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The Biggest Maker of Raspberry Pis Has Been Acquired For $871 Million

An anonymous reader writes from a report via The Verge: The biggest manufacturer of the Raspberry Pi minicomputer, Premier Farnell, has been acquired by Swiss industrial component supplier Daetwyler Holding AG for roughly $871 million. According to Bloomberg, the deal will reportedly help both companies compete better in the components market. “By combining forces, we significantly increase our competitiveness and extend our product range, ” Daetwyler Chairman Ulrich said in a statement, “facilitating a one-stop shopping experience for our wide range of customers from a multitude of industries.” Premier Farnell is one of the only companies with a license to design and distribute Raspberry Pis. The Wall Street Journal says the Raspberry Pi devices are a big part of the company’s business, as the division in charge of the Pi raked in 16 percent of the company’s total revenue last year. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The Biggest Maker of Raspberry Pis Has Been Acquired For $871 Million

Hacker Puts 51 Million iMesh Accounts For Sale On Dark Web

An anonymous reader shares a ZDNet report: User accounts for iMesh, a now-defunct file sharing service, are for sale on the dark web. The New York-based music and video sharing company was a peer-to-peer service, which rose to fame in the file sharing era of the early-2000s, riding the waves of the aftermath of the “dotcom” boom. LeakedSource, a breach notification site that allows users to see if their details have been leaked, has obtained the database. The group’s analysis of the database shows it contains a little over 51 million accounts. The database, of which a portion was shared with ZDNet for verification, contains user information that dates back to late-2005 when the site launched, including email addresses, passwords (which were hashed and salted with MD5, an algorithm that nowadays is easy to crack), usernames, a user’s location and IP address, registration date, and other information — such as if the account is disabled, or if the account has inbox messages. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hacker Puts 51 Million iMesh Accounts For Sale On Dark Web

Microsoft Is Buying LinkedIn for $26 Billion in Cash

Microsoft is buying LinkedIn in an all-cash transaction valued at $26.2 billion (at $196 per share). It will continue to operate independently and will retain its brand after the acquisition. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner will report to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and the deal is expected to be finalized by the end of this year. Read more…

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Microsoft Is Buying LinkedIn for $26 Billion in Cash

Apple Is Fighting A Secret War To Keep You From Repairing Your Phone

It’s no secret that Apple makes a ton of money by charging ‘astronomical’ fee for replacing and fixing display and other components of iPhone and iPad (as well as Mac line). For instance, the company charges $599 for replacing the display on the iPad Pro tablet. Which sounds insane when you realize that you can almost certainly purchase a new iPad Pro under $700. And this is what most people do. A Huffington Post article notes that this behavior has contributed significantly in “generating heaps of e-waste.” Citing many advocates, the publication claims that Apple has “opposed legislation that could help curb it.” From the report: The Huffington Post spoke with politicians in two states who support such legislation, and confirmed through government filings that Apple has lobbied on the issue. Four states — Minnesota, Nebraska, Massachusetts and New York — have considered adopting “right to repair” amendments, which would update existing laws regarding the sale of electronic equipment. Amending these laws would make it easier to fix your devices and would help reduce “e-waste, ” a catch-all term for any electronic detritus. The New York State Senate and Assembly could approve one of these amendments next week. This would help unofficial repair shops get the information they need to fix your iPad, ideally driving down repair costs and encouraging you to squeeze more life out of your old devices — thus cutting down on the e-waste generated by our voracious appetites for new gadgets. Apple asserts that it helps recycle millions of pounds of electronics equipment every year. But it won’t support right to repair amendments.One would ask what is preventing a user from getting their device repaired by unofficial service person? In addition to the security implication, you also run a risk of getting your device bricked by Apple. To recall, the iPhone maker was found bricking the handsets that had been repaired by third-party vendors earlier this year. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apple Is Fighting A Secret War To Keep You From Repairing Your Phone

The World’s Oldest Computer May Have Predicted the Future

Gizmodo reports: Discovered in an ancient shipwreck near Crete in 1901, the freakishly advanced Antikythera Mechanism has been called the world’s first computer. A decades-long investigation into the 2, 000 year-old-device is shedding new light onto this mysterious device… It wasn’t programmable in the modern sense, but it’s considered the world’s first analog computer. schwit1 shares a report from the Associated Press:: For over a century since its discovery in an ancient shipwreck, the exact function of the Antikythera Mechanism — named after the southern Greek island off which it was found — was a tantalizing puzzle…. After more than a decade’s efforts using cutting-edge scanning equipment, an international team of scientists has now read about 3, 500 characters of explanatory text — a quarter of the original — in the innards of the 2, 100-year-old remains. They say it was a kind of philosopher’s guide to the galaxy, and perhaps the world’s oldest mechanical computer. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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The World’s Oldest Computer May Have Predicted the Future

