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New Windows 10 Preview For PCs With Bash, Cross-Device Cortana Released

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has released a new Windows 10 preview for PCs. The preview, dubbed build 14316, comes with a range of features including support for Bash, which Microsoft had announced at its developer conference Build last week. Users interested in it can enable the feature by turning on Developer Mode (detailed instructions here), searching for “Windows Features, ” choosing “Turn Windows features on or off, ” and enable Windows Subsystem for Linux (Beta). To get Bash installed, open Command Prompt and type in “bash” (without the quotes.) Other features included in the new build include low battery notification, find my phone (ring my phone), and the ability to share map directions across devices. Additionally, the company has also released a new universal Skype app. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Windows 10 Preview For PCs With Bash, Cross-Device Cortana Released

Why Microsoft needed to make Windows run Linux software

It’s bash, it’s Windows, it’s not a virtual machine. Perhaps the biggest surprise to come from Microsoft’s Build developer conference last week was the Windows Subsystem for Linux  (WSL). The system will ship as part of this summer’s Anniversary Update for Windows 10. WSL has two parts; there’s the core subsystem,  which is already included in Insider Preview builds of the operating system , and then a package of software that Canonical will provide. The core subsystem is what provides the Linux API on Windows, including the ability to natively load Linux executables and libraries. Canonical will provide bash and all the other command-line tools that are expected in a Linux environment. Microsoft is positioning WSL strictly as a tool for developers, with a particular view to supporting Web developers and the open source software stacks that they depend on. Many developers are very familiar with the bash shell, with building software using make and gcc , and editing text in vi or emacs . WSL will give these developers versions of these tools that are equal in just about every regard to the ones you get on Linux, because they’ll be the ones you get on Linux running unmodified on Windows. Read 22 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Why Microsoft needed to make Windows run Linux software

Samsung’s First 10-Nanometer DRAM Is 30 Percent Faster

Your RAM’s about to get an upgrade. Samsung has announced the world’s first 10-nanometer 8-gigabit DRAM chips, and it promises that they’ll be 30 percent faster and 20 percent more efficient than what went before. Read more…

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Samsung’s First 10-Nanometer DRAM Is 30 Percent Faster

Facebook Live gets a discovery section and instant reactions

Facebook Live is set to make a splashy launch of new sharing- and discovery-centric features with appearances by Mark Zuckerberg and product chief Chris Cox. The social network is looking to tap its billion-plus user advantage and built-in social and group features to gain an edge on rivals like Periscope . As such, it has revealed new features like live streaming within groups and events, real-time reactions, invitations to watch video with friends and a live map showing video in 60 countries. The biggest and most logical feature is the ability to broadcast live within groups and events . If you’re putting on a concert, race or charitable event, for example, it makes infinite sense to be able to stream key moments to members. You’ve already got a captive audience, so friends and family who are subscribed but can’t make it in person can still experience the fun at a distance. If you feel the need to express yourself without commenting, Facebook also revealed live reactions for videos. As shown above, you can drop in one of the new emoticons (love, haha, wow, sad or angry) with each popping up on the screen in real time. In addition, if you’re only able to catch a Facebook Live replay, you’ll see comments and reactions pop up during the video as if it were live. On the discovery side, Facebook unveiled “Live Video Destinations” on mobile. That’s a dedicated section where you can find popular streams and live video from friends or folks and topics you’re interested in. It lets you search live and recorded videos and stream your own instantly with a “go live” button. Desktop users, meanwhile, get “Facebook Live Map, ” a button that helps you find live video in 60 countries around the world. If you want watch with a friend, every stream now gets an “invite” button, as well. Facebook may have jumped late into live video well after rivals like YouTube, Periscope and Meerkat, but it’s certainly a high priority now. The company pushes live video to the top of your feeds and notifies you about new streams, though you can now turn those off , thankfully. With product head Chris Cox and Zuck himself involved in the latest Facebook Live feature push, expect live streams to become an even larger part of your feeds. The features will roll out over the next few weeks.

