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The Windows 10 Creators Update is now available for manual upgrading

Enlarge / This option is the best way of transitioning out of the Insider Program. (credit: Microsoft) The “official” release of the Windows 10 Creators Update , version 1703, won’t come until Patch Tuesday on April 11, but if you want to upgrade now—and don’t want to enroll your system in the potentially unstable Windows Insider Program—you can now do so. The Windows 10 Update Assistant will upgrade any Windows 10 Home or Pro system to the Creators Update; you’ll need to grab the latest version of the Assistant and then run it, but it should be straightforward enough. If you’re upgrading more than one machine or want to perform a clean install, the Media Creation Tool, available from the same link, is the better bet; the Media Creation Tool can fetch an ISO to burn a DVD or create a bootable USB drive, and that can be used for bare metal installs. The Creators Update itself is build 15063.0, but there will be a small Cumulative Update delivered on April 11. Previews of this patch have been rolled out to insiders, with the fast ring Insiders on 15063.14 and slow ring Insiders on 15063.13. Using the Update Assistant or Media Creation Tool appears to also update to 15063.13. This situation may well change by the actual release day next week. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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The Windows 10 Creators Update is now available for manual upgrading

A 21st-Century Version Of OS/2 Warp May Be Released Soon

dryriver writes: A company named Arca Noae is working on a new release of the X86 OS/2 operating system code named “Blue Lion” and likely called ArcaOS 5 in its final release. Blue Lion wants to be a modern 21st Century OS/2 Warp, with support for the latest hardware and networking standards, a modern accelerated graphics driver, support for new cryptographic security standards, full backward compatibility with legacy OS/2, DOS and Windows 3.1 applications, suitability for use in mission-critical applications, and also, it appears, the ability to run “ported Linux applications”. Blue Lion, which appears to be in closed beta with March 31st 2017 cited as the target release date, will come with up to date Firefox browser and Thunderbird mail client, Apache OpenOffice, other productivity tools, a new package manager, and software update and support subscription to ensure system stability. It is unclear from the information provided whether Blue Lion will be able to run modern Windows applications. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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A 21st-Century Version Of OS/2 Warp May Be Released Soon

Virtual machine escape fetches $105,000 at Pwn2Own hacking contest [updated]

Enlarge (credit: Heather Katsoulis ) Contestants at this year’s Pwn2Own hacking competition in Vancouver just pulled off an unusually impressive feat: they compromised Microsoft’s heavily fortified Edge browser in a way that escapes a VMware Workstation virtual machine it runs in. The hack fetched a prize of $105,000, the highest awarded so far over the past three days. According to a Friday morning tweet from the contest’s organizers, members of Qihoo 360’s security team carried out the hack by exploiting a heap overflow bug in Edge, a type confusion flaw in the Windows kernel and an uninitialized buffer vulnerability in VMware, contest organizers reported Friday morning on Twitter . The result was a ” complete virtual machine escape .” “We used a JavaScript engine bug within Microsoft Edge to achieve the code execution inside the Edge sandbox, and we used a Windows 10 kernel bug to escape from it and fully compromise the guest machine,” Qihoo 360 Executive Director Zheng Zheng wrote in an e-mail. “Then we exploited a hardware simulation bug within VMware to escape from the guest operating system to the host one. All started from and only by a controlled a website.” Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Virtual machine escape fetches $105,000 at Pwn2Own hacking contest [updated]

Microsoft’s Teams is almost an excellent Slack-killer, and it’s now live for O365

