Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes: Chinese government is keeping an ever watchful eye on the companies doing business in the country, especially when foreign companies compete with local ones. To that end, the Chinese authorities have begun a security review among many different American technology companies like Apple and others. These, while mostly done out of the public sphere, seem to target issues like encryption and data storage. According to a report from the New York Times (paywalled; alternate source), government representatives have been questioning engineers and executives from different technology companies with regards to these issues for the last nine months. The so-called security reviews are being done by the Cyberspace Administration of China, with the government committee including experts tied to the country's military and security agencies.The Verge has more details.

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft's newest online AI, CaptionBot, tries to identify what's in an uploaded photo, using two recognition APIs recently released by Microsoft Cognitive Services for app developers-- "Computer Vision" and "Emotion". But while Microsoft brags that their AI "can understand thousands of objects, as well as the relationships between them," bloggers are also sharing funny examples of CaptionBot's many mistakes. While it correctly identified Bea Arthur, Ozzy Osbourne and Joan Jett, and a movie poster with Arnold Schwarzenegger, it mistakenly identified Gene Simmons of KISS as "a woman in a red jacket...sitting on a motorcycle," described a wedding dress as "a cat wearing a tie," mistook Michelle Obama for a cellphone, and described one man's Twitter avatar as "a close up of two giraffes near a tree."

But CNNMoney reports that the AI is apparently programmed to ignore all images of Hitler and other Nazi symbolism (as well as Osama bin Laden), reporting that Microsoft's AI "often came back with 'I really can't describe the picture' and a confused emoji. It did, however, identify other Nazi leaders like Joseph Mengele and Joseph Goebbels."

An anonymous reader points us to a report on Neowin: Canonical, Ubuntu's parent company, has announced that Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Long Term Support) will come with support for the snap packaging format and tools. As a result, end users will get more up-to-date apps, something that proved tricky in the past due âoethe complexity of packaging and providing updates,â which prevented updates to some apps being delivered. Snaps will make the Ubuntu platform more unified, developers will more easily be able to create software for PC, Server, Mobile, or IoT devices. The other major benefit of snaps is that that they're more secure than software installed through deb packages. Snaps are isolated from the rest of the system, meaning that malware packaged with a snap won't be able to affect your Ubuntu installation.

An anonymous reader writes: The Steam game distribution platform is suffering from a particularly bad bug right now. If you log in and try to look at your account details, you're shown the details of another user's account — seemingly picked at random. This includes email address, last 4 digits of a phone number, whether SteamGuard (their two-factor authentication) is enabled, and the last 2 digits of an associated credit card. If you play a game, Steam will show you as being logged in as somebody else while in that game. Many users are being shown pages in other languages, as they are mistaken for players in different regions. This bug follows an apparent DDoS attack that took the service down for several hours. The bug doesn't seem to allow people to purchase games using a different account. That's good, though that means most, perhaps all players, are unable to buy games on Christmas during Steam's huge Winter Sale.

jones_supa writes: Microsoft's mail and calendar server package Exchange Server 2016 is being refreshed and is now out of preview, along with the 2016 revamp for other Office products. The new Exchange tries to simplify the software's architecture while still adding new features and working better with other Office products. You can now use links from Sharepoint 2016 and OneDrive for Business as email attachments, instead of having to upload the actual file, leading to more robust file sharing and editing. Add-ins have been introduced, which allows extensibility similar to extensions on a web browser. Microsoft is providing a 180-day trial for free.

An anonymous reader writes: YouTube users have lit up twitter today, angry about an apparent change of policy by Google, which now seems to be showing ads in front of videos on YouTube even when using Adblock. Neowin reports: "Google's workaround seems to be applicable to all similar extensions and isn't exclusive to just AdBlock Plus. The company has not stopped at just skirting the extension, however. Users with AdBlock enabled will now have to see full-length video ads with no option to skip them half-way through, a feature YouTube has offered for a very long time. The only way to get the option back is to disable AdBlock, or to whitelist YouTube."

