Month: February 2017

Microsoft Teases Windows 10’s Upcoming ‘Project Neon’ Design Language

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Windows Central: Microsoft just gave developers a sneak peek at Project Neon, Microsoft’s upcoming design language for Windows 10 that aims to add fluidity, animation and blur to apps and the operating system. We exclusively revealed that this was in the works in late 2016, and today Microsoft has given us a first peak at what Project Neon will look like. During the Windows Developer Day livestream, an image of Project Neon was seen the background of one of the PowerPoint slides being shown off on stage. Although not much, it’s further confirmation that this is the end goal for Windows 10’s UI, and Project Neon will be bringing a fresh coat of paint to apps. Project Neon should benefit all types of Windows 10 devices, including Windows 10 Mobile, HoloLens and even Xbox. We’re still several months away from Project Neon being everywhere in Windows 10, and we’re expecting to see more at BUILD this coming May. In fact, a lot of the Project Neon APIs are available in the latest Insider Preview builds of Windows 10, meaning developers can already begin taking advantage of these new user interfaces and design language! Animations and transitions are a big deal with Project Neon, with the goal of making the operating system and apps feel like they work together. Peter Bright does a good job summarizing the looks of the screenshot via Ars Technica: “The picture shows a refreshed version of the Groove music app on a Windows desktop. The fundamentals of the app and its layout aren’t changed, underscoring that Neon is very much an iteration of the current Metro/Microsoft Design Language (MDL). The window has shed its discrete title bar and one pixel border, with the application content now extending to the very edge of the window. The search text field no longer has a box around it, and the left hand pane has a hint of translucency to it.” You can view the screenshot here and judge it for yourself. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Teases Windows 10’s Upcoming ‘Project Neon’ Design Language

Attacks On WordPress Sites Intensify As Hackers Deface Over 1.5 Million Pages

An anonymous reader writes: “Attacks on WordPress sites using a vulnerability in the REST API, patched in WordPress version 4.7.2, have intensified over the past two days, as attackers have now defaced over 1.5 million pages, spread across 39, 000 unique domains, ” reports BleepingComputer. “Initial attacks using the WordPress REST API flaw were reported on Monday by web security firm Sucuri, who said four groups of attackers defaced over 67, 000 pages. The number grew to over 100, 000 pages the next day, but according to a report from fellow web security firm WordFence, these numbers have skyrocketed today to over 1.5 million pages, as there are now 20 hacking groups involved in a defacement turf war.” Making matters worse, over the weekend Google’s Search Console service, formerly known as Google Webmaster, was sending out security alerts to people it shouldn’t. Google attempted to send security alerts to all WordPress 4.7.0 and 4.7.1 website owners (vulnerable to the REST API flaw), but some emails reached WordPress 4.7.2 owners. Some of which misinterpreted the email and panicked, fearing their site might lose search engine ranking. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Attacks On WordPress Sites Intensify As Hackers Deface Over 1.5 Million Pages

Use 375,000 images from the Met however you want, for free

If you want to use images of paintings from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, like Woman with a Parrot by Gustave Courbet (above), you no longer have to worry about rights. All of the Met’s approximately 375, 000 public-domain artwork images are now available for free, unrestricted use. The new “Open Access” policy, based on Creative Commons Zero (CC0), means bloggers, schools and businesses alike can use them without even the need for attribution. In 2014, the Met opened up 400, 000 images for downloading, but only for scholarly, non-commercial use. Now, however, it wants them spread far and wide, as it also unveiled partnerships with Pinterest, Wikimedia, Artstor, the Digital Public Library of America and others. “Increasing access to the Museum’s collection and scholarship serves the interests and needs of our 21st-century audiences, ” said Met CEO Thomas P. Campbell in a statement. Van Gogh’s “Wheat Field with Cypresses” (Metropolitan Museum of Art) The images comprise the main body of the museum’s collection, apart from 65, 000 artwork images not in the public domain for copyright and other reasons. The museum has 1.5 million works in total, including prints and engravings, many of which could also be digitized in the future. Other institutions, including Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, offer free, unlimited-use downloads, and you can find gigapixel-sized photos and Street View-style tours on Google. No other single site, however, has Met’s prodigious number of well-known works that range back over 6, 000 years. The museum worked closely with Creative Commons, and you can find images on the organization’s CCSearch beta or the main Met collection , and even create your own search using tools from the Met’s Github repository. Via: The New York Times Source: Met Museum

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Use 375,000 images from the Met however you want, for free

After 40 years, scientists discover first-ever white dwarf pulsar

After decades of speculation, students at Warwick University have now found the first ever white dwarf pulsar. Since 1967’s discovery of the first pulsar (a rotating star that emits electromagnetic radiation), scientists have only been able to find evidence of larger neutron stars as pulsars. For those of you who aren’t astronomers, a neutron star is the last stage a celestial body goes through after a supernova before collapsing into a black hole . While scientists had yet to find any proof, many argued that the smaller dying white dwarf star could also become a pulsar. Now 40 years later, that theory has become fact. The discovery was made by Tom Marsh and Boris Gansicke from Warwick University’s Astrophysics Group alongside David Buckley from the South African Astronomical Observatory. The trio managed to spot a white dwarf pulsar 380 light years from Earth, located in the constellation of Scorpius. AR scorpii is the name they gave to the binary star that confirmed the aging hypothesis. This historic binary star is made up of both a white dwarf around the size of Earth (but around 200, 000 times denser) and a ‘nearby’ red star. With a distance only three times greater than that of the Earth and the Moon between them, the two celestial bodies are practically neighbors in galactic terms. Thanks to this relatively close proximity, the white dwarf pulsar bombards its poor red dwarf neighbor with all manner of electrical energy and particles during its two-minute rotational period. You can find more details about their historic findings here . Via: CNET Source: Nature

