The big one-eight. Another few months and another version of the Google browser is now up for grabs. With GPU-accelerated Canvas 2D now enabled, you can expect to see even smoother interactions with games and other media-heavy content. WebGL also gets a look-in with a new software-based addition that should help older computers access simple 3D web content. Anyone that’s already furnished with Chrome should get auto-updated to the latest version today, while anyone now left with no excuses not to sample the web browser can hit up the download at the source.

Chrome hits version 18, improves graphics performance originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Mar 2012 11:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chrome hits version 18, improves graphics performance

Still driving to your local Best Buy to fondle all the latest gadgets before swiping your card, or hopping to the web to pull the trigger? That tradition could be short-lived, if you happen to live near one of 50 big box retail stores that the company plans to shutter in 2013. The move was announced alongside Best Buy’s Q4 earnings report, which includes action items aimed to trim $800 million in costs by 2015. The closings will no-doubt come along with staffer reductions, some of whom could be transferred to one of 100 Best Buy Mobile “small format stand-alone stores” set to launch next year. While an unfortunate move for some customers and employees, it does show some foresight on behalf of BBY management, who likely recognize a continuing shift to online purchasing, and a greater emphasis on mobile devices, which require significantly smaller showrooms, cost less to ship and could offer greater margins to boot.

Continue reading Best Buy to close 50 big box US retail stores, open 100 Mobile stand-alone outlets in 2013

Best Buy to close 50 big box US retail stores, open 100 Mobile stand-alone outlets in 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Mar 2012 09:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Best Buy to close 50 big box US retail stores, open 100 Mobile stand-alone outlets in 2013

LG has made no secret of its fondness for flexible e-paper, but those dreams became a reality today, with the announcement of a six-inch display that promises to “revolutionize the e-book market.” The malleable plastic display sports a resolution of 1024 x 768 and can bend at an angle of up to 40 degrees. At just 0.7 millimeters thick, it’s about one-third thinner than similarly-specced glass displays, and weighs in at 14 grams — about half the weight of its glassy competition. LG also claims that the display is super durable, as evidenced by a series of successful drop tests from a height of 1.5 meters. The plan going forward is to supply the display to ODMs in China, in the hopes of bringing final products to Europe by “the beginning of next month.” For more details, check out the full press release after the break.

Continue reading LG unveils flexible plastic e-paper display, aims for European launch next month

LG unveils flexible plastic e-paper display, aims for European launch next month originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Mar 2012 02:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG unveils flexible plastic e-paper display, aims for European launch next month

In a post to Microsoft’s Windows Server blog, Microsoft Senior Program Manager Gaurav Gupta revealed that the company will offer an integrated cloud backup service for Windows Server “8”(the current designation of Microsoft’s next release of its server operating system). Microsoft Online Backup Service is now available as a free preview, but is limited to 10 gigabytes of cloud storage, works only with Windows Server “8” beta, and will only be offered to a limited number of customers. While it’s not an enterprise data protection solution, it does provide an option that may be attractive for small and medium businesses, as well as for servers that are hosted in the cloud.

Microsoft Online Backup is designed to provide incremental backups of server data, tracking changes at both the file and storage block level and only copying changes to backup storage. It also encrypts and compresses files before transferring them to Microsoft’s cloud, and can throttle the network usage of backup during business hours.

The Online Backup client integrates into the backup functionality of Windows Server “8,” and can be managed both through the existing Windows Server Backup utility and Windows PowerShell command line. In addition to backing up to the cloud, it can also manage backups to local storage.

Gupta said in his post that the service also provided data integrity checks on the cloud side, to ensure no data was corrupted in transit. And administrators can also put a retention policy in effect that sets how long to retain backups in the cloud—based on how much cloud storage they’re willing to pay for, as well as company policy. The service can also be customized to work with other providers through Microsoft’s Cloud Backup Provider API.

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Microsoft offers free cloud backup beta for Windows Server “8”

Trailrunner7 writes “Welcome to the age of targeted attacks, Mac users. Perhaps having grown tired of owning Windows machines around the world for the last few years, attackers have now taken up the challenge of going after Macs with the same kind of targeted attack tactics that have served them so well in the Windows world. Researchers have found a new attack that employs two separate pieces of malware, a malicious Word document and some techniques for maintaining persistence on compromised machines, and the campaign is specifically targeted at Mac users. The command-and-control domain involved in the attack is located in China and the attack exploits a three-year-old vulnerability in the way that Office for Mac handles certain Word files, according to researchers at AlienVault, who discovered and analyzed the attacks.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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MacControl Trojan Being Used In Targeted Attacks Against OS X Users

Adobe has released a long-awaited update to its Flash Player that allows users to apply security patches with no prodding.

The background updater, which Adobe announced in a blog post published on Tuesday, is designed to better protect users against malware attacks that exploit newly discovered vulnerabilities in the ubiquitous media player. Over the past few years, organized crime gangs and spy rings have milked such zero-day flaws to surreptitiously install keyloggers and other data-stealing software on vulnerable machines. The new mechanism is intended to reverse that trend by reducing the time it takes for the majority of Flash users to plug critical holes that come under attack.

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New, easier-to-update Flash designed to snuff out malware attacks

Just because Sony isn’t planning to unveil its next game console at this year’s E3 doesn’t mean the system isn’t in the works, or that information about it isn’t going to leak out. Case in point: Kotaku is citing unnamed “reliable sources” in reporting that “select developers” are already receiving development kits for the follow-up to the PS3, code-named “Orbis.” It will reportedly hit stores in time for the 2013 holiday season.

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PS3 successor “Orbis” rumored for late 2013, ties retail games to online accounts

An anonymous reader tips news of a new feature announced by Google today: Account Activity. Writing on their official blog, Google’s Andreas Tuerk said, “If you sign up, each month we’ll send you a link to a password-protected report with insights into your signed-in use of Google services. For example, my most recent Account Activity report told me that I sent 5 percent more email than the previous month and received 3 percent more. An Italian hotel was my top Gmail contact for the month. I conducted 12 percent more Google searches than in the previous month, and my top queries reflected the vacation I was planning: [rome] and [hotel].” You may remember from earlier this month that Stephen Wolfram began showing some of the extensive personal analytics data he has collected over the past 20 years.

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Google 'Account Activity' Jumps Into Personal Analytics

Google dives into personal analytics with new Account Activity feature originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Mar 2012 11:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google dives into personal analytics with new Account Activity feature

After a supernova a neutron star is left over. It’s made up of absurdly dense material, a teaspoon full of which would weigh somewhere in the order of 5,500,000,000,000 kilos. That’s about nine hundred times the weight of the Grand Pyramid of Giza. The star itself would be smaller than New York City and would be very difficult to move, especially with a spoon.

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A neutron star is smaller than New York