display advertisements to users. Those sites make more money if the advertising is targeted to users' behaviour and interests and many run systems that block the advertisement blockers and circumvent the privacy rules.

A compromise is needed with which both company and consumer would be happy. Binns suggests that the self-authored profile might be the answer. He has tested this approach against behavioural profiling and found that it has many benefits. "People respond more positively to product recommendations when they are derived from SAI profiles," he says. "Moreover, the mere belief that a recommendation comes from an SAI profile is also associated with more positive responses. "

Any advertising system is likely to be imperfect. Non-targeted ads are annoying to many users and do not necessarily result in sales leads. By contrast, targeted advertising works better in presenting offers that a user is more likely to be interested in but they only work if the advertiser has access to more private or personal information about the people they hope to advertise to. If users are given some control over what information the advertisers get to see, then they are, it seems, more responsive to advertisements targeted to them based on that information, Binns suggests.

The next step will be to test whether such an approach can overcome consumer scepticism as well as be effective for the advertisers. Different trusts models will also need to be built to test the legal limitations and the effectiveness of this approach to privacy with targeting.

Explore further: Big tech-media mergers raise fresh privacy concerns

More information:

Reuben Binns. Self-authored interest profiles for personalised recommendations, International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising (2016). DOI: 10.1504/IJIMA.2016.080168

2016-11-16 14:11 phys.org

49 /96 3.4 Save 81% off this AWS Security Master Class via Neowin Deals Today's highlighted deal comes from our Online Courses section of Neowin Deals, where you can save 81% off this AWS Security Master Class. Become an Amazon Web Services Security Wiz in 10 quick hours.

This bundle consists of two courses:

For full details, terms and instructor info, click here .

This AWS Security Master Class normally represents an overall value of $158, but you can get it for just $29 for a limited time , a saving of $129.

First time buyers are also eligible for a further 10% discount when you subscribe for email updates; be sure not to dismiss the popup offer on the deals page in order to profit!

In addition, if you refer the deal via social media, or email which results in a purchase, you get $10 added to your Neowin Deals account .

Get this deal or learn more about it | View more offers in Online Courses

That's OK. If this offer doesn't interest you, why not check out our giveaways on the Neowin Deals web site? There's also a bunch of freebies you can check out here.

Or try your luck on The Google Pixel XL Phone Giveaway. All you have to do is sign up to enter for this giveaway.

How can I disable these posts? Click here .

Disclosure : This is a StackCommerce deal or giveaway in partnership with Neowin; an account at StackCommerce is required to participate in any deals or giveaways. For a full description of StackCommerce's privacy guidelines, go here. Neowin benefits from shared revenue of each sale made through our branded deals site , and it all goes toward the running costs.

2016-11-16 14:02 News Staff feedproxy.google.com

50 /96 1.9 Slack Enterprise coming early 2017, aims to make sprawl manageable Slack Enterprise is scheduled to launch in early 2017 and perhaps the biggest selling point will be giving enterprises tools to manage sprawl with teams that have used personal accounts.

CTO Cal Henderson said that Slack has been beta testing tools that would make deploying the communications platform easier to deploy at scale.

For instance, Slack's enterprise licensing agreements has given the young company a footprint in 28 percent of the Fortune 100. But CIOs are just getting a handle on the amount of teams and instances of Slack in their companies.

Tools in Slack Enterprise will include single sign-on as well as management and provisioning options. "We are in beta with various enterprises," said Henderson. "For IT there is a challenge of sprawl," he said. "Many teams have individually expensed Slack. "

The challenge for tech leaders is unique. It's not new that an application would gain enterprise adoption from the ground up. Consumerization dictates that employees often bring their own hardware and software for work.

But what makes the Slack management issue interesting is that the company has a much wider addressable market. A cloud service such as Salesforce was pioneered by line of business execs, but customer relationship management doesn't touch everyone. Amazon Web Services got its start on thousands of individual developer expense accounts. But that market started with developers at first.

Also: Slack versus Microsoft Teams: It's really no contest | Microsoft launches its Slack competitor, Microsoft Teams | IBM, Slack partner on Watson-powered chatbots | Slack surpasses 4 million daily active users | Slack, Salesforce ink broad integration pact

Slack can be used by anyone within a company that's involved with a team. IBM has 35,000 Slack seats. Managing Slack at a centralized point is handy, but first you have to rein in the sprawl. "We're working on the problem of deploying Slack to 100,000 users," said Henderson.

Henderson sees the enterprise as Slack's primary growth engine along with platform and ecosystem and international. Henderson said the enterprise upside is promising given that outside of the Silicon Valley bubble, there are plenty of companies that haven't heard of Slack in multiple industries.

"Relatively speaking few have heard of Slack," said Henderson. "There is a lot more space to expand.

2016-11-16 13:55 Larry Dignan www.zdnet.com

51 /96 0.0 Samsung Gear S3 Arrives at T-Mobile on November 18, but It's More Expensive According to T-Mobile , the highly-anticipated Samsung Gear S3 Frontier will be available to buy beginning next week, November 18, for no less than $399. If you have been following our stories about the Gear S3, then you already know Samsung announced the smartwatch should be launched on the market for $349.99.

Even AT&T confirmed earlier this month that it would sell the Gear S3 smartwatch for $249 with a new 2-year agreement, or $349.99 outright. That's $50 cheaper than T-Mobile's price, so many customers will probably prefer the AT&T version.

However, there's a chance that customers might be able to grab the Samsung Gear S3 Frontier much cheaper at T-Mobile.

The Tizen-powered smartwatch still shows as “ coming soon ” on T-Mobile, so you won't be able to pre-order one before it goes on sale on November 18. But at least you now know it will be more expensive than expected.

The Gear S3 Frontier ships with Tizen 2.3.2 operating system on board. It also sports a 1.3-inch Super AMOLED display with Corning Gorilla Glass SR+ coating for extra protection.

The smartwatch is powered by a dual-core processor clocked at 1GHz, coupled with 768MB of RAM and 4GB of internal memory. It's fully compatible with Samsung Pay in the United States and features a water-resistant and dust-proof design.

Samsung Gear S3 packs a 380 mAh battery inside, which will charge quite fast when the smartwatch is set on its wireless charging dock. Do you plan to buy Samsung's new Gear smartwatch later this week?

2016-11-16 13:51 Andrei Vlad news.softpedia.com

52 /96 1.1 Why do iPhone 6 and 6s models suddenly stop working? China’s Consumers Association (CCA) has formally asked Apple to investigate and answer why a number of iPhone 6 and 6s devices in the country have been shutting down without explanation.

According to the official information, a “considerable number” of users have been experiencing issues with Apple’s older iPhones. They are reporting that iPhone 6 and 6s models simply shut themselves off, despite having plenty of battery life left, around 50-60 percent. The devices can’t be rebooted afterwards, despite being connected to power outlets and used in adequate temperature conditions.

While the problem is a strange one, especially considering that it comes so long after the original phones launched, the CCA is in contact with Apple because of the company’s numerous clients inside of China. Apple hasn’t commented publicly on the issue yet, but the company has been struggling to keep its sales numbers up. The firm’s iPhone sales have consistently declined over the last few quarters , despite an uptick due to the launch of the new iPhone 7 models.

Given the very competitive nature of the Chinese market and the recent missteps of Samsung and now Apple, there’s little doubt that local competitors will try and take advantage of the situation.

Source: Reuters

2016-11-16 13:32 Vlad Dudau feedproxy.google.com

53 /96 2.7 MSI launches powerful small form factor PC for VR gaming MSI has revealed a new small form factor gaming PC called the Trident , aimed at gamers who want to enter the world of virtual reality without building a massive desktop system.

The Trident comes with either an Intel Core i5-6400 or Core i7-6700 CPU on a custom-made MSI motherboard with an Intel H110 chipset. The motherboard and CPU sit on one side of the small enclosure, while on the other side is a mini- ITX variant of MSI's GeForce GTX 1060 in either 3GB or 6GB configurations.

The entire system takes up just 4.7 liters of space, and weighs 3.2 kilograms, making it the perfect system to bring along to a LAN party or other event. MSI claims the Trident will be fairly quiet: the Silent Storm Cooling 2 solution is apparently just 31 dB under full load. The gamer- styled case packs RGB LED lighting as well.

Internally you'll find space for two DDR4-2133 SO-DIMM sticks, a 2.5-inch SATA drive, and an M.2 SSD, although these slots will be filled for you if you opt for MSI's full system configuration. I/O consists of a USB 3.1 Type-A port along with four USB 2.0 ports on the rear, plus a single USB-C port and two USB 3.1 Type-A ports on the front.

The Trident will be available this month starting at $899 as a pre-configured system, or $599 as a barebones kit. The starting price here is a fair bit cheaper than Zotac's competing Magnus EN1060 barebones compact GTX 1060 gaming PC, however Zotac's system is smaller despite MSI's claims of the "world’s smallest true gaming PC. "

2016-11-16 13:30 Tim Schiesser www.techspot.com

54 /96 6.2 GitHub Enterprise Updated to Version 2.8 Business section of GitHub upgraded with host of new features including projects tool and code review.

By Tom Jowitt

GitHub's business-focused service has been upgraded to version 2.8, and comes with a host of new features designed to help developers deal with business projects.

GitHub Enterprise offers the ability for developers to manage their work directly from GitHub repositories thanks to 'Projects', and also gives a more streamlined code review and discussion capability.

GitHub was founded in 2008 and boasts an impressive user base of more than 15 million developers. It is effectively a cloud-based service that lets developers publish code online, in an open source environment, where other collaborators can borrow, improve, or just generally have a conversation about the code.

Indeed, Microsoft has releasing the source code of particular tools to GitHub recently, and last Christmas the British intelligence agency GCHQ created its own repository on GitHub, and open-sourced one of its tools.

It is worth remembering that there are three main services offered on GitHub.

First is the free, GitHub.com service for individual developers. Secondly, there is a team-based version that is commonly used in startups; and, thirdly, there is GitHub Enterprise, where companies can install a version of GitHub on their own private servers behind a firewall.

GitHub does of course make money (to the tune of $100m revenues annually), and GitHub Enterprise is its main money maker.

So what is available with GitHub Enterprise 2.8?

Well 'Reviews' are designed to help developers build flexible code review workflows into their pull requests, as well as streamline conversations, and reduce notifications. Developers can now comment on specific lines of code, formally "approve" or "request changes" to pull requests, batch comments, and have multiple conversations per line.

GitHub says these initial improvements are only the first step of a much greater roadmap toward faster, friendlier code reviews.

A second major feature is the 'Projects' tool, which allows the developer to manage work directly from GitHub repositories. Task cards can be created from pull requests and categories such as 'in progress' or 'done', or 'never going to happen' can be applied.

In an effort to share data on GitHub, Jupyter notebooks make it easier to capture data-driven workflows that combine code, equations, text, and visualizations. And now they render in all the relevant GitHub repositories.

Another feature is an improved contribution graph which offers a snapshot of the developer’s most important contributions. And with GitHub Enterprise 2.8, system admins have more ways to enforce security policies and get developers the support they need. For example, admins can now enforce the use of two- factor authentication at the organizational level, efficiently visualize LDAP authentication-related problems, and direct users to their support website throughout the appliance.

Choppy Waters

It has not been all plain sailing for the software development hosting service, however.

In June this year GitHub admitted that a number of user accounts had been compromised by an attacker who used previously published account credentials from previous breaches of other online services.

The attacker apparently took these account credentials, such as email addresses and passwords, from other online data breaches and tried them on GitHub accounts.

And in 2014 the startup was rocked after designer and developer Julie Horvath resigned from the company while publicly complaining about being harassed by the company’s leadership .

Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder and former CEO of GitHub, later resigned as its president following the allegations.

2016-11-16 13:30 Guest Author www.eweek.com

55 /96 4.3 5 things AIs can do better than us For millennia, we surpassed the other intelligent species with which we share our planet—dolphins, porpoises, orangutans, and the like —in almost all skills, bar swimming and tree-climbing.

In recent years, though, our species has created new forms of intelligence, able to outperform us in other ways. One of the most famous of these artificial intelligences (AIs) is AlphaGo, developed by Deepmind. In just a few years, it has learned to play the 4,000-year-old strategy game, Go, beating two of the world’s strongest players.

Other software developed by Deepmind has learned to play classic eight-bit video games, notably Breakout, in which players must use a bat to hit a ball at a wall, knocking bricks out of it. CEO Demis Hassabis is fond of saying that the software figured out how to beat the game purely from the pixels on the screen, often glossing over the fact that the company first taught it how to count and how to read the on-screen score, and gave it the explicit goal of maximizing that score. Even the smartest AIs need a few hints about our social mores.

But what else are AIs good for? Here are five tasks in which they can equal, or surpass, humans. AIs don’t just play video games, they play with traditional toys, too. Like us, they get some of their earliest physics lessons from playing with wooden blocks, piling them up then watching them fall. Researchers at Facebook have built an AI using convolutional neural networks that can attain human-level performance at predicting how towers of blocks will fall, simply by watching films and animations of block towers standing or falling.

Lip-reading—figuring out what someone is saying from the movement of their lips alone—can be a useful skill if you’re hard of hearing or working in a noisy environment, but it’s notoriously difficult. Much of the information contained in human speech—the position of the teeth and tongue, and whether sounds are voiced or not—is invisible to a lip reader, whether human or AI. Nevertheless, researchers at the University of Oxford, England, have developed a system called LipNet that can lip-read short sentences with a word error rate of 6.6 percent. Three human lip- readers participating in the research had error rates between 35.5 percent and 57.3 percent.

Among the applications the researchers see for their work are silent dictation and speech recognition in noisy environments, where the visual component will add to accuracy. Since the AI’s output is text, it could find work close-captioning TV shows for broadcast networks—or transcribing surveillance video for security services.

