management – Page 19 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

‘Be My Eyes’ App Crowdsources Help For the Blind

An anonymous reader writes: A new not-for-profit app, Be My Eyes, aims to help the visually-impaired by connecting them with volunteer users who can support them in their daily lives via live video calls. Once downloaded, Be My Eyes asks the user to identify as blind or sighted, to see if you require help or are offering it. When a blind person requests assistance the app scans the system for an available volunteer. The blind user connects with the volunteer over a video call and points to the item they would like described. Be My Eyes was created by Hans Jørgen Wiberg, a visually-impaired entrepreneur, at a startup event. Wiberg teamed up with Robocat, the Danish software studio behind Haze and Thermo, to make his vision a reality. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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‘Be My Eyes’ App Crowdsources Help For the Blind

Steam For Linux Bug Wipes Out All of a User’s Files

An anonymous reader sends a report of a bug in Steam’s Linux client that will accidentally wipe all of a user’s files if they move their Steam folder. According to the bug report: I launched steam. It did not launch, it offered to let me browse, and still could not find it when I pointed to the new location. Steam crashed. I restarted it. It re-installed itself and everything looked great. Until I looked and saw that steam had apparently deleted everything owned by my user recursively from the root directory. Including my 3tb external drive I back everything up to that was mounted under /media. Another user reported a similar problem — losing his home directory — and problems with the script were found: at some point, the Steam script sets $STEAMROOT as the directory containing all Steam’s data, then runs rm -rf “$STEAMROOT/”* later on. If Steam has been moved, $STEAMROOT returns as empty, resulting in rm -rf “/”* which causes the unexpected deletion. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Steam For Linux Bug Wipes Out All of a User’s Files

Google Throws Microsoft Under Bus, Then Won’t Patch Android Flaw

An anonymous reader writes Last month, Google took the bold steps to release the details of a security vulnerability ahead of Microsoft. Microsoft responded and said that there was a patch in works which was set to be released two days after Google went live with the details. Microsoft accuses Google for refusing to wait an extra 48 hours so that the patch would have been released along with the details of the exploit. Now, let’s see what is happening on the Google side of software development. Recently, an exploit has been uncovered in the WebView component of Android 4.3 — estimated to cover roughly 60% of Android install base — and Google is saying that they will not patch the flaw. Google’s only reasoning seems to be that they are not fixing vulnerabilities in 4.3 (introduced in June 2012) anymore, as they have moved focus to newer releases. It would appear that over 930 million Android phones in use are out of official Google security patch support. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Throws Microsoft Under Bus, Then Won’t Patch Android Flaw

3D Cameras Are About To Go Mainstream

An anonymous reader writes: Vox’s Timothy B. Lee reports that everyday imaging is about to take a big step forward as 3D photography finally makes it to prime time. Technological advances in 3D processing algorithms have accelerated at the same time the equipment for taking these shots has become significantly cheaper. Those facts combined mean that we’re going to be seeing 3D cameras become much more prevalent very quickly. “If things go according to Intel’s plan, within a few years all of our tablets and laptops, and perhaps even our smartphones, will have fancy 3D cameras instead of boring old 2D ones.” Throw in the fledgling industries of commercial camera drones and autonomous vehicles, and you have a lot of major companies throwing huge amounts of research money into making cheap 3D cameras work. “The result will be a proliferation of devices, from tablets to self-driving cars, that understand and interact with the world around them.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Sees Biggest Search Traffic Drop Since 2009 As Yahoo Gains Ground

helix2301 writes: Google’s grip on the Internet search market loosened in December, as the search engine saw its largest drop since 2009. That loss was Yahoo’s gain, as the Marissa Mayer-helmed company added almost 2% from November to December to bring its market share back into double digits. Google’s lead remains overwhelming, with just more than three-quarters of search, according to SatCounter Global Stats. Microsoft’s Bing gained some momentum to take 12.5% of the market. Yahoo now has 10.4%. All other search engines combined to take 1.9%. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Google Sees Biggest Search Traffic Drop Since 2009 As Yahoo Gains Ground

