power – Page 2 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Tesla Is Shipping Hundreds of Powerwall Batteries To Puerto Rico

schwit1 quotes a report from Futurism: In a continued streak of goodwill during this year’s devastating hurricane season, Tesla has been shipping hundreds of its Powerwall batteries to Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Since the hurricane hit on 20 September, much of the U.S. territory has been left without power — about 97 percent, as of 27 September — hampering residents’ access to drinkable water, perishable food, and air conditioning. The island’s hospitals are struggling to keep generators running as diesel fuel dwindles. Installed by employees in Puerto Rico, Tesla’s batteries could be paired with solar panels in order to store electricity for the territory, whose energy grid may need up to six months to be fully repaired. Several power banks have already arrived to the island, and more are en route. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Critical EFI Code in Millions of Macs Isn’t Getting Apple’s Updates

Andy Greenberg, writing for Wired:At today’s Ekoparty security conference, security firm Duo plans to present research on how it delved into the guts of tens of thousands of computers to measure the real-world state of Apple’s so-called extensible firmware interface, or EFI. This is the firmware that runs before your PC’s operating system boots and has the potential to corrupt practically everything else that happens on your machine. Duo found that even Macs with perfectly updated operating systems often have much older EFI code, due to either Apple’s neglecting to push out EFI updates to those machines or failing to warn users when their firmware update hits a technical glitch and silently fails. For certain models of Apple laptops and desktop computers, close to a third or half of machines have EFI versions that haven’t kept pace with their operating system system updates. And for many models, Apple hasn’t released new firmware updates at all, leaving a subset of Apple machines vulnerable to known years-old EFI attacks that could gain deep and persistent control of a victim’s machine. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Critical EFI Code in Millions of Macs Isn’t Getting Apple’s Updates

Germany, in a First, Shuts Down Left-Wing Extremist Website

An anonymous reader shares a report: An influential website linked to violence at the Group of 20 summit meeting in Hamburg last month has been ordered to shut down, in the first such move against left-wing extremists in the country (alternative source), the authorities in Germany said on Friday. Thomas de Maiziere, the interior minister, said that the unrest in Hamburg, during which more than 20, 000 police officers were deployed and more than 400 people arrested or detained, had been stirred up on the website and showed the “serious consequences” of left-wing extremism. “The prelude to the G-20 summit in Hamburg was not the only time that violent actions and attacks on infrastructural facilities were mobilized on linksunten.indymedia, ” he said, referring to the website. The order on Friday was the latest move in a long battle against extremism in Germany. It comes in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., this month and amid worries about “antifa” factions that use violence to combat the far-right in the United States. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AMD Ryzen Threadripper Launched: Performance Benchmarks Vs Intel Skylake-X

Reader MojoKid writes: AMD continues its attack on the desktop CPU market versus Intel today, with the official launch of the company’s Ryzen Threadripper processors. Threadripper is AMD’s high-end, many-core desktop processor, that leverages the same Zen microarchitecture that debuted with Ryzen 7. The top-end Ryzen Threadripper 1950X is a multi-chip module featuring 16 processor cores (two discrete die), with support for 32 threads. The base frequency for the 1950X is 3.4GHz, with all-core boost clocks of up to 3.7GHz. Four of the cores will regularly boost up to 4GHz, however, and power and temperature permitting, those four cores will reach 4.2GHz when XFR kicks in. The 12-core Threadripper 1920X has very similar clocks and its boost and XFR frequencies are exactly the same. The Threadripper 1920X’s base-clock, however, is 100MHz higher than its big brother, at 3.5GHz. In a litany of benchmarks with multi-threaded workloads, Threadripper 1950X and 1920X high core-counts, in addition to strong SMT scaling, result in the best multi-threaded scores seen from any single CPU to date. Threadripper also offers massive amounts of memory bandwidth and more IO than other Intel processors. Though absolute power consumption is somewhat high, Threadrippers are significantly more efficient than AMD’s previous-generation processors. In lightly-threaded workloads, Threadripper trails Intel’s latest Skylake-X CPUs, however, which translates to lower performance in applications and games that can’t leverage all of Threadripper’s additional compute resources. Threadripper 1950X and 1920X processors are available starting today at $999 and $799, respectively. On a per-core basis, they’re less expensive than Intel Skylake-X and very competitively priced. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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AMD Ryzen Threadripper Launched: Performance Benchmarks Vs Intel Skylake-X

