Month: October 2021

Lilbits: Raspberry Pi-powered storage server, Android 12’s new Internet tile, and Palm’s new earbuds

A company called KubeSail is introducing a compact network-attached storage device called the PiBox 2 mini which, as the name suggests, is powered by Raspberry Pi hardware. Up for pre-order through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for $250 and up with an expected ship date of March, 2022, it’s designed to work with up to two […]

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A company called KubeSail is introducing a compact network-attached storage device called the PiBox 2 mini which, as the name suggests, is powered by Raspberry Pi hardware. Up for pre-order through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for $250 and up with an expected ship date of March, 2022, it’s designed to work with up to two 2.5 inch SSDs.

But it’s also just the first of several planned projects, including a Box 2 with room for dual 3.5 inch hard drives and the 5-bay Box 5 and Box 5 Mini. Whether they’re ever released will likely depend on the success or failure of the PiBox 2 mini campaign.

PiBox 2 Mini

Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.

PiBox: A Modular Raspberry Pi Storage Server [Kickstarter]

The PiBox is a DIY NAS with dual 2.5 SATA drives, a 1.3″ display, HDMI and USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0. It’s powered by a Rasberry Pi Compute Module 4. Crowdfunding for $250 and up on Kickstarter, it could ship in March.

Behind the scenes looks at the Android 12’s new Internet tile [Pixel Phone Help]

Material You in Android 12 takes some getting used to… but so does the new “Internet” Quick Settings tile, which combines WiFi & Mobile Data, meaning there’s an extra step to disable WiFi. Google explains the new approach has an advantage though.

But if you really want to get the WiFi & cellular tiles back in your Android 12 Quick Settings, you can install the Android SDK (or just the platform tools) on a computer and run a single adb command to bring them back.

Photoshop ships major updates across desktop and iPad apps — Extends Light Editing and Collaboration features to the Web (beta) [Adobe]

Photoshop is coming to the web (in beta, with a limited set of editing features). Aimed at collaboration, there’s also support for comments, pins, and annotations. Chrome or Edge browsers required. Photoshop for desktop & iPad are also learning new tricks.

Palm’s brand resuscitated again for true wireless earbuds [The Verge]

The Palm brand is now being used to hock $129 true wireless earbuds (although they’re on sale for $99 at launch, which isn’t horrible for a set with active noise cancellation). There’s no straight line between these and Palm Pilot devices though. A completely different company now has the rights to the Palm name. And honestly, does it even make sense to call things you wear in your ears rather than hold in your hands “Palm?”

Keep up on the latest headlines by following Liliputing on Twitter and Facebook and follow @LinuxSmartphone on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news on open source mobile phones.

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MPA Wants Cryptocurrency Exchanges To Help Identify Online Pirates

The Motion Picture Association would like the US Government’s executive cybersecurity order to be optimized to identify operators of pirate sites and services. Among other things, the order should require U.S.-based IaaS providers, including hosting services, DNS servers, reverse proxies, and cryptocurrency exchanges, to robustly verify the identities of foreign customers.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

anonymous cardAnonymity is a great good on the Internet but increasingly there are calls for stricter identity checks.

Such requirements are not new. In daily life, many people encounter situations where they have to prove their identity. When opening a bank account, for example. But online it is still rare.

At the start of this year, then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order that could help change this. Titled: ‘Taking Additional Steps to Address the National Emergency With Respect to Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities,’ aims to tackle online cybercrime including copyright infringement.

IaaS Providers Should Verify Customers

The executive order aims to stop foreign cybercriminals from using US-based Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) products. Specifically, this can be achieved by requiring such services to properly verify and retain the identities of non-US customers.

This proposal is music to the ears of large copyright holder groups, including the Motion Picture Association (MPA). Rightsholders often complain that anonymous operators of pirate sites and services use American services such as domain registrars, hosting companies, CDN and proxy services, and even cryptocurrency exchanges.

So, when the U.S. Department of Commerce launched a public consultation on the implementation of the executive order, Hollywood’s anti-piracy group was keen to respond. According to the MPA, the proposal will help to deter piracy, but only under the right conditions.

