Month: January 2017

APFS is coming soon: iOS 10.3 will automatically upgrade your filesystem

After many years and at least one false start , Apple announced at WWDC last year that it would begin shipping a new, modern file system in 2017. Dubbed APFS (for Apple File System), it is designed to improve support for solid-state storage and encryption and to safeguard data integrity. When released, it will finally replace the nearly two-decade-old HFS+ filesystem that Apple has been tacking new features onto since 1998. An early version of APFS was included in macOS Sierra as a beta for developers to experiment with, but it was intentionally limited in some important ways; it couldn’t be used as a boot drive, it didn’t support Fusion Drives, and you can’t back up APFS volumes with Time Machine. We weren’t expecting to hear more about a final APFS rollout until this year’s WWDC, but it looks like Apple is getting ready to start the party already: according to the beta release notes for iOS 10.3 , devices that are upgraded will automatically have their HFS+ file systems converted to APFS. From the release notes: When you update to iOS 10.3, your iOS device will update its file system to Apple File System (APFS). This conversion preserves existing data on your device. However, as with any software update, it is recommended that you create a backup of your device before updating. Apple’s stated end goal is to perform an in-place file system conversion for all its currently supported devices, including all Macs, iPhones, iPads, iPods, Apple TVs, and Apple Watches. iOS 10.3 will provide some early information on how reliable that conversion will be. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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APFS is coming soon: iOS 10.3 will automatically upgrade your filesystem

China Is Splashing $168 Million To Make It Rain

China, the world’s second largest economy, is pouring 1.5 billion yuan ($168 million) into a program aimed at making it rain in its usually arid northwestern region. From a report: No stranger to using technologies like cloud seeding to influence and even control weather patterns, China’s top economic planners recently gave the go ahead for what will be one of the country’s largest weather-modification projects, reports the South China Morning Post. According to the Post, a feasibility study by the country’s meteorological agency concluded that the three-year program could see a rise in precipitation over an area of 960, 000 sq km, or as much as 10% of the country’s landmass. The multi-million dollar budget allocated by the National Development and Reform Commission will reportedly cover the cost for four new aircraft and updates to eight existing planes, nearly 900 rocket launch systems and over 1, 800 digital control devices. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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China Is Splashing $168 Million To Make It Rain

All the major new additions in the iOS 10.3 and macOS 10.12.4 betas

Enlarge / Devices running iOS 10. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) As predicted yesterday, now that Apple has the iOS 10.2.1  and macOS 10.12.3 releases out the door, it’s turning its attention to larger updates. Apple is releasing the first betas of iOS 10.3 and macOS 10.12.4 to the public today and has given us a broad overview of the biggest changes that people will see when these are released to the public in a couple of months. The iOS 10.3 update is the more significant of the two. For starters, it adds AirPods  to Find My iPhone to make them easier to find if you lose them, which, given how small they are, is bound to happen to AirPod owners eventually. Most of the other changes come in the form of small additions to existing features. SiriKit , which can already hook into compatible payment and ride-sharing apps, can now be used to pay bills and check on the status of payments. You’ll also be able to schedule a ride with Siri—calling an Uber to come at 2pm rather than “right now,” for instance. The weather icon in Maps can be 3D Touched on compatible devices (the iPhone 6S and 7 series, as of this writing) to show hourly forecasts and other information. The CarPlay UI picks up shortcuts for launching the two most recently used apps and can display EV charging stations in Maps. HomeKit now supports programmable light switches. Facemarks on the Chinese and Japanese keyboards have been shuffled around to make it easier to type, and the Conversation View that Mail picked up in iOS 10 has gotten some “navigation improvements.” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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All the major new additions in the iOS 10.3 and macOS 10.12.4 betas

Ransomware Infects All St Louis Public Library Computers

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Libraries in St Louis have been bought to a standstill after computers in all the city’s libraries were infected with ransomware, a particularly virulent form of computer virus used to extort money from victims. Hackers are demanding $35, 000 (£28, 000) to restore the system after the cyberattack, which affected 700 computers across the Missouri city’s 16 public libraries. The hackers demanded the money in electronic currency bitcoin, but, as CNN reports, the authority has refused to pay for a code that would unlock the machines. As a result, the library authority has said it will wipe its entire computer system and rebuild it from scratch, a solution that may take weeks. On Friday, St Louis public library announced it had managed to regain control of its servers, with tech staff continuing to work to restore borrowing services. The 16 libraries have all remained open, but computers continue to be off limits to the public. Spokeswoman Jen Hatton told CNN that the attack had hit the city’s schoolchildren and its poor worst, as many do not have access to the internet at home. “For many we’re their only access to the internet, ” she said. “Some of them have a smartphone, but they don’t have a data plan. They come in and use the wifi.” As well as causing the loans system to seize up, preventing borrowers from checking out or returning books, the attack froze all computers, leaving no one able to access the four million items that should be available through the service. The system is believed to have been infected through a centralized computer server, and staff emails have also been frozen by the virus. The FBI has been called in to investigate. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ransomware Infects All St Louis Public Library Computers

Super-fast camera records light-based ‘sonic booms’

Scientists have suspected that light can create its own conical wakes, like a sonic boom, but how do you capture something that happens so quickly? With a very fast camera, naturally. Washington University in St. Louis has recorded these photonic shockwaves using a “streak camera” that measures both the image and temporal data at 100 billion frames per second. To visualize the cones, the team shot very fast green laser pulses (just 7 picoseconds long) through a tunnel full of dry fog and placed between plates made from aluminum oxide and silicone rubber. Since the laser moved faster in the tunnel than in the plates, it produced a sonic boom-like effect as some of the light dragged behind. The approach to the camera is particularly important. Other techniques for capturing very fast events usually require many, many exposures to see anything; the streak camera only needs one. On top of the simplicity, this lets you capture events that won’t repeat in the exact same way, such as the laser pulses. This could provide new insights into light, of course, but the scientists are ultimately interested in biology. Their system is fast enough to track neurons as they fire, and map brain activity in real time. You could track even the smallest details, which could improve our understandings of both the mind and brain-related diseases. Via: Popular Mechanics Source: Science Advances , Live Science

