Cramming a full Windows PC inside of a cheap, $150 HDMI dongle sounds like a great idea—but Intel’s first attempt really fell flat. The Intel Compute Stick was underpowered, frustrating, and failed to live up to the hype. It wasn’t good enough to be a do-everything PC that fits in your pocket. No sweat: a leaked Intel roadmap shows how it’s going to get a lot better. Read more…
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Intel’s Cheap Windows PC TV Dongle Is About To Get Way Better
With AMD’s new sixth-generation A-series processors, laptops in the $400 to $700 range could soon become far more capable. Formerly code-named “Carizzo, ” the new chips offer twice the gaming performance of Intel’s Core i7, thanks to discrete Radeon graphics. They’re the first mainstream processors with hardware decoding for H.265/HEVC video, the successor to the current H.264 standard which includes far better compression and support for 4K resolutions. And they’ll also pack in up to 12 compute cores (four CPU and eight GPU), which basically means they’ll be able to handle whatever you throw at them. Why focus on mainstream laptops? AMD notes that it’s the largest segment of the PC market by revenue and volume sold, so it makes sense for a company that’s traditionally focused on value to show it some love. AMD’s basically gunning hard for the gaming and media crowd with its sixth-generation chips. Naturally, they include its dual graphics technology, which can summon the power of Radeon R7 graphics along their built-in graphics for a 42 percent jump in frame rates. They also combine game performance with hardware video encoding, which should make for much smoother game streams on Twitch. Battery-wise, AMD says the new chips will last twice as long as their predecessors, even when watching video or gaming. While it all sounds good on paper, AMD will face some stiff competition from Intel’s new Broadwell-H chips, which were announced yesterday. Those chips also double graphics performance and boost overall media performance. Intel’s chips seem pretty expensive though, ranging from $244 to $623, and while we don’t know the pricing of AMD’s new wares yet, they’re usually cheaper than Intel. So there’s a good chance AMD can keep up the value fight. We’ll find out for sure once the new chips hit the market. AMD says computers featuring the sixth-gen A-series will start shipping in June, while Intel expects its chips to hit computers within two months. Filed under: Gaming , Laptops , AMD Comments
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AMD’s latest chips bring gaming and video chops to mainstream laptops
For the first time since the 9/11 attacks, both houses of Congress have agreed to limit the government’s domestic surveillance powers. Earlier today, the Senate voted 67 to 32 and passed the USA Freedom Act , echoing the House’s vote in May. The bill is designed to counter the Patriot Act’s controversial section 215 — the bit that enabled the NSA to collect phone records en masse, request “roving wiretaps” and seize business files — just one day after the provision officially expired. Update : According to several press reports , tonight President Obama signed it into law. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) had been lobbying hard to maintain the Patriot Act, even after the House passed the Freedom Act with broad bipartisan support. He then had to endure fellow Kentucky Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) filibustering a reauthorization vote last week to ensure that the Patriot Act would expire before it could be reauthorized. What’s more, the Senate today also voted down McConnell’s three amendments for the Freedom Act. These provisions would have all but gutted the new legislation. They’d have required companies to inform the government six months heads-up if they want to keep call data for less than the requisite 18 months, delaying the Freedom Act’s implementation by six months and granting the secretive FISA courts full control over its own proceedings. The USA Freedom Act says that the FISA court can’t sign off on a general warrant like that: the govt has to ask for *specific* information. – Danny O’B (@mala) June 2, 2015 It should be noted however, that the passage of the Freedom Act will temporarily restart the Patriot’s phone data collection apparatus that expired on Sunday for at least six months while the NSA wraps up the program. The EFF and ACLU both have hailed the decision as a partial victory for privacy. Per an ACLU statement: The passage of the USA Freedom Act is a milestone. This is the most important surveillance reform bill since 1978, and its passage is an indication that Americans are no longer willing to give the intelligence agencies a blank check. It’s a testament to the significance of the Snowden disclosures and also to the hard work of many principled legislators on both sides of the aisle. Still, no one should mistake this bill for comprehensive reform. The bill leaves many of the government’s most intrusive and overbroad surveillance powers untouched, and it makes only very modest adjustments to disclosure and transparency requirements. The USA Freedom Act bill now goes to the White House for President Obama’s signature. He has been rumbling for the past few weeks about the need to extend the Patriot Act. However he’s already said he would and it’s hard to imagine that he’d risk going against such a widely supported bill and potentially face an embarrassing veto override vote heading into his final year in office. So, for now at least, American’s phone records appear to be safer from the Feds’ prying eyes. [Image Credit: Getty Images] Filed under: Internet Comments Source: US Senate
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Senate passes USA Freedom Act (update: signed by Obama)
Comcast customers on the West Coast will be able to get $5 credits due to a multihour Internet outage that happened Monday night. Though Internet service providers might offer refunds to customers who call and complain, they aren’t generally in the habit of proactively issuing refunds after outages. But Comcast, the country’s largest cable and broadband company, has been trying to improve its reputation for awful customer service . “We are directly reaching out to those who reported problems last night to offer our apologies and a credit for lost service,” Comcast Senior VP Mark Muehl wrote in a blog post yesterday. The credit will be $5, USA Today reported . Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Comcast issuing $5 credits after Internet outage caused by DNS failure
You might consider volcanic activity an efficient way of destroying living tissues, but volcanic glasses are often used to study early life. Certain microbial corrosion textures in volcanic glass and in Cenozoic seafloor basalts have been interpreted as evidence of a deep biosphere, dating back to the earliest periods of life on Earth. Similarly, textures found in volcanic glass from the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa and the Pilbara Craton in Australia also suggest the presence of a deep oceanic biosphere on Earth as early as 3.35 billion years ago. But a group of researchers had challenged the idea that these traces resulted from biological activity. Now, in a strong response, another group has defended the interpretation. We seem to have a genuine scientific controversy on our hands. Is this life? Volcanic glass from Cenozoic seafloor volcanics sometimes contain what are called “biotextures.” These typically take on two major forms, either microscopic spherical cavities or tubules that extend into the volcanic glass. Biogenicity, substances produced by life processes, is the most widely accepted explanation for these features. These textures can provide us with valuable information about the types of microorganisms that existed long ago, and shed light on biological processes and how those processes may have evolved over time. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Could remnants of the earliest life be preserved in volcanic glass?