Enlarge / Teams looks good, but is unfortunately its chat is quite bulky in a vertical direction. (credit: Microsoft) After being in beta since November , Microsoft Teams is now available to anyone with a suitable Office 365 subscription. Teams is a group messaging application organized around chatrooms. Slack has become the darling of media and software development types, with its modern, Web-based take on what is actually an old-fashioned mode of computerized communication. Slack is text-heavy and line-oriented, much like the IRC that it mimics. Slack arguably brought IRC into the 21st century and added such niceties as persistent message storage so that you can see what happened before you even joined a particular channel. Slack also includes inline images and emoji. If instant messaging apps like Skype are an alternative to the telephone, Slack represents an alternative to standing around the office watercooler or hanging out in the break room. Teams builds on this same heritage, but it adds a Microsoft twist: Rather than being a standalone service, as Slack is, Teams is an integrated part of Office 365. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Microsoft’s Teams is almost an excellent Slack-killer, and it’s now live for O365

Intel buys self-driving tech firm Mobileye for $15.3 billion

Intel’s recent work with MobilEye on self-driving cars must have gone well, because the chip giant is buying its Jerusalem-based partner for $15.3 billion. The deal was first reported by Israeli business site The Marker but has now been confirmed by the two companies. MobilEye is one of the largest players in autonomous vehicle tech and was in the news recently over a spat with Tesla following a fatal Model S crash in Florida. However, it recently teamed with Intel on BMW’s iNext self-driving platform, which the automaker aims to put into service by 2021. The technology they’re working on isn’t just for BMW vehicles, though. The idea is to build a “scalable architecture” that can be used by any automaker, especially if they don’t want to build their own tech from scratch. As such, it could become a huge business for MobilEye, which may help explain the huge acquisition price. The deal is one of the largest acquisitions of an Israeli-based tech company ever. Despite a recent PC renaissance thanks to Microsoft’s Surface and other devices, desktops are still losing ground to mobile devices. That has affected Intel’s bottom line while benefiting companies like Qualcomm, which makes the chips used in many smartphones and tablets. The situation has forced Intel into other areas like wearables, connected homes and “internet of things” devices, none of which has exactly taken off yet. BREAKING: Intel to acquire Mobileye for $63.54 per share in cash, or about $15.3 billion. $INTC $MBLY — CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) March 13, 2017 Autonomous cars, on the other hand, are one of the hottest things in tech, with virtually every automaker, tech company and even peripheral firms like Uber and Lyft working on (and fighting about ) them. Even if fully autonomous cars don’t work out as planned (some critics think it’s a distant pipe dream ), autopilot tech that aids drivers and prevents accidents is available now on Tesla EVs and other cars. Ironically, MobilEye’s early success was due in large part to Tesla, and that partnership dissolved in a not-very-friendly way. Via: The Marker Source: Intel / Mobileye (.PDF)

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Intel buys self-driving tech firm Mobileye for $15.3 billion

Chrome 57 Arrives With CSS Grid Layout and API Improvements

Google has launched Chrome 57 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. From a report on VentureBeat: Among the additions is CSS Grid Layout, API improvements, and other new features for developers. You can update to the latest version now using the browser’s built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome. Chrome is arguably more than a browser: With over 1 billion users, it’s a major platform that web developers have to consider. In fact, with Chrome’s regular additions and changes, developers have to keep up to ensure they are taking advantage of everything available. Chrome 57 implements CSS Grid Layout, a two-dimensional grid-based layout system for responsive user interface design. Elements within the grid can be specified to span multiple columns or rows, plus they can also be named so that layout code is easier to understand. The goal is to give developers more granular control, especially as websites are increasingly accessed on various screen sizes, so they can slowly move away from complex code that is difficult to maintain. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Chrome 57 Arrives With CSS Grid Layout and API Improvements