Oklahoma State Troopers Use New Device To Seize Bank Accounts During Traffic Stops

mi writes from a report via news9.com KWTV: KWTV writes, “You may have heard of civil asset forfeiture. That’s where police can seize your property and cash without first proving you committed a crime; without a warrant and without arresting you, as long as they suspect that your property is somehow tied to a crime. Now, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol has a device that also allows them to seize money in your bank account or on prepaid cards. If a trooper suspects you may have money tied to some type of crime, the highway patrol can scan any cards you have and seize the money.” But do not worry: “If you can prove that you have a legitimate reason to have that money it will be given back to you. And we’ve done that in the past, ” said Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. John Vincent. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Oklahoma State Troopers Use New Device To Seize Bank Accounts During Traffic Stops

Yahoo Preps Auction For 3,000 Patents Worth $1 Billion

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Wall Street Journal reports that bids are being accepted for nearly 3, 000 Yahoo patents and pending applications. In April, Yahoo moved 2, 659 patents into a patent-holding company called Excalibur IP LLC, which was seen as a first step toward a patent sale. “This represents a unique opportunity for companies operating in the Internet industry to acquire some of the most pioneering and foundational patents related to Web search and advertising, ” Yahoo said in a statement. Those invited to join the auction include “strategic buyers, private-equity firms, and investment firms focused on intellectual property, ” according to the Journal. Preliminary bids are due by the middle of this month, and the patents are expected to fetch more than $1 billion, according to “people familiar with the matter” who spoke to the Journal. Bloomberg, which also reported on the patent sale, said there was no official reserve price or bidding guidelines. Yesterday, Verizon submitted a $3 billion bid for Yahoo’s core internet business. The sale will include 500 U.S. patents and more than 600 pending applications, but will not include the larger collection of patents going in the patent sale. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Yahoo Preps Auction For 3,000 Patents Worth $1 Billion

Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14361 Released

An anonymous reader writes from a report via BetaNews: Windows Insider chief Dona Sarkar announced in a blog post that they are releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14361 for both PC and Mobile to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. This new release includes new features, some improvements to existing features, and various bug fixes that the company hopes to iron out before the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. A LastPass extension for the Microsoft Edge browser, and Hyper-V Container, which will let you use Docker natively on Windows 10, has been added. A series of improvements have been made to Windows Ink, and the Settings app, which includes changes to the colors so it’s more obvious where you are. The Blu-ray icon and Network Quick Action icon have also been updated. You can read the full list of improvements and fixes for PC here. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14361 Released

North Korea Restarts Plutonium Production For Nuclear Bombs

New submitter ReginaldBryan45 quotes a report from Reuters: North Korea has restarted production of plutonium fuel, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday, showing that it plans to pursue its nuclear weapons program in defiance of international sanctions. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAE) said on Monday that it had seen signs based on satellite imagery that show that the secretive country had re-activated the nuclear fuel production reactor at Yongbyon. The analysis by the IAEA pointed to “resumption of the activities of the five megawatt reactor, the expansion of centrifuge-related facility, [and] reprocessing — these are some of the examples of the areas [of activity indicated at Yongbyon].” U.S. Intelligence tried to infect the Yongbyon site with a variant of the Stuxnet malware last year but ultimately failed. Experts at the U.S.-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington predicted last year that the country’s nuclear arsenal could grow to as many as 100 bombs within five years, from an estimated 10 to 16. Naturally, this news is a cause for concern as North Korea had four (failed) test launches in the last two months. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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North Korea Restarts Plutonium Production For Nuclear Bombs

Firefox 47 Arrives With Synced Tabs Sidebar, Better YouTube Playback

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Mozilla today launched Firefox 47 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. The browser has gained a sidebar for synced tabs from other devices, improvements to YouTube playback and HTML5 support, and is seeing the end of support for Android Gingerbread. [If you’re logged in with your Firefox Account, the sidebar will show all your open tabs from your smartphone and other computers. The sidebar even lets you search for specific tabs. Next, Firefox 47 supports the open source VP9 video codec on machines with powerful multiprocessors. VP9 is the successor to VP8, both of which fall under Google’s WebM project of freeing web codecs from royalty constraints.] Firefox 47 is available for download on Firefox.com, and will be slowly released on Google Play. You can view the full Firefox 47 changelog here. If you’re a developer, Firefox 47 for developers offers more details for you. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Firefox 47 Arrives With Synced Tabs Sidebar, Better YouTube Playback