Startup Unveils Revolutionary New Rechargeable Alkaline Batteries

Slashdot reader cdreimer quotes the New York Times: Alkaline batteries can be made far more cheaply and safely than today’s lithium-ion batteries, but they are not rechargeable… Ionic Materials could change that equation with an alkaline battery the company said could be recharged hundreds of times. One additional benefit of the company’s breakthrough: An alkaline battery would not be as prone to the combustion issues that have plagued lithium-ion batteries in a range of products, most notably some Samsung smartphones. Cheaper and more powerful batteries are also considered by many to be the driver needed to make the cost of renewable energy technologies like wind and solar competitive with the coal, gas and nuclear power that support the national energy grid. The company “has demonstrated up to 400 recharge cycles for its prototypes, ” and it’s now even investigating aluminum-based alkaline batteries which would also be lighter than lithium-ion batteries. The company is backed by Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy, who also envisions the batteries being used in electric cars. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Startup Unveils Revolutionary New Rechargeable Alkaline Batteries

Tesla is building world’s largest backup battery in Australia

After blackouts left 1.7 million residents without electricity, Elon Musk famously guaranteed that Tesla could supply 100 megawatts of battery storage in 100 days. The company has announced it will do just that, supplying a Powerpack battery storage system that can run over 30, 000 homes. The 100-megawatt project “will be the highest power battery system in the world by a factor of three, ” tweeted CEO Elon Musk. It will back up the 315 megawatt Hornsdale Wind Farm, charging during low energy usage and providing electricity for peak hours. Though the company seemed destined to get the job, the South Australian government picked it after a “competitive bidding process, ” Tesla said. It added that the size of the system will be enough to cover the 30, 000 or so homes in the region that were affected by blackouts. Tesla’s Powerpack battery storage system (AOL/Roberto Baldwin) Those power outages set off a political conflagration that culminated in a very testy press conference with South Australia’s Premier and the Federal Environment Minister. Shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull unveiled a $1.5 billion plan to expand the power grid to run an additional 500, 000 homes, including backup battery storage. That was when Tesla Energy head Lyndon Rive stepped in and made his “100 megawatts in 100 days” pledge, and (his cousin) Musk upping the ante by promising the system would be free if they didn’t achieve the goal. Musk confirmed that he’d keep the promise, telling Australia’s ABC News that “if South Australia is willing to take a big risk, then so are we.” The 100 day pledge reportedly begins once the grid interconnection agreement is inked, and Musk estimates that it will cost him “probably $50 million or more” if the installation isn’t completed in time. This will be the highest power battery system in the world by a factor of 3. Australia rocks!! https://t.co/c1DD7xtC90 — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 7, 2017 Via: Elon Musk (Twitter) Source: Tesla

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Tesla is building world’s largest backup battery in Australia

Fileless malware attack against US restaurants went undetected by most AV

Enlarge (credit: Carol Von Canon ) Researchers have detected a brazen attack on restaurants across the United States that uses a relatively new technique to keep its malware undetected by virtually all antivirus products on the market. Malicious code used in so-called fileless attacks resides almost entirely in computer memory, a feat that prevents it from leaving the kinds of traces that are spotted by traditional antivirus scanners. Once the sole province of state-sponsored spies casing the highest value targets , the in-memory techniques are becoming increasingly common in financially motivated hack attacks . They typically make use of commonly used administrative tools such as PowerShell, Metasploit, and Mimikatz, which feed a series of malicious commands to targeted computers. FIN7, an established hacking group with ties to the Carbanak Gang , is among the converts to this new technique, researchers from security firm Morphisec reported in a recently published blog post . The dynamic link library file it’s using to infect Windows computers in an ongoing attack on US restaurants would normally be detected by just about any AV program if the file was written to a hard drive. But because the file contents are piped into computer memory using PowerShell, it wasn’t visible to any of the 56 most widely used AV programs, according to a Virus Total query conducted earlier this month. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Fileless malware attack against US restaurants went undetected by most AV

