Month: April 2017

Enlarge / Artist's impression of a nomx product under the scrutiny of security researchers. (credit: Aurich/ThinkStock/Nomx)

This article was originally published on Scott Helme's blog and is reprinted here with his permission.

I was recently invited to take part in some research by BBC Click, alongside Professor Alan Woodward, to analyze a device that had quite a lot of people all excited. With slick marketing, catchy tag lines and some pretty bold claims about its security, nomx claims to have cracked e-mail security once and for all. Down the rabbit hole we go!

nomx

You can find the official nomx site at nomx.com and right away you will see how secure this device is.

The nomx site as it looked prior to the publication of this piece. (credit: nomx)

"Everything else is insecure."

Enlarge / Build your own Google Home with the Assistant SDK.

Today Google is launching yet another Google Assistant feature: The Google Assistant SDK. This will allow developers to run the Google Assistant on their own hardware prototypes. While the SDK is only launching in "Developer Preview" mode today, this is presumably the beginning of a push for third parties to make their own consumer Google Assistant hardware.

Google says the SDK will allow any device to provide "the full Google Assistant experience." Together with the "Actions on Google" API that launched last year, developers can create their own voice commands and responses that can control the local device. Developers are also sent everything in text form so their software can see what's going on and react to it. To start listening, the SDK supports both the "OK Google" hotword and a button.

Right now, the Google Assistant is only available on some Android form factors (phones and watches) and products directly from Google, like the Google Home. The SDK should let it run on just about anything, though. Google suggests "adding smarts to a toy robot" or just getting up and running quickly on a Raspberry Pi.

Intel Skylake die shot. (credit: Intel)

While Intel's desktop and laptop processors are using the latest generation Kaby Lake core, the multisocket high-end Xeon processors, used in servers and workstations, are still using the much older Broadwell core. The full range is due to be refreshed soon, with a whole range of new chips using a derivative of the Skylake core. There's still not much known about these long-awaited processors, but Intel has let slip one thing: an all-new naming scheme.

Currently, Xeons have a series name—one of E3, E5, and E7—a model number—a four digit number—and a version number. The version number denotes the basic architecture, with the current version 4 meaning Broadwell. The series name indicates the core variant—in general, E7 has more RAM capacity, more cores, and more reliability features than E5, and E3 is used for parts that are essentially rebranded standard desktop chips. The first digit of the model number denotes the number of sockets supported (from the single socket 1xxx parts up to the eight socket 8xxx parts), with the remaining three digits having no particular systematic meaning, but being used to distinguish between all the different core count and clock speed options.

(credit: Intel)

The new naming, which Intel has disclosed in a change notification document (spotted by Computerbase), appears to discard this scheme entirely. At the top are 14 processors branded "Xeon Platinum" at base speeds from 2.0 to 3.6GHz and 8000-series model numbers. These are presumed to be counterparts to the current E7 range. Exact socket and core counts remain unknown. Most of the Platinum series is expected to offer between 22 and 28 cores, with the exception of the 3.6GHz part; this will use the same design, but with far fewer cores enabled, to offer a high-cache, high-clock option.

Ron Amadeo

It's the end of another era for BlackBerry. Its last internally designed phone, the BlackBerry KeyOne, will be available for preorder in Canada on May 18 and released in Canada and the US on May 31. Unlike 2015's keyboard-equipped BlackBerry Priv, the KeyOne isn't a slider—its keyboard is always exposed, and as a result, it has a shorter and more squarish display than most modern smartphones. Like the Priv, though, the KeyOne runs a lightly customized version of Android (version 7.1.1, in this case) with some of BlackBerry's apps and services preinstalled.

The US version will only be available for the full unlocked price of $549 at first, but the Canadian version will be available for $199 with a two-year contract from Bell, Bell MTS, SaskTel, and Telus Business. The UK version is also available now from Selfridges for £499, with a Carphone Warehouse launch following on May 5.

Enlarge / Net neutrality supporters march past the FCC headquarters before a commission meeting on May 15, 2014. (credit: Getty Images | The Washington Post)

Did you feel a sudden loss of Internet freedom in February 2015? That's when the Federal Communications Commission imposed net neutrality rules that prevent Internet service providers from discriminating against websites and other online services. And that's when Americans lost their Internet freedom—according to the current FCC chairman, Ajit Pai.

Pai, a Republican and former Verizon lawyer, opposed the net neutrality rules when Democrats held the commission's majority, and he quickly got to work dismantling the rules after being appointed chair by President Donald Trump. To convince the public that the FCC should eliminate rules it passed two years ago, Pai's office yesterday issued a press release titled, "Restoring Internet freedom for all Americans."

The press release says the plan to eliminate Obama-era Internet regulations "will benefit all Americans" by "boost[ing] competition and choice in the broadband marketplace" and "will restore Internet Freedom by ending government micromanagement and returning to the bipartisan regulatory framework that worked well for decades."

Enlarge / We're talking mostly water that is way older than this fellow, but also a little water that's slightly younger... (credit: Don Harrison)

Water is typically considered a renewable resource, as the global cycle of evaporation and precipitation constantly redistributes it. But not all sources of fresh drinking water work that way. Some accumulate at modest rates, which can easily be surpassed by extraction for people and crops. In the case of groundwater aquifers, this extraction is sometimes referred to as “mining,” since water that fell as rain long ago can be quickly depleted by wells.

A new study led by the University of Calgary’s Scott Jasechko estimates how much of the Earth’s accessible groundwater is “fossil” water that has been down there for 12,000 years or more, predating the current interglacial climate period. Along the way, the researchers discovered a surprise—that “fossil” water may not be as untouched by human pollution as we thought.

Old water can be bound in dry areas with very low aquifer-refilling rates, or it can reside deeper in wetter regions, often below relatively impermeable rock layers that separate aquifers. Although water that has spent so long in contact with bedrock sometimes picks up problematic geological contaminants, these deeper waters typically enjoy the advantage of being isolated from human activities. Shallow aquifers can contain pesticides, for example, or industrial contaminants.