AmiMoJo writes: The professional association and trade union of UK pilots The British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA), has asked airlines to require travelers to carry devices that run on lithium-based batteries with them in the passenger cabin instead of in checked luggage. The union hoping to address what it considers a significant potential safety risk, baggage fires going unnoticed in the hold. BALPA explains, "when they short circuit, [they] have a tendency to burst into high intensity fires, which are difficult to extinguish." They further point out, "lithium battery fires have caused at least three cargo aircraft crashes and the UN safety regulator has banned a specific type of lithium battery (lithium metal) from being carried as cargo on passenger aircraft."

jones_supa writes: A file called Disable_Windowsupdate.exe — probably malware, right? It's actually a "helper" utility from Samsung, for which their reasoning is: "When you enable Windows updates, it will install the Default Drivers for all the hardware no laptop which may or may not work. For example if there is USB 3.0 on laptop, the ports may not work with the installation of updates. So to prevent this, SW Update tool will prevent the Windows updates." Too bad that the solution means disabling all critical security updates as well. This isn't the first time an OEM has compromised the security of its users. From earlier this year, we remember the Superfish adware from Lenovo, and system security being compromised by the LG split screen software.

jones_supa writes: Microsoft announced that a Windows 10 upgrade will be free for users running Windows 7 and 8.1, but there will be a number of features that will no longer work after that upgrade. The features that will no longer work are listed on the official specifications page on Microsoft's website. Some of the deprecated features include: Media Center, out-of-the-box DVD playback and USB floppy support, desktop gadgets, deferring updates (Home edition), old versions of Windows games, and Windows Live Essentials version of OneDrive.

Billly Gates writes: Ars Technica has the scoop on a new build with less flat icons and a confirmation of a mid July release date. While Microsoft is in a hurry to fix the damage done by the Windows 8 versions of its operating system, the next question is, is ready for prime time? On Neowin there's a list of problems already mentioned by MS and its users with this latest release, including Wi-Fi and sound not working without a reboot, and users complaining about tiles and apps not working in the new start menu.

A multitude of tech sites are breathlessly reporting that Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows. These claims are based on a brief comment from developer evangelist Jerry Nixon while speaking a Microsoft Ignite session on "Tiles, Notifications, and Action Center." However, as Paul Thurrott points out, you probably shouldn't take this news too seriously. Windows development has been changing for the past several years. At the very least, we've known since we learned Windows 8 would be developed for multiple form factors. We've known it specifically about Windows 10 since it was announced — Microsoft has talked about transitioning away from giant, monolithic updates. Thurrott says, The reason anyone is talking like this is that Microsoft is pushing a "Windows as a service" vision, which doesn't mean "subscription service" but rather that it plans to upgrade Windows 10 going forward with both functional and security updates, plus of course bug fixes. You know, just like it's done with every single version of Windows. Ever. ... In other words, nothing to see here. Beyond the usual: things change. If it makes sense to keep updating Windows 10 and not change the brand or version number, Microsoft will do that. If it makes sense to release something called Windows 10 R2, Windows 11, or Windows Yoghurt — seriously, who cares? — then they'll do that.

jones_supa writes: Back in March, Microsoft made Office 2016, the next release of the company's leading office suite, available to IT professionals to test and submit feedback on. At Microsoft's Ignite conference, CEO Satya Nadella announced that the public preview of Office 2016 has now been released as well. Office 2016 comes with a range of new features that build upon Office 2013. There is far more integration with cloud, allowing a user to access documents anywhere, and Outlook now syncs with OneDrive when sending large files. So called Smart Applications extend the functionality of Office, including Tell Me, a new search tool, and Clutter, which unclutters your inbox based on machine learning. Anyone can start testing the free Office 2016 Preview right now. Just as they have done with Windows 10, Microsoft is receiving open feedback on the product.

