brides-cond – Page 22 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

AMD abandons the microserver market, takes $75 million hit

As part of its 1Q 2015 earnings release, AMD has announced that it is leaving the high density microserver market, effective immediately. AMD bought SeaMicro in 2012 for $334 million to get a foothold into the microserver business. At the time, SeaMicro built systems containing dozens of Intel Atom and Xeon processors connected to a shared storage and network fabric. Since the acquisition, AMD has only released a single new SeaMicro system, the SM15000. This could use either AMD Opteron systems (using the Piledriver core) or Intel Xeons (using the Ivy Bridge core). With today’s announcement, it’s clear that system will also be the last new SeaMicro system to be released. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AMD abandons the microserver market, takes $75 million hit

Los Angeles school district demands multi-million dollar refund from Apple

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) told Apple that it would not accept any further deliveries of Pearson curriculum, which Apple has been providing as part of a $1.6 billion plan to give every student in the nation’s second-largest school district an iPad. LAUSD also asked for a “multi-millon dollar refund” for software that had already been delivered, according to local public radio station KPCC . In 2013 the school district signed an initial $30 million deal with Apple in a program that was supposed to cost up to $1.3 billion. As part of the program, LAUSD said it would buy iPads from Apple at $768 each , and then Pearson, a subcontractor with Apple, would provide math and science curriculum for the tablets at an additional $200 per unit. Not a month after the pilot program launched, students were found disabling app and browser limitations on their tablets. A month after that, LAUSD reported that a third of the 2,100 iPads distributed during the pilot program had gone missing . A year later, media investigations revealed possible malfeasance in securing the contract with Apple and Pearson by LAUSD superintendent John Deasy. While Deasy has denied wrongdoing , he recently stepped down from his position and his successor, Ramon C. Cortines, has said he will scrap the program . Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

How the heck did so much Game of Thrones leak in 2015?

As the fifth season premiere of Game of Thrones inched towards its Sunday debut, we wondered whether HBO could withstand so many fans rushing its Internet doors. Major GoT airings have made the HBO Go service falter in the past, and this time, the company’s spanking-new HBO Now offering would have to withstand a whole slew of “Thronies.” As it turns out, HBO’s servers held up just fine, but something else sprung a leak. Before the fifth season’s first episode officially aired in the United States, it had already leaked online—along with a few more episodes. The season’s first four episodes appeared on torrent sites late Saturday night, and they all appeared to have been sourced from DVD “screener” copies that had been sent to critics ahead of the season premiere. We’re used to TV episodes popping up on torrent sites as soon as they air; it doesn’t take much more than a capture card, a modern PC, and a decent broadband connection to nab some sweet Internet notoriety. But we were dumbstruck by the mess HBO found itself in. It’s 2015. What the heck were they doing? Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Sound waves separate rare cancer cells from blood

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are a rare type of cancer cell that are found in the blood stream of patients with localized tumors. Successful separation of CTCs from blood could serve as a liquid biopsy to help diagnose cancer and monitor treatment progress. A deeper understanding of CTCs could also lead to a better understanding of the most deadly cancer process: metastasis, where cancer cells leave established tumors and migrate to other locations in the body. Currently, CTC separation methods rely on features that distinguish CTCs from other cells—antibodies that stick to them, cell size, deformability, or even electrical properties. Scientists have also explored using sound waves to separate CTCs. Acoustic-based separation provides excellent biocompatibility and safety; it preserves the viability, function, phenotype, and genotype of cells. It also allow cells to be separated without modification. As a result, sound-based separation methods enable CTCs to be maintained in their native state throughout the separation process while avoiding invasive biopsies. Unfortunately, previous sound-based separations technologies haven’t managed to separate CTCs from clinical samples due to insufficient throughput and long-term operational instability. Recently, a team of scientists has developed an acoustic-based microfluidic device that separates CTCs from peripheral blood samples of cancer patients in a high-throughput manner. This method relies on something called tilted-angle standing surface sound waves. These standing waves contain points that “stand still,” called nodes, around which the wave oscillates. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Sound waves separate rare cancer cells from blood

Botnet that enslaved 770,000 PCs worldwide comes crashing down

Law enforcement groups and private security companies around the world said they have taken down a botnet that enslaved more than 770,000 computers in 190 countries, stealing owners’ banking credentials and establishing a backdoor to install still more malware. Simda, as the botnet was known, infected an additional 128,000 new computers each month over the past half year, a testament to the stealth of the underlying backdoor trojan and the organization of its creators. The backdoor morphed into a new, undetectable form every few hours, allowing it to stay one step ahead of many antivirus programs. Botnet operators used a variety of methods to infect targets, including exploiting known vulnerabilities in software such as Oracle Java , Adobe Flash , and Microsoft Silverlight . The exploits were stitched into websites by exploiting SQL injection vulnerabilities and exploit kits such as Blackhole and Styx. Other methods included sending spam and other forms of social engineering. Countries most affected by Simda included the US, with 22 percent of the infections, followed by the UK, Turkey with five percent, and Canada and Russia with four percent. The malware modified the HOSTS file Microsoft Windows machines use to map specific domain names to specific IP addresses. As a result, infected computers that attempted to visit addresses such as connect.facebook.net or google-analytics.com were surreptitiously diverted to servers under the control of the attackers. Often the booby-trapped HOSTS file remains even after the Simda backdoor has been removed. Security researchers advised anyone who may have been infected to inspect their HOSTS file, which is typically located in the directory %SYSTEM32%driversetchosts. People who want to discover if they have been infected by Simda can check this page provided by AV provider Kaspersky Lab. The page is effective as long as a person’s IP address hasn’t changed from when the infection was detected. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Botnet that enslaved 770,000 PCs worldwide comes crashing down

