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AMD’s Project Quantum Gaming PC Contains Intel CPU

nateman1352 links to an article at Tom’s Hardware which makes the interesting point that chip-maker AMD will offer Intel — rather than AMD — CPUs in their upcoming high-end gaming PC. (High-end for being based on integrated components, at least.) From the article: Recently, AMD showed off its plans for its Fiji based graphics products, among which was Project Quantum – a small form factor PC that packs not one, but two Fiji graphics processors. Since the announcement, KitGuru picked up on something, noticing that the system packs an Intel Core i7-4790K “Devil’s Canyon” CPU. We hardly need to point out that it is rather intriguing to see AMD use its largest competitor’s CPU in its own product, when AMD is a CPU maker itself. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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AMD’s Project Quantum Gaming PC Contains Intel CPU

New Manufacturing Technique Halves Cost of Lithium-Ion Batteries

An anonymous reader writes: Experts in materials science at MIT have developed a new process for creating lithium-ion batteries that will drop the associated production costs by half. The researchers say fundamental battery construction techniques have been refined over the past two decades, but not re-thought. “The new battery design is a hybrid between flow batteries and conventional solid ones: In this version, while the electrode material does not flow, it is composed of a similar semisolid, colloidal suspension of particles. Chiang and Carter refer to this as a ‘semisolid battery.’ This approach greatly simplifies manufacturing, and also makes batteries that are flexible and resistant to damage, says Chiang. … Instead of the standard method of applying liquid coatings to a roll of backing material, and then having to wait for that material to dry before it can move to the next manufacturing step, the new process keeps the electrode material in a liquid state and requires no drying stage at all. Using fewer, thicker electrodes, the system reduces the conventional battery architecture’s number of distinct layers, as well as the amount of nonfunctional material in the structure, by 80 percent.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New Manufacturing Technique Halves Cost of Lithium-Ion Batteries

WiFi Offloading is Skyrocketing

dkatana writes: WiFi Offloading is skyrocketing. This is the conclusion of a new report from Juniper Research, which points out that the amount of smartphone and tablet data traffic on WiFi networks will will increase to more than 115, 000 petabytes by 2019, compared to under 30, 000 petabytes this year, representing almost a four-fold increase. Most of this data is offloaded to consumer’s WiFi by the carriers, offering the possibility to share your home internet connection in exchange for “free” hotspots. But this article on InformationWeek Network Computing also warns that “The capacity of the 2.4GHz band is reaching its limit. the growing number of WiFi devices using unlicensed bands is seriously affecting network efficiency. Capacity is compromised by the number of simultaneously active devices, with transmission speeds dropping as much as 20% of the nominal value. With the number of IoT and M2M applications using WiFi continuously rising, that could become a serious problem soon.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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WiFi Offloading is Skyrocketing

General Mills To Drop Artificial Ingredients In Cereal

schwit1 writes: General Mills announced Monday that it will be removing artificial colors and flavoring from its cereal products over the next two to three years. The company said that Trix and Reese’s Puffs will be some of the first cereals to undergo the changes adding that cereals like Lucky Charms that have marshmallows may take longer to reformulate. They say 90 percent of their cereals will have no artificial ingredients by the end of 2016. “We’ve continued to listen to consumers who want to see more recognizable and familiar ingredients on the labels and challenged ourselves to remove barriers that prevent adults and children from enjoying our cereals, ” said Jim Murphy, president of General Mills cereal division, in a statement. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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General Mills To Drop Artificial Ingredients In Cereal

Linux 4.1 Kernel Released With EXT4 Encryption, Performance Improvements

An anonymous reader writes: The Linux 4.1 kernel has been announced and its release brings expanded features for the Linux kernel including EXT4 file-system encryption, open-source GeForce GTX 750 support, performance improvements for Intel Atom / Bay Trail hardware, RAID 5/6 improvements, and other additions. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Linux 4.1 Kernel Released With EXT4 Encryption, Performance Improvements

