Tech Today w/ Ken May

iOS 11 camera features may include scene recognition

Smartphones may have effectively killed off dedicated point-and-shoot cameras, but Apple is looking to them for inspiration with iOS 11. Developers have dug through beta firmware for the HomePod, and tucked inside the code for Apple’s smart speaker, there are hints that the next version of its mobile OS will feature something called “SmartCam.” iOS 11 (or the next iPhone) will have something called SmartCam. It will tune camera settings based on the scene it detects pic.twitter.com/7duyvh5Ecj — Guilherme Rambo (@_inside) August 2, 2017 If you’ve ever used a point-and-shoot camera, the feature should sound pretty familiar: different scene modes and photo settings depending on what you’re shooting. So, one each for fireworks, foliage, pets, skies, snow, sports and others, as SlashGear notes. There’s even one for documents. The “smart” in its name suggests that maybe machine learning will play a role here as well, potentially analyzing the scene for you and picking the best settings. This might not use machine learning to improve photography a la what Google does with the Pixel , but it could make Apple’s woefully basic camera app a little more full featured. Whether this will be exclusive to Apple’s next round of mobile hardware — whenever it’s announced — or if it’ll apply to legacy handsets too is hard to tell. Via: SlashGear Source: Guilherme Rambo (Twitter)

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iOS 11 camera features may include scene recognition

FBI arrests UK security researcher who stopped WannaCry outbreak (Updated)

Marcus Hutchins, the 23-year-old security researcher who is credited with halting the spread of the WannaCry malware program earlier this year has been arrested by the FBI while attending the DefCon security conference in Las Vegas, Motherboard reports . This is a developing story and details remain scarce as of the publication of this post, however The Telegraph states that “UK law enforcement and security agencies confirmed a British citizen has been arrested” as part of an ongoing FBI investigation. I can confirm @MalwareTechBlog was detained yesterday and FBI/US Marshalls won’t tell me where he is. https://t.co/lV5SxZjsRi — Andrew Mabbitt (@MabbsSec) August 3, 2017 Hutchins was hailed as a hero in May when he found the killswitch to the WannaCry virus, a malware program that had infected vulnerable targets across Europe and Asia, including the UK’s National Health Service and a Spanish telecommunications company. Hutchins, who works for Kryptos Logic, halted the virus’ spread by registering a web domain that the program’s code relied on. Motherboard reports that as of early Thursday morning Hutchins was being held in the Henderson Detention Center in Nevada, however he was later moved to an undisclosed location. “I’ve spoken to the US Marshals again and they say they have no record of Marcus being in the system. At this point we’ve been trying to get in contact with Marcus for 18 hours and nobody knows where he’s been taken, ” an unnamed friend of Hutchins told Motherboard . “We still don’t know why Marcus has been arrested and now we have no idea where in the US he’s been taken to and we’re extremely concerned for his welfare.” Engadget has reached out to Kryptos Logic and the FBI for comment. This story will be updated as they reply. Update (2:29 pm EDT): Hutchins has reportedly been located and is being held at the FBI’s Las Vegas field office. Finally located @MalwareTechBlog , he’s in the Las Vegas FBI field office. Can anyone provide legal representation? — Andrew Mabbitt (@MabbsSec) August 3, 2017 Update: (2:45 pm EDT) : The Department of Justice has just announced that Hutchins is in custody not for his role in the Wannary event but for “his role in creating and distributing the Kronos banking Trojan.” According to the DoJ, between July 2014 and July 2015 Hutchins developed the malware and shared it online. Source: Telegraph UK , Motherboard

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FBI arrests UK security researcher who stopped WannaCry outbreak (Updated)

Font Maker Sues Universal Music Over ‘Pirated’ The Vamps Logo

An anonymous reader writes: Universal Music Group is being sued by HypeForType, which accuses the record label of using “pirated” copies of its fonts for the logo of The Vamps. The font is widely used for artwork, promotion material and merchandising of the popular British band, and the font creator is looking for a minimum of $1.25 million in damages. The font maker has filed a lawsuit accusing the major label of using its “Nanami Rounded” and “Ebisu Bold” fonts without permission. According to a complaint, filed in a New York federal court, Universal failed to obtain a proper license for its use, so they are essentially using pirated fonts. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Font Maker Sues Universal Music Over ‘Pirated’ The Vamps Logo

The external graphics dream is real: Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box reviewed