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Super-fast camera records light-based ‘sonic booms’

Foxconn Considers $7 Billion Screen Factory In US, Which Could Create Up To 50,000 Jobs

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturing company best known for its partnership with Apple, has said that it is mulling a $7 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing that could create between 30, 000 and 50, 000 jobs. According to The Wall Street Journal, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou says the company is talking with the state of Pennsylvania among others about getting the land and electricity subsidies it would need to build a factory. “If U.S. state governments are willing to provide these terms, and we calculate and it is cheaper than shipping from China or Japan, then why wouldn’t Sharp build a factory in the U.S.?” said Gou. The factory would build flat-panel screens under the Sharp name — Foxconn bought Sharp around this time last year for $5.1 billion. Sharp President Tai Jeng-wu hinted in October of 2016 that U.S. manufacturing could be a possibility for Sharp, and he also indicated that Apple could begin using OLED display panels in future iPhones. Apple currently uses OLED in the Apple Watch and in the new MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar, but otherwise it hasn’t pushed to adopt the technology as some Android phone manufacturers have. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Foxconn Considers $7 Billion Screen Factory In US, Which Could Create Up To 50,000 Jobs

Virulent Android malware returns, gets >2 million downloads on Google Play

Enlarge (credit: portal gda ) A virulent family of malware that infected more than 10 million Android devices last year has made a comeback, this time hiding inside Google Play apps that have been downloaded by as many as 12 million unsuspecting users. HummingWhale, as the professionally developed malware has been dubbed, is a variant of HummingBad, the name given to a family of malicious apps researchers documented in July invading non-Google app markets . HummingBad attempted to override security protections by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities that gave the malware root privileges in older versions of Android. Before Google shut it down, it installed more than 50,000 fraudulent apps each day, displayed 20 million malicious advertisements, and generated more than $300,000 per month in revenue. Of the 10 million people who downloaded HummingBad-contaminated apps, an estimated 286,000 of them were located in the US. HummingWhale, by contrast, managed to sneak its way into about 20 Google Play apps that were downloaded from 2 million to 12 million times, according to researchers from Check Point, the security company that has been closely following the malware family for almost a year. Rather than rooting devices, the latest variant includes new virtual machine techniques that allow the malware to perform ad fraud better than ever, company researchers said in a blog post published Monday . Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Virulent Android malware returns, gets >2 million downloads on Google Play

Western Union fined $586 million for colluding with organized crime

Image: David Weekly/Flickr Western Union admitted it behaved criminally through its “willful failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and aiding and abetting wire fraud,” reports Forbes. They’ve agreed to pay a $586 million fine. From the Forbes article : In a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission on Thursday, authorities describe insufficient or poorly enforced policies that resulted in the funneling of hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds from illegal gambling, fraud and drug and human trafficking. … In one case, illegal immigrants from China sent money back to the people who smuggled them across the border. With the help of employees, the payments were structured so that they didn’t trigger reporting requirements under the Bank Secrecy Act, say authorities. In another example, Western Union processed hundreds of thousands of transactions for an international scam, wherein fraudsters directed people to send money in order to claim a prize or help a relative. Western Union employees often processed the payments in return for a cut of the proceeds, say authorities. From CFO : Wifredo A. Ferrer, the U.S. Attorney in Miami, said the misconduct reflected “a flawed corporate culture that failed to provide a checks and balances approach to combat criminal practices.” “Western Union’s failure to implement proper controls and discipline agents that violated compliances policies enabled the proliferation of illegal gambling, money laundering and fraud-related schemes,” he added. I’m not a fan of civil asset forfeiture, which is basically a way for law enforcement to steal money and assets from anyone without charging them with a crime. But in this case, it seems appropriate for the government seize the assets of the CEO of Western Union, Hikmet Ersek, until he can prove that his $8.5 million salary didn’t depend on Western Union’s admitted criminal activities.

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Western Union fined $586 million for colluding with organized crime

iOS 10.2.1 is all about fixing bugs and patching security holes

Enlarge (credit: Andrew Cunningham) After several weeks of beta testing, Apple has released iOS 10.2.1 to the public today. The update is fairly minor and includes no major improvements to core iOS apps or features. The release notes say only that it fixes bugs and includes security improvements. The security page for the update lists a number of vulnerabilities in the kernel, WebKit, and the Contacts app that have all been fixed. Apple also addressed a bug that could allow attackers  to briefly access the home screen on an Activation Locked iPad that had been reset . The update is available for everything that runs iOS 10: the iPhone 5 and newer, the fourth-generation iPad and newer, the iPad Mini 2 and newer, both iPad Pros, and the sixth-generation iPod Touch. Small updates for watchOS 3 and tvOS 10 , both of which are iOS-based, have been released as well. The release of iOS 10.2.1 clears the deck for betas of iOS 10.3, which is likely to be the final major revision to iOS 10 before work begins in earnest on iOS 11. We don’t know much about what Apple plans to include in this next update, but older rumors suggest that it may renew focus on the iPad in advance of some new tablet launches in the spring. Hope also springs eternal about a dark mode for iOS. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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iOS 10.2.1 is all about fixing bugs and patching security holes