jones_supa writes: Back in March, Microsoft made Office 2016, the next release of the company's leading office suite, available to IT professionals to test and submit feedback on. At Microsoft's Ignite conference, CEO Satya Nadella announced that the public preview of Office 2016 has now been released as well. Office 2016 comes with a range of new features that build upon Office 2013. There is far more integration with cloud, allowing a user to access documents anywhere, and Outlook now syncs with OneDrive when sending large files. So called Smart Applications extend the functionality of Office, including Tell Me, a new search tool, and Clutter, which unclutters your inbox based on machine learning. Anyone can start testing the free Office 2016 Preview right now. Just as they have done with Windows 10, Microsoft is receiving open feedback on the product.

MojoKid writes: Windows 10 isn't even out the door yet, so what better time than now to talk about its successor? Believe it or not, there's a fair bit of information on it floating around already, including its codename: "Redstone." Following in the footsteps of 'Blue' and 'Threshold', Redstone is an obvious tie-in to Microsoft's purchase of Minecraft, which it snagged from Mojang last year. Redstone is an integral material in the game, used to create simple items like a map or compass as well as logic gates for building electronic devices, like a calculator or automatic doors. The really important news is that we could see Windows Redstone sometime in 2016.

jones_supa writes: The second technical preview of Windows Server 2016 will be launching in May as the first one nears its expiration date. The next Windows Server is being developed and targeted for an early 2016 release, however, the latest and greatest preview builds haven't been released to the public by Microsoft since October 2014. At the same time, Windows 10 builds have been released regularly to everybody who wants to try them out. It was revealed earlier that the Windows Server release won't take place along with that of Windows 10, so it makes sense that Microsoft is pushing more builds of the desktop OS out for testing first. There is no mention of an exact date of the upcoming Windows Server Technical Preview, but an announcement can be expected during the upcoming BUILD 2015 conference which starts on 29th April.

Billly Gates writes Since Unity has been given a liberal license and free for non commercial developers it has become popular. A computer science student Erik Roystan Ross used the tool to remake SuperMario 64 with a modern Unity 5 engine. There is a video here and if you want to play the link is here. You will need Firefox or Chrome which has HTML 5 for gamepad support if you do not want to use the keyboard. "I currently do not have any plans to develop this any further or to resolve any bugs, unless they're horrendously game-breaking and horrendously simple to fix," says Ross.

jones_supa writes: One of the major concepts of Windows 10 are new security ideas, and though Microsoft has touched on this topic before, it's only now giving us a more comprehensive look in the form of "Windows Hello." This is an authentication system that uses a variety of biometric signatures and combines hardware and software to allow for seamless and secure user recognition and sign-in. According to Microsoft, the ideal scenario here would be for you to simply look at or touch a new device running Windows 10 and to be immediately signed in. The software analyzes input from such hardware as fingerprint scanners and infrared sensors to make sure that you are you and not some impostor, and then signs you in without requiring you to enter a password. But the point of Windows Hello isn't only convenience, as the company's blog post notes, but also security. We've heard time and time again how insecure passwords are, and Microsoft is aiming to offer a widely-deployed replacement while still delivering enterprise grade security and privacy.

jones_supa writes: One of the major concepts of Windows 10 are new security ideas, and though Microsoft has touched on this topic before, it's only now giving us a more comprehensive look in the form of "Windows Hello." This is an authentication system that uses a variety of biometric signatures and combines hardware and software to allow for seamless and secure user recognition and sign-in. According to Microsoft, the ideal scenario here would be for you to simply look at or touch a new device running Windows 10 and to be immediately signed in. The software analyzes input from such hardware as fingerprint scanners and infrared sensors to make sure that you are you and not some impostor, and then signs you in without requiring you to enter a password. But the point of Windows Hello isn't only convenience, as the company's blog post notes, but also security. We've heard time and time again how insecure passwords are, and Microsoft is aiming to offer a widely-deployed replacement while still delivering enterprise grade security and privacy.

