Tag: portfolio-cond

Microsoft scores biggest patent licensee yet: Foxconn

Foxconn Zhengzhou facility, under construction in February 2012. Bert van Dijk / flickr One company—Taiwan’s Foxconn—makes a staggering 40 percent of the world’s consumer electronic devices. Starting now, Microsoft will be getting paid a toll on a large number of those devices. The company’s long patent-licensing campaign has landed its biggest client yet in licensing Foxconn, formally named Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Foxconn has agreed to take a license for any product it produces that runs Google’s Android or Chrome operating systems. The Redmond software giant has insisted for years now that any company making Android phones needs to license its patents. That campaign has generally been successful; so successful , in fact, that by 2011 Microsoft was making more money from patent licensing than from its own mobile phone system. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Microsoft scores biggest patent licensee yet: Foxconn

ColdFusion hack used to steal hosting provider’s customer data

A vulnerability in the ColdFusion Web server platform, reported by Adobe less than a week ago, has apparently been in the wild for almost a month and has allowed the hacking of at least one company website, exposing customer data. Yesterday, it was revealed that the virtual server hosting company Linode had been the victim of a multi-day breach that allowed hackers to gain access to customer records. The breach was made possible by a vulnerability in Adobe’s ColdFusion server platform that could, according to Adobe, “be exploited to impersonate an authenticated user.” A patch had been issued for the vulnerability on April 9  and was rated as priority “2” and “important.” Those ratings placed it at a step down from the most critical, indicating that there were no known exploits at the time the patch was issued but that data was at risk. Adobe credited “an anonymous security researcher,” with discovering the vulnerability. But according to IRC conversation  including one of the alleged hackers of the site, Linode’s site had been compromised for weeks before its discovery. That revelation leaves open the possibility that other ColdFusion sites have been compromised as hackers sought out targets to use the exploit on. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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ColdFusion hack used to steal hosting provider’s customer data

Google Glass specs: 16GB SSD, “full-day” battery, and no 3rd-party ads

Google The Google Glass team yesterday released a list of tech specs for the upcoming augmented reality glasses. They will have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity; 16GB of flash memory, with 12GB usable (synced with Google cloud storage); a 5MP camera for photos and 720p for video; a battery providing a full day of typical usage; and an HD display that will be “the equivalent of a 25 inch high definition screen from eight feet away.” The optimal resolution for photos and video will be 640×360, according to a separate document prepared for developers. Developers using the Google Mirror API to create applications for Glass have also been told not to serve up any advertisements. “You may not serve or include any advertisements in your API Client,” the Mirror API terms of service state. “You may not use user data from your API Client for advertising purposes. You may not sell or transmit any user data received from your API Client(s) to a third-party ad network or service, data broker, or other advertising or marketing provider. For the avoidance of doubt, user data from the API Client(s) may not be used for Third-Party Ad Serving.” Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Google Glass specs: 16GB SSD, “full-day” battery, and no 3rd-party ads

Microsoft tells Windows 7 users to uninstall faulty security update (Updated)

Microsoft has pulled a Windows 7 security update released as part of this month’s Patch Tuesday after discovering it caused some machines to become unbootable. Update 2823324 , which was included in the MS13-036 bulletin , fixed a “moderate-level vulnerability” that requires an attacker to have physical computer access to be able to exploit a targeted computer, Dustin Childs, a group manager in the Microsoft Trustworthy Computing group, wrote in a blog post published Thursday evening. The company has now pulled it from the bulletin and is advising at least some Windows users who have installed it to uninstall the update following the guidance here . MS130-26 was one of nine bulletins released on Monday to fix 13 separate vulnerabilities. “We’ve determined that the update, when paired with certain third-party software, can cause system errors,” Childs wrote. “As a precaution, we stopped pushing 2823324 as an update when we began investigating the error reports, and have since removed it from the download center.” Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Microsoft tells Windows 7 users to uninstall faulty security update (Updated)

Intel wants to kill the traditional server rack with 100Gbps links

If Intel gets its way, old-school server racks will go the way of the dinosaurs. David Monniaux Intel is working to replace the traditional server rack with a more efficient architecture that separates CPU, storage, power, and networking resources into individual components that can be swapped out as needed. Power and cooling would be shared across CPUs, rather than having separate power supplies for each server. Server, memory, network, and storage resources would all be disaggregated and shared across the rack. Incredibly fast interconnects will be needed to prevent slowdowns because disaggregating components pushes them further apart, and Intel is thus building an interconnect that’s capable of 100Gbps. “We are developing a rack-scale architecture,” Lisa Graff, VP and general manager of Intel’s data center marketing group, said in a briefing with reporters last week. “We’re working with end users, OEMs, and ISVs to drive common standards in a reference architecture.” Read 18 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Intel wants to kill the traditional server rack with 100Gbps links

Waiting for a 1TB SSD below $1 per GB? Crucial says wait no more

Crucial announced in a press release this morning that it has begun selling its latest round of consumer-grade solid-state disks (SSDs), the M500 . The 2.5-inch SATA III SSDs are the follow-up to Crucial’s M4 SSDs, which are a pretty popular choice for people adding SSDs to existing systems (I think I have four or five M4s scattered in computers around my house). The drives use 20nm MLC NAND sourced from Micron (and if you’re not sure what MLC NAND is, we’ve got a great SSD primer right here ), along with a Micron-provided SSD controller. Performance for the M500 drives is what you’d expect from a drive in this class: sequential read and write speeds of 500MB per second and 400MB per second. But the big news about the announcement is the capacities. The M500 is available in standard pedestrian capacities of 120GB and 240GB, as well as a large capacity of 480GB, but the top-end SKU is the exciting one: 960GB for just $599.99 (62¢ per raw GB). The MSRPs for the smaller capacities are $129.99 for the 120GB (about $1 per raw GB), $219.99 for the 240GB (about 91¢ per raw GB), and $399.99 for the 480GB (about 83¢ per raw GB). Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Waiting for a 1TB SSD below $1 per GB? Crucial says wait no more

