digest – Page 15 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

AT&T gets DirecTV merger approval, must deploy fiber to 12.5M customers

AT&T’s $48.5 billion purchase of DirecTV is a done deal, as the Federal Communications Commission today announced that it has voted to approve the merger. The FCC imposed conditions on the acquisition, saying they ensure the combination will be in the public interest. AT&T will become the largest pay-TV company in the nation with about 26 million subscribers, jumping ahead of Comcast.”As part of the merger, AT&T-DirecTV will be required to expand its deployment of high-speed, fiber optic broadband Internet access service to 12.5 million customer locations as well as to E-rate eligible schools and libraries,” the FCC’s announcement said. (The federal E-rate program provides discounts on Internet service. AT&T will also have to provide discounted broadband to low-income customers.) AT&T had proposed the fiber build condition itself, though it has said the total number of planned fiber connections is just 2 million more than the amount it would have built even if the merger had not been approved. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T gets DirecTV merger approval, must deploy fiber to 12.5M customers

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

Bug in latest version of OS X gives attackers unfettered root privileges

A bug in the latest version of Apple’s OS X gives attackers the ability to obtain unfettered root user privileges, a feat that makes it easier to surreptitiously infect Macs with rootkits and other types of persistent malware. The privilege-escalation bug, which was reported in a blog post published Tuesday by security researcher Stefan Esser, is the type of security hole attackers regularly exploit to bypass security protections built into modern operating systems and applications. Hacking Team, the Italian malware-as-a-service provider that catered to governments around the world, recently exploited similar elevation-of-privileges bugs in Microsoft Windows . When combined with a zero-day exploit targeting Adobe’s Flash media player , Hacking Team was able to pierce security protections built into Google Chrome , widely regarded as the Internet’s most secure browser by default. According to Esser, the OS X privilege-escalation flaw stems from new error-logging features that Apple added to OS X 10.10. Developers didn’t use standard safeguards involving additions to the OS X dynamic linker dyld , a failure that allows attackers to open or create files with root privileges that can reside anywhere in the OS X file system. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Bug in latest version of OS X gives attackers unfettered root privileges

British man receives world’s first bionic eye implant for macular degeneration

A British man has become the first person in the world to receive a bionic eye implant that corrects for age-related macular degeneration (AMD)—the most common cause of vision loss in adults. The implant was a success: previously, the patient had no central vision at all; now, he has low-resolution central vision. The operation was carried out at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital; the recipient of the implant was Ray Flynn, aged 80. The macula is at the back of the eye, in the central region of the retina. It is responsible for all of your high-resolution central vision—that is, when you gaze directly at something, it is the visual receptors in the macula that turn the light that reaches them into vision. With AMD, detritus (called drusen) slowly builds up between the vascular layer of the eye (the choroid) and the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE)—the layer that rods and cones are attached to. If too much drusen builds up, blood blow to the RPE is reduced enough that the rods and cones wither. AMD happens quite slowly, but eventually it can result in a complete loss of central vision, which makes it hard to recognise faces, read books, interact with computers, and so on. AMD is common amongst older people, and as our average life expectancy continues to increase, so does the number of people with AMD: about 500,000 people have it in the UK, and between 2 and 3 million people have it in the US. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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British man receives world’s first bionic eye implant for macular degeneration

The iPod lives! Mid-year bump adds new colors and 128GB 64-bit iPod Touch

The iPod lineup hasn’t gotten a significant hardware update since 2012, if you can believe it. For the Shuffle and the Nano, this isn’t a big deal; dedicated music players stopped evolving pretty much the minute the iPhone started to go mainstream. For the iPod Touch, it was more unfortunate—it’s a fully-fledged iDevice and one of the cheapest entry points into the ecosystem, so saddling it with the same Apple A5 SoC as the iPhone 4S for three years was rather unfortunate. That changes today. Apple has just updated the entire iPod lineup, including new colors for the (essentially unchanged) Nano and Shuffle as well as a significant internal overhaul for the iPod Touch. It picks up a 64-bit chip and an 8MP camera, both of which should make it run iOS 9 and future versions much better than the previous Touch. All the new iPods come in Space Gray, silver, gold, pink, blue, and red enclosures. The gold color, new to the iPod lineup, looks like the same finish used on iPhones and iPads and MacBooks. The pink, blue, and red shades all look darker and more saturated than they did before. The new iPod Touch runs iOS 8.4 and costs $199, $249, $299, or $399 for 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB. The 128GB option is exclusive to Apple, which means you won’t find it in a Best Buy or Wal-Mart. The Nano costs $149 for 16GB, and the Shuffle costs $49 for 2GB. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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The iPod lives! Mid-year bump adds new colors and 128GB 64-bit iPod Touch

