All electronic devices emit radio waves when they’re powered on , even if they don’t connect to the internet or Bluetooth. Governments have been using these accidental waves to spy on each other since the 1960s—but this week, a computer scientist at the Black Hat hacker conference took the idea way further than we’d thought possible. Read more…
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This Zombie Printer Was Hacked To Broadcast Radio Waves
If you look at the picture above, you probably think of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, costumed heroes who have been kicking their way across TV in different incarnations for nearly 20 years—but you’d be wrong. These are actually the Zyurangers, the stars of a Japanese TV series that inadvertently spawned a global sensation. Read more…
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Secret Origins Of The Japanese Superhero Show That Became Power Rangers
With mobile annihilating the mainstream PC industry, Intel knows gaming is buttering its bread . The chip giant launched its sixth-gneration “Skylake” desktop processors today with two enthusiast quad-core models: the Core I7-6700K and i5-6600K. The 14-nanometer chips are unlocked for maximum overclocking (all the “K”-series will be), and if you’re not into that, the two new chips have fairly high base frequencies: 4.0GHz for the Core i7-6700K and 3.5GHz for the i5-6600K. Compared to similar current-gen models, prices are reasonable — suggested retail is $350 for the i7-6700K and $243 for the i5-6600K, with street prices likely lower. Unfortunately, the i7-6700K offers just a modest performance increase (10 percent) over last-gen Haswell i7-4790K CPUs and little, if any, advantage over the current Haswell-E i7-5820K chip. However, the Skylake models are the first 14-nanometer performance CPU’s that Intel has launched, since the lower-powered Broadwell 14-nanometer desktop chips aren’t aimed at gamers. The smaller transistors should help overclocking, and rumor has it that the i7-6700K can be pushed to 5GHz, which may give it an edge over current tech. At any rate, with 10-nanometer “Cannonlake” CPUs now delayed , Skylake is it until next year. Intel also revealed a new platform for the chips, the Z170 chipset. Like Haswell-E, the Skylake models use DDR4 RAM, which is much faster than DDR3 memory, but also way more expensive. (Skylake chips won’t run on Haswell-E X99 motherboards, which also use DDR4 RAM.) However, the Z170 chipset has a dual memory controller, so you can use use cheaper DDR3L memory on motherboards that support it . Another plus to the platform is new Intel HD 530 graphics, which run 20-40 percent faster than last-gen Intel HD. It also has 16 PCI Express 3.0 lanes, giving you more USB 3, graphics and storage options. And Intel just happens to have a new PCI Express 3.0-based 800GB 750 series SSD drive with read speeds up to 2, 200 MB/s. Many folks expected Intel to launch more of its Skylake lineup today, including mainstream and mobile CPUs, so what happened? That was just a rumor in the first place, but Intel has narrowed down the timeline. It’ll reveal more information at the Intel Developers Forum on August 18th, and launch the rest of the sixth-gen Skylake lineup sometime in Q3 2015. The mainstream chips will also see a modest performance bump over current-gen tech, but are expected to sip less power, giving future Macbooks, ultrabooks, laptops and tablets improved battery life. Down the road, it may also reveal more high-performance desktop Skylake CPUs, hopefully including an ” Extreme ” model. Filed under: Desktops , Gaming , Intel Comments Tags: Core i7-6600K, Core i7-6700K, enthusiast, gaming, Haswell, intel, Sixth-generation, Skylake
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Intel targets gamers with sixth-gen ‘Skylake’ CPU launch
You’ve probably heard of malware-laden ads causing havoc on the web, but rarely on this scale. Malwarebytes has discovered a malware campaign that was using Yahoo’s ad network to target legions upon legions of visitors — Yahoo’s main site racks up 6.9 billion visits per month. While it’s not clear what would happen if you fell victim to an attack, the Flash-based exploit kit linked to the campaign typically includes both ad fraud and ransomware . In short, there’s a real chance that you could have been locked out of your PC simply by checking on your fantasy sports league . Notice the emphasis on the past tense, though. Yahoo was quick to take this “malvertising” campaign down, so you’re not at risk as I write this. Even so, it’s not exactly comforting that malware writers could even slip their code into such a large ad network. Yahoo’s still investigating what happened, but it appears that online ad giants may need stricter filters on what gets through. [Image credit: AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez] Filed under: Internet Comments Via: New York Times Source: Malwarebytes Tags: ads, advertising, flash, internet, malvertising, malware, ransomware, security, web, yahoo
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Huge malware campaign used Yahoo’s ad network
Back in March, Native Instruments — the company behind the ubiquitous Traktor DJ software — announced Stems : a music format that lets DJs and remixers to control individual parts of a track. Today Stems launches to the buying public on a number of popular music stores including Beatport and Traxsource have them listed already, Bleep, Juno, whatpeopleplay, and Wasabeat will also be selling them. For years DJs and producers’ only chance of finding a cappella versions of songs was to hope a vocal-only recording existed. The advent of the internet made finding these a little easier, but they were still rare. Expensive software can sometimes help you surgically remove parts or a track, or isolate vocals, but the results aren’t always very clean. Stems makes all that a thing of the past. The new file-format allows DJs to turn the separate parts of a track on and off at will. Importantly, Stems is open, so anyone will be able to export music as a compatible file (Native Instruments will release tools for this later in the year), and big artists and labels are already on board. A Stems file will break a song into four parts; usually drums, vocals, bass and lead, each of which can be manipulated independently with compatible hardware (Native Instruments’ Kontrol S8 , D2 , and F1 for example). Beatport, will even let you audition tracks as separate parts in the browser (as seen below). It’s unlikely most casual listeners need to worry about Stems — it’s definitely more for performers — but, if there’s a killer track, with a really annoying vocal , there might just be a workaround at last. An update for Traktor that adds Stem compatibility is available via NI Service Center today. Filed under: Misc , Home Entertainment Comments Source: Stems , Beatport