MPA Proposes Strict Requirements

Under the DMCA, online services can already be required to identify potential copyright infringers. However, the MPA notes that operators of pirate sites and services often use false information.

“In our experience, malicious cyber actors – including operators of piracy sites and services – almost always misrepresent their identity to IaaS providers. The regulations should therefore ensure that the verification of their identities generates a high degree of confidence that the recorded identities are genuine,” MPA writes.

Among other things, IaaS providers shouldn’t just verify personal information when an account is opened. The services should make sure that this information remains accurate while the customer uses its products.

In addition, the MPA would like these robust identity checks to apply to all customers, not just foreign ones. After all, pirate sites aren’t merely operated by people from other countries.

“While a significant share of malicious cyber activity – including copyright infringement – is perpetrated by non-U.S. commercial actors, U.S. business customers represent a non-negligible share of perpetrators of malicious cyber-enabled activities.”

Ensuring Effective and Correct Policies

The MPA suggests three measures that should help to ensure that the new requirements are effective and correctly implemented by IaaS providers.

Firstly, online services should offer a tool that allows interested parties to notify them if their clients are potentially using false or misleading identities. Secondly, services should terminate the accounts of clients whose information is false or misleading, and who fail to correct these errors.

The third measure is targeted at the IaaS providers themselves. If they fail to comply with the regulation, financial penalties should follow.

The MPA wholeheartedly supports the efforts to require IaaS providers to identify customers. However, the group is concerned that the current IaaS definition used by the Government isn’t broad enough.

Cryptocurrency Exchanges and DNS Servers

For this reason, the regulation should ensure that it covers a wide range of services, including web hosting, reverse proxies, CDNs, DNS servers, anti-DDoS services, domain registrars, payment processors, advertising networks, and cryptocurrency exchanges.

The role of hosting providers is obvious, but the Hollywood group stresses that cryptocurrency exchanges and DNS servers also play an important crucial role in the piracy ecosystem.

“Cryptocurrencies have become a popular method among malicious cyber actors – including copyright infringers – for anonymously receiving payments and storing profits,” MPA writes.

“[DNS] servers ‘resolve’ a web address into the corresponding IP address. DNS resolution is an essential networking function of the internet and infrastructure that is essential to operating a website,” the group adds.

At the moment, many cryptocurrency exchanges already have thorough verification procedures, but the MPA clearly sees room for improvement. For DNS servers this may be harder to implement, as these generally don’t have site operators as customers. But perhaps these could be otherwise urged to stop resolving pirate sites?

If implemented, the MPA has good hope that the new regulation will help to track down cybercriminals and significantly deter piracy. In due course, this should help protect entertainment industry revenues while keeping the public safe from piracy-related malware threats.

—

A copy of the Motion Picture Association’s comments and suggestions in response to the U.S. Department of Commerce consultation is available here (pdf)

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

FCC kicks China Telecom Americas out of US, cites Chinese government control

China Telecom Americas ordered to stop providing service in US within 60 days.

Illustration of the US and Chinese flags next to each other on a wall with a crack separating the two flags.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | MicroStockHub)

The Federal Communications Commission today voted to block China Telecom Americas from the US market, saying that the "US subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned enterprise" is "subject to exploitation, influence, and control by the Chinese government." The telco "is highly likely to be forced to comply with Chinese government requests without sufficient legal procedures subject to independent judicial oversight," the FCC said.

The vote was 4-0 with both Democrats and both Republicans approving the order to revoke and terminate China Telecom's Section 214 authority to operate in the US. The FCC said its order "directs China Telecom Americas to discontinue any domestic or international services that it provides pursuant to its Section 214 authority within sixty days following the release of the order."

The FCC pointed to a "changed national security environment with respect to China since the commission authorized China Telecom Americas to provide telecommunications services in the United States almost two decades ago." The company's "ownership and control by the Chinese government raise significant national security and law enforcement risks by providing opportunities for China Telecom Americas, its parent entities, and the Chinese government to access, store, disrupt, and/or misroute US communications, which in turn allow them to engage in espionage and other harmful activities against the United States," the FCC said.