"Let’s Encrypt" Project To Issue First Free Digital Certificates Next Month

An anonymous reader writes: Let’s Encrypt, the project that hopes to increase the use of encryption across websites by issuing free digital certificates, is planning to issue the first ones next month. Backed by the EFF, the Mozilla Foundation, the Linux Foundation, Akamai, IdenTrust, Automattic, and Cisco, Let’s Encrypt will provide free-of-charge SSL and TSL certificates to any webmaster interested in implementing HTTPS for their products. The Stack reports: “Let’s Encrypt’s root certificate will be cross-signed by IdenTrust, a public key CA owned by smartphone government ID card provider HID Global. Website operators are generally hesitant to use SSL/TLS certificates due to their cost. An extended validation (EV) SSL certificates can cost up to $1, 000. It is also a complication for operators to set up encryption for larger web services. Let’s Encrypt aims to remove these obstacles by eliminating the related costs and automating the entire process.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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"Let’s Encrypt" Project To Issue First Free Digital Certificates Next Month

British Government Instituted 3-Month Deletion Policy, Apparently To Evade FOIA

An anonymous reader writes: In late 2004, weeks before Tony Blair’s Freedom of Information (FOI) act first came into force, Downing Street adopted a policy of automatically deleting emails more than three months old (paywalled). The IT decision has resulted in a “dysfunctional” system according to former cabinet officials, with Downing Street workers struggling to agree on the details of meetings in the absence of a correspondence chain. It is still possible to preserve an email by dragging it to local storage, but the relevance of mails may not be apparent at the time that the worker must make the decision to do so. Former special adviser to Nick Clegg Sean Kemp said: “Some people delete their emails on an almost daily basis, others just try to avoid putting anything potentially interesting in an email in the first place.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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British Government Instituted 3-Month Deletion Policy, Apparently To Evade FOIA

Apple De-Certifies Monster Cables After Lawsuit Against Beats

An anonymous reader writes: Since 2005, Monster cables have been licensed under Apple’s “Made For iDevice” program, which lets cable manufacturers put a logo on their product signifying they work with Apple products. Now, Apple has revoked that certification. In January of this year, Monster sued Beats, accusing its founders of fraud. Beats was acquired by Apple in 2014, and Monster is accusing Apple of bullying them by terminating the licensing deal. Monster’s general counsel said the move would “significantly disrupt Monster’s business and that the two companies had worked well for years, with Monster paying Apple more than $12 million in licensing fees since 2008.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Apple De-Certifies Monster Cables After Lawsuit Against Beats

Researchers Find Major Keychain Vulnerability in iOS and OS X

An anonymous reader notes a report from El Reg on a major cross-app resource vulnerability in iOS and Mac OS X. Researchers say it’s possible to break app sandboxes, bypass App Store security checks, and crack the Apple keychain. The researchers wrote, “specifically, we found that the inter-app interaction services, including the keychain and WebSocket on OS X and URL Scheme on OS X and iOS, can all be exploited by [malware] to steal such confidential information as the passwords for iCloud, email and bank, and the secret token of Evernote. Further, the design of the App sandbox on OS X was found to be vulnerable, exposing an app’s private directory to the sandboxed malware that hijacks its Apple Bundle ID. As a result, sensitive user data, like the notes and user contacts under Evernote and photos under WeChat, have all been disclosed. Fundamentally, these problems are caused by the lack of app-to-app and app-to-OS authentications.” Their full academic paper (PDF) is available online, as are a series of video demos. They withheld publication for six months at Apple’s request, but haven’t heard anything further about a fix. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Researchers Find Major Keychain Vulnerability in iOS and OS X

Amazon Pulls Kodi Media Player From App Store Over Piracy Claims

An anonymous reader writes with news that the Kodi media player (formerly XBMC) has had its app pulled from the Amazon app store after Amazon decided that it facilitates piracy. Amazon said, “Any facilitation of piracy or illegal downloads is not allowed in our program, ” and directed the development team not to resubmit the app. The team was surprised to hear this, since Kodi itself does not download or link to any infringing content. It does support addons, and some users have created addons to support pirated content, but the Kodi developers are fighting that behavior. XBMC Foundation board member Nathan Betzen said it’s absurd that “Amazon won’t let us into their appstore, but they have no problem selling the boxes that are pushing the reason they won’t let us into their app store.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Amazon Pulls Kodi Media Player From App Store Over Piracy Claims