Tag: golf

Microsoft brings Android, iOS apps to Windows 10

SAN FRANCISCO—Microsoft announced a four-pronged effort to bring developers and their apps to Windows at its build conference today. One of these prongs—a way for Web developers to present their sites as apps—was already announced at Mobile World Congress earlier in the year. The second prong is logical but not altogether surprising. In Windows 10, developers will be able to specially prepare existing Windows apps, whether Win32, .NET WinForms, .NET WPF, or any other Windows development technology, and sell them through the Windows Store. Unlike the “traditional” Windows application installation experience, these apps will be guaranteed to install, update, and uninstall cleanly—one of the important things that Store apps do to ensure that users feel confident trying apps out and removing them if they don’t like them. Behind the scenes, virtualization technology will be used to provide this isolation and robustness. Islandwood and Astoria The next two prongs are the more surprising: Microsoft is going after Android and iOS developers. With Project Islandwood, iOS developers will be able to take their iOS apps and build them for Windows. Microsoft has developed an Objective C toolchain and middleware layer that provide the operating system APIs that iOS apps expect. A select group of third parties have been using the Islandwood tools already, with King’s Candy Crush Saga for Windows Phone being one of the first apps built this way. King’s developers had to change only a “few percent” of the code in order to fully port it to Windows Phone. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Microsoft brings Android, iOS apps to Windows 10

AT&T/DirecTV merger likely to be approved

Despite Comcast abandoning  its Time Warner Cable (TWC) purchase in the face of government opposition, mergers of Internet and TV providers are still on the table. AT&T’s proposed $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV is likely to win approval from the Federal Communications Commission,  The Wall Street Journal reported . And TWC could still be acquired, but by Charter Communications instead of Comcast. The FCC hasn’t publicly revealed its position on AT&T’s attempt to buy the satellite TV provider. But despite opposing Comcast/TWC, the commission “sees the AT&T deal as helping competition and aiding the spread of broadband into rural areas that lack service, people familiar with the matter said,” according to the Journal report. FCC officials haven’t yet finalized concessions that AT&T would make in exchange for approval, “but the commission’s staff is inclined to recommend the approval of the deal.” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T/DirecTV merger likely to be approved

170-year-old champagne provides clues to past winemaking

Divers discovered bottles in a shipwreck off the Finnish Aland archipelago in the Baltic Sea in 2010. After tasting the bottles on site, the divers realized they were likely drinking century-old champagne. Soon after, 168 unlabeled bottles were retrieved and were identified as champagnes from the Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin (VCP), Heidsieck, and Juglar (known as Jacquesson since 1832) champagne houses. A few of the recovered bottles had been lying horizontal in close-to-perfect slow aging conditions. Discovery of these wines, likely the oldest ever tasted, unleashed a flood of questions. When were these wines produced? What winemaking processes were in use at the time? Where was the wine going when the shipwreck occurred? An analytic approach A team of scientists gathered to search for the answers through the application of current analytical techniques, an approach called archaeochemistry. Using a combination of targeted and nontargeted modern chemical analytic approaches, the researchers aimed to uncover aspects of the winemaking practices. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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170-year-old champagne provides clues to past winemaking

Intel’s Compute Stick: A full PC that’s tiny in size (and performance)

Specs at a glance: Intel Compute Stick STCK1A32WFC OS Windows 8.1 with Bing 32-bit CPU 1.33GHz quad-core Intel Atom Z3735F (Turbo Boost up to 1.83GHz) RAM 2GB 1333MHz DDR3 (non upgradeable) GPU Intel HD Graphics (integrated) HDD 32GB eMMC SSD Networking 2.4GHz 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 Ports 1x USB 2.0, microSD, micro USB (for power) Size 4.06” x 1.46” x 0.47” (103 x 37 x 12mm) Other perks Lock slot Warranty 1 year Price ~$150, ~$110 for Ubuntu Linux version with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage Our appreciation of mini desktop PCs is well-documented at this point . In the age of the smartphone and the two-pound laptop, the desktop PC is perhaps the least exciting of computing devices, but there are still plenty of hulking desktop towers out there, and many of them can be replaced by something you can hold in the palm of your hand. Intel’s new Compute Stick, available for about $150 with Windows 8.1 and $110 with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, takes the mini desktop concept about as far as it can go. The Stick isn’t even really a “desktop” in the traditional sense, since it’s an HDMI dongle that hangs off the back of your monitor instead of sitting on your desk. It’s not very powerful, but the Compute Stick is one of the smallest Windows desktops you can buy right now. Let’s take a quick look at what it’s capable of. Read 19 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel’s Compute Stick: A full PC that’s tiny in size (and performance)

Tech vs. terror: Drones and data fight a new battle against poachers

When night falls, danger unfolds at the uMkhuze Game Reserve. And while some of the world’s most deadly predators—ranging in size from hyenas to lions—coexist next to African elephants, giraffes, and more within this massive, 140 square mile natural area, they aren’t the only creatures out hunting at night. This particular section of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa plays host to one of the country’s most profitable, albeit illegal, industries: poaching. In Africa, it’s a $70 billion business. Organized crime rings dabbling in poaching often carry ties to other smuggling industries like narcotics and weapons; some even connect with terrorist organizations. In this specific target area, rhinos most often land in the criminal crosshairs, with over 3,800 killed in South Africa alone over the past seven years. Their horns allegedly sell for $65,000 per kilogram as poachers look to profit from ivory and rhino horn powder. On the evening of November 4, 2014, two poaching suspects entered the reserve. One carried a .458 caliber rifle outfitted with a silencer. A cane knife—a long, machete-like tool used for harvesting—may have also been involved. Nearly 80 rhinos had been poached already that year; more seemed destined for the tally. But by chance, four park rangers noticed suspicious movement while on foot patrol that evening. A firefight ensued. Read 30 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Tech vs. terror: Drones and data fight a new battle against poachers

Verizon’s new “Custom TV” is small step toward a la carte pricing

The dreaded pay-TV bundles that result in US homes watching only about 10 percent of the channels they pay for aren’t going away any time soon, but Verizon’s FiOS TV service is taking a small step in the right direction. Starting Sunday, new and existing FiOS customers will be able to choose from new “Custom TV” bundles that offer more flexibility and could (depending on one’s interests) save subscribers a bit of money. Verizon’s new Custom TV pricing, available beginning Sunday. 6 more images in gallery “It’s a simple way for customers to choose the types of channels they want without paying for those they don’t,” Verizon said in a description of the new pricing system that was e-mailed to reporters. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Verizon’s new “Custom TV” is small step toward a la carte pricing

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

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

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

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

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