jones_supa writes: In Windows 8, you were trapped in either the Modern UI or using the desktop, and going back and forth between the two worlds was cumbersome. Windows 10 takes a hybrid approach, allowing the user to choose between a classic desktop and a full-screen mobile experience. The feature, which has been developed under the name "Continuum," is now simply called "Tablet mode". In the build 9926 of Windows 10 Technical Preview, switching between the modes can finally be tried out. The leaked build 10036 shows that eventually you will also have the option to automate the process for dockable devices. Since Windows 10 is being positioned as the one OS for all of Microsoft's devices, being able to control the desktop and tablet experiences like this is critical to appeasing the consumer.

jones_supa writes: In Windows 8, you were trapped in either the Modern UI or using the desktop, and going back and forth between the two worlds was cumbersome. Windows 10 takes a hybrid approach, allowing the user to choose between a classic desktop and a full-screen mobile experience. The feature, which has been developed under the name "Continuum," is now simply called "Tablet mode". In the build 9926 of Windows 10 Technical Preview, switching between the modes can finally be tried out. The leaked build 10036 shows that eventually you will also have the option to automate the process for dockable devices. Since Windows 10 is being positioned as the one OS for all of Microsoft's devices, being able to control the desktop and tablet experiences like this is critical to appeasing the consumer.

An anonymous reader writes "In this month's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has released nine security bulletins to address 56 unique vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Server software. Of the nine security bulletins, three are rated Critical in severity, and among these three is one that addresses a years-old design flaw that can be exploited remotely to grant attackers administrator-level privileges to the targeted machine or device. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights." Reader jones_supa writes, though, that the most recent patch rollout came with a bug of its own, since corrected: the company apparently botched a rollup update for Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime: "There is an issue with KB3001652: many users are reporting that it is locking up their machines while trying to install it. It does not seem that this patch is doing any other damage though, such as bricking the operating system. These days Microsoft appears to be reacting quickly to this kind of news as it looks like the patch has already been pulled from Windows Update."

jones_supa writes The talks about a subscription-based Windows have begun again. With Windows 10 those ideas did not materialize in the way that many had speculated. Even though Microsoft has not fully detailed its Windows 10 pricing strategy, it is not believed that Microsoft is targeting an annual subscription charge for Windows at this time. However, it turns out that Microsoft has recently filed for a trademark for Windows 365, which adds a bit of fuel to the subscription based version of Windows. As of right now, Microsoft has only claimed this branding right, but as for what they will do with it, only time will tell. Deep inside the company, the idea is clearly still bubbling there.

An anonymous reader writes Unfortunately for Raspberry Pi 2 owners who are trying to photograph their devices, ... the Raspberry Pi 2 has been found to be Xenon flash sensitive. Any camera with a Xenon flash aimed at the device is causing the device to freeze for a few seconds before rebooting. The forum thread about the bug is an interesting play-by-play of how the problem was narrowed down.

jones_supa writes Late last week, Microsoft pushed out a new build (9926) of Windows 10 to those of you who are running the Technical Preview. The latest version comes with many new features, some easily accessible, others bubbling under, but two big changes are now certain: the Charms bar is dead, and Start Screen for large devices is no more. Replacing the Charms bar is the Action Center, which has many of the same shortcuts as the Charms bar, but also has a plethora of other information too. Notifications are now bundled into the Action Center and the shortcuts to individual settings are still easily accessible from this window. The Start Screen is no longer present for desktop users, the options for opening it are gone. Continuum is the future, and it has taken over what the Start Screen initiated with Windows 8.