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Facebook Live gets a discovery section and instant reactions

Nvidia unveils first Pascal graphics card, the monstrous Tesla P100

The first full-fat GPU based on Nvidia’s all-new Pascal architecture is here. And while the Tesla P100 is aimed at professionals and deep learning systems rather than consumers, if consumer Pascal GPUs are anything like it—and there’s a very good chance they will be—gamers and enthusiasts alike are going to see a monumental boost in performance. The  Tesla P100 is the first full-size Nvidia GPU based on the TSMC 16nm FinFET manufacturing process—like AMD, Nvidia has been stuck using an older 28nm process since 2012—and the first to feature the second generation of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM2). Samsung began mass production of faster and higher capacity HBM2 memory back in January. While recent rumours suggested that both Nvidia and AMD wouldn’t use HMB2 this year due to it being prohibitively expensive—indeed, AMD’s recent roadmap suggests that its new Polaris GPUs won’t use HBM2 —Nvidia has at least taken the leap with its professional line of GPUs. The result of the P100’s more efficient manufacturing process, architecture upgrades, and HBM2 is a big boost in performance over Nvidia’s current performance champs like the Maxwell-based Tesla M40 and the Titan X/Quadro M6000. Nvidia says the P100 reaches 21.2 teraflops of half-precision (FP16) floating point performance, 10.6 teraflops of single precision (FP32), and 5.3 teraflops (1/2 rate) of double precision. By comparison, the Titan X and Tesla M40 offer just 7 teraflops of single precision floating point performance. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Nvidia unveils first Pascal graphics card, the monstrous Tesla P100

Scientists To Open Mass-Cloning Factory in China This Year To Clone Cows, Pets, Humans

An anonymous reader writes: Scientists in China are planning to open a mass-cloning factory by the end of the year. The ambitious and futuristic facility hopes to be mass-producing one million cows every 12 months by 2020. Not only will it clone cattle, but the factory, which will be located in the northern Chinese port of Tianjin, will also cater to more specific needs by genetically engineering police dogs and thoroughbred race horses. It is part of a $21m plan which is backed by the Boyalife group in collaboration with South Korean company Sooam Biotech Research Foundation. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Scientists To Open Mass-Cloning Factory in China This Year To Clone Cows, Pets, Humans

WhatsApp Enables End-To-End Encryption For All Forms of Communications By Default

Popular instant messaging app WhatsApp, on Tuesday, announced that it is turning on end-to-end encryption for all its users by default. The company says that every call a user makes, every text message they send, all photos and videos they share will now be more secure. Furthermore, the encryption status of any chat is visible under the chat’s preferences screen. The announcement comes a little over a year after the Facebook-owned company partnered with Open Whisper Systems, a nonprofit software group that develops collaborative open source projects with a mission to “make private communication simple.” The end-to-end encryption feature is available on the latest version of the app. In a blog post, Open Whisper Systems further explains the feature: Once a client recognizes a contact as being fully e2e capable, it will not permit transmitting plaintext to that contact, even if that contact were to downgrade to a version of the software that is not fully e2e capable. This prevents the server or a network attacker from being able to perform a downgrade attack. In a blog post, WhatsApp writes: While WhatsApp is among the few communication platforms to build full end-to-end encryption that is on by default for everything you do, we expect that it will ultimately represent the future of personal communication. WhatsApp has also made available the technical details about how the two companies implemented this feature (PDF). For those of you who haven’t heard of WhatsApp, it’s an instant messaging and voice calling app. The free service, which is available across all popular platforms, is used by more than a billion people worldwide every month. A report on Wired says that a team of only 15 engineers enabled this security feature for over a billion users. Privacy researcher and activist Christopher Soghoian rightfully adds, “Google has no excuse.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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WhatsApp Enables End-To-End Encryption For All Forms of Communications By Default

Roku’s new $50 stick fits a quad-core CPU in a smaller frame

Roku’s last Streaming Stick was plenty of things: Compact, inexpensive and perfect for bringing on vacation. But you wouldn’t call it fast, per se. That’s something Roku aimed to fix with the latest version of the Streaming Stick, which packs in a quad-core CPU to deliver eight times the processing power of its predecessor. Even more impressive, this new Stick is almost as small as a USB flash drive and it’s still $50. While the company won’t speak about any RAM or storage improvements, reps say they’ve tweaked the device’s antennas for better reception. It doesn’t support 802.11ac WiFi yet, but you can at least get 5Ghz 802.11n. The new Stick sports Roku OS 7.1, which offers a few improvements when it comes to following movies and TV shows. There’s also a slightly redesigned remote, which is a bit smaller than Roku’s last few remotes. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a headphone jack or voice control support. On the bright side, the new Roku mobile app offers both of those features. The ability to stream audio from whatever you’re watching right from your phone, in particular, looks particularly handy for all Roku users. In a brief demonstration with the Roku Stick sitting in an enclosed A/V cabinet, it was noticeably snappier than the previous model. Simple things like navigating around menus quickly, or scrolling through Netflix titles, was almost as smooth as the more powerful Roku 4 . As a frustrated owner of the last Stick, this one looks like an improvement in just about every way. The new Roku Stick is up for preorder today, and it will hit stores later this month.

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Roku’s new $50 stick fits a quad-core CPU in a smaller frame