Enlarge / The Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box and Sapphire RX 580. (credit: Mark Walton) Specs at a glance: Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box Power 350W Asaka AK-PS035AF01 SFX Ports 1x PCIe 3.0 X16, 1x Thunderbolt 3.0 Size 18.5cm x 34.0cm x 20.2cm Other perks 120mm Asaka Fan Price $300 (~£300, but TBC) The external graphics card (or eGFX), long the pipe dream of laptop-touting gamers the world over, has finally come of age. Thanks to Thunderbolt 3 —which offers up to 40Gbps of bandwidth, the equivalent of four PCIe 3.0 lanes—consumers finally have access to enough bandwidth in a universal standard to make eGFX a viable option. So the theory goes, you can now take most laptops with a Thunderbolt 3 port, plug in a box containing a power supply and your GPU of choice, and enjoy better visuals and higher frame rates in games, and faster rendering in production tasks. You can even whack a PCIe video capture card or a production-ready audio interface in that external box, if you so wish. Thus far the limiting factor, aside from some potential performance bottlenecks and driver support, has been price. The Razer Core , as beautifully designed as it is, costs a whopping £500/$500 without a graphics card—and that’s if it’s even in stock. Meanwhile, the Asus ROG XG Station 2—which is most certainly not beautifully designed—costs £400/$400. When paired with a decent graphics card like an Nvidia GTX 1070 or an AMD RX 580, a full eGFX setup runs just shy of £900/$900, not including the price of a laptop to pair it with. Read 34 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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The external graphics dream is real: Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Box reviewed

Sony and IBM created 330TB data tapes for a massive analog archive

Storing data on magnetic tape is back, baby. Sony has announced that thanks to a partnership with IBM Research in Zurich, the pair have developed a magnetic tape cartridge capable of storing 201 gigabytes of data per square inch for a total of 330 terabytes per cartridge. Previously, IBM’s analog storage maxed out at 123 gigabytes per square inch. The trick here is that IBM and Sony are using sputtered media made up of several layers of nano particles to extend tape length. IMB says this technique uses a process similar to printing integrated circuits. What’s more, 330TB of data storage isn’t the maximum storage limit. In the video below, IBM Research’s Dr. Mark Lantz says that tape storage could reach even higher capacities in the future. The last time IBM announced it’d made advancements in the space was in 2015. At the time, cartridge capacity was 220 terabytes and 123 gigabytes per square inch. When the research started in 2006 , density was a paltry 6.67GB per square inch with total cartridge capacity of 8TB. What’s here is “an archival tier for cold data, which is not frequently accessed, ” according to Lantz. Specifically, this would be a boon for cloud storage companies. Lantz says we’ll be seeing these types of increases for awhile, and will double cartridge capacity every two years for at least ten years. That should be enough to keep your selfies backed up to your favorite non-local storage provider for awhile. Source: Sony

Twelve Americans were enslaved in Africa after an 1815 shipwreck

In 1815 an American ship ran aground in northwestern Africa, and its crew were enslaved by merciless nomads. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll follow the desperate efforts of Captain James Riley to find a way to cross the Sahara and beg for help from Western officials in Morocco. We’ll also wade through more molasses and puzzle over a prospective guitar thief. Show notes Please support us on Patreon!

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Twelve Americans were enslaved in Africa after an 1815 shipwreck

Netflix reveals new slate of anime originals

Netflix is taking the plunge into the world of Japanese animation. The streaming giant already licenses a number of animes, and now its sprucing up its library with a raft of originals. The new wave of shows includes exclusives from the studios behind Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell. By snapping up titles you can’t watch elsewhere, Netflix is hoping to one-up its rivals Funimation (and its parent company Sony) and Crunchyroll . The new anime line-up follows in the footsteps of the platform’s other originals, among them Castlevania and the upcoming Assassin’s Creed series. Several of the new shows will bow in 2018. They include Sword Gai , a modern-day fantasy about a boy who fuses with a demonic sword to battle hordes of monsters. Based on the manga, Baki is a 26-episode series about a mixed-martial arts fighter who dukes it out with death row inmates. From the studio behind Ghost in the Shell comes B: The Beginning , which follows an investigator on the case of a serial killer, who could be part of a wider criminal organization. The show reportedly mixes sci-fi and fantasy elements with an added dose of drama. Another high-profile anime, from the talent behind My Hero Academia, is A.I.C.O. Incarnation . Set in the near future, the show features a dangerous artificial life form secured behind a restricted zone. An unwitting young girl is drawn into the action after learning she may have ties to the synthetic organism. The gory chaos, as teased in the trailer, recalls the apocalyptic end-scenes from the iconic anime Akira . As it did with the classic US cartoon Voltron , Netflix is also reaching into the past to reboot an iconic Japanese anime. Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya revives the 80s show starring a team of heroes who don magical armor that matches the designs of the constellations. Their mission: to defend the reincarnation of the Greek goddess Athena against the other Olympian Gods. Devilman Crybaby also plumbs the past, this time adapting a 1972 anime about a normal boy turned demon-human hybrid who devotes his life to saving the world from invading evil spirits — as you do. The bombastic bunch is rounded out by a gentler show in the guise of the musical fantasy Lost Song . Aside from the exclusives, Netflix will also drop a crop of licensed originals shortly after they air in Japan. The list includes Children of the Whales , Cannon Busters, Fate/Apocrypha , and a series about popular Japanese stuffed toy Rilakkuma. Via: CNET