An anonymous reader sends a report of a bug in Steam's Linux client that will accidentally wipe all of a user's files if they move their Steam folder. According to the bug report: I launched steam. It did not launch, it offered to let me browse, and still could not find it when I pointed to the new location. Steam crashed. I restarted it. It re-installed itself and everything looked great. Until I looked and saw that steam had apparently deleted everything owned by my user recursively from the root directory. Including my 3tb external drive I back everything up to that was mounted under /media. Another user reported a similar problem — losing his home directory — and problems with the script were found: at some point, the Steam script sets $STEAMROOT as the directory containing all Steam's data, then runs rm -rf "$STEAMROOT/"* later on. If Steam has been moved, $STEAMROOT returns as empty, resulting in rm -rf "/"* which causes the unexpected deletion.

An anonymous reader writes Last month, Google took the bold steps to release the details of a security vulnerability ahead of Microsoft. Microsoft responded and said that there was a patch in works which was set to be released two days after Google went live with the details. Microsoft accuses Google for refusing to wait an extra 48 hours so that the patch would have been released along with the details of the exploit. Now, let's see what is happening on the Google side of software development. Recently, an exploit has been uncovered in the WebView component of Android 4.3 — estimated to cover roughly 60% of Android install base — and Google is saying that they will not patch the flaw. Google's only reasoning seems to be that they are not fixing vulnerabilities in 4.3 (introduced in June 2012) anymore, as they have moved focus to newer releases. It would appear that over 930 million Android phones in use are out of official Google security patch support.

An anonymous reader writes Last month, Google took the bold steps to release the details of a security vulnerability ahead of Microsoft. Microsoft responded and said that there was a patch in works which was set to be released two days after Google went live with the details. Microsoft accuses Google for refusing to wait an extra 48 hours so that the patch would have been released along with the details of the exploit. Now, let's see what is happening on the Google side of software development. Recently, an exploit has been uncovered in the WebView component of Android 4.3 — estimated to cover roughly 60% of Android install base — and Google is saying that they will not patch the flaw. Google's only reasoning seems to be that they are not fixing vulnerabilities in 4.3 (introduced in June 2012) anymore, as they have moved focus to newer releases. It would appear that over 930 million Android phones in use are out of official Google security patch support.

An anonymous reader writes Neowin.net is reporting the arrest of one Vincent Omari, a UK citizen [see also this Daily Mail story from a few days ago mentioning Omari], in the Christmas Day DDoS attacks on Sony's PSN and Microsoft's XBL systems: "In documents sent to Neowin, Vinnie Omari has been accused of 'hacking of the Playstation Network and Xbox Live systems over the Christmas Period'... While this is the first arrest related to the recent service disruptions, it may not be the last... In further conversations with those who are familiar with the investigation and the arrest, Omari believes that the police will not find anything of substance on his computers. His alleged crime is that he helped coordinate the DDOS attack on the service."

An anonymous reader writes "Google's security research database has after a 90 day timeout automatically undisclosed a Windows 8.1 vulnerability which Microsoft hasn't yet patched. By design the system call NtApphelpCacheControl() in ahcache.sys allows application compatibility data to be cached for quick reuse when new processes are created. A normal user can query the cache but cannot add new cached entries as the operation is restricted to administrators. This is checked in the function AhcVerifyAdminContext(). Long story short, the aforementioned function has a vulnerability where it doesn't correctly check the impersonation token of the caller to determine if the user is an administrator. It hasn't been fully verified if Windows 7 is vulnerable. For a passer-by it is also hard to tell whether Microsoft has even reviewed the issue reported by the Google researcher. The database has already one worried comment saying that automatically revealing a vulnerability just like that might be a bad idea."

jones_supa writes In past builds of Windows 10 Technical Preview there has been an interesting feature called Battery Saver, but for the time being it has been just a mockup. In a leaked build 9888, the code is now in place. Battery Saver, as the name implies, will help your mobile device make the most out of your battery. This feature works by limiting the background activity on your device when the mode is activated. You can turn the feature on any time but there is also a setting to have it automatically turn on when the battery capacity goes below a user-defined percentage. Considering that this build was not supposed to make its way out of Redmond and that the company is not releasing any new builds this year, this may be the best look we get until the Consumer Preview arrives.