AIs can be even more helpful when the audio quality is better, according to Microsoft, where researchers have been tweaking an AI-based automated speech recognition system so it performs as well as, or better than, people. Microsoft’s system now has an error rate of 5.9 percent on one test set from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the same as a service employing human transcribers that Microsoft hired, and 11.1 percent on another test, narrowly beating the humans, who scored 11.3 percent.

That’s one situation where being better than a human might not be sufficient : If you were thinking you could dictate your next memo, you might find it quicker to type and correct it yourself, even with just two fingers.

This story was written by a human, but the next one you read might be written by an AI.

And that might not be a bad thing: MogIA, developed by the Indian company Genic, doesn’t write stories, but when MogIA predicted Donald Trump would win the U. S. presidential election it did better than most political journalists.

When it comes to writing, AI’s are particularly quick at turning structured data into words, as a Financial Times journalist found when pitted against an AI called Emma from Californian startup Stealth.

Emma filed a story on unemployment statistics just 12 minutes after the figures were released, three times faster than the FT’s journalist. While the AI’s copy was clear and accurate, it missed the news angle: the number of jobseekers had risen for the first time in a year. While readers want news fast, it’s not for nothing that journalists are exhorted to “get it first, but first, get it right.”

Putting those employment statistics in context would have required knowledge that Emma apparently didn’t have, but that’s not an insurmountable problem. By reading dictionaries, encyclopedias, novels, plays, and assorted reference materials, another AI, IBM’s Watson, famously learned enough context to win the general knowledge quiz show Jeopardy.

After that victory, Watson went to medical school, absorbing 15 million pages of medical textbooks and academic papers about oncology. According to some reports, that has allowed Watson to diagnose cancer cases that stumped human doctors, although IBM pitches the AI as an aid to human diagnosis, not a replacement for it.

More recently, IBM has put Watson’s ability to absorb huge volumes of information to work helping diagnose rare illnesses, some of which most doctors might see only a few cases of in a lifetime.

Doctors in the Centre for Undiagnosed and Rare Diseases at University Hospital Marburg, in Germany, will use this instance of Watson to help them deal with the thousands of patients referred to them each year, some of them bringing thousands of pages of medical records to be analyzed.

Authors including Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil have postulated that AI technology will develop to a point, still many years off, that they call “the singularity,” when the combined problem-solving capacity of the human race will be overtaken by that of artificial intelligences.

If the singularity arrives in our lifetimes, some of us might be able to thank AIs like Watson for helping keep us alive long enough to see it.

2016-11-16 13:26 Peter Sayer www.infoworld.com

56 /96 6.7 CCleaner 5.24 for Windows Now Available for Download The official changelog shows that CCleaner 5.24 features improved Firefox history cleaning, as well as better cleaning on session information in Opera and Vivaldi, so if you’re using any of these three browsers, you'd better update as soon as possible because this version really comes in handy.

Then, it’s the pack of goodies for Windows users, as the CCleaner update includes revised Internet Explorer and Edge cache cleaning - Internet Explorer continues to be used by many people out there, while Edge is the new browser that Microsoft is promoting so aggressively these days for Windows 10 users.

Additionally, Windows Explorer benefits from improved most recently used file cache cleaning, the parent company says, adding that monitoring notifications have already received some refinements to work better after the update.

And just like is the case of every other update, this new version includes bug fixes and GUI improvements, so there’s no good reason not to update, especially if you’re one of the many users who think that CCleaner can substantially improve system performance. 2016-11-16 13:15 Bogdan Popa www.softpedia.com

57 /96 4.2 Firefox 50.0 arrives for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android, adds new features The Firefox 50.0 browser is ready to download from Mozilla.org.

The latest release of Firefox for PCs and Android devices brings a number of new features and updates as the browser reaches its fiftieth release.

Mozilla, the browser's maker, said that Firefox 50.0 for PC supports video playback on more sites without plugins with WebM EME Support for Widevine on Windows and Mac. Performance is improved for SDK extensions or extensions using the SDK module loader, and download protection has been added for a large number of executable file types on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Other updates include increased availability of WebGL to more than 98 percent of users on Windows 7 and newer, and an option to allow users to limit 'Find in page' search to whole words only.

Faster Firefox? Mozilla's Quantum shoots for quicker page loads, smoother scrolling

Mozilla is overhauling its Gecko-based web engine so that it's better at handling the dynamic features of modern websites.

There's also an update to the keyboard shortcuts, allowing you to set Ctrl+Tab to cycle through tabs in recently used order, while users can view a page in Reader Mode by using Ctrl+Alt+R (command+alt+r on Mac). Mozilla has also added a built-in Emoji set for operating systems without native Emoji fonts (Windows 8.0 and lower and Linux).

The Android release sees fewer additions, adding support for HLS videos via player overlay and simplifying the user interface by combining the Recent Tabs and History panels.

The open-source browser made its debut in November 2004, so it has taken 12 years for Firefox to reach its half century.

Although Firefox promises better privacy features than some other browsers, its market share has slid in recent years: according to figures from NetMarketShare, Firefox currently has about an 11 percent of the browser market, behind Internet Explorer (23 percent) and Chrome (55 percent).

2016-11-16 13:07 Steve Ranger www.zdnet.com

58 /96 58 /96 0.7 Koch Industries' investment arm buys more than $2 bln stake in Infor SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 16 (Reuters) - The investment arm of Koch Industries, the industrial conglomerate of the billionaire Koch brothers, is spending more than $2 billion to take a significant stake in enterprise software provider Infor, the companies said on Wednesday.

The transaction marks the largest investment for Koch Equity Development LLC, the subsidiary that invests excess cash from its parent company, and also represents its biggest push yet into the technology sector.

Reuters exclusively reported last week that the Koch investment arm was in talks with Infor to acquire a stake that was a mix of preferred and common equity valuing the private company at roughly $10 billion.

Koch Industries, with annual revenue of about $100 billion, owns brands such as Brawny paper towels, Dixie Cups and Lycra, and is controlled by Charles and David Koch, two of the world's richest men.

Charles Koch was personally involved in the decision to invest in Infor, a New York-based firm that helps companies automate business processes, according to Infor's chief executive Charles Phillips. Phillips said in an interview that he visited Wichita, Kansas three times to discuss the investment with the billionaire.

"(Charles Koch) was looking to do more in technology and realizes he needs to transform his own companies," Phillips said. "He's been looking for the right platform to help modernize his companies. "

Pulp and paper company Georgia-Pacific is already an Infor customer, and Koch Industries' swath of companies that could lead to future business for Infor helped it prevail over other interested parties, Phillips said. About half a dozen private equity firms had been vying to buy either a minority or majority stake in the company, Reuters previously reported.

Brett Watson, senior managing direction at Koch Equity Development, said in a statement that Infor's capabilities were relevant to its portfolio and that it hoped to explore new innovations together.

Infor offers specialized software licenses to specific sectors, as opposed to selling one product to all its customers across industries. It competes with Phillips' former employer Oracle, as well as SAP SE and IBM Corp.

Koch Equity Development will be an active investor and will receive four board seats as part of the deal while the other five seats will go to the existing owners of Infor, Golden Gate Capital and Summit Partners, and Phillips, the CEO. The deal is expected to close in early 2017.

With the new investment, Infor plans to continue spending on acquisitions and on shifting its business model to software subscriptions delivered over the cloud, Phillips said. Its existing owners will also be able to cash in on a portion of their long-held investments.

Golden Gate has owned Infor since 2002, when it acquired one of its predecessor companies, Agilisys. The company changed its name to Infor in 2004, when Agilisys acquired German firm Infor Business Solutions AG.

Koch Equity Development's exclusive adviser was Rothschild Inc and its legal adviser was Jones Day. Infor was advised by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Credit Suisse. Gibson Dunn was Infor's legal adviser while Kirkland & Ellis LLP advised its owners.

(Reporting by Liana B. Baker in San Francisco; Editing by Stephen Coates)

2016-11-16 12:54 Liana B www.cnbc.com

59 /96 1.0 How storage can help fight malware [Q&A] We tend to think of storage as being a target when it comes to malware attacks with cyber criminals seeking to steal data or encrypt it to demand a ransom. But in fact technology can make storage part of the solution.

Hybrid storage specialist Reduxio believes innovative storage can be used to fight and defeat ransomware and malware. We spoke to Reduxio's Jacob Cherian (VP of product strategy) and Mike Grandinetti (chief marketing and corporate strategy officer) to find out how.

BN: How much of an impact can ransomware have on a business?

MG: Ransomware is a top concern for businesses these days, given that it has become the largest cybersecurity threat. In fact, every day about 4000 companies are under threat of attack -- an increase of 300 percent compared to 2015 figures. More than $200 million has been paid to ransomware hackers in the first quarter of 2016 alone.

Businesses are seeing a new reality, where it is not a matter of if a ransomware attack will occur, but when it will occur.

Businesses can take all the necessary precautions and utilize the bevy of cybersecurity tools available, but in the end, something like ransomware will eventually find its target. If businesses do not have a strong recovery strategy and solutions in place to get operations back to normal, a ransomware incident can easily cost them a significant amount of time and money. That isn't taking into consideration the cost from lost productivity and downtime when it's taking businesses a minimum of days or longer to recover at a potential cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour.

BN: What can storage do to combat the problem?

JC: One of the best approaches for businesses to combat a ransomware demand is by having a primary storage system in place that allows the user to go back to the last backup before an attack and clear its data of any damage caused by the attack, via native snapshot capabilities which are scheduled "images" of data.

The problem with many types of storage now -- legacy storage -- is that it's slow and cumbersome and snapshots are only taken periodically. Relying on intermittent snapshots would mean losing hours or perhaps days of critical data at the minimum.

However, not all storage systems on the market are made equal, with some having better recovery capabilities than others. The storage solutions that will be the most effective in combating ransomware and other cybersecurity attacks are those that use innovative features and capabilities.

Reduxio's storage system, for example, foregoes snapshots. We've invented a capability called BackDating, which essentially provides businesses a "time machine" allowing them to go back in time to precisely the second before the attack. With BackDating, a sysadmin can choose any time in the past with one second of granularity and either create an independent clone or revert the original data volume to that exact point in time -- allowing them to recover their data to right before the attack as if it never happened. Sysadmins can take advantage of this BackDating capability by selecting a specific second in time to "scroll back" the system.

There are many approaches to combating ransomware, but the most effective approach in dealing with it and other cyber threats would be to pair the best cyber protection tools with the most innovative storage solutions for quick recovery.

BN: How quickly can compromised data be recovered?

MG: How quickly you recover will ultimately depend on the storage solutions you have in place and the capabilities that they have. Businesses that are relying on snapshots and legacy storage systems may find themselves spending hours if not days recovering their data or restoring backups.

When the Barnstable Police Department, one of the largest PDs in the State of Massachusetts with 130 employees, was hit by a ransomware attack recently it would have spent a minimum of 36 hours getting its computers and systems back up and running if it relied legacy storage based on prior experiences. That amount of downtime would be difficult for any organization to handle, and even more so for the Barnstable PD given that it is a 24/7 local government institution responsible to protecting their community of 150,000 citizens.

Fortunately for the Barnstable PD, it had deployed Reduxio's storage systems in the weeks before the attack. From the moment of the ransomware attack to the full recovery -- and without ransomware paid or data loss -- Barnstable PD was able to get its mission critical systems and data up and running in a matter of 35 minutes.

BN: Won't this require a major and costly change to storage infrastructure? JC: We believe that storage tiering is a great way to balance high performance and cost efficiency. Understandably so, few organizations have the need -- or the money -- to run all of their workloads on SSD, so regardless of its improving economics, SSD will continue to share the stage with spinning disk.

Some storage systems can be up and running extremely quickly -- Reduxio's can be working in a matter of 15 minutes after unboxing. Setup procedures are simple, requiring basic information entry such as IP addresses on several start-up screens, and taking less than five minutes. Furthermore, it isn’t a major or costly change when a new system like ours, which offers offer flash performance at disk-based pricing, can be managed by existing IT professionals.

Lastly, it's important to note that in today's age of growing ransomware threats, having storage technology that can backdate to the second before an attack occurs saves the SMB time and resources to recover files. In the end, being susceptible to indiscriminate ransomware attacks and paying ransom will cost businesses far more in the long run.

Image Credit : Oleksiy Mark / Shutterstock

2016-11-16 12:40 Ian Barker feeds.betanews.com

60 /96 0.8 Sega has created a modern version of arcade favorite Daytona USA Daytona USA, one of the highest grossing arcade games of all time, is long overdue for a sequel and Sega is delivering.

Sega at the annual International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions event in Orlando, Florida, has on display the latest game in the long-running (yet dormant for a while now) Daytona USA franchise.

Daytona 3 Championship USA (that’s a bit of a clunky name, no?) will serve as an arcade-only, direct sequel to 1998’s Daytona USA 2. As VG247 notes, the game will feature three new tracks – one of which is based on the recently renovated Daytona International Speedway – as well as faithful recreations of the original game’s racetracks.

Handling and in-game physics should feel familiar to franchise vets as the new game is based on the original Daytona USA engine.

Each cabinet will feature a 47-inch display and supports linking with up to eight total cabinets for true head-to-head multiplayer. Cabinets also have a camera that faces the driver and pumps the feed to the video billboard above each arcade cabinet.

The original Daytona USA arcade cabinet touched down in North America way back in 1994. In addition to the breathtaking graphics, wicked soundtrack and the fact that you played the game with a steering wheel (with force feedback), pedals and even a fully functional shifter for use when opting for a manual transmission, the fact that cabinets could be linked together for local multiplayer was icing on the cake.

It wasn’t uncommon to see owners prominently position the game at or near the front of their arcades in hopes of luring in unsuspecting kids and even adults.