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After 40 years, scientists discover first-ever white dwarf pulsar

Samsung’s QLED 4K TVs will start at $2,500

If you’ve been waiting to buy one of Samsung’s QLED 4K TVs , which were unveiled at CES 2017, today is your lucky day. The company is now taking pre-orders for its Q7 and Q8 sets , starting at $2, 500 for a 55-inch, non-curved model. In case that’s not big enough, you could shell out $6, 000 for a 75-inch Q7 or $4, 500 for the curved Q8. What’s missing from this list is the flagship Q9 panels, which Samsung still hasn’t revealed pricing for. As a refresher, the QLED lineup is intended to rival high-end TVs from LG and Sony, with the promise of Quantom Dots delivering a picture quality on par with OLED technology. Samsung says the Q7 and Q8 are expected to ship “late” February. Via: The Verge Source: Samsung

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Samsung’s QLED 4K TVs will start at $2,500

New Close-Up Image of Jupiter’s South Pole is Mind-Blowingly Beautiful

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has once again delivered stunning images of Jupiter, this time giving us a glimpse at the gas giant’s south pole. The image, taken from Juno’s most recent flyby on February 2nd, was captured at an altitude 63, 400 miles. While there aren’t any Jovian penguins on this south pole (that we know of), … Read more…

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New Close-Up Image of Jupiter’s South Pole is Mind-Blowingly Beautiful

Analysis: PS4 Pro’s “Boost Mode” bumps frame rates up to 38 percent

This Digital Foundry video goes into detail about the PS4 Pro’s Boost Mode improvements on many games. Earlier this week, we were surprised by reports that the new Version 4.5 beta firmware for the PlayStation 4 Pro offered an unannounced “Boost Mode”  promising “improved gameplay, including higher frame rates, for some games that were released before the introduction of PS4 Pro.” The folks over at the excellent Digital Foundry have now put that new mode through its paces , finding frame rate increases of up to 38 percent on unpatched PS4 games. Those frame rate improvements are very dependent on the specific title in question, though. Destiny for instance, is locked to 30fps in its code, and thus gets no benefit from Boost Mode. An intensive online shooter like Battlefield 4 , on the other hand, can stay at a solid 60fps in Boost Mode, without the frequent frame-rate dips that can occur during a 64-player match in base mode. Many games seem to see the same modest 14 percent bump in their frame rates in Boost Mode. That coincidentally matches the 14 percent faster clock speed that the PS4 Pro’s GPU has over the original system (911Mhz vs 800Mhz), suggesting that the additional processor cycles are helping on GPU-limited games. Boost Mode doesn’t seem to make any use of the 18 additional compute cores available in the PS4 Pro, however—for that, you need a game-specific patch to be coded by the developer. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Analysis: PS4 Pro’s “Boost Mode” bumps frame rates up to 38 percent

Mac malware is still crude, but it’s slowly catching up to its Windows rivals

Enlarge (credit: Patrick Wardle ) Malicious Microsoft Word documents that abuse macros have long been the bane of Windows users. Now, security researchers have found what may be the first such real-world attack to infect Macs. The attack was found in a Word file titled “U.S. Allies and Rivals Digest Trump’s Victory – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.” When Mac users open the document in a Word application configured to allow macros and ignore a warning, an embedded macro automatically: checks to make sure the LittleSnitch security firewall isn’t running downloads an encrypted payload from hxxps://www.securitychecking.org:443/index.asp decrypts the payload using a hard-coded key and executes the payload The code contained in the macro is written in the Python programming language. It was taken almost verbatim from EmPyre , an open-source exploit framework for Macs. By the time the researchers found the booby-trapped document, the securitychecking.org was no longer serving the payload, so it wasn’t possible to know precisely what it did. But the Empyre component the macro borrowed allowed for persistent infections that contained a wide range of capabilities, including monitoring webcams, stealing passwords and encryption keys stored in the keychain, and accessing browsing histories. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Mac malware is still crude, but it’s slowly catching up to its Windows rivals

Windows 10 is getting a picture-in-picture mode

Microsoft just made it easier to use multiple applications at once on Windows 10 , especially when dealing with video-focused programs. The company released Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 15031 to developers today, and the main attraction is the introduction of so-called Compact Overlay windows. The new feature allows users to run a program in a small window that’s pinned above other applications, so it can be seen without being as intrusive as a standard window. Compact Overlay windows appears useful when dealing with video. For example, keeping a YouTube clip or Skype call visible in the corner would make it easier for users to do things like take notes or check email while not losing sight of the video. The good news for developers is that Compact Overlay windows “work just like normal windows in all other ways, ” so it should be relatively painless to adapt existing programs to be compatible with the feature. It’s unclear if Compact Overlay windows can be resized or used with Snap (a feature just pulled from Xbox One ). We’ve asked Microsoft to clarify. The update also adds full-screen Game Bar support for 52 games, including Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto titles. Microsoft isn’t the only company dabbling in picture-in-picture modes. Apple last year debuted a similar feature for MacOS , which works in much the same way, but is only compatible with Safari and iTunes. Compact Overlay windows are only available to developers at the moment, although Microsoft says that the Skype Preview and Movies & TV apps will soon be updated to take advantage of the new feature. Source: Windows

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Windows 10 is getting a picture-in-picture mode

China to require fingerprints of all foreign visitors as new security step

China’s Ministry of Public Security said today that starting on Friday–tomorrow–at one airport then at others, the government will begin recording fingerprints of each foreign visitor upon arrival. China is ramping up security along its borders, according to reports in state media. (more…)

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China to require fingerprints of all foreign visitors as new security step