jones_supa writes In past builds of Windows 10 Technical Preview there has been an interesting feature called Battery Saver, but for the time being it has been just a mockup. In a leaked build 9888, the code is now in place. Battery Saver, as the name implies, will help your mobile device make the most out of your battery. This feature works by limiting the background activity on your device when the mode is activated. You can turn the feature on any time but there is also a setting to have it automatically turn on when the battery capacity goes below a user-defined percentage. Considering that this build was not supposed to make its way out of Redmond and that the company is not releasing any new builds this year, this may be the best look we get until the Consumer Preview arrives.

jones_supa writes Windows Media Player is going to become a more useful media player for those who want to play geeky file formats. Microsoft has earlier confirmed that Windows 10 will come with native support for Matroska Video, but the company now talks about also adding FLAC support. Microsoft's Gabriel Aul posted a teaser screenshot in Twitter showing support for this particular format. It can be expected to arrive in a future update for people running the Windows 10 Technical Preview. Not many GUI changes seem to be happening around Media Player, but work is done under the hood.

jones_supa writes: In Windows, the kernel version number is once again in sync with the product version. Build 9888 of Windows 10 Technical Preview is making the rounds in a private channel and the kernel version has indeed been bumped from 6.4 to 10.0. Version 6.x has been in use since Windows Vista. Neowin speculates that this large jump in version number is likely related to the massive overhaul of the underlying components of the OS to make it the core for all of Microsoft's products. The company is working to consolidate all of its platforms into what's called OneCore, which, as the name implies, will be the one core for all of Microsoft's operating systems. It will be interesting to see if this causes any software compatibility issues with legacy applications.

mrspoonsi writes Microsoft has announced that they will be pushing an out-of-band security patch today. The patch, which affects nearly all of the company's major platforms, is rated 'critical' and it is recommended that you install the patch immediately. The patch is rated 'critical' because it allows for elevation of privileges and will require a restart. The platforms that are affected include: Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows 8 and 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT and Windows RT 8.1. Windows 10 Technical Preview customers are affected, too.

jones_supa writes In Windows 8, there was an arrangement of two settings applications: the Control Panel for the desktop and the PC Settings app in the Modern UI side. With Windows 10, having the two different applications has started to look even more awkward, which has been voiced loud and clear in the feedback too. Thus, the work at Microsoft to unify the settings programs has begun. The traditional Control Panel is being transformed to something temporarily called "zPC Settings" (sic), which is a Modern UI app that melts together the current two settings applications.

jones_supa writes In Windows 8, there was an arrangement of two settings applications: the Control Panel for the desktop and the PC Settings app in the Modern UI side. With Windows 10, having the two different applications has started to look even more awkward, which has been voiced loud and clear in the feedback too. Thus, the work at Microsoft to unify the settings programs has begun. The traditional Control Panel is being transformed to something temporarily called "zPC Settings" (sic), which is a Modern UI app that melts together the current two settings applications.

jones_supa writes: Microsoft has just released Windows 10 TP build 9860. Along with the new release, Microsoft is introducing an interesting cadence option for how quickly you will receive new builds. The "ring progression" goes from development, to testing, to release. By being in the slow cadence, you will get more stable builds, but they will arrive less often. By choosing the fast option, it allows you to receive the build on the same day that it is released. As a quick stats update, to date Microsoft has received over 250,000 pieces of feedback through the Windows Feedback tool, 25,381 community forum posts, and 641 suggestions in the Windows Suggestion Box.

jones_supa writes Microsoft is expected to release a new build of the Windows 10 Technical Preview in the very near future, according to their own words. The only build so far to be released to the public is 9841 but the next iteration will likely be in the 9860 class of releases. With this new build, Microsoft has polished up the animations that give the OS a more comprehensive feel. When you open a new window, it flies out on to the screen from the icon and when you minimize it, it collapses back in to the icon on the taskbar. It is a slick animation and if you have used OS X, it is similar to the one used to collapse windows back in to the dock. Bah.