2016-11-16 12:30 Shawn Knight www.techspot.com

61 /96 0.0 Here's how the OnePlus 3 and 3T will get OxygenOS 3.5, Android 7.0 Nougat, and other updates Yesterday, OnePlus officially unveiled its new flagship, the 3T. The device comes to market about six months after the company’s previous flagship, and best- selling product, the OnePlus 3, was originally launched.

Alongside the 3T, OnePlus also announced the launch of a new version of its operating system, OxygenOS 3.5, and reiterated its commitment to bring Android Nougat to its devices. Given so many moving pieces in the company’s strategy, we don’t blame you if you’re a bit a confused as to how this will play out for your device. But fear not, as we’ve sifted through all the company’s videos, announcements, and public discussions to understand how each of these pieces fits into a precise picture.

Some OnePlus 3 (OP3) users were feeling a bit cheated when the company announced an upgraded phone so soon after the previous flagship. However, OnePlus says it views the OP3 and the 3T as different sides of the same coin, or rather, different versions of the same phone. And given the main difference between the two devices is the newer Snapdragon 821 processor, the 3T is clearly not meant as an upgrade for existing OP3 users.

More importantly, the company said quite a few times that both devices will be getting the same software updates at the exact same time. In fact, OnePlus’s beta program, which lets users test pre-release software, has been working for months based on this principle. The newest software updates launching on the OnePlus 3T were tested by OP3 users, so the newer operating system was designed from the start to work on both devices.

Going forward, the company says the two phones will always stay in sync in terms of software updates, so that’s good news for everyone.

The new version of OxygenOS (OOS) comes with an updated design, improved first-party apps and a slew of other changes. And it’s been in public beta for quite a while, getting ready for primetime.

According to yesterday’s announcements, the OnePlus 3T will launch with OOS 3.5 so that means the new system software will finally hit more devices on November 22, when the new phones launch.

However, given the statements above about keeping the company’s phones in sync, this should also mean that OnePlus 3 owners will get the over-the-air update at the same time. At worst, OP3 owners might get the update a few days later on November 28 th when the 3T launches in the EU. But, if the company stays true to its word, OP3 users should see the update in the next couple of weeks.

While a new version of OOS is all fine and good, what users are really clamoring for is the launch of Android 7.0 Nougat on their devices. OnePlus has been coy about when the new Google OS would launch on its phones, but important hints have been given along the way.

Back in September, OnePlus said it was already working on a build of Android 7.0 Nougat for the OnePlus 3. Then, a few days ago, one of the company’s executives reconfirmed that, and added that OP3 users would be getting a beta version of the new OS by the end of the month. Finally, in yesterday’s announcements, OnePlus said that both the OP3 and the 3T would be seeing Android Nougat by the end of the year.

In other words, if everything goes according to plan, once Oxygen OS 3.5 goes public in the next couple of weeks, a new beta build based on Android 7.0 Nougat will be made available to OP3 and 3T owners. Then, as bugs get fixed and feedback is incorporated into the system, the final over-the-air update should be out sometime in December.

Though the company’s communications have at time been quite confusing, a clear picture and timeline has emerged from their latest announcements, promising quite a lot for OnePlus 3 and 3T owners over the next month and half.

Now all that’s left to do is to hope the company manages to deliver on all of its promises.

Do the company’s plans sound good to you or would you have preferred a different timetable? Let us know in the comments below.

2016-11-16 12:18 Vlad Dudau feedproxy.google.com

62 /96 1.7 You can save up to £110 on some Surface Pro 4 models in the UK, now available from £699 With the festive shopping season fast approaching, you can expect to see all sorts of deals popping up in the coming weeks on a wide range of products. In fact, some companies are already offering chunky discounts, including in the UK, where buyers can now enjoy savings on two models in Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 range.

The Microsoft Store is currently offering £110 off the Surface Pro 4 with an Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Usually priced at £1,079, it's now on sale for £969, and will remain at that price until November 20.

If you're on a slightly tighter budget, the entry-level Surface Pro 4 is also available with a discount from Amazon. The retailer has cut £50.99 off the most affordable Pro 4 model - which features an Intel Core m3 processor, 4GB RAM and 128GB of storage - reducing its price from £749.99 to £699 .

Deeper discounts are available from third-party Amazon Marketplace retailers on other models in the Surface Pro 4 range too. For example, while Microsoft is selling the Pro 4 with an Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD for £1,799, one seller is offering the same model on Amazon for £1,589 - that's £210 (12%) less than the Microsoft Store price.

Source: Microsoft Store / Amazon.co.uk

2016-11-16 12:02 Andy Weir feedproxy.google.com

63 /96 5.9 openSUSE Leap 42.2 Officially Released, Includes GNOME 3.20 & KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS Designed to offer users only well- established Open Source and GNU/Linux technologies, and built using the source code from the recently released SUSE Enterprise Linux (SLE) 12 Service Pack 2 (SP2) operating system, the second major update to the openSUSE Leap 42 open- source and free distribution is here after being in development for the past six months. There are numerous new features and updated components in openSUSE Leap 42.2, some of which Tumbleweed users are already enjoying.

For this release, openSUSE Project chooses to ship the openSUSE Leap operating system with a kernel from the long-term supported Linux 4.4 series, providing users with a more secure, reliable, and stable platform that they can easily deploy in a wide range of production environments, including but not limited to cloud infrastructures, virtual machines, and organizations. openSUSE Leap is the perfect Linux-based OS for small and medium-sized businesses. openSUSE Leap offers a new balance filter for Btrfs.

"openSUSE Leap 42.2 represents the combined effort of thousands of developers who participate in our distributions and projects shipped with it. The contributors, inside and outside the openSUSE Project, should be proud of this release, and they deserve a major 'thank you' for all of the hard work and care that have gone into it. We believe Leap is the ideal Linux distribution for developers, sysadmins and users. We hope you have a lot of fun using it," reads the press announcement.

Among the new package versions and technologies included in openSUSE Leap 42.2, we can mention Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) functionality, mixing Data Plane Development Kit with Open vSwitch for faster packets processing, a large number of improvements to YaST (Yet another Setup Tool), Prelude Security Information & Event Management (SIEM), new Btrfs- based concept for quota to the Snapper utility, as well as NVDIMM (Non-Volatile Dual In-line Memory Module) and OmniPATH support.

On the desktop side of things, users will enjoy the rock-solid stability of the GNOME 3.20 and KDE Plasma 5.8 LTS desktop environment, which are accompanied by the less popular LXQt 0.11.0. However, you'll also be able to try out the Xfce, MATE, Cinnamon or Enlightenment desktops. Furthermore, we can notice that openSUSE Leap 42.2 ships with Qt 5.6, GTK+ 3.20, Python 2.7, Ruby 2.1, Perl 5.18, GCC 6.1.1, 5.3.1, and 4.8.5, LLVM/Clang 3.8.0, CMake 3.5, OpenSSL 1.0.2h, OpenSSH 7.2p2, libvirt 2.0, and Glibc 2.22.

Applications like QEMU 2.6.1 and VirtualBox 5.0.24 virtualization solutions, Samba 4.4.2 file sharing software, MySQL 5.1.35 database engine, LibreOffice 5.2 office suite, as well as the KDE Frameworks 5.26.0 collection of add-on libraries for Qt 5 are included in today's openSUSE Leap 42.2 release, which supports LXC and Docker-based Linux containers, mature support for ARMv7 and AArch64 (ARM64) platforms, and support for nested virtualization through KVM. Download openSUSE Leap 42.2 .

2016-11-16 12:01 Marius Nestor news.softpedia.com

64 /96 3.8 Linux Dominates November TOP500 Supercomputer List The latest semi-annual list of the world's top 500 supercomputers was released on November 14, showing little change at the top of the list. The China-based Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer, which first claimed the title of the world's fastest system in June 2016, still reigns supreme.

Sunway TaihuLight was built by the National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering and Technology (NRCPC), and it is installed at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, China.

Read more at ServerWatch

2016-11-16 12:00 www.linux.com

65 /96 3.5 BSi opens consultation on government-style information classification standard The British Standards Institution (BSI) has opened consultations into a proposed new British standard, BS 10010, which would help organisations to apply government-style classifications to information. The consultation is set to run until 27 December 2016.

The standard will cover "requirements for the creation, implementation, evaluation and improvement of Information Classification, Marking and Handling (ICMH) systems. It specifies requirements for classifying information, including defining how it may be accessed by users, both inside and outside the organization that owns the information", according to the BSI.

The proposal was initiated two years ago by Dr Andrew Rogoyski, vice president of cyber security services at computer services company CGI UK.

The standard would feed into organisations' overall IT security postures.

"It's important to understand cyber security is not like 'normal' security. There is no single gatekeeper whose role is to keep our cyber systems safe. The responsibility belongs to everyone in an organisation - but it is down to those in leadership positions to stress the importance of cyber security to other employees and develop a strategy that is tailored to the risks of each organisation," claimed Rogoyski in a presentation to the civil service last year.

He continued: "A large part of avoiding cyber attacks comes down to awareness. Are you aware of how much information you're already sharing publicly and how this information can make you vulnerable? Are you aware of how your behaviour can impact the larger organisation? "

A standard such as BS 10010 would take security down to the lowliest member of staff, pitching it in terms of information, rather than IT.

The ultimate aim, though, is that software vendors will adapt their products to take information classification into account - not just in specialist software, but everyday software packages, such as word processors, collaboration tools and email.

2016-11-16 11:59 Graeme Burton www.computing.co.uk

66 /96 3.6 Singapore tests digital currency system to ease bank payments The Singapore stock exchange and eight banks will take part in the pilot project, which includes payment between banks, said Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) chief executive Ravi Menon at the Singapore Fintech Festival.

Blockchain technology debuted in 2009 as a public ledger for the digital currency bitcoin, but its potential for securely tracking transactions has meant it is being eyed for other uses. The pilot project aims to integrate the service into the mainstream as the Southeast Asian country seeks to become a regional hub for new financial technologies.

During the pilot phase, banks will be able to purchase a virtual currency regulated by the MAS, which can then be used for an inter-bank payment. The digital currency can then be redeemed for cash.

This removes a need to send instructions through the MAS, a process that adds time and cost to the payment process, Menon said.

He added: "The next phase of the project will involve transactions in foreign currency , possibly with the support of another central bank. "

Blockchains are considered tamper-proof registers in which entries are time-stamped and linked to previous "blocks" in a data chain.

Blockchains serve as public ledgers considered easy to audit and verify. They are also automated, speeding up transactions and limit potential for error or revision.

Explore further: Microsoft teams with Bank of America on 'blockchain'

2016-11-16 11:56 phys.org

67 /96 0.4 China bans 'fatty' Kim Jong Un nickname on websites Searches for the Chinese words "Jin San Pang" on the search engine Baidu and microblogging platform Weibo returned no results this week.

The nickname pokes fun at Kim's girth and his status as the third generation of the Kim family to rule the world's only hereditary communist dynasty. It's especially popular among young, irreverent Chinese who tend to look down on their country's would-be ally. Relations between China and North Korea have been strained by the North's nuclear weapons program, which China has condemned along with South Korea, Japan, the United States and Russia. But Beijing continues to support the Kim regime with limited trade and diplomatic backing.

North Korean officials, fearing that Kim would find out about the nickname, lodged a formal request with China recently to prohibit names disparaging Kim from appearing in the media, according to Hong Kong newspaper reports.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Wednesday that reports of the banning of "Jin San Pang" didn't "comply with facts. "

"The Chinese government stays committed to building a healthy and civilized environment of opinions," he added. "We disapprove of referring to the leader of any country with insulting and mocking remarks. "

"Kim Fatty the Third" is such a widely used term in China that it is sometimes suggested by auto- complete algorithms on web portals such as Baidu, China's leading search engine. While searches for "Jin San Pang" returned no results this week, Baidu left untouched results for other versions of the nickname, such as "Kim Fat Fat Fat. "

Baidu spokeswoman Tracy Hu declined to comment.

The Beijing-based company has typically said that its policy is to provide accurate search results while also complying with Chinese regulations.

Explore further: Baidu teams up with Microsoft for English searches

2016-11-16 11:55 phys.org

68 /96 2.0 Eclipse Che cloud IDE joins Docker revolution Eclipse Che 5.0 is making accommodations for Docker containers and Language Server Protocol across multiple IDEs. The newest version of the Eclipse Foundation’s cloud-based IDE and workspace server will be available by the end of the year.

The update offers Docker Compose Workspaces, in which a workspace can run multiple developer machines with support for Docker Compose files and standard Dockerfiles. In the popular Docker software container platform , a Compose file is a Yet Another Markup Language (YAML) file defining services, networks, and volumes; a Docker file is a text document with commands to assemble an image. Che also has been certified for Docker Store, which features enterprise-ready containers. In addition, Docker is joining the Eclipse Foundation and will work directly with Che.

Along with Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code editor , Che 5.0 supports Language Server Protocol. “Today, available language servers include JSON, C#, Java, and now PHP,” which was recently added to the protocol, said Tyler Jewell, Eclipse Che lead and CEO at Codenvy. “Language servers provided by Sourcegraph for Go, Python, JavaScript, and Typescript are planned to support the protocol by Q1 of next year. " Eclipse 5.0 expands support for PHP in general, with such capabilities as syntax validation, autocomplete, search, and debugging. OpenShift, Red Hat’s cloud application platform , gets a thumbs-up in Che 5.0. “Che will support running on OpenShift, including distributing workspace runtimes to operate as OpenShift pods. This will complement our existing OpenShift plugin for deploying your projects to OpenShift,” Jewell said.