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Netflix reveals new slate of anime originals

Bitcoin feud splits the currency in two

This morning, bitcoin split into two currencies — the original and Bitcoin Cash. The hard forking, as it’s known, resulted from heated debate over the cryptocurrency’s future, since the aging tech behind blockchain has prevented easy scaling. While a new code upgrade called SegWit2x was introduced last week as a compromise, dissenters still decided to start backing Bitcoin Cash and fork off in their own direction. The community anxiously waited for financial fallout after the schism, but aside from a temporary 7 percent drop in bitcoin value this morning, the split seems to have avoided disaster. Whether Bitcoin Cash sticks around is another question. The spat is rooted in bitcoin’s success: A year ago, bitcoin’s value hovered around $500 and slowly climbed through the new year, but started shooting up in April to top out at $3, 000 in June. That led to a higher volume of transactions, which the blockchain technology — the cryptocurrency’s ledger that verifies and tracks transactions, recording the latest in unchangeable “blocks” — was struggling to keep up with. The bitcoin network can only support 1MB per minute or seven transactions per second, according to The Telegraph , which is paltry compared to the thousands per second run through financial webs supporting credit cards, for example. To keep bitcoin growing, this number would have to go up. But the cryptocurrency community was split on how to do it. Two competing strategies arose: Increase each block’s code limit, which would store more data per block but increase server loads processing transactions, or shift smaller transactions outside the blockchain. The SegWit2x tech includes a bit of both, pushing some data outside the main network and promising to double the block size to 2MB by November. It was enough of a compromise to avert a serious and widespread cleft in the community. That wasn’t enough for some, who started backing Bitcoin Cash, which chose the former route and increased its blocks to 8MB. Today’s hard fork, which essentially launched the cryptocurrency into being, boosted its value from $200 to $370. Some bitcoin exchanges, where users make transactions and store their coins, will recognize Bitcoin Cash, including Kraken and ViaBTC — but others like Coinbase and Poloniex said they wouldn’t as they’re uncertain it’ll stick around. If you’re still not sure what this means for your supply of cryptocurrency, there are plenty of resources online to help, including Coindesk’s guide for the transition. The future of the brand-new cryptocurrency depends on more users and investors supporting it, and it’s not clear whether it will survive into the future. For now, split from bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash must jockey with the other alternatives to the leading cryptocurrency like Ethereum and Litecoin. Source: The Telegraph

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Bitcoin feud splits the currency in two

Amazon Suspends Sales of Blu Android Phones Due To Privacy Concerns

CNET reports: Amazon just put budget phone maker Blu in the penalty box. The online retailing giant told CNET that it was suspending sales of phones from Blu, known for making ultra-cheap Android handsets, due to a “potential security issue.” The move comes after security firm Kryptowire demonstrated last week how software in Blu’s phones collected data and sent it to servers in China without alerting people. Blu defended the software, created by a Chinese company called Shanghai Adups Technology, and denied any wrongdoing. A company spokeswoman said at the time it “has several policies in place which take customer privacy and security seriously.” She added there had been no breaches. Blu said it was in a process of review to reinstate the phones at Amazon. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Amazon Suspends Sales of Blu Android Phones Due To Privacy Concerns

Sony is acquiring anime distributor Funimation

Turns out the partnership Sony and Funimation forged to create the latter’s streaming service wasn’t a one-off thing. Sony Pictures is currently in the process of buying 95 percent of Funimation for $143 million, putting the anime distributor’s value at around $150 million. Funimation’s streaming website, which launched earlier this year, has over 400 titles on offer, including Dragon Ball Z, Cowboy Bebop, One Piece and Attack on Titan . While the service is new, the company itself has been selling anime DVDs and merchandise for over two decades. Sony isn’t a newcomer in the space either — it owns the ANIMAX network, which airs anime in 23 countries around the globe, including Japan. It also owns AXN, a cable TV channel that broadcasts anime, action shows, movies and sports programs. By acquiring 95 percent of Funimation, though, it will also be in direct competition with Netflix and Hulu, which have animated offerings on top of TV shows and movies. Sony Pictures Television President Andy Kaplan said: “Around the world, Sony’s networks have been major players in the anime space for nearly two decades, and in more recent years we have rapidly increased our networks’ over-the-top and digital offerings to consumers. With the acquisition of Funimation, the combined IP of ANIMAX, KIDS STATION and Funimation allows us to deliver the best anime to fans across all screens and platforms.” Source: Sony Pictures