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DJs can buy remix-friendly ‘Stems’ music files starting today
While the IT managers of the world stress about Windows 10’s buggy mail client , default browser , and dodgy domains, for the gamer, Microsoft’s latest and greatest OS is an exciting proposition. Windows 10, if you didn’t know, comes with DirectX 12 , which promises significant performance increases (particularly for AMD graphics card users), thanks to its new low-level API features. The trouble is, right now, there aren’t actually any games out there that use DX12. While Nvidia and AMD have both launched new drivers to bring DX12 support to a range of their current GPUs, there’s not a single DX12 game to play. 3DMark has a neat draw call benchmark that gives us some idea of how much faster DX12 will be, but it’s entirely synthetic. One of the first games to actually use DX12 will be StarDock’s upcoming RTS Ashes of the Singularity , with an early beta build showing a significant uplift in performance. We were hoping to check out a special benchmark build of the game this week, but sadly it’s been pushed back. Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Apple is testing a service that will let Siri take your calls, record them and transcribe them to text, according to Business Insider . The company is reportedly referring to it as iCloud Voicemail, and it’s similar to the existing visual voicemail service. However, instead of playing a pre-recorded message to your caller when you can’t pick up, Siri will take over the chore. It can then let certain contacts know where you are and why you can’t take the call, provided you give permission. The voice message will then be shunted over to Apple’s servers and transcribed into text. It works in much the same way that Siri transcribes your voice commands, but it’s unclear if the system would require carrier support. Currently, Apple’s visual voicemail service (which can also back up messages to iCloud) only works with select operators. It’s also not clear if it’d be free, as certain carriers charge extra for that. Nevertheless, it sounds like a good idea — as BI pointed out, lots of folks aren’t fond of voicemail, but the less tech-inclined still prefer to leave them. Employees of the company are reportedly testing the service, and if it’s reliable enough, it’ll be launch next year along with iOS 10. As always, however, take such rumors with a large chaser of skepticism. Filed under: Cellphones , Internet , Apple Comments Source: Business Insider Tags: apple, Siri, transcription, voice to text, Voicemail
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Apple reportedly wants to turn Siri into your receptionist
Uber is getting richer and richer. It’s now valued at $51 billion after raising another $1 billion in funding, and it got to this stage two years faster than Facebook did. As always, the ride-sharing service has attracted an assortment of investors during its latest funding round — one of them’s none other than tech juggernaut Microsoft, according to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal . While neither company has admitted it yet, Bloomberg says Microsoft has agreed to back Uber to the tune of around $100 million. It’s unclear whether this means they’re pursuing a deeper relationship or if they’re working together on a project or two, at least. If you recall, though, Uber’s snapped up a portion of Bing’s mapping tech back in June, along with a hundred of Redmond’s employees. Microsoft is neither the first nor the only tech corporation/personality that has invested in the ride-hailing service. Chinese internet giant Baidu jumped in weeks after it was announced that Uber was already valued at $40 billion with an investment that could’ve been as big as $600 million. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos put his money in the company way back in 2011, while Google Ventures backed it with $258 million in 2013. That was years before both companies announced their intentions to develop self-driving taxi services, making them future competitors. In all, Uber now has $5 billion to spend on the aggressive expansion it’s planning in India , China and Southeast Asia. [Image credit: Getty Images] Filed under: Transportation , Microsoft Comments Source: The New York Times , Bloomberg , The Wall Street Journal
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Uber reaches $50 billion value thanks (in part) to Microsoft
Between the western shores of Alaska and the northeastern tip of Russia, the Bering Strait is so narrow that you could drive across it in an hour, if only there were a tunnel beneath the sea. And Russian Railways wants to build one, as part of a massive road and rail project that would stretch from New York to London by way of Canada, Alaska, Russia, and continental Europe. Read more…
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Russia Wants People to Road Trip from New York to London (via Moscow)
A whole bunch of people are going to upgrade to Windows 10. Not everyone . But when you offer free Windows via a nag message delivered to over 80 percent of the user base, you’re going to attract people who wouldn’t have driven to MicroCenter to buy an upgrade DVD. Especially if you bought an eligible PC in Windows 7’s heyday, you will probably be installing the new OS on five- or six-year-old hardware that has long since been forgotten about by the company that sold it to you. Or maybe you bought something during the post-Chromebook era, where Windows PCs dipped back into netbook territory in their quest for a low price tag. We installed Windows 10 on a few of these kinds of systems to see what you can expect, at least if you’re comparing a clean install to a clean install. Current users of both Windows 7 and Windows 8 should expect to recover a few gigabytes of drive space, a few megabytes of system RAM, and a few precious seconds of boot time. Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Faster booting, smaller footprint make Windows 10 an easy upgrade for old PCs