Developers who adopt the 5.0 upgrade can live-sync workspaces and projects to desktops so that they can be used with local IDEs. To improve deployment, Che can take a production image and mount source code inside while adding an artifact repository and injecting agents for SSH, terminal, or Intellisense. This helps eliminate surprise production deployment problems, said Jewell. The stack editor in the upgrade, meanwhile, creates custom runtimes for Che workspaces based on a user’s software and environment, while controlling required resources and agents.

Tags Docker

More about Eclipse Microsoft Red Hat SSH

2016-11-16 11:00 www.computerworld.com.au

69 /96 0.9 | Pokémon Sun review: New Pokémon, an improved battle system and lots to do in Alola make Sun and Moon the very best, like no-one ever was By

Lewis Painter | 11 hours ago

£30-40

Price comparision from , and manufacturers

Pokémon is one of very few brands whose fan base spreads across generations. Sure, Pokémon is mainly aimed at kids, but it’s also aimed at those who grew up playing the likes of Pokémon Red, Blue or Yellow sat beneath a lamp in their front room (kids today won’t understand the struggle of non- backlit screens).

While this means that Pokémon trainers young and old can come together and discuss stories about their favourite Pokémon, it also means that developers Game Freak had a huge challenge on their hands - how do you make a game appealing to both kids and adults? While Pokémon X and Y showed huge improvements in terms of storyline and gameplay, it’s down to Pokémon Sun and Moon to take the baton and finish the race. Has Game Freak succeeded? Well…

See also: The most anticipated games of 2016 and 2017 | Pokémon GO review | Pokémon GO troubleshooting

Plus: Best Black Friday Gaming Deals

Nintendo has confirmed the seventh generation in the series, Pokémon Sun and Moon, will launch on 23 November as a 3DS exclusive.

You can pre-order Pokémon Sun or Moon from Amazon (£32) or GAME ( £34.99).

Looking back at the early games, it’s fascinating to see how much Pokémon, as a brand and a game, had developed. Gone are the flat, 2D images of early games, with Pokémon battles in recent games being energetic, dramatic and most importantly, three-dimensional. Bringing 3D models into Pokémon gave it a new lease of life, and helped bring the Pokémon to life too. 3DS owners could take that one step further, and enable the enhanced 3D mode of the console to bring even more depth to the display.

However, while 3D support was featured in Pokémon X and Y, Game Freak has decided to not offer any kind of 3D capabilities in Pokémon Sun and Moon. We’re not quite sure why, but this is sure to disappoint those with a 3DS, especially the newer version with enhanced 3D viewing capabilities. Although with that being said, we find the enhanced 3D capabilities of the Nintendo 3DS somewhat gimmicky, and the lack of 3D shouldn’t make the game any less impressive - it’s just worth noting for those that do appreciate the functionality.

Pokémon X and Y was praised for its fast paced nature and interesting storyline, and this is a theme that has continued on with Pokémon Sun and Moon. Gone are the days of sluggish, slow gameplay with extended periods wandering around in long grass battling Caterpies. Within the first hour of playing Pokémon Sun and Moon, you’re introduced to a plethora of Pokémon - both in battles and in the wild - and depending on your skill, you may have conquered your first Island Trial. The change in pace keeps users engaged, and the constant introduction of activities and side quests provides users with lots to do in Alola, even once the main storyline has been completed.

Island Trials are new to the Alolan world of Pokémon Sun and Moon, and replace the hugely popular Gym mechanic of past Pokémon games. Why? In Alola, you must take on the trial captains dotted across the islands, each with their own trials. The trials usually involve a myriad of Pokémon battles, but can also involve observation and recognition skills (we were prompted at one challenge to identify the jingle of the Pokémon Centre, and more). Think of the Island Trials as being like the puzzle at the entrance of gyms in older Pokémon games, but much more intricate and well-developed. Each trial is unique and tests a different skill, and may also tie in with the ‘type’ of Pokémon that the trial captain prefers.

However unlike with traditional Gyms, it’s not the trial captain that you battle. Once you’ve passed the trial, you must then take on the Totem Pokémon. The Totem Pokémon introduced in Pokémon Sun and Moon are much stronger than average Pokémon and are blanketed in an aura that gives them an edge in battle – they can have heightened defence, attack and more, but the specific characteristics depend on the Totem Pokémon you’re battling.

A new feature of the game is the ability for wild Pokémon to call for backup, or an ‘ally’ Pokémon. While this can happen in standard wild battles, you can bet your Rare Candy that it’ll happen in every Totem battle (unless you 1-hit KO them), which poses an additional threat. When an ally appears, the battle becomes a 2v1, making the challenge that much greater – and that much more rewarding when you defeat your enemies and are awarded with a Z-Crystal. What is a Z-Crystal? Z-Crystals help Pokémon of a specific type unleash incredibly powerful attacks that bond trainer and Pokémon, although these are limited to one per match and the power/move itself depends on which Pokémon is performing it. As you progress through the game you’ll find a number of different Z-Crystals, both from Island Trials and by randomly interacting with NPCs, providing your Pokémon with a trick up their sleeves for those extra-tough opponents. It’s not ridiculously overpowered though, meaning you’ll still have to think strategically about timing and possible effects it can have on the enemy.

So as you may have guessed, the dynamic of battles can change quickly in Pokémon Sun and Moon - and we like it. Yes, the majority of battles will still be in the standard 1v1 style, but the wild Pokémon’s ability to call for backup can change the tide of any battle. While logic dictates that the trainer should then summon a second Pokémon themselves, you’re forced to take on two foes with a single Pokémon. There’s also a 2v2 mode, but this is only the case when facing two enemies - you won’t find this to be the case when wandering through tall grass or exploring caves.

This change in the battle dynamic forces the player to think more tactically than in previous games, where some gamers would spam one move to KO the competition. Should you take out the Pokémon with lower health first? Or should you focus your efforts on the newly summoned Pokémon that just happens to be one of your weaknesses? It’s little features like this that make Pokémon Sun and Moon much more exciting and engaging than previous releases.

The introduction of different battle modes is only a part of the overhaul in Pokémon Sun and Moon though, as Game Freak has also added a number of smaller, well-needed features. If you’re up against a Pokémon you’ve previously battled, you’ll find little notes next to each of your attacks that let you know whether it’ll be effective, super effective or not very effective. This is great as it means you don’t need to memorise the strengths and weaknesses of the vast library of Pokémon in Sun and Moon, and makes battling a little bit easier for casual players.

That’s not all though, as the Pokémon can physically change during a match to reflect what’s happening. If you’re up against a Pokémon with a shell, there’s every possibility that the shell will break off once you’ve damaged them enough. You’ll also be able to add a newly caught Pokémon straight to your party, instead of them being automatically sent to a box. Again, these are only small changes to the battle system, but are welcomed by long-time fans of the series.

Price comparision from , and manufacturers

OnePlus 3T confirmed | OnePlus 3T UK release date, price, preorder & specifications: The flagship…

1995-2015: How technology has changed the world in 20 years

Why logos are going retro iPhone 8 release date rumours UK | iPhone 8 specs: iPhone 8 screens 'will be biggest yet, and curve'…

2016-11-16 10:57 Lewis Painter www.pcadvisor.co.uk

70 /96 70 /96 3.3 Download of the day: DRL Drone Racing Simulator Competitive drone racing is a burgeoning sport , with serious prize money up for grabs. Racing drones themselves are reasonably priced at around £300 (US$400, AU$550), but to stand a chance in a stadium you’ll need to hone your skills – and even an affordable drone is too much of an investment to risk slamming into a tree when you’re first earning your wings.

That’s where DRL Drone Racing Simulator comes in. This free download has been developed by the US-based Drone Racing League to help you master the fine control needed to ace a real obstacle course at over 60mph. It’s also great fun as a flight sim in its own right – realistic and demanding.

To get the most out of the simulator you’re advised to use a real drone controller. An Xbox or Playstation controller will also do the job, or the good old WASD keyboard controls if you fancy a real challenge.

DRL Drone Racing Simulator offers a training mode that helps you get used to controlling your virtual aircraft – a very different experience to most flight sims. Once you’ve mastered the basics, there are single-player and multiplayer modes that pit you against the clock or other pilots, respectively.

Feeling confident? DRL Drone Racing Simulator also lets you try out for the 2017 Drone Racing League. After entering the tryouts, you’ll compete in 24 heats across four maps and be given a time that represents the aggregate total of all your race times. Check out the leaderboards to see the times to beat. Tryouts are only open to US residents for now.

Bear in mind that DRL Simulator is still in beta, so you might run into the odd glitch here and there (though hopefully nothing on a par with reports of GoPro Karma drones dropping from the sky ).

Download here: DRL Drone Racing Simulator

2016-11-16 10:51 Cat Ellis feedproxy.google.com

71 /96 2.3 Nvidia Game Ready 375.86 drivers cause massive performance issues Last night, Nvidia started to roll out the latest “Game Ready” drivers for its users, with version 375.86 coming through the GeForce Experience app and now available as a direct download. However, you’ll probably want to stay away from these drivers for now, as serious issues are being reported by users.

Every time there’s a major game release, Nvidia pushes out what it calls “Game Ready” drivers, designed to optimize user experience and ensure that gamers get the best graphics and frame rates from the get go. While that has, broadly speaking, worked well for the company and its clients, this release seems to be plagued with significant issues.

The new drivers were supposed to be optimized for Battlefield 1 , Civilization VI and The Division , but users who have downloaded the GeForce 375.86 WHQL drivers have identified a number of show-stopping bugs. Some gamers are experiencing heavy flickering inside of games, and not just the titles that were targeted by this release. Another, even bigger issue, is that for some players the GPU clocks now seem to be stuck at 810 Mhz, vastly decreasing performance in all aspects of use.

Users who have been plagued by these problems seem to only be able to fix them by rolling back the driver to an older version.

This is the second time in a row that a driver release from Nvidia has come with problems for its users. Last month’s release brought Windows Start Menu issues, screen tearing and pixelated images when users tried to view videos or gifs, and it took Nvidia two hotfixes to finally address the problem.

With such major issues coming just a few weeks later, it’s clear you might want to have your system set to manual updates and wait to see how drivers react before installing them.

Source: Nvidia Via: Hexus

2016-11-16 10:48 Vlad Dudau feedproxy.google.com

72 /96 5.9 Antivirus Firms Unite Against Microsoft Push for Windows Defender in Windows 10 Kaspersky explained in a blog post published last week that many other security companies believe that Microsoft turns to dirty tricks to push users to Windows Defender, but nobody has until now been vocal.

And according to SecurityWeek , some firms have already expressed their support for Kaspersky, including Panda Labs, F-Secure, and Avira. All of them believe that Microsoft needs to play well with third-party security companies, and some admit that Redmond needs to change its antivirus policy in Windows 10. Luis Corrons, technical director at Panda Labs, explains that several European security companies have the same concerns over Microsoft encouraging users to go for Windows Defender, and explains that Kaspersky will certainly receive the support of others in the fight against the software giant.

F-Secure CTO Mika Stahlberg goes for a more conservative approach, and says that the current practice that Microsoft is using “is not allowing the best protection for the end customer,” while Avira CEO Travis Witteveen thinks “Eugene is right to be upset.”

“We are in active dialogue with Microsoft, as not all changes, as well as upcoming changes, are considered as beneficial for the user. We are glad they are investing effort, but have warned them about abusing their position,” he said.

The European Commission is yet to confirm an investigation in this case, but judging from the fact that more security companies show their support for Kaspersky’s complaint, a closer look at how Microsoft pushes Windows Defender to Windows 10 users is very likely.

2016-11-16 10:44 Bogdan Popa news.softpedia.com

73 /96 6.2 Download Drivers for Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga 710-14 2- in-1 Notebook When it comes to the producers providing these files, know that Intel has put on the line its Chipset, Management Engine (ME), Rapid Storage Technology (RST), and Serial IO packages, while Realtek will enable the full functionality of the audio card and card reader component.

In addition to that, Intel, along with Atheros and Broadcom, takes care of the device’s wireless capabilities (both WLAN and Bluetooth), and Synaptics, Elantech, and ALPS implement several Touchpad-related features.

Moreover, Intel installs its HD Graphics build to improve the CPU’s gaming performance while NVIDIA wakes up the dedicated video card so that owners can take details to a whole new level (however, it depends on what GPU model you have).

Last but not least, users can also download the integrated webcam driver that have been developed by Liteon, Chicony, Bison, and Azureware, as well as a BIOS package that should implement a few security fixes.

As far as installation goes, to properly apply these drivers, just save and extract the files, run the available setups one at a time, and follow all instructions displayed on screen for a complete upgrade.

With this in mind, if you own one of these devices, download all the drivers by following one of the links below, apply them, and don’t forget to perform a reboot to allow all changes to take effect properly.

2016-11-16 10:40 Iulian Pascal drivers.softpedia.com

74 /96 1.4 HP unveils the Z2 Mini workstation, 'smaller than a cup of espresso' HP has unveiled a new workstation, but unlike its previous products, the HP Z2 Mini is small enough to fit inside your bag. The company is billing this as the “first- ever mini workstation” and promises top-of-the-line performance inside of a tiny package.

The HP Z2 Mini is all about design and saving users space, with the device coming in at just 2.3 by 8.5 inches, which is “smaller than a cup of espresso” as the company is quick to point out. But don’t let its size fool you, as HP claims this little machine packs a punch.

Inside the HP Z2 Mini users will find current and future generations of Intel’s Xeon Processors, Nvidia Quadro graphics with “M620-class professional graphics”, and an HP Z Turbo Drive with up to 1.5 TB of storage. The device can also support up to six displays straight out of the box.

But performance isn’t everything, and HP went on to emphasize the custom-designed vents and coolers inside of the device that keep it cool and quiet. The company says the Z2 Mini is 63% quieter than an HP business-class mini PC.