jones_supa writes Microsoft is expected to release a new build of the Windows 10 Technical Preview in the very near future, according to their own words. The only build so far to be released to the public is 9841 but the next iteration will likely be in the 9860 class of releases. With this new build, Microsoft has polished up the animations that give the OS a more comprehensive feel. When you open a new window, it flies out on to the screen from the icon and when you minimize it, it collapses back in to the icon on the taskbar. It is a slick animation and if you have used OS X, it is similar to the one used to collapse windows back in to the dock. Bah.

jones_supa writes: As part of the Windows 10 Technical Preview, Internet Explorer will introduce HTTP/2 support, along with performance improvements to the Chakra JavaScript engine, and a top-level domains parsing algorithm based on publicsuffix.org. HTTP/2 is a new standard by the Internet Engineering Task Force. Unlike HTTP/1.1, the new standard communicates metadata in binary format to significantly reduce parsing complexity. While binary is usually more efficient than text, the real performance gains are expected to come from multiplexing. This is where multiple requests can be share the same TCP connection. With this, one stalled request won't block other requests from being honored. Header compression is another important performance concern for HTTP.

MojoKid writes: Apple's iPhone 6 Plus weighs six ounces, and it's a scant 7.1mm thick. As an added bonus, according to a number of users, it has a hidden feature — it bends! And no, we don't mean it bends in a "Hey, what an awesome feature!" sort of way. More like a "Hey, the entire phone is near to snapping" kind of way. What's even more troubling is that many of the users who are reporting bent devices also claim that they were carrying it in front pockets or in a normal fashion as opposed to sitting on it directly. Either some of the iPhone 6 Plus hardware is defective (the vastly preferable option) or it's because the tests run by other venues are putting different kinds of stress on the chassis. It's not clear what the story is. Hopefully Apple will clarify it soon.

snydeq (1272828) writes "Nobody seems to know for sure whether 'Threshold' and 'Windows 9' will be one and the same or separate operating systems, reports Woody Leonhard in his roundup of insights on Microsoft's forthcoming OS plans, expected September 30. 'Many people think the terms are synonymous, but longtime Chinese leaker Faikee continues to maintain that they are two separate products, possibly headed in different directions. Neowin Senior Editor and Columnist Brad Sams appears to have access to the most recent test builds, possibly on a daily basis. He doesn't talk about details, but the items he's let drop on the Neowin forum leave an interesting trail of crumbs.' Either way, the next iteration of Windows will have a lot to say about the kind of Microsoft to expect as Satya Nadella cements his leadership over the flagship OS."

mrspoonsi (2955715) writes "Microsoft has been working on ways to make any regular 2D camera capture depth, meaning it could do some of the same things a Kinect does. As you can see in the video below the team managed to pull this off and we might see this tech all around in the near future. What's really impressive is that this works with many types of cameras. The research team used a smartphone as well as a regular webcam and both managed to achieve some impressive results, the cameras have to be slightly modified but that's only to permit more IR light to hit the sensor." The video is impressive, but note that so are several of the other projects that Microsoft has created for this year's SIGGRAPH, in particular one that makes first-person sports-cam footage more watchable.

mrspoonsi (2955715) writes with word that Sony has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit brought by PSN users affected by the 2011 breach. From the article: Sony has finally agreed to a preliminary settlement of $15m, which may be able to appease most of the customers that suffered from this attack. The PlayStation Network users that did not partake in the "Welcome Back" program that Sony unveiled shortly after their online services were brought back will be able to choose from two of several options for compensation: One PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Portable game selected from a list of 14 games; three PlayStation 3 themes selected from a list of six themes; or a three-month subscription to PlayStation Plus free of charge. Claiming these benefits will be done on a first come, first serve basis ...The settlement isn't just about free games or services. Customers with documented identity theft charges are eligible for up to $2,500 per claim.