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Adobe brings new Creative Cloud apps to M1 Macs and the web

Also, the iPad version of Photoshop is getting RAW image support.

The somewhat inscrutable branding for Adobe's MAX conference.

Enlarge / The somewhat inscrutable branding for Adobe's MAX conference. (credit: Adobe)

Today is the first day of Adobe Max 2021, the software-as-a-service company's annual conference where it announces major features for Creative Cloud products like Photoshop.

This year's event kicked off with announcements of several new features for Creative Cloud's various iPad apps, two more applications running natively on Apple Silicon Macs, and new web versions of some apps, among other things.

Adobe said it is adding or improving AI-driven tools across the suite, including an updated Object Selection Tool for Photoshop on Desktop. And some AI tools previously seen in Photoshop, like the Sky Replacement tool, are headed to Lightroom on Mac, iPad, and iPhone for the first time.

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Grammarly is bringing writing suggestions to Samsung Keyboard app

Most smartphone keyboards these days have an auto-correct feature. Some also have predictive text, offering suggestions for the next word or words you may be likely to type. But soon the Samsung Keyboard app will go further with grammar, punctuation, and other suggestions. Grammarly has announced a partnership with Samsung to bring the company’s writing […]

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Most smartphone keyboards these days have an auto-correct feature. Some also have predictive text, offering suggestions for the next word or words you may be likely to type. But soon the Samsung Keyboard app will go further with grammar, punctuation, and other suggestions.

Grammarly has announced a partnership with Samsung to bring the company’s writing prediction software to the default keyboard app for the Samsung Galaxy S21 and other phones.

In a nutshell, Grammarly positions itself as a tool that does what a spellchecker does… but for grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, and even how concise your written text is. The company offers desktop apps, browser extensions, and add-ins for Microsoft and Outlook as well as a Grammarly Keyboard app for iOS or Android.

So you could already use the software on a mobile device, but starting in November, folks with a Galaxy S21 will have Grammarly baked into their default keyboard app with no need to install a third-party solution.

Grammarly says the software will roll out to other devices running Samsung’s OneUI 4.0 software “in the coming months.”

While the basic Grammarly service is free to use, it only covers spelling, grammar, and punctuation. If you want tips on vocabulary, tone, and other advanced features you’ll need a Grammarly Premium subscription. Prices normally start at $12 per month (if you pay for a full year at a time), but Samsung users will get a 90-day free trial.

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Homebuilder hopes 3D printing will solve worker shortages, tests tech in 100 homes

Additive manufacturing could speed building process but still has a ways to go.

Icon's Vulcan construction system 3D-prints walls layer by layer using specially formulated concrete.

Enlarge / Icon's Vulcan construction system 3D-prints walls layer by layer using specially formulated concrete. (credit: ICON Technology, Inc.)

Construction companies have been experimenting with 3D printing for years, but next year, a major homebuilder is going to break ground in Austin, Texas, on what will be the largest such development to date.

The new community will consist of 100 homes built with first floors made from 3D-printed concrete and finished using traditional wood-frame construction techniques. Construction technology startup Icon will be handling the 3D-printing portion, and Lennar, a large homebuilding firm, will finish them off. Bjarke Ingles Group, known for its creative and whimsical buildings, is assisting with the design.

Icon had previously built four homes in Austin using its 3D-printing technology. “We’re sort of graduating from singles and dozens of homes to hundreds of homes,” CEO Jason Ballard told The Wall Street Journal.

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More zombie-brand Motorola smartwatches are launching soon

Lenovo makes the phones, but a random brand-acquisition company makes the watches.

More zombie-brand Motorola smartwatches are launching soon

Enlarge

Somehow, Motorola smartwatches are still happening, though they won't be from Motorola Mobility's current owner, Lenovo. There's a long and complicated story about how a company you've never heard of is manufacturing "Motorola" smartwatches, but as Android Police has been tracking, the group, called CE Brands, is indeed planning to release three new watches soon.

