Month: April 2020

Enlarge (credit: Andri Koolme)

For decades, the use of fingerprints to authenticate users to computers, networks, and restricted areas was mostly limited to large and well-resourced organizations that used specialized and expensive equipment. That all changed in 2013 when Apple introduced TouchID. Within a few years, fingerprint-based validation became available to the masses as computer, phone, and lock manufacturers added sensors that gave users an alternative to passwords when unlocking the devices.

Although hackers managed to defeat TouchID with a fake fingerprint less than 48 hours after the technology was rolled out in the iPhone 5, fingerprint-based authentication over the past few years has become much harder to defeat. Today, fingerprints are widely accepted as a safe alternative over passwords when unlocking devices in many, but not all, contexts.

A very high probability

A study published on Wednesday by Cisco’s Talos security group makes clear that the alternative isn’t suitable for everyone—namely those who may be targeted by nation-sponsored hackers or other skilled, well-financed, and determined attack groups. The researchers spent about $2,000 over several months testing fingerprint authentication offered by Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Huawei, and three lock makers. The result: on average, fake fingerprints were able to bypass sensors at least once roughly 80 percent of the time.

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  The new Moto Razr. After the touchscreen died, I ended up controlling it with this mouse. [credit: Ron Amadeo ]

After being on backorder for months, my Moto Razr arrived on March 30, 2020. It was beautiful. Motorola had perfectly captured the essence of old-school Moto Razr design and updated it with futuristic folding display technology. While it was still an impractical flip phone, it was fun and cool and different. The Moto Razr was something I was excited to write about.

But my Razr was not long for this world. Straight out of the box, every fold was accompanied by a groan or creek from the hinge system. I would later learn that these noises were cries of agony—every actuation brought the smartphone closer to death, as if little bits of lifeforce were leaving the phone with every flip. First, the phantom touch inputs started. While the phone was opening and closing, apps would mysteriously startup. Buttons would press themselves. Things were not good.

"This is fine," I thought. "Opening and closing the phone only happens for a very short amount of time. Once it opens and everything settles down, things are fine." Things were not fine for very long, though. These phantom touch inputs were the death throes of the flexible OLED panel, and soon they started even when the phone was open and stationary. Sometimes I could open a multitouch test app and watch as touchpoints danced across the screen. Opening and closing the phone one or two more times would usually clear up these errant touch inputs, and things would be fine again.

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  In this shot, the G14 is running the challenging Superposition GPU benchmark—and its onboard GTX 2060 Max-Q is making light work of it. [credit: Jim Salter ]

We've been excited about getting our hands on AMD's 7nm laptop parts for a long time now—even before visiting AMD's campus in Austin last month for a sneak preview. Originally, we were supposed to come home from AMD with a laptop in hand to test, but the novel coronavirus had its way with this as with many other products.

We did eventually get one of Asus' Zephyrus G14 gaming laptops with a top-of-the-line Ryzen 9 4900HS, though—and after several days of testing, we're ready to talk about it.

Overview

The Zephyrus G14 is a surprisingly small and sleek build for a full-on gaming laptop—and make no mistake about it, that's precisely what this beast is. At first glance, the 18mm-thick Zephyrus looks more like an ultraportable design than a gaming laptop. (For reference, the Acer C720 11" Chromebooks were 19mm thick.)

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  In this shot, the G14 is running the challenging Superposition GPU benchmark—and its onboard GTX 2060 Max-Q is making light work of it. [credit: Jim Salter ]

We've been excited about getting our hands on AMD's 7nm laptop parts for a long time now—even before visiting AMD's campus in Austin last month for a sneak preview. Originally, we were supposed to come home from AMD with a laptop in hand to test, but the novel coronavirus had its way with this as with many other products.

We did eventually get one of Asus' Zephyrus G14 gaming laptops with a top-of-the-line Ryzen 9 4900HS, though—and after several days of testing, we're ready to talk about it.

Overview

The Zephyrus G14 is a surprisingly small and sleek build for a full-on gaming laptop—and make no mistake about it, that's precisely what this beast is. At first glance, the 18mm-thick Zephyrus looks more like an ultraportable design than a gaming laptop. (For reference, the Acer C720 11" Chromebooks were 19mm thick.)