Tag: ars

My browser visited Drudgereport and all I got was this lousy malware

Millions of people visiting drudgereport.com, wunderground.com, and other popular websites were exposed to attacks that can surreptitiously hijack their computers, thanks to maliciously manipulated ads that exploit vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash and other browsing software, researchers said. The malvertising campaign worked by inserting malicious code into ads distributed by AdSpirit.de, a network that delivers ads to Drudge, Wunderground, and other third-party websites, according to a post published Thursday by researchers from security firm Malwarebytes. The ads, in turn, exploited security vulnerabilities in widely used browsers and browser plugins that install malware on end-user computers. The criminals behind the campaign previously carried out a similar attack on Yahoo’s ad network , exposing millions more people to the same drive-by attacks. Malvertising is a particularly pernicious form of attack because it can infect people who do nothing more than browse to a mainstream site. Depending on the exploit, it can silently hijack computers even when visitors don’t click on links. Some browser makers have responded by implementing so-called click-to-play mechanisms that don’t render Flash or Java content unless the end user actively permits the plugin to run on a particular site. Some users have resorted to ad blockers, which have the unfortunate side effect of depriving publishers of much-needed advertising revenue. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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My browser visited Drudgereport and all I got was this lousy malware

Xbox streaming on Windows 10 has a hidden “very high quality” setting

In reviewing Windows 10’s new “Streaming from Xbox 10” feature , Ars’ Sam Machkovech complained that “streamed Xbox One games look significantly worse through Windows 10, even at the highest-quality setting.” Apparently, though, Sam wasn’t actually testing the “highest quality” setting available in the streaming app. That’s because there’s a newly uncovered “very high quality” option that can be unlocked by tinkering with some of the Xbox app’s configuration files. Reddit user OomaThurman has publicized the method for unlocking this hidden quality setting, which involves editing the “userconsoledata” file in your Xbox app folder. You can activate the new higher-quality setting by setting the “IsInternalPreview” flag from “false” to “true,” a naming convention that strongly suggests this feature is part of an early test that will be formally rolled out to all Windows 10 users in the future. We’ll be trying out this hidden feature for ourselves soon, but the folks at Digital Foundry already found a marked jump in quality when using the “very high” setting, saying it “appears to transmit full 1080p imagery.” Comparison shots published by Digital Foundry show a noticeable increase in sharpness of details like faces, hair, and edges, which are much closer to the “source” image with the new setting. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Xbox streaming on Windows 10 has a hidden “very high quality” setting

Samsung unveils 2.5-inch 16TB SSD: The world’s largest hard drive

At the Flash Memory Summit in California, Samsung has unveiled what appears to be the world’s largest hard drive—and somewhat surprisingly, it uses NAND flash chips rather than spinning platters. The rather boringly named PM1633a, which is being targeted at the enterprise market, manages to cram almost  16 terabytes into a 2.5-inch SSD package. By comparison, the largest conventional hard drives made by Seagate and Western Digital currently max out at 8 or 10TB. The secret sauce behind Samsung’s 16TB SSD is the company’s new 256Gbit (32GB) NAND flash die , twice the capacity of 128Gbit NAND dies that were commercialised last year by various chip makers. To reach such astonishing capacities, Samsung has managed to cram 48 layers of 3-bits-per-cell (TLC) 3D V-NAND into a single die. This is up from 24 layers in 2013, and then 36 layers in 2014. A diagram that goes some way to explaining what 3D NAND is. Historically, like most computer chips, NAND flash has been planar—that is, the functional structures on the chip are (for the most part), laid down on a single two-dimensional plane. In a similar way to how logic chips are moving towards 3D transistors ( FinFETs ), Samsung (and more recently Toshiba and Intel) has been forging ahead with 3D NAND . Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Samsung unveils 2.5-inch 16TB SSD: The world’s largest hard drive

Smach Zero: A portable x86 Steam Machine for $300

Even the most hardened of Valve fans would be hard pressed to call the company’s Steam Machine initiative particularly exciting. After all, with the exception of Alienware’s Alpha or Asus’ ROG, most of them are simply glorified tower PCs, rather than innovative pieces of console-like design. Today, however, that all changes with the Smach Zero, an x86-based portable Steam Machine that promises access to the 1000+ SteamOS games in Valve’s library. The Smach Zero is powered by an AMD G-Series SoC named Steppe Eagle, which features a Jaguar-based CPU paired with a GCN-based GPU. We don’t know which G-Series SoC is actually being used, but presumably it’ll be one of the 6W or 9W TDP parts  (PDF). The CPU is probably clocked somewhere around 1GHz, and the GPU between 200-300MHz (roughly equivalent to an HD 8210E). Along with the SoC, there’s 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage (expandable via an SD card slot), a 5-inch 720p touchscreen, HDMI output, WiFi, and Bluetooth. On the front of the Smach Zero there are “configurable tactile gamepads,” which look suspiciously like the ones that Valve initially had on the Steam Controller before its redesign. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Smach Zero: A portable x86 Steam Machine for $300