The company mentions that the HP Z2 Mini is specifically designed for CAD users, with the device being certified for over 20 professional software applications. The mini workstation ships with either Windows 10 Pro or Linux distros.

The HP Mini will go on sale this December worldwide with a starting price of $699, but which can go up depending on your custom needs and loadout.

2016-11-16 10:32 Vlad Dudau feedproxy.google.com

75 /96 1.7 Mozilla Firefox 50 trims start-up times, widens download protection Mozilla has released Firefox 50.0 for Windows, Mac and Linux, with Firefox for Android 50.0 due imminently. For the second release in a row it’s launched a week late, but this time the reason behind the pause is different.

The extra week gave Firefox 50 time to unveil its headline new feature: significant start-up improvements, achieved through an overhaul of the application’s add-on SDK module system. Elsewhere download protection covers a wider range of executable files, plus Firefox 50 introduces a smattering of useful usability improvements.

The existing add-on SDK’s module system was described as a "performance disaster" in the bug listing accompanying this improvement. Long story short, one developer has claimed start- up time has improved from 35 percent (around 0.3 seconds) on a system with no add-ons, to 65 percent on a Firefox install with three add-ons.

The new release has four interesting new features that improve functionality. Users can now print a page in Reader Mode for a clearer printout, plus switch to Reader Mode via a new keyboard shortcut: [Ctrl] (or [Cmd] on Mac) + [Alt] + [R]. Firefox 50 also widens its download protection support to cover a much broader range of executable files found on Windows, Linux and Mac systems -- now everything from compressed files and generic exe/bin/app packages to Office executables and scripts will be subject to the download scan.

The Search bar has a new "Whole Words" button -- click this to restrict in-page web searches to complete words only. Users can also choose to assign the [Ctrl] + [Tab] shortcut to cycle through tabs in the most recently accessed order -- go to Options > General and tick the new setting under Tabs to enable it.

Last, but not least, those running operating systems without native support for Emojis -- namely Windows 8 or lower and Linux -- gain a built-in Emoji set.

Elsewhere, support for WebGL has now been widened to cover more than 98 percent of PC users running Windows 7 or later, while Windows and Mac users also gain support for WebM EME content protected by Widevine DRM.

There’s a fix for the rendering of dashed and dotted borders with rounded corners, while libavcodecs older than 54.35.1 have been blocked. There are also a large number of updates for Web developers. Firefox 50.0 is available now as a free, open-source download for Windows, Mac and Linux. Also due for release is Firefox for Android 50.0. This adds support for HLS video via a player overlay, plus simplifies the user interface by combining the Recent Tabs and History panels.

2016-11-16 10:30 Nick Peers feeds.betanews.com

76 /96 0.0 Shazam for Mac Keeps the Microphone On Even After Users Manually Turn It Off Mac security expert Patrick Wardle has discovered that Shazam keeps the microphone enabled even after the user manually turns it off, which is undoubtedly worrying for users aiming for uncompromised privacy.

The company, however, claims that the simple fact that the microphone stays on is a feature and not a bug, pointing out that the app needs to do that because, otherwise, it would take longer to load and users could miss a song they want to scan.

Shazam's vice president of global communications James Pearson explains that there are no security risks that come with this bug, as the application does nothing more than to create what he called a “fingerprint” of the song and then match it to other fingerprints that are stored in its database. Nothing is saved, nothing is recorded, he says.

Wardle, on the other hand, thinks otherwise, and says that developing malware that could take advantage of this “feature” is not that hard.

“We could get creative an easily design a piece of malware that steals this recoding without having to initiate a recording itself (which would likely generate an alert),” Wardle stated.

Although it emphases that there’s no security risk involved, Shazam says that an update will be released in the coming days for the Mac version in order to improve the experience. There is no telling if Shazam wants to let users disable the microphone completely or not.

“We are always sensitive to what our users experience and we respect these concerns and take them very seriously,” Pearson explained. “Even though we don't recognize a meaningful risk, the company will be updating its Mac app within the next few days. Shazam has always learned from and listened to our global community. More importantly, we want our fans to always feel secure about using Shazam on a Mac Desktop.”

Until this update arrives, the company guarantees that there’s no security risk associated with the app and you can continue using it safely because no one is going to record you.

2016-11-16 10:20 Bogdan Popa news.softpedia.com

77 /96 3.1 New ransomware taps into social media accounts before demanding users to pay up A new variant of ransomware has recently been seen in the wild, which searches for illegal content on the host computer, and then utilizes the victim's social media accounts in order to tailor its demands.

Researchers at Proofpoint Security dubbed the malware as 'Ransoc' after its ability to use social media for its modus operandi. Instead of the usual behavior of ransomware, which is to encrypt files, the malware searches a victim's hard drive for illegally downloaded content, as well as looking for the owner's social media accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Skype. The data collected will then influence the subsequently created ransom note, which will include images from the victim's social media accounts, threatening legal action against them.

As proof of this, one variant of the penalty notice, according to Proofpoint, only appears when the malware detects that the victim has files downloaded from torrent and warez sites. The malware will then play with the victim's fears, stating in a notice posted in a web browser that they have indeed downloaded illegally acquired content.

Unlike the majority of ransomware that demands bitcoins or money gram cards for payment, the cybercriminals behind Ransoc instead want victims to pay through their credit card. To convince those affected to just pay up, the malware creators pledge that they will return the money back, should the victims cease downloading illegally in the next 180 days. Obviously enough, this is only a trick, and the money paid will not go back to victims anytime soon.

Fortunately enough, Ransoc uses a registry autorun key, meaning that removal after booting the computer into safe mode should get rid of the malware. As per usual, as prevention for further infection in the future, it pays to be wary of the websites we visit, as well as having good security software.

Source: Proofpoint Security via ZDNet | Blue padlock image via Shutterstock

2016-11-16 10:16 Justin Luna feedproxy.google.com

78 /96 4.7 Adobe uses shared responsibility to meet security challenges Adobe uses shared responsibility to address key security challenges, according to the company’s senior manager of secure software engineering, Mohit Kaira.

“Most companies face the challenge of having relatively small security teams because it is difficult to find and retain people with the necessary skills,” he told the Eema ISSE 2016 security conference in Paris.

Adobe addresses this challenge through appointing security champions in each of the product groups to take the pressure off the central security team.

This approach of sharing security responsibility is a strategy that can be used by any company, regardless of their core business.

Security champions in core business areas typically have more security knowledge than their colleagues and they help ensure security is a focu s of the teams they work in.

“They act as the eyes and ears of the central security team and take responsibility of ensuring the baseline security requirements of the company are met,” said Mohit.

At Adobe, this means that security champions are responsible for the security training in their product group as well as the static code analysis procedures and security testing.

“This means the central security team have more capacity to focus on setting and updating security requirements, on threat modelling, on reviewing high-risk alerts and signing of products,” said Mohit.

“Instead of the central team being involved in every security task we set up the products teams for security success and make it clear that security a shared responsibility,” he said.

2016-11-16 10:15 Security Editor www.computerweekly.com

79 /96 1.9 G4S CIO says DevOps shift requires full business buy- in, not just from IT team Security firm G4S is moving to a DevOps software development model, but the real cultural challenge will be for the business rather than IT staff, according to group CIO Nick Folkes.

"In my experience of agile and DevOps approaches, they're generally not an issue for an IT audience. The challenge is more in taking the business with you," he said.

"Our businesses are traditional, and we've run IT in a certain way for many years, so the concept of agile, where you work in sprints rather than a waterfall, is quite alien for the business, I think. "

The DevOps model, in which traditional software development and operational teams are combined, is increasingly popular with businesses, despite some scepticism about changing roles among staff.

Folkes explained that the solution to selling the concept lies in maintaining a close relationship with business colleagues to ensure they understand how and why processes are changing.

"It takes a lot of engagement with colleagues in the business to help them understand that agile is an iterative approach to how we build capability," he said.

"DevOps is about developing things in an agile way. The business needs to understand that the process is now iterative, and has moved away from things like sitting down at the beginning to work on the design for six months. "

But this change will be a simpler one for IT staff, according to Folkes, as it's simply a "technical shift" for them.

"I don't think it's an alien concept for IT. It's a technical shift rather than cultural change for them," he said.

However, some firms have admitted problems in retaining IT staff when making such a cultural shift.

Stephen Lowe, director of technology at Paddy Power Betfair, recently told V3 's sister site Computing about an engineer who spent six years becoming Cisco certified only to be told he now needed to write code instead .

Explaining why the move to DevOps needs to happen, Folkes said that the intention is to increase the speed of the business.

"The business wants things faster, and they want a lower time to market. Who doesn't? This is just a good way of doing that. Businesses want outcomes, and this is how we choose to deliver them," he said.

Folkes explained that moving to DevOps will involve hiring new staff to fill certain roles, but won't necessarily involve large numbers of redundancies.

"I'm sure there'll be some people left behind, but I don't think that would be a majority of staff. I think most people are in IT because they like IT, and everyone accepts that technology moves on or we'd all be sitting around with punch cards and mainframes," he said.

"This is just the latest in a long line of changes in our industry. We got over the client server change, so I don't anticipate any cultural rejection of DevOps in IT. "

2016-11-16 10:10 Stuart Sumner www.v3.co.uk

80 /96 0.0 NSA chief admits nation state meddled in US election The head of the NSA has made it plain that the US election was targeted by nation state attackers with the specific intention of influencing the vote.

NSA director Michael Rogers said at a Wall Street Journal event on Tuesday that there is no question someone had tried to influence the election. "There shouldn't be any doubt in anybody's mind. This was not something that was done casually. This was not something that was done by chance. This was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily,” he said.

“This was a conscious effort by a nation state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.”

Rogers stopped short of mentioning the country behind the attacks, although it is widely thought to be Russia after it hacked the Democratic Party and passed information to WikiLeaks which subsequently leaked it during the course of the election.

The election even saw president-elect Donald Trump urge Russian hackers to go after Hiliary Clinton to find more information on her, although it is unclear whether that call led to any more hacking, as the initial breach occurred earlier in the year.

Nevertheless, Rogers' comments raise the disturbing likelihood that the Russian hacking efforts proved so successful that organisations like the NSA, CIA and FBI are now under the command of a man that Russia wanted to win the election.

There has been no shortage of coverage of Trump and Putin’s warmth towards one another, although much of that may be down to the latter knowing that Trump will be an easier adversary on the global stage.

Rogers said at the WSJ event that the NSA is doing what it can to stem the tide against hackers, although his comments amounted to little more than a checklist of obvious actions.

“We are trying to make life harder for hackers. We’re trying to harden systems, we’re trying to increase the level of knowledge, increase the capabilities in the private sector and the government,” he said.

“We’re trying to deal directly with a host of nation states around the world and engaging with them on what’s acceptable from our perspective and what’s not.”

2016-11-16 10:00 Dan Worth www.v3.co.uk

81 /96 2.5 Intel will invest $250 million in self-driving cars over next two years Intel’s CEO took the stage at the LA Auto Show AutoMobility conference yesterday to announce that the company would be investing an additional $250 million in self-driving technology and all the hardware that goes along with it over the next two years.

According to Intel , and industry watchers as a whole, the auto market is on the cusp of a giant revolution with the widespread introduction of autonomous vehicles, or self-driving cars. With everyone from Microsoft to Apple , Google , Uber , and not to mention traditional car manufacturers , as well as new- comers like Tesla , jumping in on this bandwagon, there’s little surprise that Intel wants to be a part of this market as well.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the company will actually build self- driving cars. After all, as Apple discovered, building a car from scratch is a huge endeavor. Instead, Intel is looking to be the company powering the car’s systems and all the data processing that will need to happen behind the scenes. The company’s CEO, Brian Krzanich, said that “data is the new oil” and the massive amount of information produced by every single self-driving vehicle, supposedly up to 4TB of data per car per day, will require new technologies and innovation to be dealt with.

It also sounds like the company is looking at the Internet of Things, sensors, and processors as possible segments where its technologies will have a big impact in this market. Intel has been trying to diversify its portfolio in recent years , and entering a new market like cars, makes a lot of sense. Some of its rivals, like Nvidia are already partnering with automakers and providing computing devices for upcoming cars, so Intel is simply following suit.

Earlier this summer, Intel announced it had reached a deal with BMW to supply some of the smarts in upcoming vehicles, and this continued investment in the field should lead to new partnerships, despite the intense competition in the market.

2016-11-16 10:00 Vlad Dudau feedproxy.google.com

82 /96 0.8 Adobe Fined $1 Million for 2013 Hack That Affected Millions of Users The security breach happened in 2013 when an attacker broke into Adobe’s own network and accessed systems where the company was storing customer data.

At that time, Adobe sent notifications to more than 3.1 million users whose credit card information was stolen, but also to more than 33 million users whose passwords were compromised.

After a thorough investigation, 15 state Attorneys General ruled that Adobe failed to properly protect customers and fined the company $1 million, while also requiring new security systems that would help prevent similar breaches in the future.

In motivating their decision, the American states explained that Adobe not only failed to implement security systems to protect user information but also failed to immediately detect an attack and thus reduce damages.

Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Vermont are the states that started the investigation against Adobe, as a total of 500,000 users living in these locations were affected by the hack.

"Consumers who entrust a company with their personal data should have that trust respected," Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said in a statement. "Adobe put consumers’ personal data at risk of being compromised by a data breach, and that is unacceptable. This settlement will put in place important new practices to ensure that a breach like this does not happen again. "

According to the assurance of voluntary compliance, Adobe will have to review twice per year its internal security policies and improve them where necessary in order to make sure that no other hacks can happen in the future. The states also required the firm to implement additional security measures to protect critical user information, such as credit card data.