Google Fiber plans expansion, then TWC makes speeds six times faster

With Google Fiber preparing an expansion into Charlotte, North Carolina, incumbent cable operator Time Warner Cable is trying to hold onto customers by dramatically increasing Internet speeds at no extra charge. “The Internet transformation will begin this summer and will include speed increases on TWC residential Internet plans at no additional cost, with customers experiencing increases up to six times faster, depending on their current level of Internet service,” Time Warner Cable announced last week . “For example, customers who subscribe to Standard, formerly up to 15Mbps, will now receive up to 50Mbps, customers who subscribe to Extreme, formerly up to 30Mbps, will now receive up to 200Mbps; and customers who subscribe to Ultimate, formerly up to 50Mbps, will receive up to 300Mbps, at no extra charge.” Google announced plans to enter Charlotte and a few other metro areas in January and is working with local officials to finalize the network design so that construction can begin. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google Fiber plans expansion, then TWC makes speeds six times faster

Hacked French network exposed its own passwords during TV interview

While French authorities continued investigating how the TV5Monde network had 11 of its stations’ signals interrupted the night before, one of its staffers proved just how likely a basic password theft might have led to the incident. In an interview with French news program 13 Heures , TV5Monde reporter David Delos unwittingly revealed at least one password for the station’s social media presence. That’s because he was filmed in front of a staffer’s desk—which was smothered in sticky notes and taped index cards that were covered in account usernames and passwords. Delos’s segment revealed the usernames and passwords for TV5Monde’s Twitter and Instagram accounts, but they were too difficult to read in an archived video of the broadcast . That wasn’t the case for the YouTube information, however; Twitter user pent0thal confirmed that account’s displayed password was “lemotdepassedeyoutube,” which translates in English to “the password of YouTube.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Hacked French network exposed its own passwords during TV interview

US, European police take down highly elusive botnet known as Beebone

US and European police have shut down a botnet that provided a captive audience of backdoored PCs to criminals who were looking for an easy way to quickly install malware on large numbers of computers. The takedown of the Beebone botnet is something of a coup because the underlying malware was so resistant to detection. Polymorphic downloader software at the heart of the malicious program updated itself as many as 19 times a day. Beebone also relied on a pair of programs that re-downloaded each other, acting as an insurance policy should one of them be removed, authorities told the Associated Press . “From a techie’s perspective, they made it as difficult as they possibly could for us,” a Europol advisory told the news organization. The takedown was a joint operation that involved the US FBI, Europol’s European Cybercrime Center, and private security groups including Kaspersky Lab, Shadowserver, and McAfee. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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US, European police take down highly elusive botnet known as Beebone

Apple releases OS X 10.10.3 with new Photos app, emoji, and more

Apple has just released the final version of OS X 10.10.3, the latest major update for OS X Yosemite. The update was first available to the public as a beta build back in early March , and it follows a little over three months after OS X 10.10.2 . You can view the full release notes on Apple’s site here . The star of this update is the new Photos app, an OS X version of the photo viewing and editing app included with iOS. It primarily functions as a replacement for iPhoto, the basic photo app included with the iLife suite for years before becoming available for free for all new Macs. It also replaces Aperture, Apple’s pro photo editing app—though it doesn’t actually attempt to replicate Aperture’s functionality. Neither iPhoto nor Aperture will receive further updates from Apple after today. Photos will be installed automatically when you update to 10.10.3; it appears to be a core part of OS X rather than an optional Mac App Store download. We looked at an early Photos beta back in February and came away mostly impressed by its features and speed, at least relative to iPhoto. Those of you with existing iPhoto and Aperture libraries will be able to import them into Photos after you install OS X 10.10.3. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Apple releases OS X 10.10.3 with new Photos app, emoji, and more

Next Windows Server offer new even smaller “Nano Server” footprint

Microsoft is adding even more features to Windows Server to diversify and strengthen its support for virtualization and containerization on its platform. The next Windows Server will include an even more stripped down, lightweight install mode called Nano Server. Windows Server already has a shrunk install option, Server Core, that omits various features to reduce the memory and disk footprint, and to shrink its exposure to security flaws. Nano Server strips back the operating system further still, dropping things like the GUI stack, 32-bit Win32 support, local logins, and remote desktop support. Nano Server is designed for two kinds of workload; cloud apps built on runtimes such as .NET, Java, Node.js, or Python, and cloud infrastructure, such as hosting Hyper-V virtual machines. Compared to the full Server install, Microsoft claims that Nano Server shrinks the disk footprint by 93 percent, the number of critical security bulletins by 92 percent, and the number of reboots by 80 percent. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Next Windows Server offer new even smaller “Nano Server” footprint