Hidden Backdoor Discovered In Chinese IoT Devices

“A backdoor has been found in devices made by a Chinese tech firm specializing in VoIP products, ” reports TechRadar. An anonymous reader quotes their article: Security outfit Trustwave made the discovery of a hidden backdoor in DblTek’s devices which was apparently put there to allow the manufacturer access to said hardware — but of course, it’s also open to being exploited by other malicious parties. The backdoor is in the Telnet admin interface of DblTek-branded devices, and potentially allows an attacker to remotely open a shell with root privileges on the target device. What’s perhaps even more worrying is that when Trustwave contacted DblTek regarding the backdoor last autumn — multiple times — patched firmware was eventually released at the end of December. However, rather than removing the flaw, the vendor simply made it more difficult to access and exploit. And further correspondence with the Chinese company has apparently fallen on deaf ears. The firmware with the hole “is present on almost every GSM-to-VoIP device which DblTek makes, ” and Trustwave “found hundreds of these devices on the net, and many other brands which use the same firmware, so are equally open to exploit.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hidden Backdoor Discovered In Chinese IoT Devices

Windows 10 Build 15048 Has a Windows Mixed Reality Demo You Can Try

Microsoft’s big push into mixed reality involves headsets from multiple manufacturers (including ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo), and developer kits with Acer’s headset will begin a phased rollout this month. But Windows 10’s latest “Insider Preview” build already includes a mixed reality simulator with a first-person 3D environment that can be navigated with the W, A, S and D keys. Slashdot reader Mark Wilson writes: From the look of the changelog for Windows 10 build 15048 that was released a few days ago to Insiders, it looked to be little more than a bug fixing release. But in fact Microsoft has already started to include references to — and even a portal for — Windows Mixed Reality. We have seen reference to Windows Holographic in Windows 10 before, but this is the first time there has been anything to play with. It coincides nicely with Microsoft revealing that Windows Mixed Reality is the new name for Windows Holographic, and it gives Insiders the chance to not only see if their computer meets the recommended specs, but also to try out a Windows Mixed reality simulation. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Windows 10 Build 15048 Has a Windows Mixed Reality Demo You Can Try

Microsoft reduced Windows update sizes by 35 percent

Fans of Windows and snappy downloads will be relieved to learn that Microsoft’s Unified Update Platform, which has been rolling out to Windows Insiders since November, will be available to all retail users starting with the release of the Creators Update coming later this spring. In addition to those very handy snooze and schedule features , the UUP significantly shrinks the size of future updates by saving users the trouble of downloading an entire build of their operating system. That feature is called differential download packages , which is a technical term for “only downloads what you need.” A differential download looks at the files already on your system and uses them to rebuild the new OS version from there. It sounds simple, but as Microsoft’s Laura Butler points out , it’s no easy task given the decades of legacy code and patches. For a major release like the Creators Update, you’ll still need to download a full build, but the next feature update after that should be significantly smaller — about 35 percent smaller on average, according to Microsoft’s Director of Program Management Bill Karagounis. For Windows Insiders those downloads should be even smaller, but it’s a bit of a trade-off since those systems get hit with more frequent updates. Source: Windows Blog

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Microsoft reduced Windows update sizes by 35 percent

Delta Windows Updates shrinks downloads 65% for Insiders, 35% for everyone else

Enlarge / The announcement of the Creators Update in October 2016. The Windows 10 Creators Update, due some time in the next couple of months, enables differential updates as part of what Microsoft calls the Unified Update Platform. These updates only contain the changes between one major Windows update and the next, which should make for smaller, faster downloads. Windows Insiders have been receiving these new differential updates since early December, and Microsoft has reported on the effectiveness of the new scheme. Compared to a “canonical” update (which includes full files rather than just the changed portions), the savings are substantial: the median differential download size of build 15025 was 910MB. The media canonical size of build 15031 was 2.56GB. 910MB is quite a bit smaller than 2.56GB. (credit: Microsoft ) This is particularly attractive to members of the Insider program because each new build is delivered as a major update that performs a full in-place Windows 10 install. To take advantage of the differential updates, you’ll have to make sure to never skip any releases; if you’re updating an older build to the very latest, a full download is required. This represents a trade-off on Microsoft’s part: The company doesn’t want to have to maintain a differential update between any and every pair of builds. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Delta Windows Updates shrinks downloads 65% for Insiders, 35% for everyone else