2016-11-16 09:56 Bogdan Popa news.softpedia.com

83 /96 5.3 Facebook’s ‘unified inbox’ will make it easier for customers to be heard Facebook has had a bright idea in terms of helping businesses keep on top of managing their social media – and better responding to customers – with the introduction of a unified inbox for Facebook, Messenger and Instagram.

Rather than trying to juggle comments and responses across these three channels separately, with the new Pages Manager inbox, the social media manager (or team) at a company will have access to them all within this single app.

That means if you fire a complaint across on Instagram, it’ll just as likely be seen as a message posted on Facebook (as opposed to being more likely to be missed when posted on the ‘lesser’ channel). Thus we can hope for prompter responses, whichever medium is used to message a company, and hopefully less cases where comments fall by the wayside and could end up ignored.

Facebook also noted that the app provides an easy way to glance at basic info about the folks who interact with a business – it’s just a case of tapping their name to see their public profile and previous interactions with the organisation.

Nicole Chase, admin of Nicssential Oils Silver, told Facebook: "The new and improved inbox gives me a quick snapshot of all media channels in an organised and succinct way. It cuts down the time I spend on administrative tasks by around 12%, and it allows me to provide a more detailed and personalised service. "

The new inbox is being rolled out to users of the Pages Manager app (on iOS and Android) over the ‘coming weeks’ according to Facebook, so businesses haven’t got long to wait – and neither have customers who will hopefully feel the benefit as mentioned.

In other recent changes, Facebook is also rolling out the ability to join public chat rooms in Messenger. Currently this feature is only available in Australia and Canada, but it’s likely to spread elsewhere soon enough.

Via: Engadget

2016-11-16 09:50 By feedproxy.google.com

84 /96 0.6 What you need to know about federated identity As we conduct more and more of our work and personal lives using information technology, we have to sign in to lots of different systems. That can mean many different sets of credentials which can be hard to manage.

Federated identity is a way of streamlining this by linking an electronic identity and attributes across several identity management systems. This is related to single sign-on (SSO), which involves sharing authentication between systems -- such as signing onto other websites using your social network ID -- but federated identity goes much deeper.

Background

At its simplest federated identity means having a not just a shared ID, but a common set of policies, practices and protocols. These are used to manage the identity and trust of users and devices across a number of systems or organizations.

This started with the idea of centralized identity management within a data center or network. But as IT has moved to a more decentralized model with systems in house and in the cloud, and there’s been more call for access from external users -- such as contractors or suppliers -- the need for identity management has evolved. It now needs to provide not just cross-system, but also cross-domain and cross-company access.

The purpose of federated identity is to enable users of one domain to securely access the data or systems of a different domain seamlessly, with no need for additional user administration.

Standards

As federated identity has developed, standards have been drawn up to allow systems to work together. The first to emerge was AuthXML , developed by Securant Technologies (now part of EMC). AuthXML was deigned to support eCommerce by delivering a transparent user experience and providing a standardized approach for presenting and keeping track of security details as a transaction passes through linked Web sites even though they may be based on different technologies, applications and platforms. AuthXML was designed to be an open standard, not owned by any one vendor.

At around the same time two other companies Netegrity and VeriSign developed their own standard called S2ML. Eventually, via the efforts of the OASIS open standards organization, AuthXML and S2ML were combined to form a new standard. This became known as Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) and its specification was released in early 2001.

The next step was the formation of the Liberty Alliance, a consortium of technology and other companies, which in 2009 became the Kantara Intitiative. It worked to develop SAML and at the same time incorporated the WS-Security specification that had been submitted to OASIS by Microsoft, IBM and others.

Microsoft, IBM, VeriSign and some other companies also got together to produce a broad set of specifications under the WS label. The intention being that this should offer a more modular architecture than other federated identity specifications. The WS work is intended to address the needs of a range of web services.

The next development came with the rise of social media. A group comprising Facebook, Microsoft, Google, PayPal, Ping Identity, Symantec, and Yahoo sponsored production of a standard called OpenID. OpenID allows user to be authenticated using a third-party services known as identity providers. Users can pick their preferred OpenID providers to log in to websites that are signed up to the OpenID authentication scheme.

You'll have gathered by now that there are lots of standards to choose from in the area of federated identity, one more that we need to mention is OAuth. This differs slightly in that it is intended to provide authorization rather than identification, controlling access to resources after the user is signed in.

Single Sign-On

A big part of federated identity and the one most people are likely to encounter is single sign-on. This allows access to multiple systems with a single set of user credentials. Most commonly this is used to grant access to web services using services such as OpenID Connect and Facebook Connect.

The attraction of SSO is that it cuts "password fatigue" by allowing people to use one set of credentials that only need to be entered once. The downside is that the authentication system itself becomes critical, if it’s unavailable the user is denied access to all systems controlled by the SSO.

Drawbacks

Although there are obvious benefits of federated identity, there are also some downsides. We’ve already discussed how single sign-ons can place greater emphasis on the authentication system, but there are other issues too.

In terms of introducing federated identity into a business the need to modify existing systems may prove an obstacle. It might require different or tougher protocols than then organization already uses, and if membership of more than one federation is needed they may have different standards. All of this means there is both a financial and resources cost.

Perhaps the biggest worry is security. In any business some systems will be more critical than others, so policies and systems need to provide enough assurance that these will be protected. It’s also necessary to ensure that users of federated identity are legitimate. None of the standards in use have proved perfect in this respect and all have been subject to various flaws that could compromise security.

Where Next?

Although the idea of federated identity has been around for a long time it isn’t yet as widely adopted as you might expect. This is partly down to a conservative approach -- understandable where security is concerned -- but, as it becomes more widely used, trust will deepen.

Where early attempts at federated identity tended to center on the organization, the influence of social media means that it’s now more focused on the user. This throws up another issue, which is control of digital identities. There needs to be clear agreement on who originates and verifies identities within a federation.

As connectivity between in-house, cloud, hybrid systems, protocols, and devices increases, federated identity looks like a solution whose time has come. But, though federated identity is a lot more convenient for users -- because they don’t have to remember so many different usernames and passwords -- it does come with a security price. That said, if correctly implemented technologies like OAuth, SAML, OpenID, or other federated identity protocols can boost convenience without increasing the threat level.

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Future plc Publication. All rights reserved.

Image Credit : Gunnar Pippel / Shutterstock

2016-11-16 09:40 Ian Barker feeds.betanews.com

85 /96 1.8 Samsung Galaxy S7 Explodes in Man's Hands, Causes Him Second-Degree Burns He pulled over and took the phone out of his pocket to see what was really happening. Unfortunately, that was exactly the moment the Galaxy S7 exploded and caused him second- degree burns on his hands and third-degree burns on his wrists. There was no warning or anything before the Galaxy S7 exploded and melted everything inside, which is why he was taken completely by surprise.

Imagine what could have happened if the smartphone exploded when he was talking on the phone. He would have probably lost an eye and have had even more serious burns on his face.

He was lucky enough to be able to throw the phone outside, otherwise the device could have seriously damaged his car as well. After staying at the hospital for almost the entire day, he was told by the doctors that he would be unable to work for about one month.

Samsung refuses to comment on the incident until the damaged phone is in its possession, so it can examine it before issuing any statements.

The Galaxy S7 was not subject to a global recall and incidents like this one haven't been reported too frequently throughout the year. Although we don't know the exact cause of the Galaxy S7's explosion, there's a high chance that the battery might be the culprit.

Since the technology used in Li-ion batteries hasn't made any breakthroughs in the last couple of years, they are prone to explosions due to the highly volatile elements used inside. Basically, it could happen to anyone, anytime.

2016-11-16 09:27 Andrei Vlad news.softpedia.com

86 /96 1.6 Microsoft's Azure Bot Services make it easy to build your own bot This year, Microsoft has been talking up bots and how they will become increasingly important and relevant in our lives. With bots dedicated to specific tasks, like ordering pizza, handling travel bookings, or altering the time or destination of a package delivery, the capacity and availability of underlying infrastructure will become of great importance. Already, the company has seen significant uptake from the developer community after releasing its Bot Framework back in March this year. While Microsoft has been thrilled with the response, it is looking to kick things up a notch with the announcement of a brand new service.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced the launch the industry's first bot-as-a-service capability, called Azure Bot Service. The service leverages the existing Bot Framework in addition to the company's popular cloud platform.

In her announcement , Lili Cheng, Distinguished Engineer in Microsoft's Artificial Intelligence and Research Group, said:

The Azure Bot Service can also help developers shorten build times by incorporating Microsoft Cognitive Services into their bots, allowing them to "hear, interpret, and interact in more human ways. " Other services, such as Azure Search, can also be used to enhance bots with additional capabilities. Numerous out-of-the-box templates have also been provided to help kick start bot development.

While it remains to be seen how popular Microsoft's bot-as-a-service offering will become, the company is playing to its ecosystem strengths, in laying the foundation for the development of scalable bot solutions.

Source: Microsoft

2016-11-16 09:20 Boyd Chan feedproxy.google.com

87 /96 2.2 iPhone 7 Headphone Jack Adapters Start Tearing After Only One Month Apple has more or less started a new business with all these dongles, but it looks like it’s all a very risky move, as iPhone 7 buyers are already complaining that the Lightning-to-headphone adapter is tearing.

Reddit user /u/ goldenfelix is one of those experiencing the problem, and in a post that reached the front page a few minutes ago, he explains that the dongle is tearing “after less than a month of sporadic use.”

While there are signs that the adapter wasn’t really used “sporadically,” it still doesn’t make sense to experience this problem in such a short time after launch, especially because they have become essential accessories for so many people out there.

Truth be told, they’re not quite expensive, but given the fact that they tend to tear quite fast, we might end up spending a lot of money on new ones.

Apple, on the other hand, would replace any broken adapter should you bring it in store within the first year after purchase, so in case you’re seeing signs of tearing, you'd better pay a visit to the nearest store.

Oddly enough, this isn’t the first dongle that shows signs of tearing after only a few months, and Lightning cables have been experiencing the same problem ever since they made their debut. But Apple doesn’t seem to be too interested in making them last longer, so constant plugging and unplugging, as well as the usually bending that takes place every day, are all very likely to damage these cables.

It remains to be seen how widespread this problem actually is, but judging from how prone the cable is to tearing, don’t be too surprised if many more iPhone 7 buyers complain about it.

2016-11-16 09:05 Bogdan Popa news.softpedia.com

88 /96 2.2 How to Avoid Burnout Managing an Open Source Project Regardless of where you work in the stack, if you work with open source software, there’s likely been a time when you faced burnout and other unhealthy side effects related to your work on open source projects. A few of the talks at OSCON Europe addressed this darker side of working in open source head-on.

Katrina Owen is a developer advocate on the open source team at GitHub , but she is also the creator of Exercism.io , which was the focus of her talk, “ The bait and switch of open source .”

Read more at The New Stack

2016-11-16 09:00 www.linux.com

89 /96 6.2 The source for Linux information Industry leader Martin Fowler provides some ''value'' in using ValueObjects, particularly small ones.

When programming, I often find it's useful to represent things as a compound. A 2D coordinate consists of an x value and y value. An amount of money consists of a number and a currency. A date range consists of start and end dates, which themselves can be compounds of year, month, and day.

As I do this, I run into the question of whether two compound objects are the same. If I have two point objects that both represent the Cartesian coordinates of (2,3), it makes sense to treat them as equal. Objects that are equal due to the value of their properties, in this case their x and y coordinates, are called value objects.

But unless I'm careful when programming, I may not get that behavior in my programs.

Read more at DZone 2016-11-16 09:00 www.linux.com

90 /96 0.0 Huawei P10 Prototype Leaks in Live Images The P series is competing with Samsung's Galaxy S phones, while the Mate family rivals the Note phablets that the South Korean company launched during fall each year.

The next P series phone, the P10, will be launched next year, probably at Mobile World Congress in February or slightly later in the spring. The good news is we already have a couple of pictures that show the Huawei P10 in the wild.

It's a prototype unit that doesn't feature the Huawei logo, which is why we're a bit circumspect about these live pictures. Nevertheless, the phone comes with a dual-camera setup on the back and since there's no fingerprint right under, we believe Huawei is thinking of moving it to the front, below the Home button.

Along with the pictures that were published on Weibo , some of the phone's specs leaked as well. For example, the P10 will be powered by Huawei's newest Kirin 960 chipset, which doesn't really come as a surprise.

Then, there's 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal memory, but Huawei will launch a more expensive variant with 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage inside.

The P9 sports a 5.5-inch display that supports full HD (1080p) resolution, but the P10 might come with a slightly better screen. Huawei won't include a larger display inside the P10, but it might add one that supports Quad HD (2560 x 1440 pixels) resolution, the latest rumors claim.

Huawei P10 may also retain the 12-megapixel dual cameras on the back side, which will most certainly feature Leica lens. Other than that, there aren't any other details about this prototype, but we're still months away from P10's reveal, so there's still time for new info to surface.

2016-11-16 08:54 Andrei Vlad news.softpedia.com

91 /96 6.2 Working with Images in Java Java provides extensive support in its core API for working with images. Image processing is a vast area in its own right. Serious programmers in this domain use more than one tool/library, such as OpenCV , to work with images. Java, being a general purpose language, supports the essential features for common programming needs. However, the OpenCV library has its Java counterpart that can be effectively used for implementing more crude operations with the images. This article explores the key aspects of working with images using the core API library with a brief introduction on some background information.

As we talk of images in computing, they are of different types; the term colloquially mean graphics, pictures, images, logos, and so forth. This article makes no distinction and designates one and all of them as images; in fact, they are same from the programming point of view. The basic property of an image is defined by its dimension, resolution measured in pixels, and the coordinate system independent of the drawing surface. An image in Java is primarily an object of the Image class. It is a part of the java.awt package, along with many other auxiliary imaging classes and interfaces. These core APIs are used mainly for;

But, before delving into these processes, let's get an idea of image file formats.