Chicago Netflix customers: Your bill is about to go up 9 percent

Starting Wednesday, the city of Chicago’s new ” cloud tax ” went into effect: it imposes a 9-percent tax on “patrons of amusement,” including those services that are “delivered electronically.” In short: Netflix users in Chicago will be paying a little extra for their subscriptions pretty soon. “We will be adding it to the cost we charge subscribers,” Anne Marie Squeo, a Netflix spokeswoman, told Ars in a statement. “Jurisdictions around the world, including the US, are trying to figure out ways to tax online services. This is one approach.” Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Chicago Netflix customers: Your bill is about to go up 9 percent

Daily builds? Microsoft bangs out two public Windows 10 builds in two days

Daily Windows 10 builds? OK, not really. Or at least not yet. But Microsoft will today be releasing a new Windows 10 Insider Preview build, version 10159, to its fast track testers just a day after releasing build 10158 to the fast track. Yesterday’s build was the first to sport the new Microsoft Edge branding in the browser—prior builds had used the “Project Spartan” codename—along with many bug fixes and other minor improvements. Today’s build includes a further 300 fixed bugs, along with another piece of branding: it includes the new default wallpaper, a Windows logo made with lasers. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago , both yesterday’s build and today’s build are on the final path toward creating the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) build. While early builds didn’t have Windows Activation and preinstalled the Insider Hub for getting news about the previews, the latest builds are set up for the general public. As such, they include the activation system and only preinstall the apps that will ship when Windows 10 goes live. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Daily builds? Microsoft bangs out two public Windows 10 builds in two days

Days after taxi union protests, French authorities take Uber execs into custody [Updated]

On Monday, French authorities took two Uber executives into custody for questioning as part of an investigation into UberPop, the startup’s lower cost alternative. Local media have named the men as Thibaut Simphal, the CEO for France, and Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, the CEO for Western Europe. Under French law, both men can be held for up to 48 hours without being charged. “Our general managers for France and Western Europe today attended a hearing with the French police,” Gareth Mead, an Uber spokesman, told Ars in a statement. “We are always happy to answer questions the authorities have about our service—and look forward to resolving these issues. Those discussions are ongoing. In the meantime, we’re continuing to ensure the safety of our riders and drivers in France given last week’s disturbances.” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Apple releases iOS 8.4 with new Music app, fix for crashing bug

Apple has just released iOS 8.4, the latest update to its mobile operating system. The update isn’t as wide-ranging as iOS 8.3, but it does add a few notable things—chief among them are a revamped Music app and a fix for a bug where a specific set of characters could crash the operating system . iOS 8.4 is available for the iPhone 4S and newer, the iPad 2 and newer, and the fifth-generation iPod Touch. The redesigned music app accompanies the launch of Apple Music and the 24-hour, human-curated Beats One radio station, which Apple exec Eddy Cue and a parade of others spent a long, long time unveiling at WWDC earlier this month. The Spotify-esque on-demand streaming station comes with a three-month trial, and when that ends, it will cost $10 a month for individuals or $15 a month for families of up to six people. Also included in iOS 8.4 are improvements to iBooks, which can now be used for audiobooks. “Made for iBooks” books now work on the iPhone, too. Other improvements include a setting to turn off the auto-night theme, the ability to pre-order books in a series, and various bug fixes. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

PSA: Xbox Live Gold now comes with two new Xbox One games every month

Xbox One owners will soon get a bit more value out of their optional $60 ( or less ) annual membership. Starting in July, Microsoft will begin offering two free Xbox One games to Gold members as part of its existing Games With Gold program every month. Xbox One owners will be able to download Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag starting on July 1 and indie puzzle-platformer So Many Me on July 16. A similar twice-monthly release schedule for free Xbox One games will continue into the future, Microsoft said. Gold members will also be able to download two Xbox 360 games each month, as they have since the program began in June of 2013. Until now, though, Microsoft has generally made only one Xbox One title available through Games for Gold each month. As usual, Xbox One Games for Gold titles claimed and downloaded during their monthly availability window will be playable as long as the Gold membership is maintained (Xbox 360 games can be kept permanently, regardless of future membership). Sony has made 46 PlayStation 4 games available through the similar PlayStation Plus program in the 20 months the system has been available in North America, increasing from a general rate of one per month in the early days to an average of three or four titles every month in 2015. Both Sony and Microsoft’s free game programs are dominated by smaller indie titles, with the occasional AAA release thrown in months after its initial release. Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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PSA: Xbox Live Gold now comes with two new Xbox One games every month