Billly Gates writes A leaked alpha of Windows 9 has been brewing on the internet. Today a screenshot shows what MS showed us at BUILD which includes a start menu with additional tiny tiles for things like people, calendar, pc settings, and news etc. "The new hybridized Start menu appears to be part of build 9788, which was compiled on July 4. While no one seems to have leaked the ISOs for build 9788 yet, the general consensus seems to be that the build does indeed exist somewhere at Microsoft — and that it might also feature Windows NT kernel version 6.4 (i.e. the complete version number is 6.4.9788). The screenshots show a Windows 8.1 Pro watermark, but this isn’t unusual for a very early alpha of a new build of Windows. If this really is the next version of the Windows NT kernel, then we’re most likely looking at an early build of Windows 9 (Threshold) rather than Windows 8.2."

mrspoonsi (2955715) writes with word of a new extension to European consumer protection laws: Previously, anyone who bought a product online was allowed seven business days during which they were able to change their mind and return the product for a full refund. This 'cooling-off period,' during which a refund can be requested without being required to give a reason for the cancellation, has now been extended to fourteen calendar days from the date on which the goods are received. Online retailers and providers are now also banned from 'pre-ticking' optional extras on order forms, such as those adding insurance to the cost of a purchase. For the first time, laws have also been introduced to offer a cooling-off period for digital content, including music, films and books, as BBC News reports. Consumers may now cancel an order for digital content within fourteen days, but only if they have not downloaded it.

mrspoonsi (2955715) writes "Apple CEO Tim Cook during his keynote said that around 130 million customers have purchased their first Apple device in the last twelve months. He states, 'Many of these customers were switchers from Android,' he said. 'They had bought an Android phone by mistake, and then had sought a better experience and a better life.' He added that almost half of those who have purchased an iPhone in China since December have switched from Android. However, it is worth noting that iPhones were not actually available in China until December, when pre-orders began, so it is unclear how much of the device's popularity there is simply down to the novelty factor, rather than a burning desire to flee from Android."

Bismillah (993337) writes "Once again, after the Red Flag Linux effort that petered out this year, China is considering Linux to sort out its pressing Windows XP issue. The Windows 8 ban by China's government procurement agency and promises of official support may help."

mrspoonsi (2955715) writes "A breakthrough has been made in SSD technology that could mean drastic performance increases due to the overcoming of one of the major issues in the memory type. Currently, data cannot be directly overwritten onto the NAND chips used in the devices. Files must be written to a clean area of the drive whilst the old area is formatted. This eventually causes fragmented data and lowers the drive's life and performance over time. However, a Japanese team at Chuo University have finally overcome the issue that is as old as the technology itself. Officially unveiled at the 2014 IEEE International Memory Workshop in Taipei, the researchers have written a brand new middleware for the drives that controls how the data is written to and stored on the device. Their new version utilizes what they call a 'logical block address scrambler' which effectively prevents data being written to a new 'page' on the device unless it is absolutely required. Instead, it is placed in a block to be erased and consolidated in the next sweep. This means significantly less behind-the-scenes file copying that results in increased performance from idle."

jones_supa (887896) writes "Neowin reports how Microsoft made a rare weekend post on its Security Response Center blog to announce an advisory that affects all currently supported versions of Internet Explorer (versions 6 to 11). The issue is based on a newly discovered exploit that could be used against the web browser. The vulnerability exists in the way that IE accesses an object in memory that has been deleted or has not been properly allocated. Memory may be corrupted in a way that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user. Microsoft is aware of 'limited, targeted attacks' that have used the exploit. IE 10 and 11 are protected against attacks using this exploit if they have their Enhanced Protected Mode turned on. Also, PCs that have either the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit 4.1 or the EMET 5.0 Technical Preview installed are also secured against this security hole. Microsoft will take the appropriate action to protect its customers by delivering a security update."