The information about the combination of color, pixels, and dimensions make an image file. They need to be stored in memory. As a result, the information has to be represented in an array of bits. An image file becomes quite large when represented in an simple array of bits. So, a mechanism is devised to compress them so that it not only reduces the file size but also retains visual quality. This is exactly what the encoding technique does. It arranges the bits in a manner that can be stored in a digital medium or transmitted easily in a network. Each encoding technique defines an image file format.

File formats are the data structure on how image information is encoded and stored in a repository. Understandably, these encoding techniques are quite complex and heavily depend upon complex mathematical formulation. Many of them are standardized and commonly used on the Web. The three most common file formats that we always encounter are JPEG (Joint Photographer Experts Group), GIF (Graphics Interchange Format), and PNG (Portable Network Graphics). There are many others, such as TIFF, Exif, BMP, and so on. Let's stick to only three of them for now:

The most common class in the Java API that deals with images is java.awt. Image. Image is an abstract class, sub classed by BufferedImage and VolatileImage. Among these two, BufferedImage is most frequently used.

Figure 1 : Classes of images

Images are displayed using drawImage methods of the Graphics class.

** Extracted from Java API documentation

This method displays the images passed as a reference. Apart from the coordinates passed as a parameters, the method drawing an image is associated with the ImageObserver interface and Color class. The Color class encapsulates the colors in the RGB color space and an implicit alpha value that specifies the transparency. The ImageObserver interface receives notification as the image is being updated. This is particularly useful to show the progress of image update of a large image or while downloading image from a slow network connection.

As per the Java API documentation and Chet's VolatileImage Q&A , the concrete subclass BufferedImage uses an accessible data buffer and relies on the image manipulation techniques defined by the methods of java.awt.image. Raster and the color characterization methods of java.awt.image. ColorModel. BufferedImage objects are allocated in an area that is in full control of the application. VolatileImage objects, on the other hand, are created in the limited system resource area, such as VRAM. Such limited resource areas are not in control of the application. As a result, the objects may be garbage collected as a result of optimizing limited resources or due to a proactive call of the flush method. So, the use of the VolatileImages object is unreliable or should be used cautiously. However, when the question of rendering performance arises, VolatileImage has the leverage of hardware rendering, whereas BufferedImage has to remain satisfied with the software rendering performance.

Images that we'll be using in the code below are as follows.

Name: tangled.jpg

Size: 450x300

Figure 2 : Image from "Tangled"

Name: blob.jpg

Size: 50x50

Figure 3 : A blob

As with working with any basic file, images are loaded from an external file stored in a digital medium or an URL from the network; then, an image is created and finally saved. The following code will show how to do it in a simple manner.

Images need to loaded or created in a GUI component. We'll be using java.swing. JPanel as a container for our images. The paint method of this component can be overloaded to create the image. The paint method is automatically invoked to render the component on-screen. It takes a Graphics object as a parameter. This object reference is used to create the image.

Here, we'll be loading two images superimposing one on other, write some text, and finally save the image as a jpg file onto the disk.

Figure 4 : "Tangled" image with control buttons

The imaging classes provided in this are article are just tip of the iceberg. The core API library has several other classes that can be used to have a better control over imaging process and support advanced imaging techniques. Some of the classes are described in package javax.imageio. Other classes such as MediaTracker which enables checking the status of arbitrary number of images in parallel, interfaces such as ImageProducer , ImageConsumer to work with image data, ImageFilter objects can be used to manipulate pixels in the images. In a nutshell, the core API library along with a third party library such as OpenCV can provide almost every need of an image processing programmer.

2016-11-16 08:15 Manoj Debnath www.developer.com

92 /96 1.6 Report: Linux, NoSQL, Nginx Set Foundation for AWS App Dominance If you’ve built a new app in AWS, odds are you’re running it on Linux, with a NoSQL data store and Nginx to serve it to your users.

That’s one of the conclusions drawn by Sumo Logic, a cloud-based analytics service for application data that runs on Amazon Web Services, in its analysis of how its customers are putting together modern, cloud- based apps. Sumo Logic’s report, entitled “ The State of the Modern App in AWS ,” uses statistics gathered from the company’s base of 1,200 customers to get an idea of how their apps are created and what they run on.

Read more at InfoWorld

2016-11-16 08:00 www.linux.com

93 /96 3.2 Forward Networks’ SDN Pioneers Want to Make the Network Less Error-Prone Forward Networks , a startup whose founders include software-defined networking (SDN) pioneer David Erickson, is launching today with a management tool to simplify network operations.

The company’s formal verification engine, now in general availability, is aimed at “eliminating tedious manual correlation by humans and putting it into smart software,” Erickson says. In other words, Forward wants to automate away the human- error factor that causes network outages or security vulnerabilities.

It’s solving a problem that CEO Erickson and his co-founders — Brandon Heller, Peyman Kazemian, and Nikhil Handigol — encountered as students at Stanford University in a period starting around 2007, when they were doing early research on what became SDN. They were part of the team that was led by professor Nick McKeown and included Martin Casado, now a venture capitalist with Andreessen-Horowitz.

Read more at SDx Central

2016-11-16 07:00 www.linux.com

94 /96 4.0 PowerApps Launch Recently Microsoft discontinued LightSwitch, its almost-no- programming app creation system to replace it by PowerApps, another almost-no-programming app creation system. The PowerApps service is now generally available and we know the price. Is this not just generally available, but generally interesting?

Microsoft is doing what it does best, dropping one technology for another not obviously any better. However, PowerApps is designed to make money and get people using Azure.

The basic idea is that you can put together a user interface using templates plus a drag-and-drop designer if you want something customizable. You can populate the UI controls using something that resembles spreadsheet formulas and standard data sources.

Going a little beyond this, you can use Microsoft Flow which is a sort of an If This Then That type clone and Power BI which displays data. You can create custom data sources and, if you really want to get complicated, you can create a workflow with BizTalk - a service that seemed to be going nowhere until PowerApps rediscovered it. You can also create Power Apps using SharePoint and link into SharePoint lists.

What is really interesting about PowerApps is the approach taken to run them on mobile devices. You have to download a host app that then runs your Power App on iOS, Android and probably some time in the future on Windows Mobile.

Although there isn't much information on the technology used by PowerApps it seems likely that the host app is a WebView and the system is an implementation of the same approach used by PhoneGap/Cordoba and other similar HTML/JavaScript hosting apps. Examining the list of functions available, there are some that interface with the device, e.g. acceleration reads the accelerometer.

This raises the question of why Microsoft isn't making the inner workings available to us? If programmers could get inside the system and build Power Apps using HTML and JavaScript this would be Microsoft's biggest app platform and be closer to being "universal" than their Universal Windows Apps, which essentially only run on Windows 10. Perhaps in the future, if Power Apps become a big hit, Microsoft would have the option of opening up yet another alternative way of creating HTML/JavaScript apps that run like native apps.

If you you have an Office 365 or Dynamics 365 account, you might be able to sign into PowerApps for free. If you can't then you need one of the two PowerApp plans, $7 per month per user or $40 per month per user. You only get the common data service with the two paying plans and the more expensive option gives you higher allowances on data storage and additional features. There is a 90-day free trial and at some point in the future there may well be a developer plan.

To be informed about new articles on I Programmer, sign up for our weekly newsletter, subscribe to the RSS feed and follow us on, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Linkedin.

2016-11-16 06:33 Administrator www.i-programmer.info

95 /96 2.3 The Best Laptops When choosing the right laptop it all comes down to what you are willing to spend and what you plan to use it for. If the idea of navigating the countless options out there sounds daunting we’ve got you covered. After looking at several of the best devices this year and analyzing dozens of professional reviews and user opinions, we bring you the best of the best in a handful of popular categories.

Our favorite Windows laptop has already been upgraded to Intel's 7th generation Kaby Lake processors and comes packing a slightly larger battery. The standout feature of the Dell XPS 13 is of course its near bezel-free display and solid construction that allows the 13-inch panel fit a slick metal and carbon fiber chassis that would normally house a 12" laptop.

The XPS 13 comes in three variants, packing either the Core i3-7100U, Core i5-7200U, or Core i7-7500U — all of which are 15W low-power parts with respectable performance, on par with other laptops in this category, and efficiency gains over Skylake. You can get it either with a non- touch full HD (1920 x 1080) screen, or a touch-enabled 3200 x 1800 res panel. Both are great but the former is easier on battery life and less expensive, so that’s something you’ll want to consider.

Dell claims the 2016 XPS 13 boasts up to 22 hours of battery life if you opt for the 1080p panel, or about 13 hours with the QHD+ variant. In real world tests neither LaptopMag nor Notebook Check were able to squeeze those numbers, but both saw an improvement over last year’s model, which was already one of the longest-lasting ultraportables on the market. The XPS 13 also compared favorably against the Asus UX306UA , Apple MacBook , and HP Spectre.

The only other notable change in this year’s model is the switch from Intel and Dell wireless controllers to a solution from Rivet Networks. Elsewhere there's a single Thunderbolt 3 USB Type-C port, up to 1 TB PCIe solid state drives, and up to 16 GB of memory. Dell has kept the same keyboard, which is backlit and comfortable to type on, as well as its soft-touch deck and competent touchpad. The webcam is still in a weird place, but overall, the XPS 13 remains the laptop to beat.

The Dell XPS 13 starts at $799, but we don't think that configuration gives you the most bang for your buck, so we recommend stepping up to a Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB SSD for $999, or get the roomier 256GB SSD for a total of $1,149.

The sleek HP Spectre is a solid contender to the Dell XPS 13. It's a bit thinner and lighter, has an excellent keyboard, a decent trackpad, a bright, color-accurate screen and can be configured with similar specs for roughly the same price. It doesn't have the thin bezel, battery life or port selection to match our main pick, but it's definitely among the best Windows ultraportables in the market right now.

HP also offers a convertible version of the Spectre, it's not as svelte but it can flip back 360 degrees to turn from laptop to a tablet of sorts. The Spectre x360 was recently updated with new Kaby Lake processors plus an edge-to-edge display and a thinner, lighter design. It has similar specs to those of the XPS 13 and Spectre but costs a little less and has a stronger focus on its 2- in-1 nature.

Apple's MacBook Air has been at the top of our recommendation list for years and it’s commonly credited with revolutionizing lightweight yet dependable laptops. But as revolutionary as it once was, it doesn't appear to fit in Apple's future anymore, given the lack of meaningful upgrades since early 2015 and the deliberate decision to keep its display outdated while everything else has moved on to high-DPI retina panels.

The MacBook Pro 13" , sans fancy Touch Bar, does not come cheap at $1,499. It sports just two USB ports for external connectivity, and these are of the USB-C variety, so you’ll have to rely on adapters to connect your existing peripherals. Its base configuration includes a 2.0GHz dual- core Intel Core i5-6360 processor with Iris Graphics 540, 8GB memory, and a 256GB PCIe SSD. The combination produces respectable performance that's above than what both the MacBook and MacBook Air can offer and on par with competing Windows ultrabooks. Apple continues its recent tradition of shipping really fast storage with its laptops and the new MacBook Pro is no exception.

Battery life is pretty good, coming close to achieve Apple’s claimed 10 hours. Other upgrades over the previous generation MacBook Pro include an oversized trackpad and a redesigned keyboard that uses the flatter keys that were first introduced in the MacBook.

For an extra $300 you can get a slight performance bump, two additional USB-C ports, and the all-new Touch Bar. We can't call this an essential upgrade for most, especially because of how expensive the laptop gets (bringing total cost to $1,800), and while the Touch Bar sure brings some novelty into the equation, its true utility remains to be seen.

Business notebooks offer a combination of mid- to high-end components, but with an emphasis on durability, long battery life and increased security features that aren't normally found in mainstream consumer laptops. The venerable ThinkPad T series has long been a favorite in this segment and for good reason.

The latest models include the 14-inch T460 , the slimmer T460s, the performance-focused T460p, and the 15-inch T560. They all offer similar configuration options with slight variations, but we particularly like the “s” variant for power users and business buyers who need a fine balance of power and mobility. At 3.1 pounds and with a tapered shape ranging from 0.67 to 0.74 inch thick, the T460s is 0.8 pounds lighter and 0.09 inches thinner than last year’s impressive ThinkPad T450s, while still managing to deliver outstanding performance with enough ports for a full business-class PC experience.

As with almost all ThinkPads, the T460s includes both a standard touchpad and a classic red TrackPoint in the middle of the keyboard. Dedicated left, right and center buttons are located above the touchpad. Its spill-resistant island-style keyboard delivers an almost identical look and feel as the previous T450s , which is to say it offers comfortable spacing, gently cupped keys, excellent tactile and audible feedback and just the right amount of travel. It also features a gentle white backlight, with two brightness levels, that glows through the characters so you can type in the dark.

The base model starts at $980 featuring a high-quality IPS display with a 1920x1080 resolution (157 PPI), an Intel Core i5-6200U processor, 4GB DDR4, and a 128 GB SATA 3 SSD. But configuration options are plenty. For about $1,650 you can upgrade to an Intel Core i7-6600U, WQHD (2560 x 1440) IPS non-touch display, 12GB of DDR4 RAM and a 256 GB PCIe SSD.

Unfortunately, the new ThinkPad T460s only manages its impressive weight loss by dropping its predecessor’s best-in-class battery life. The battery on the ThinkPad T460s is still good for about 7 hours of use, but can’t be configured with a larger 6-cell unit and the battery is no longer swappable. Despite this trade-off, all told, the ThinkPad T460s is a successful revamp of an already excellent laptop.

The T460s offers enough performance for most office workers, but if you need more powerful 45W Intel Core i5 or i7 quad core processors and discrete graphics the Dell XPS 15 offers a little more flexibility for people with more demanding processing requirements without adding much bulk.