Add / Remove Nourishing and growing a startup requires a few essentials: funding, a committed team, and the time and space to work. Concentrating on that last factor is matchmaking service Cribb — a platform which enables a network of investors and celebrities to offer promising startups the use of their vacant homes for free, in return for equity. Billed as an Airbnb for startups, Cribb helps startups seek out inspiring locations for 3-6 month long semesters. To begin, startups register their interest on the site and fill in a application. Cribb reviews each company, and those who pass the screening process are introduced to homeowners who match their needs and interests. The homeowner then decides if they want to accommodate the startup in return for five percent of their business. Cribb also offers entrepreneurial resources and support to all participating startups to help them accelerate towards the next level of funding. What other resources could wealthy investors make available to startups? Website: www.cribb.co Contact: hello@cribb.co
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Investors host startups in their unused homes in return for equity
An anonymous reader writes: A thread at the Skype community forums has brought to light a critical bug in Microsoft’s Skype clients for Windows, iOS and Android: typing the incorrect URL initiator http://: into a text message on Skype will crash the client so badly that it can only be repaired by installing an older version and awaiting a fix from Microsoft. The bug does not affect OS X or the ‘Metro’-style Windows clients — which means, effectively, that Mac users could kill the Skype installations on other platforms just by sending an eight-character message. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Typing ‘http://:’ Into a Skype Message Trashes the Installation Beyond Repair
Fallout 4 is coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC, and so far, this is what it looks like. First, the rumors are true: Fallout 4 is set in Boston, as demonstrated by scenes from an alternate-universe Scollay Square, the real-life Boston city center established in 1838 and demolished in 1962, plus other landmarks in the video. Bethesda’s 24-hour Fallout 4 teaser site hit zero this morning, revealing a trailer and pre-order links, plus a nudge to tune into the company’s presentation at E3 on June 14th. The teaser site also went live a tad early , letting the world peek platform details and a few screenshots ahead of the actual announcement. Watch the first Fallout 4 trailer below. Filed under: Gaming , HD Comments
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Here’s that ‘Fallout 4’ trailer you’re looking for
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has announced plans for native support for SSH in Windows. “A popular request the PowerShell team has received is to use Secure Shell protocol and Shell session (aka SSH) to interoperate between Windows and Linux – both Linux connecting to and managing Windows via SSH and, vice versa, Windows connecting to and managing Linux via SSH. Thus, the combination of PowerShell and SSH will deliver a robust and secure solution to automate and to remotely manage Linux and Windows systems.” Based on the work from this new direction, they also plan to contribute back to the OpenSSH project as well. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Microsoft To Support SSH In Windows and Contribute To OpenSSH
New submitter kaizendojo sends a report from the Associated Press indicating the FBI has a small fleet of planes that fly across the U.S. carrying surveillance equipment. The planes are registered with fictitious companies to hide their association with the U.S. government. The FBI says they’re only used for investigations that are “specific” and “ongoing, ” but they’re often used without getting permission from a judge beforehand. “Some of the aircraft can also be equipped with technology that can identify thousands of people below through the cellphones they carry, even if they’re not making a call or in public. Officials said that practice, which mimics cell towers and gets phones to reveal basic subscriber information, is rare.” The AP identified at least 50 FBI-controlled planes, which have done over 100 flights since late April. The AP adds that they’ve seen the planes “orbiting large, enclosed buildings for extended periods where aerial photography would be less effective than electronic signals collection.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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FBI Is Behind Mysterious Flights Over US Cities