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Windows 8.1 gains boot-to-desktop to attract business users

At TechEd North America today, Microsoft unveiled a host of features coming in Windows 8.1 that should make the operating system more appealing to business users. Windows 8.1 is a free update to Windows 8 that will ship  later this year . On top of bringing back a Taskbar-visible Start button , Windows 8.1 will give enterprises a lot more control over the operating system’s appearance. Chief among these controls is the ability to boot straight to the desktop, a feature found in prerelease versions of Windows 8 but not officially supported in the final version. Additionally, IT departments can now exact more control over the Start screen, fixing its layout and prepopulating it with tiles for corporate apps. At its most extreme, this will allow IT departments to turn Windows 8 machines into kiosks, booting into specific Metro apps. If the built-in capabilities aren’t sufficient, Microsoft will be releasing an embeddable version. The catchily-named Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry will be for use in things like point-of-sale systems and ATMs. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Windows 8.1 gains boot-to-desktop to attract business users

Haswell is here: we detail Intel’s first 4th-generation Core CPUs

Intel is announcing the first of its fourth-generation Core processors based on the “Haswell” architecture. Intel Intel has been releasing information about Haswell, its next-generation CPU architecture, for months now. Our coverage has already been fairly extensive—we’ve already got a nice overview of Haswell’s CPU architecture itself, along with a primer on its brand-new integrated GPUs . All we need to know now is specific product information, and Intel is finally giving us our first official taste of that today. This morning’s announcements revolve around high-end quad-core chips in the Core i7 and Core i5 families, 12 for desktops and ten for laptops. If you’re looking for specific information about U- and Y- series low-voltage chips for Ultrabooks or anything belonging to the Core i3, Pentium, or Celeron families, you’ll have to wait a little while longer. We’ll be sure to pass that information along as we have it. What we’ll do here is present a high-level recap of the CPU, GPU, and chipset enhancements Intel is introducing in Haswell. After that, we’ll break down the specific CPUs that Intel is announcing today, and the kinds of systems you’re likely to find them in. Note that all of this information is coming directly from Intel—they’re not going to out-and-out make things up, but they’re definitely going to present their CPUs in the best possible light. We’ll be putting all of the below performance claims to the test as we begin to review Haswell-based systems later this summer. Read 30 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Haswell is here: we detail Intel’s first 4th-generation Core CPUs

iCloud users take note: Apple two-step protection won’t protect your data

A diagram showing how Apple’s two-step verification works. Apple If you think your pictures, contacts, and other data are protected by the two-step verification protection Apple added to its iCloud service in March , think again. According to security researchers in Moscow, the measure helps prevent fraudulent purchases made with your Apple ID but does nothing to augment the security of files you store. To be clear, iCloud data is still secure so long as the password locking it down is strong and remains secret. But in the event that your account credentials are compromised—which is precisely the eventuality Apple’s two-factor verification is intended to protect against—there’s nothing stopping an adversary from accessing data stored in your iCloud account. Researchers at ElcomSoft—a developer of sophisticated software for cracking passwords—made this assessment in a blog post published Thursday . “In its current implementation, Apple’s two-factor authentication does not prevent anyone from restoring an iOS backup onto a new (not trusted) device,” ElcomSoft CEO Vladimir Katalov wrote. “In addition, and this is much more of an issue, Apple’s implementation does not apply to iCloud backups, allowing anyone and everyone knowing the user’s Apple ID and password to download and access information stored in the iCloud. This is easy to verify; simply log in to your iCloud account, and you’ll have full information to everything stored there without being requested any additional logon information.” Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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iCloud users take note: Apple two-step protection won’t protect your data

In wake of Liberty Reserve bust, Mt. Gox will require user verification

On Thursday, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, announced that it would require all users to “be verified in order to perform any currency deposits and withdrawals. Bitcoin deposits do not need verification, and at this time we are not requiring verification for Bitcoin withdrawals.” The company did not provide any explanation about why it was imposing this new requirement, but it did say that it would be able to process most verifications within 48 hours. The move comes two days after federal prosecutors went after Liberty Reserve , another online currency that had notoriously poor verification. (In court documents, a federal investigator in that case included an address of “123 Fake Main Street, Completely Made Up City, New York” to create an account that was accepted.) It also comes two weeks after the Department of Homeland Security started investigating Mt. Gox over the possible crime of money transmitting without a license. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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In wake of Liberty Reserve bust, Mt. Gox will require user verification