A $1,400 configuration gets you a Core i7-6700HQ quad core processor, 8GB of RAM, 256GB PCIe SSD, GeForce GTX 960M graphics, a 15.6" FHD (1920 x 1080) InfinityEdge panel and 56 WHr 3-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery. For an additional $250 there's the option for a 4K display and a larger battery.

The MacBook Pro has undergone its biggest redesign in years with an all-metal design that's 15.5 millimeters thin, weighting in at just 4 pounds. There’s a new oversized trackpad, a redesigned keyboard, upgraded specs, all Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports (four of them), Touch ID and an OLED touch strip dubbed 'Touch Bar' that replaces the function key row and shows contextual shortcut buttons based on the app you are using. Reviewers are still undecided about the latter — some see it as gimmicky and others see the potential as long as developers start supporting it. Touch ID on the other hand is definitely a nice addition to the Mac, as logins are faster than entering a password, and it also enables quick Apple Pay purchases.

The new MacBook Pro 15" comes with Intel Skylake Core i5 and Core i7 processors, Intel Iris + Radeon Pro graphics, fast SSD storage and a new cooling system. The display is 67% brighter and shows 25% more color than Apple’s previous generation Pro laptop, while battery life is quoted at 10 hours — though tests show it’s actually closer to about 7 hours for normal use. The 15-inch MacBook Pro will set you back at least $2,399 for a quad-core 2.6 GHz Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, 256GB of SSD storage, and discrete Radeon Pro 450 graphics.

There’s been a ton of controversy surrounding the new MacBook Pros, specifically with Apple’s design decisions and its vision for the popular laptop family versus the actual needs of pro users. Many things have been said about the decision to make the notebooks incredibly thin at the expense of expandability and battery life, or dropping MagSafe and the SD card reader (but keeping the 3.5mm headphone jack it considered too legacy for the iPhone), and the fact that because all the ports are USB-C now you’ll have to deal with a bunch of dongles to hook up all your peripherals.

At the end of the day if you are invested into the Apple ecosystem, chances are you are not considering a Windows alternative to the MacBook Pro... you’ve already made a platform choice.

These are valid concerns, though Apple defends those decisions as a way to take the lineup a step forward. Even Phil Schiller went on record saying that “the result is the best notebook ever made, but it might not be right for everyone on day one.” This is a sort of transition device and a bet on a standard I/O across the board. Not everyone is ready to endure the inconveniences this will present.

At the end of the day if you are invested into the Apple ecosystem, chances are you are not considering a Windows alternative to the MacBook Pro... you’ve already made a platform choice. And in that scenario if you are in the market for a new workstation you choices are to either wait it out at least a generation — which is a sensible way to go if your current MacBook is 2-3 years old — or go ahead and be an early adopter knowing what that entails right now.

The new MacBook Pro is a great laptop. The hardware is excellent and so is macOS, but it may be a year or two too early for it to fully deliver on the vision of portability mixed with enough processing power for all kinds Pro users (no RAM option above 16GB, for example), one port to rule them all and a peripheral ecosystem that doesn’t require a separate bag for carrying adapters.

Razer is certainly one of the more fascinating manufacturers when it comes to gaming machines, despite only entering the market a short few years ago. The Blade strikes a blend of portability and power in a chassis that anyone would be proud to own, with a level of craftsmanship and attention to detail that isn’t very common among its peers.

The Razer Blade released in early 2016 was already an excellent contender for anyone looking for a sleek and lightweight gaming notebook, however with the arrival of Nvidia Pascal GPUs , that's become a must-have spec for any prospective gaming laptop purchase. So with a recent upgrade to a GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card the Razer Blade becomes an easy pick. It has a beautiful, high-resolution display, a stunning chassis that’s just 4.5 pounds with a profile that’s thinner than a dime standing on its side, Thunderbolt 3 with USB Type-C connector, and can support an external desktop GPU via Razer Core. The updated Blade packs 50% more punch than the previous generation GTX 970M, which is enough to hit 60 fps on most games at 1080p with quality settings cranked up. The most demanding titles of today will require some tweaks, but overall the GTX 1060 will provide a great gaming experience.

The Blade starts at $1,799 for the 14” Full HD (1920 x 1080) matte display option and $2,099 if you opt for the QHD+ (3200 x 1800) IGZO panel. It comes standard with a Skylake Core i7- 6700HQ processor with Intel HD Graphics 530, 16GB of DDR4 dual-channel memory, the aforementioned GTX 1060, 256GB SSD, a colorful full-size Chroma keyboard and 70 watt-hour battery.

While the 2016 Razer Blade is our favorite thin and light gaming laptop it does carry a bit of a premium for its gorgeous design and build quality. For about $150 to $300 less you can get similar specs in the 14-inch MSI GS43VR Phantom Pro with few compromises, such as inferior cooling, a poor quality ELAN trackpad (although most gamers will hook up their own mouse) and a little more bulk.

Asus has been building great gaming laptops as part of their ROG lineup, and with the arrival of Nvidia’s GeForce 10 series we’re seeing desktop-class performance that blows the previous generation out of the water. The Asus G752VS combines capable gaming hardware with a bright and vivid G-Sync ready 17.3-inch display, full-size backlit keyboard, and solid build quality with gamer-style accents — which we’re not big fans of, frankly.

The laptop is powered by an Intel Core i7-6820HK, which is around 25% faster than the i7- 6700HQ we typically see in gaming laptops, helped along by a small factory overclock. You also get 32GB of overclocked DDR4 RAM, an NVME PCIe SSD, a 1TB 7,200rpm hard drive, and a GeForce GTX 1070 that packs nearly double the performance of the GTX 980M, and 30% more than the (desktop) GTX 980.

The 17.3-inch 1080p 75 Hz IPS panel is well suited to gaming. While not particularly sharp at this size, it allows you to crank the settings to the maximum in most games, usually delivering well north of 60 fps, and when it doesn't, the gaming experience will remain smooth thanks to G- Sync. If you want a desktop-like gaming experience in a laptop, the GTX 1070 in the G752VS provides this without compromise.

This is a seriously powerful machine and its $2,399 price reflects it. But the G752VS is also functional. There’s a removable panel on the bottom for user-replaceable components such as the RAM and storage. There’s a good selection of ports, including four USB 3.0, a single Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port, Ethernet, and HDMI 2.0. And the keyboard is decent thanks to a good layout, extra macro keys and backlighting.

If you can stretch your budget to get the absolute best in terms of specs and design, the latest Razer Blade Pro manages to squeeze in the GeForce GTX 1080 into a 0.88-inch thick CNC aluminum chassis. That's a serious upgrade in graphics horsepower without increasing the laptop's overall thickness, but it will cost you a hefty $3,700 (!).

The laptop also features a Core i7-6700HQ CPU replacing the Haswell processor in the outgoing model, up to 32 GB of DDR4 RAM, up to a 2TB PCIe SSD, and a 17.3-inch 3840x2160 IGZO IPS touch screen display with 100% Adobe RGB coverage, and G-Sync support for silky smooth frame rates while gaming. The Asus ROG GL502VS packs the same Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 as our main pick at a more palatable $1,650 price point. It includes a 15.6-inch 1080p display with G-Sync support, a Core i7-6700HQ CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a combination of 256GB M.2 PCIe SSD plus a 1TB HDD for storage. You don't get the same large battery, display quality and cooling system, but overall it is a great value on a considerably thinner/lighter system that doesn't require too many sacrifices.

The Asus ZenBook UX305 was our budget ultraportable pick last year and Asus has barely altered the formula for the 2016 model. That’s a good thing as this machine packs a remarkable ratio of components and build quality to price. It's super thin at less than 13mm, and reasonably light at 3 pounds.

The most notable difference is the CPU, which is upgraded to Intel's Skylake Core m3-6Y30 and it is still passively cooled for silent operation. The matte-finish IPS display is 1920 x 1080 -- with an option to upgrade to QHD -- but it looks good with decent outdoors performance. The keyboard is comfortable to type on with enough space between keys and good tactile feedback, though it’s not backlit. The UX305 is not meant to be a powerhouse, but it can handle office/school work without issues. It’s also paired with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD -- two key features that make it very competitive in the $700 price range.

Although we'd have liked to see USB-C on the UX305, it’s still good to see three USB 3.0 ports, whereas many ultrabooks have only two. There’s also a full-size SD card reader, microHDMI, and an included USB Ethernet adapter in addition to 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Overall, this is a stylish and well-built ultraportable that packs a lot of bang for the buck if you are willing to compromise a bit on performance.

Do note Asus has most recently released a follow up model, the Zenbook UX306 , comes standard with a Core i7 6500U processor and a price tag slightly over $1,000. For that price, we'd pick the Dell XPS 13 instead, while the UX305 released in early 2016 remains a better value at $750.

The Acer Aspire E5-575G isn't going to win any design awards but its a serviceable laptop that covers all the essentials along with a few extras that are usually outside its price range. For $550 you get a Core i5-6200U processor, 8 GB of RAM, a 256GB solid-state drive, a 1080p screen and discrete GTX 940MX graphics. Build quality is adequate for a budget laptop, although it's notably heavier and bulkier than our main pick. It has a decent keyboard and trackpad, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1, and a good array of ports that includes Gigabit Ethernet, one USB 3.1 Type-C, two USB 3.0, one USB 2.0, HDMI, VGA, and an SD slot.

Chromebooks have been quietly carving out a piece of the market for themselves over the past few years. They are relatively inexpensive, lightweight and if most of what you do happens within the browser window then a Chromebook might be all you need. They are also great as affordable, barebones secondary machines. Plus, they're basically zero maintenance since there's no need to stay on top of OS, driver, or antivirus updates.

The Dell Chromebook 13 is a bit on the expensive side for Chromebook standards but makes up for it with class leading 11-hour battery life and build quality that rises above the competition. It also has one of the best keyboards found in any Chromebook.

Measuring between 0.5 and 0.8 inch thick and weighing in at 3.23 pounds, the Dell Chromebook is portable though a bit chunkier than some of its peers. The body is a combination of magnesium alloy on the keyboard tray and aluminum underneath, while the lid is wrapped in a soft-touch, carbon fiber weave coating that feels great. It has 13.3-inch 1080p IPS screen with a matte coating, and it’s powered by a 1.7-GHz Intel Celeron 3215U processor with 4GB of RAM. It’s fast enough to stream video or music and handle a reasonable number of tabs without experiencing any lag.

It has a 16GB solid state drive and Google adds 100 GB of free Google Drive storage for two years with your purchase. That will come in handy as you’ll be doing most things online, although it’s worth pointing out that there are now offline options for Gmail, Drive, and Play Movies, plus a variety of offline apps available through the Chrome Web Store. In terms of connectivity and ports you get HDMI, USB 3.0, a microSD card slot for expanded storage, dual- band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.

If you are looking for a cheap Chromebook to couch surf from time to time, the Acer Chromebook 14 is a good choice for less than $300 , but for a full time Chrome OS laptop, the Dell is worth the extra cash.

2016-11-16 06:24 TechSpot Staff www.techspot.com

96 /96 4.2 ASX-listed enterprise imaging provider Mach7 completes AU$9m raise Enterprise imaging company Mach7 Technologies has completed a AU$9 million capital raise via an equity placement to sophisticated and institutional investors, of which AU$6.9 million is new funding. The existing AU$2.1 million of private debt will be converted to equity.

The AU$6.9 million in new funds, which includes AU$600,000 in cash from Mach7's board of directors and senior management, will be used for investment into sales and marketing resources, customer support services, new product development, and working capital requirements.

"With this new funding, the company can significantly accelerate growth and drive towards profitability," said Mach7 managing director and CEO Albert Liong. "In addition, the conversion of a vast majority of the company's debt strengthens our financial position and adds support to our customer contract negotiations. "

The company's imaging platform -- comprised of workflow tools, clinical viewing, and archiving functionality -- allows healthcare providers to own, access, and share patient data.

Recently, Mach7 gained customers such as MaineHealth, Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, and Goshen Health in the US. In the UK, it has been approved by the National Health Service Framework Agreement to sell its imaging solutions across the NHS.

In October, the company used Microsoft Azure to bring its enterprise medical imaging solutions to the cloud.

Last year in October, Mach7 and 3D Medical, which focused on medical-specific 3D printing, holographic projection, and data integrations, entered into a $60 million binding merger agreement. The merger was completed in April this year.

Under the terms of the deal, 3D Medical provided the backbone architecture for the centre's DICOM data generated by its radiology and cardiology departments, as well as the migration of legacy data onto the Mach7 Enterprise Imaging Platform.

Since first joining with Mach7, 3D Medical began building a patient portal that allows the patient to control their data and give permission for it to be shared across multiple medical practitioners and practices.

3D Medical backdoor listed on the ASX in 2015 after performing a reverse takeover of Safety Medical Products, a company formerly involved in the manufacture and distribution of single use syringes.

In Australia, Mach7 has partnered with Telstra Health, which scored a contract with the Commonwealth Department of Health to construct and run the new Australian National Cancer Screening Register for the next five years.

2016-11-16 04:05 Tas Bindi www.zdnet.com

Total 96 articles.

Items detected: 119, scanned: 119, accumulated: 96, inserted: 96, empty media: 16, not matched limits: 17, skipped: {total: 23, by unique value: 2, by limits: 4, by similarity: 17, by unicity: 0, dates: 3, by classifier: 0, by blacklist: 0, by mandatory tag: 23}, bad dates: 0, similar from same domain: 4; tag `title` the same value found 4 times; the same images URLs found 42 times; total 5 languages detected: {u'et': 1, u'ca': 1, u'en': 227, u'fr': 1, u'pt': 1}

Created at 2016-11-17 02:04