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NVIDIA reveals GeForce GTX 700M series GPUs for notebooks, we go eyes-on

We’ve already seen a couple of new desktop GTX cards from NVIDIA this month, and if the mysterious spec sheet for MSI’s GT70 Dragon Edition 2 laptop wasn’t enough of a hint, the company’s got some notebook variants to let loose, too. The GeForce GTX 700M series, officially announced today, is a quartet of chips built on the Kepler architecture. At the top of the stack is the GTX 780M, which NVIDIA claims is the “world’s fastest notebook GPU,” taking the title from AMD’s Radeon HD 8970M . For fans of the hard numbers, the 780M has 1,536 CUDA cores, an 823MHz base clock speed and memory configs of up to 4GB of 256-bit GDDR5 — in other words, not a world apart from a desktop card. Whereas the 780M’s clear focus is performance, trade-offs for portability and affordability are made as you go down through the 770M, 765M and 760M. Nevertheless, the 760M is said to be 30 percent faster than its predecessor , and the 770M 55 percent faster. All of the chips feature NVIDIA’s GPU Boost 2.0 and Optimus technologies, and work with the GeForce Experience game auto-settings utility. The 700M series should start showing up in a host of laptops soon, and a bunch of OEMs have already pledged their allegiance. Check out a video with NVIDIA’s Mark Avermann after the break, where he shows off a range of laptops packing 700M GPUs, and helps us answer the most important question of all: can it run Crysis ? (Or, in this case, Crysis 3 .) Gallery: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 700M slide deck Filed under: Gaming , Laptops , Peripherals , NVIDIA Comments

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NVIDIA reveals GeForce GTX 700M series GPUs for notebooks, we go eyes-on

iCloud users take note: Apple two-step protection won’t protect your data

A diagram showing how Apple’s two-step verification works. Apple If you think your pictures, contacts, and other data are protected by the two-step verification protection Apple added to its iCloud service in March , think again. According to security researchers in Moscow, the measure helps prevent fraudulent purchases made with your Apple ID but does nothing to augment the security of files you store. To be clear, iCloud data is still secure so long as the password locking it down is strong and remains secret. But in the event that your account credentials are compromised—which is precisely the eventuality Apple’s two-factor verification is intended to protect against—there’s nothing stopping an adversary from accessing data stored in your iCloud account. Researchers at ElcomSoft—a developer of sophisticated software for cracking passwords—made this assessment in a blog post published Thursday . “In its current implementation, Apple’s two-factor authentication does not prevent anyone from restoring an iOS backup onto a new (not trusted) device,” ElcomSoft CEO Vladimir Katalov wrote. “In addition, and this is much more of an issue, Apple’s implementation does not apply to iCloud backups, allowing anyone and everyone knowing the user’s Apple ID and password to download and access information stored in the iCloud. This is easy to verify; simply log in to your iCloud account, and you’ll have full information to everything stored there without being requested any additional logon information.” Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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iCloud users take note: Apple two-step protection won’t protect your data

How the Navy of the Future Will Find—And Destroy—Underwater Mines

You don’t joke about mining important maritime trade routes—Iran did and nearly started WWIII . And while America’s fleet of MH-53E Sea Dragons and Avenger -class mine countermeasures ships are still quite effective, they’re getting really, really old. Both platforms entered service in the mid-1980s and are quickly nearing their retirement dates. Here’s what the Navy has in store for its future countermining operations. Read more…        

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How the Navy of the Future Will Find—And Destroy—Underwater Mines

In wake of Liberty Reserve bust, Mt. Gox will require user verification

On Thursday, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, announced that it would require all users to “be verified in order to perform any currency deposits and withdrawals. Bitcoin deposits do not need verification, and at this time we are not requiring verification for Bitcoin withdrawals.” The company did not provide any explanation about why it was imposing this new requirement, but it did say that it would be able to process most verifications within 48 hours. The move comes two days after federal prosecutors went after Liberty Reserve , another online currency that had notoriously poor verification. (In court documents, a federal investigator in that case included an address of “123 Fake Main Street, Completely Made Up City, New York” to create an account that was accepted.) It also comes two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security started investigating Mt. Gox over the possible crime of money transmitting without a license. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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In wake of Liberty Reserve bust, Mt. Gox will require user verification

How modeling HIV on an atomic level could lead to a cure Part…

How modeling HIV on an atomic level could lead to a cure Part of what makes the HIV virus so difficult to kill — aside from being thousands of times smaller than an average human cell — is that it’s covered in several layers of protective proteins. Techniques are already being developed to attack the virus when it’s at its weakest and most vulnerable. But new models — developed by scientists using the University of Illinois’ “Blue Waters” supercomputer — are finally giving researchers an atomic-level look at the formidable barrier mechanism enclosing the heart of the virus.

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How modeling HIV on an atomic level could lead to a cure

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Tesla details Supercharger expansion, NYC to LA road trips possible by year’s end

Tesla’s perpetually free Supercharger station has already enabled the driving of about a million miles, totally free, to owners of the Model S sedan. However, availability of that network has been very limited. Unless you live in very specific areas of NY or CA, you’ve been out of luck. That’s beginning to change. Following up on Elon Musk’s D11 appearance , Tesla has announced that by the end of next month it will triple the size of the Supercharger network, covering crucial routes like Vancouver to Portland (with Seattle in between) and Dallas to Austin. New connection points will open in Illinois, Colorado, New York and, yes, California. But wait, there’s more. Within six months the network will spread further and, before the end of the year, Tesla promises you’ll be able to drive from New York to Los Angeles in your Model S — so long as you don’t mind stopping for 20-minute recharges every couple-hundred miles. Finally, by mid-2014, Tesla promises its network will “stretch across the continent” and cover “almost the entire population of US and Canada.” (Sorry, Hawaii.) PR and video featuring more details after the break. Filed under: Transportation Comments Source: Tesla

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Tesla details Supercharger expansion, NYC to LA road trips possible by year’s end

Can China Really Build the World’s Tallest Building in 90 Days?

The race to build the world’s tallest building has taken on an urgent tone these past few years. Like the mountaineers of the 1930s, or the astronauts of the 1960s, the developers struggling to out-build each other are also struggling to articulate something deeper—something that smacks of national (or maybe economic) pride. But a Chinese plan to build the world’s tallest building in mere months takes the latest salvo in this architectural arms race to new heights. Read more…        

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Can China Really Build the World’s Tallest Building in 90 Days?

Schools and the cloud: will schools allow students to be profiled and advertised to in the course of their school-day?

Kate sez, “Technology companies are moving rapidly to get tools like email and document creation services into schools. This link to a recent survey of schools in the UK shows that use of such technology is expected to bring significant educational and social benefits. However, it also reveals that schools have deep concerns that providers of these services will mine student emails, documents or web browsing behaviour to build profiles for commercial purposes, such as serving advertisements. When data mining is done for profit, the relationship between the data miner and the consumer is simply a market transaction. As long as both parties are free to choose whether and when they wish to engage in such transactions, there is no reason to forbid them or place undue obstacles in their path. However, when children are using certain services at school and can neither consent to, control or even properly understand the data mining that is taking place, a clear line against such practices must be drawn, particularly when their data will be used by businesses to make a profit.” UK School Opinions of Cloud Services and Student Privacy [PDF] ( Thanks, Kate ! )        

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Schools and the cloud: will schools allow students to be profiled and advertised to in the course of their school-day?