Unprecedented e-mail privacy bill sent to Texas governor’s desk

Gov. Rick Perry is expected to sign the e-mail privacy bill, which passed both houses of the state legislature without a single “nay” vote. Gov. Rick Perry Assuming that Texas Governor Rick Perry does not veto it, the Lone Star State appears set to enact the nation’s strongest e-mail privacy bill , requiring state law enforcement agencies to get a warrant for all e-mails, regardless of the age of the e-mail. On Tuesday, the Texas bill ( HB 2268 ) was sent to Gov. Perry’s desk, where he has until June 16, 2013 to sign it or veto it—if he does neither, it will pass automatically, taking effect on September 1, 2013. The bill would give Texans more privacy over their inbox to shield against state-level snooping, but the bill would not protect against federal investigations . The bill passed both houses of the state legislature earlier this year without a single “nay” vote. This new bill, if signed, will make Texas law more privacy-conscious than the much-maligned (but frustratingly still in effect) 1986-era Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), where federal law enforcement agencies are only required to get a warrant to access recent e-mails before they are opened by the recipient. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Unprecedented e-mail privacy bill sent to Texas governor’s desk

FiOS customer discovers the limits of “unlimited” data: 77TB a month

Yes, Virginia, there is a limit to what Verizon will let you do with FiOS’ “unlimited” data plan. And a California man discovered that limit when he got a phone call from a Verizon representative wanting to know what, exactly, he was doing to create more than 50 terabytes of traffic on average per month—hitting a peak of 77TB in March alone. “I have never heard of this happening to anyone,” the 27-year-old Californian—who uses the screen name houkouonchi and would prefer not to be identified by name—wrote in a post on DSLreports.com entitled ” LOL VZ called me about my bandwidth usage Gotta go Biz. ” “But I probably use more bandwidth than any FiOS customer in California, so I am not super surprised about this.” Curious about how one person could generate that kind of traffic, Ars reached out to houkouonchi and spoke with him via instant message. As it turns out, he’s the ultimate outlier. His problem is more that he’s violated Verizon’s terms of service than his excessive bandwidth usage. An IT professional who manages a test lab for an Internet storage company, houkouonchi has been providing friends and family a personal VPN, video streaming, and peer-to-peer file service—running a rack of seven servers with 209TB of raw storage in his house. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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FiOS customer discovers the limits of “unlimited” data: 77TB a month

Tim Cook confirms: Apple spending $100 million to build new Macs in Texas

Apple is looking to bring even more Mac production back to the states. Andrew Cunningham Last week, we learned that Apple was looking to devote about $100 million to bring the manufacturing of one of its Mac product lines back to the United States. At yesterday’s Senate hearings on the company’s untaxed overseas pile of cash, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that the new Mac would be manufactured in Texas. The computer will also “include components made in Illinois and Florida and rely on equipment produced in Kentucky and Michigan.” Moving away from solid facts and into informed speculation, AllThingsD  notes that longtime Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn has facilities in Texas that may be used to build the new Mac. Apple is also building a campus in Austin, Texas, indicating that the company may continue to expand in the state. The new Mac is likely to be an updated version of one of Apple’s existing product lines—a new MacBook Air refresh looks possible for the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference next month—but we don’t know which just yet. If Apple were to move production of any of its product lines back into the country’s borders, it makes sense to start with Macs—they still sell well, but compared to the iPhone and iPad they make up a relatively small portion of Apple’s sales, and Apple has less to lose if there are hiccups. The company has been testing the waters with domestic production since at least the launch of the 2012 iMac. Some of these computers (including our 21.5-inch review unit  but  not our  27-inch review unit ) are (or were) already being made domestically, most likely nearer to Apple’s California headquarters . Read on Ars Technica | Comments