Intel 5th Gen Core Series Performance Preview With 2015 Dell XPS 13

MojoKid writes: Intel’s strategically timed CES 2015 launch of their new 5th Gen Core Series processors for notebooks was met with a reasonably warm reception, though it’s always difficult to rise above the noise of CES chatter. Performance claims for Intel’s new chip promise major gains in graphics and more modest increases in standard compute applications. However, the biggest bet Intel placed on the new Broadwell-U architecture is performance-per-watt throughput and battery life in premium notebook products that are now in production with major OEM partners. A few manufacturers were early out of the gate with new Core i5 5XXX series-based machines, however, none of the major players caught the same kind of buzz that Dell received, with the introduction of their new XPS 13 Ultrabook with its near bezel-less 13-inch WQHD (3200X1800) display. As expected, the Core i5-5200U in this machine offered performance gains of anywhere from 10 to 20 percent, in round numbers, depending on the benchmark. In gaming and graphics testing is where the new 5200U chip took the largest lead over the previous gen Core i5-4200U CPU, which is one of the most common processors found in typical ultrabook style 13-inch machines. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Intel 5th Gen Core Series Performance Preview With 2015 Dell XPS 13

In-Flight Service Gogo Uses Fake SSL Certificates To Throttle Streaming

Amanda Parker writes In-flight internet service Gogo has defended its use of a fake Google SSL certificates as a means of throttling video streaming, adding that it was not invading its customer’s privacy in doing so. The rebuttal comes after Google security researcher Adrienne Porter Felt posted a screenshot of the phoney certificate to Twitter. From the article: “The image clearly shows that Gogo signed the certificate, not Google, thus misleading customers and opening the door to malware on users’ devices. It also serves as a way to throttle data and limit traffic on its networks. ‘Gogo takes our customer’s privacy very seriously and we are committed to bringing the best Internet experience to the sky, ‘ CTO Anand Chari said in a Monday statement.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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In-Flight Service Gogo Uses Fake SSL Certificates To Throttle Streaming

Ford Touts Self-driving Car, Launches Global Mobility Experiments

An anonymous reader writes in with news about Ford’s latest automobile technology unveiled at CES. “Ford showcased the semi-autonomous vehicles it has on the road at CES and gave attendees a glimpse into fully autonomous vehicles now in development. The carmaker also announced a series of experiments with drivers around the globe to test its vehicle-to-vehicle connectivity, autonomous cars and the use of big data collected from vehicles. The company said a fully autonomous Ford Fusion Hybrid research vehicle is undergoing road testing now. The vehicle relies on the same semi-autonomous technology used in Ford vehicles today, while adding four LiDAR (light, radar) sensors to generate a real-time 3D map of the surrounding environment.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ford Touts Self-driving Car, Launches Global Mobility Experiments

AMD, Nvidia Reportedly Tripped Up On Process Shrinks

itwbennett writes: In the fierce battle between CPU and GPU vendors, it’s not just about speeds and feeds but also about process shrinks. Both Nvidia and AMD have had their move to 16nm and 20nm designs, respectively, hampered by the limited capacity of both nodes at manufacturer TSMC, according to the enthusiast site WCCFTech.com. While AMD’s CPUs are produced by GlobalFoundaries, its GPUs are made at TSMC, as are Nvidia’s chips. The problem is that TSMC only has so much capacity and Apple and Samsung have sucked up all that capacity. The only other manufacturer with 14nm capacity is Intel and there’s no way Intel will sell them some capacity. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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AMD, Nvidia Reportedly Tripped Up On Process Shrinks

Extreme Heat Knocks Out Internet In Australia

An anonymous reader writes with news that bad weather caused internet connectivity problems for users in Perth, Western Australia on Monday. But it wasn’t raging storms or lightning that caused this outage — it was extreme heat. Monday was the 6th hottest day on record for Perth, peaking around 44.4 C (111.9 F). Thousands of iiNet customers across Australia found themselves offline for about six and a half hours after the company shut down some of its systems at its Perth data center at about 4.30pm AEDST because of record breaking-temperatures. … “[W]e shut down our servers as a precautionary measure, ” an iiNet spokesman said late Monday night. “Although redundancy plans ensured over 98 per cent of customers remained unaffected, some customers experienced issues reconnecting to the internet.” … Users in Western Australia, NSW, Victoria and South Australia took to Twitter, Facebook and broadband forum Whirlpool to post their frustrations to the country’s second largest DSL internet service provider. Read more of this story at Slashdot.