Malware downloader infects your PC without a mouse click

You think you’re safe from malware since you never click suspicious-looking links, then somebody finds a way to infect your PC anyway. Security researchers have discovered that cybercriminals have recently started using a malware downloader that installs a banking Trojan to your computer even if you don’t click anything. All it takes to trigger the download is to hover your mouse pointer over a hyperlink in a carrier PowerPoint file. According to researchers from Trend Micro and Dodge This Security the technique was used by a recent spam email campaign targeting companies and organizations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The emails’ subjects were mostly finance-related, such as “Invoice” and “Order #, ” with an attached PowerPoint presentation. [Image credit: Trend Micro] The PowerPoint file has a single hyperlink in the center that says “Loading… please wait” that has an embedded malicious PowerShell script. When you hover your mouse pointer over the link, it executes the script. If you’re running a newer version of Microsoft Office, though, you’ll still need to approve the malware’s download before it infects your PC. That’s because the more modern versions of the suite has Protected View, which will show a prompt warning you about a “potential security concern” when the script starts running. Just click Disable, and you’ll be fine. However, older versions of the suite don’t have that extra layer of security. The downloader can install a Trojan virus into your system to steal your credentials and bank account information the moment your mouse pointer hovers over the link. [Image credit: Trend Micro] The good news is that the spam emails died down back on May 29th after peaking on the 25th with 1, 444 detections by Trend Micro. Still, it’s better to steer clear of similar emails, since it’s always possible that the campaign in May was just a test run for a bigger one. Via: Ars Technica Source: Trend Micro , Dodge This Security

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Malware downloader infects your PC without a mouse click

No, Your Phone Didn’t Ring. So Why Voice Mail From a Telemarketer?

Slashdot reader midwestsilentone tipped us off to a growing problem. Lifehacker reports: New technology allows telemarketers to leave ringless voicemail messages, and it’s a method that’s gaining traction. While there are laws to regulate businesses when they call consumers, some groups argue that ringless voicemail shouldn’t count. The New York Times reports, “ringless voicemail providers and pro-business groups…argue that these messages should not qualify as calls and, therefore, should be exempt from consumer protection laws that ban similar types of telephone marketing”… After receiving a petition from a ringless voicemail provider, the Federal Trade Commission has started to collect public comments on this issue. So what can you do about it? First, you can head here to leave your public comment and if you’re getting these voicemails, you can file a complaint with the FCC here. Presumably that only applies if you’re in the U.S. But I’d be curious to hear how many Slashdot readers have experienced this. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Electric Vehicles Have Another Record Year, Reaching 2 Million Cars In 2016

An anonymous reader shares a report from the International Energy Agency: The number of electric cars on the roads around the world rose to 2 million in 2016, following a year of strong growth in 2015, according to the latest edition of the International Energy Agency’s Global EV Outlook. China remained the largest market in 2016, accounting for more than 40% of the electric cars sold in the world. With more than 200 million electric two-wheelers and more than 300, 000 electric buses, China is by far the global leader in the electrification of transport. China, the US and Europe made up the three main markets, totaling over 90% of all EVs sold around the world. Electric car deployment in some markets is swift. In Norway, electric cars had a 29% market share last year, the highest globally, followed by the Netherlands with 6.4%, and Sweden with 3.4%. The electric car market is set to transition from early deployment to mass market adoption over the next decade or so. Between 9 and 20 million electric car could be deployed by 2020, and between 40 and 70 million by 2025, according to estimates based on recent statement from carmakers. Read more of this story at Slashdot.