No more endless CDs for pennies: Columbia House files for bankruptcy

It’s a sad day for the musical childhood of many generations. The Associated Press is reporting that the parent company of Columbia House, the organization behind the famous music and DVD clubs of yore, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The move comes after nearly 20 years of declining sales according to the AP. Filmed Entertainment (Columbia House’s parent company) told the wire service that revenue hit a high of $1.4 billion in 1996. In 2014, that figure fell to $17 million (or roughly 1 percent of its peak, the AP notes). While Chapter 11 protection doesn’t necessarily mean Filmed Entertainment intends to go out of business, it’s not looking good. Companies like RadioShack and Kodak  have done this in recent years to obtain a certain period of time within which to rebuild itself and shield itself from creditors. Kodak at least emerged from its situation. The service started in 1955 with vinyl records, and Columbia House introduced pop culture fans to many, many film and music entities over the years through its service. It operated on offers like eight CDs for 1¢ (plus shipping!) or an 8-track tape of the month club (relying on a “return or pay to keep” philosophy). But physical media at large has gradually fallen out of favor over the years, and services from Napster to Netflix to iTunes all overlap with what Columbia House intended to do. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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No more endless CDs for pennies: Columbia House files for bankruptcy

Is Buck Rogers in the public domain? New movie hangs in the balance

Last month, science fiction fans gave a collective thumbs-up when Team Angry Filmworks announced that it was planning to produce a new Buck Rogers flick— Armageddon 2419 A.D. The Rogers character, originally known as “Anthony Rogers,” first appeared in the 1928 novella by the same name, Armageddon 2419 A.D . It was penned by science fiction author Philip Francis Nowlan and appeared in the magazine Amazing Stories . And producer Don Murphy, who was behind Natural Born Killers , The Transformers , and other films, seemed dead set on recreating the science fiction spaceman. But Nowlan’s heirs say the potential blockbuster needs a license from the Dille Family Trust, which owns the rights to the Buck Rogers namesake and the original Armageddon 2419 A.D, according to a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles.   Team Angry Filmworks, on the other hand, contends that the character has fallen out of copyright and is in the public domain, free for anybody to exploit. The Hollywood studio wants a federal judge to declare that the character is in the public domain. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Is Buck Rogers in the public domain? New movie hangs in the balance

A new polymer that can boost capacitors

From hybrid and electric vehicles to underground exploration of fossil-fuels, our search for energy solutions has increasingly placed us in situations demanding electricity storage and delivery under extreme conditions. Though batteries are the reigning storage technology, capacitors are an alternative with several advantages: they’re lightweight, they can be charged and discharged relatively quickly, and they don’t lose their storage capacity over time. In order to function properly, capacitors require dielectric materials, which behave as insulators and are essential for charge storage. Polymeric dielectrics have enhanced performance over other materials, and they can operate under more intense electric fields without failing (termed higher breakdown strength) and greater reliability. They also have the added benefit of practicality, being scalable, lightweight, and easily manipulated. Right now, their major drawback as a material is their inability to work at high temperatures, like those required in many applications. But a composite polymer has finally been developed that seems to break down the traditional limitations of these materials, promising to open up a broader range of uses. Scientists made the new material by crosslinking a traditional polymer embedded with flakes of boron nitride nano sheets. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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A new polymer that can boost capacitors

Where broadband is a utility, 100Mbps costs just $40 a month

There’s been a lot of debate over whether the United States should treat Internet service as a utility . But there’s no question that Internet service is already a utility in Sandy, Oregon, a city of about 10,000 residents, where the government has been offering broadband for more than a decade. “ SandyNet ” launched nearly 15 years ago with DSL and wireless service, and this summer it’s putting the final touches on a citywide upgrade to fiber. The upgrade was paid for with a $7.5 million revenue bond, which will be repaid by system revenues. Despite not being subsidized by taxpayer dollars, prices are still low: $40 a month for symmetrical 100Mbps service or $60 a month for 1Gbps. There are no contracts or data caps. “Part of the culture of SandyNet is we view our citizens as owners of the utility,” City IT Director and SandyNet GM Joe Knapp told Ars in a phone interview. “We’ve always run the utility on a break-even basis. Any profits we do have go back into capital improvements and equipment upgrades and things like that.” Read 34 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Where broadband is a utility, 100Mbps costs just $40 a month

So far, WordPress denied 43% of DMCA takedown requests in 2015

This week WordPress released the latest edition of its recurring transparency report , revealing 43 percent  of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown requests it received have been rejected in the first six months of 2015. It’s the lowest six-month period shown in the report, though it only dates back to 2014. However, WordPress said this headline figure would be even higher if it “counted suspended sites as rejected notices.” That change in calculation would bump the WordPress DMCA denial rate to 67 percent between January 1 and June 30, 2015. In total, the publishing platform received 4,679 DMCA takedown requests as of June 30, identifying 12 percent of those as “abusive.” The top three organizations submitting these requests were Web Sheriff, Audiolock, and InternetSecurities. “Not surprisingly, the list is dominated by third party take down services, many of whom use automated bots to identify copyrighted content and generate takedown notices,” WordPress noted. The company wrote at length about this practice in April, both explaining and condemning the general procedure. “These kind of automated systems scour the Web, firing off takedown notifications where unauthorized uses of material are found—so humans don’t have to,” WordPress wrote . “Sounds great in theory, but it doesn’t always work out as smoothly in practice. Much akin to some nightmare scenario from the Terminator , sometimes the bots turn on their creators.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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So far, WordPress denied 43% of DMCA takedown requests in 2015

Qualcomm quarterly profits plummet 47 percent year-over-year

Qualcomm, the world’s largest supplier of chips for mobile phones, is reeling after announcing a 47 percent drop in quarterly profit compared to the same period in 2014. On Wednesday, the San Diego-based firm said that it made $1.2 billion in net income during the third fiscal quarter of 2015, down from $2.2 billion a year ago. As a way to bounce back, the company also announced that it would be cutting 15 percent of its workforce, and would “significantly reduce [our] temporary workforce.” Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Qualcomm quarterly profits plummet 47 percent year-over-year