Month: December 2016

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As promised when AMD rolled out its long-overdue Radeon Software Crimson graphics card driver in 2015, the company has followed up with a new major version for 2016. Released today and dubbed Radeon Software Crimson ReLive—conveniently sidestepping the initial plan to introduce a new colour and name each year—the new driver features a bunch of bug fixes, performance boosts of up to eight percent for cards like the RX 480, and new power-saving tech, but also screen capture software to rival Nvidia's ShadowPlay.

Moreover, these features aren't just coming to AMD's consumer graphics cards. For the first time, the company is combining its professional Radeon Pro drivers with its consumer drivers, using the same underlying tech for both. That means whether you're using a normal Radeon GPU on a laptop, or a Radeon Pro user creating 3D models on a desktop, or a server administrator using Radeon VPro virtualisation, all will be served by the same, free driver.

But about that headline feature first. Integrated into the existing Radeon Settings interface as an additional tab, the titular "ReLive" screen capture software allows users to record gameplay or desktop footage, take screenshots, enable a DVR-like instant replay mode, and stream directly to services like YouTube and Twitch. With Instant Replay enabled, up to the last 20-minutes of gameplay or desktop use is buffered to disk, ensuring that those 20-headshot kill streaks don't go uncaptured.

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Samsung is planning to launch an all-screen, bezel-free version of its flagship Galaxy phone in the form of the Galaxy S8. The S8, which is pegged for release in March or April 2017, would also ditch the physical home button.

Instead, the S8 will feature a virtual home button "buried in the glass in the the lower section," Bloomberg reports. This would allow for Samsung to create a phone with a larger screen without increasing its overall footprint. What's not clear from the "people with direct knowledge of the matter" that Bloomberg spoke to is whether the button will be a standard capacitive key, or whether it will feature some sort of haptic feedback like the home button on the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

That Samsung will have a phone ready to launch in March comes as little surprise given the disastrous launch of the Galaxy Note 7. Despite early success, Samsung recalled the Note 7 not once, but twice following reports that flaws in the phone's battery design were causing it to smoke, or in some cases catch fire. Bloomberg notes that while Samsung is targeting a March release date for the S8, it could be pushed back further due to "tougher testing procedures" following the Note 7 fiasco.

Enlarge (credit: Le Monde)

GCHQ and the NSA have spied on air passengers using in-flight GSM mobile services for years, newly-published documents originally obtained by Edward Snowden reveal.

Technology from UK company AeroMobile and SitaOnAir is used by dozens of airlines to provide in-flight connectivity, including by British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa, and many Arab and Asian companies. Passengers connect to on-board GSM servers, which then communicate with satellites operated by British firm Inmarsat.

"The use of GSM in-flight analysis can help identify the travel of a target—not to mention the other mobile devices (and potentially individuals) onboard the same plane with them," says a 2010 NSA newsletter.

(credit: European Parliament)

Fake news hawkers have copped a sizeable telling off from Pope Francis, who has compared the phenomenon of spreading scandalous and false stories online to coprophilia—an abnormal fascination with poop.

The Pope's pop at phony folk who run fake news stories on the Web—published mostly to stir up bizarre and frenzied smears against politicians and other public figures—sits at the extreme end of clickbait and, for many commentators, it left a skid-mark over the recent US election.

"I believe that the media should be very clear, very transparent, and not fall prey—without offence, please—to the sickness of coprophilia, which is always wanting to communicate scandal, to communicate ugly things, even though they may be true," he told Belgian Catholic weekly newspaper Tertio. "And since people have a tendency towards the sickness of coprophagia, it can do great harm."