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Tim Cook confirms: Apple spending $100 million to build new Macs in Texas

Microsoft talks about Xbox One’s internals, while disclosing nothing

Here’s the money shot: the back of the console has a power connector, HDMI in and out (for the purposes of hooking your cable box up to the console), optical audio out, two USB ports, the Kinect port, an IR Out port, and an Ethernet jack. Kyle Orland The Xbox One is full of technology and after its big reveal, Microsoft talked a little about what’s going into the console, giving some tidbits of info about what makes it tick. Hardware Microsoft says that the Xbox One has five custom-designed pieces of silicon spread between the console and its Kinect sensor. It didn’t elaborate on what these are. There’s a system-on-chip combining the CPU and GPU, which we presume to be a single piece of silicon, and there’s at least one sensor chip in the Kinect, perhaps replacing the PrimeSense processor used in the Xbox 360 Kinect, but what the others might be isn’t immediately clear. Possibilities include audio processors, on-chip memory, and USB controllers. One of the key questions about the AMD-built, 64-bit, 8-core SoC is “how fast is it?” At the moment, that’s unknown. Microsoft claims that the new console has “eight times” the graphics power of the old one, though some aspects of the new system are even more improved; for example, it has 16 times the amount of RAM. Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Microsoft talks about Xbox One’s internals, while disclosing nothing

This is cool: Qualcomm shows off its Mirasol display

Engadget There have been rumors of Qualcomm’s MEMS-based Mirasol display for years now. Once advertised as the “future” of e-reader displays, the company is now showcasing its proofs-of-concept. Engadget snagged a  preview of both a 5.2-inch panel display with a 2,560 x 1,440 resolution and 577 ppi embedded into the chassis of a common smartphone body, as well as 1.5-inch panel on what looks like a smartwatch. A representative at SID Display Week, where the prototype was being shown, told the site that the displays were merely mock-ups, but that the screen will likely show up in other third-party devices. The Mirasol display is touted for its energy-efficiency. It offers a six-times-over power advantage compared to both LCD and OLED displays, which means it would be the kind of display that a smartphone would make great use of. It’s made with a micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) based on Interferometric Modulation (IMOD) technology, which Qualcomm says  “offer[s] users a convergent display experience with paper-like readability in almost any ambient condition, while consuming significantly less power than any other display available today.” Ars Technica alumni Jon Stokes explained  why the Mirasol display is so energy efficient in 2009: Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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This is cool: Qualcomm shows off its Mirasol display

Critical Linux vulnerability imperils users, even after “silent” fix

Wikipedia For more than two years, the Linux operating system has contained a high-severity vulnerability that gives untrusted users with restricted accounts nearly unfettered “root” access over machines, including servers running in shared Web hosting facilities and other sensitive environments. Surprisingly, most users remain wide open even now, more than a month after maintainers of the open-source OS quietly released an update that patched the gaping hole. The severity of the bug, which resides in the Linux kernel’s “perf,” or performance counters subsystem, didn’t become clear until Tuesday, when attack code exploiting the vulnerability became publicly available (note: some content on this site is not considered appropriate in many work environments). The new script can be used to take control of servers operated by many shared Web hosting providers, where dozens or hundreds of people have unprivileged accounts on the same machine. Hackers who already have limited control over a Linux machine—for instance, by exploiting a vulnerability in a desktop browser or a Web application—can also use the bug to escalate their privileges to root. The flaw affects versions of the Linux kernel from 2.6.37 to 3.8.8 that have been compiled with the CONFIG_PERF_EVENTS kernel configuration option. “Because there’s a public exploit already available, an attacker would simply need to download and run this exploit on a target machine,” Dan Rosenberg, a senior security researcher at Azimuth Security , told Ars in an e-mail. “The exploit may not work out-of-the-box on every affected machine, in which case it would require some fairly straightforward tweaks (for someone with exploit development experience) to work properly.” Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Critical Linux vulnerability imperils users, even after “silent” fix