Meet the nice-guy lawyers who want $1,000 per worker for using scanners

Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock Starting late last year, hundreds of US businesses began to receive demand letters from secretive patent-holding companies with six-letter gibberish names: AdzPro, GosNel, and JitNom. The letters state that using basic office equipment, like scanners that can send files to e-mail, infringes a series of patents owned by MPHJ Technologies. Unless the target companies make payments—which start at around $9,000 for the smallest targeted businesses but go up from there—they could face legal action. In a world of out-there patent claims, MPHJ is one of the most brazen yet. It’s even being talked about in Congress. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), who has sponsored the anti-troll SHIELD Act, cited the operation as a perfect example of why the system needs reform. After publishing a story on the scanner-trolling scheme , Ars heard from letter recipients and their lawyers from around the country—Idaho and Texas, California and South Dakota. Before the AdzPros and GosNels took over, the patents were owned by an entity called Project Paperless, which threatened dozens of businesses in Virginia and Georgia. Project Paperless ultimately filed two lawsuits, prosecuted by lawyers at Hill, Kertscher, and Wharton, an Atlanta firm with complex connections to the patents. In late 2012, Project Paperless sold the patents to MPHJ Technology Investments. Today, the anonymous owner of MPHJ operates GosNel, AdzPro, JitNom, and at least a dozen other shell companies now targeting small businesses around the country. Read 65 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Meet the nice-guy lawyers who want $1,000 per worker for using scanners

Report: Xbox 360 successor can tolerate only brief Internet interruptions

Kotaku is citing two unnamed sources that it says “have a perfect track record in getting these kinds of things right” to report that Microsoft’s follow-up to the Xbox 360 will need a working Internet connection to start games and apps. And the site goes on to write that the system will only tolerate brief interruptions in that connection while the game or app is being used. “Unless something has changed recently, Durango consumer units must have an active Internet connection to be used,” one source told the site, referring to the internal code name for Microsoft’s next system. “If there isn’t a connection, no games or apps can be started. If the connection is interrupted, then after a period of time—currently three minutes, if I remember correctly—the game/app is suspended and the network troubleshooter started.” Another source said this requirement was still in effect on development hardware as recently as two weeks ago. Information suggesting that the next Microsoft console will need to be online is nothing new; numerous leaks and rumors have pointed in that direction throughout the last year or so. However, this is the first serious suggestion that such connectivity would need to be more or less continuous while a game is being played, rather than just checked once when a game or app is launched. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Report: Xbox 360 successor can tolerate only brief Internet interruptions

Report: Troubled Doom 4 being retargeted for next-generation systems

Nearly five years after it was officially announced and nine years after the release of Doom 3 , we’ve heard precious little about the development of Id Software’s Doom 4 . It seems that silence has masked a troubled development cycle that has been restarted at least once and is currently not all that close to being finished. Kotaku talked to a number of unnamed sources “with connections to the Id Software-developed game” and lays out a tale of mismanaged resources and distractions. Chief among these distractions was Rage , the 2011 release that developer Id thought would put it back on top of the first-person shooter heap. When that game was  savaged by harsh reviews and low sales, Id reportedly halted plans for DLC and a sequel and refocused the entire company on Doom 4 , which had largely languished during the work on Rage . “I kinda think maybe the studio heads were so distracted on shipping Rage that they were blind to the happenings of Doom , and the black hole of mediocrity [the team] was swirling around,” one source told Kotaku. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Report: Troubled Doom 4 being retargeted for next-generation systems

Solid electrolyte may end the catastrophic failures of lithium batteries

Batteries like this one with liquid electrolytes may eventually get a run for their money. pinkyracer Lithium batteries have become a very popular technology, powering everything from cell phones to cars. But that doesn’t mean the technology is without its problems; lithium batteries have been implicated in some critical technological snafus, from exploding laptops to grounded airplanes . Most of these problems can be traced back to the electrolyte, a liquid that helps ions carry charges within the battery. Liquid electrolytes can leak, burn, and distort the internal structure of the battery, swelling it in ways that can lead to a catastrophic failure. The solution, of course, would be to get rid of the liquids. But ions don’t tend to move as easily through solids, which creates another set of problems. Now, researchers have formulated a solid in which lithium ions can move about five times faster than any previously described substance. Better yet, the solid—a close chemical relative of styrofoam—helps provide structural stability to the battery. Don’t expect to see a styrofoam battery in your next cellphone though, as the material needs to be heated to 60°C in order to work. The problem with liquid electrolytes has to do with the fact that, during recharging, lithium ions end up forming deposits of metal inside the battery. These create risks of short circuits (the problem that grounded Boeing’s Dreamliner 787) and can damage the battery’s structure, causing leaks and a fire risk. Solid electrodes get around this because the lithium ions will only come out of the electrolyte at specific locations within the solid, and can’t form the large metal deposits that cause all of the problems. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Solid electrolyte may end the catastrophic failures of lithium batteries