Ever since Motorola stopped being an independent company in 2011 and sold itself to Google, the "Motorola" brand has been fragmented across the electronics landscape. The brand is so abused today the word "Motorola" is truly a zombie brand that means basically nothing in terms of a device's lineage. It could represent a product from three different companies.

In the run-up to the Google sale, Motorola Inc. split into two companies, Motorola Mobility, for consumer electronics like smartphones and watches, and Motorola Solutions, for things like first-responder radios and other critical communication tools. Google bought Moto Mobility for $12 billion, then sold the cable modem business to Arris and started making Motorola smartphones. Google threw in the towel on Motorola in 2014 and sold the division to Lenovo, but one well-received product line that landed just before and after the transition was the Moto 360 smartwatch, which, with two generations, brought a stylish round design to early Android Wear devices.

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You only live once: Epidemiologists analyze health risks in all the James Bond films

Biggest risk might be to Bond’s sexual partners: 27.1% them died shortly after sex.

Epidemiologists analyzed all 25 James Bond films to assess 007's health risks while traveling around the world.

Enlarge / Epidemiologists analyzed all 25 James Bond films to assess 007's health risks while traveling around the world. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

A graduate student in epidemiology working in the field leads a perilous life, as Wouter Graumans discovered when he came down with a serious case of food poisoning while visiting Burkina Faso to study infectious disease. He may have also had a touch of delirium, as his experience prompted him to wonder how James Bond, Britain's most famous secret agent, managed to travel all around the world without picking up so much as a case of the sniffles.

Graumans, who is working on his PhD at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, decided to undertake an epidemiological analysis of all 25 Bond films between 1962 and 2021. He found willing accomplices in Teun Bousema, an epidemiologist, and Will Stone, who studies malaria, both affiliated with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in England.

The result is a highly entertaining, tongue-in-cheek short paper in the journal Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease. The paper details 007's exposure risk to infectious agents during his global travels, covering everything from foodborne pathogens to ticks and mites, hangovers and dehydration from all those martinis, parasites, and unsafe sex. (The authors' emails requesting funding from EON Productions sadly went unanswered.)

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Daily Deals (10-26-2021)

Lenovo’s eBay store is often a good place to pick up discounted versions of the company’s laptops, tablets, and other gear and right now you can snag a 2.8 pound Lenovo ThinkBook 13s notebook with a 13.3 inch, 2560 x 1600 pixel display, an Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD […]

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Lenovo’s eBay store is often a good place to pick up discounted versions of the company’s laptops, tablets, and other gear and right now you can snag a 2.8 pound Lenovo ThinkBook 13s notebook with a 13.3 inch, 2560 x 1600 pixel display, an Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD plus Windows 10 Pro software for $750.

A model with the same specs is currently on sale at the Lenovo website for $836, which means you can save $86 by purchasing from eBay… even though you’re giving your money to Lenovo either way.

Here are some of the day’s best deals.

Laptops

Media Streamers

Storage

Chargers & docks

Wireless earbuds

Downloads & Streaming

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Report: Microsoft is working on a low-cost Surface Laptop and “Windows 11 SE”

Ultra-low-cost laptop would be designed to compete with Chromebooks in schools.

Microsoft Surface Laptop Go

Enlarge / The Surface Laptop Go. (credit: Jeff Dunn)

Microsoft may have another Surface announcement to make before the end of the year, according to a rumor from Windows Central. The report claims that Microsoft is working on a low-cost, education-focused device, codenamed "Tenjin," designed to compete with Chromebooks in schools. The laptop could be "announced before the end of this year if plans don't change," the report says. It would also run a new variant of Windows 11, dubbed "Windows 11 SE."

The laptop would come with a low-end quad-core Intel Celeron N4120 processor, "up to" 8 GB of memory, an 11.6-inch 1366×768 display, and an all-plastic body. It would eschew the normal Surface Connect port in favor of a single USB-A port, a USB-C port, and a "barrel-style AC port." Presumably, the laptop could charge through either the AC port or the USB-C port, as current Surface devices do.

Such a laptop would slot in below the $549 12.4-inch Surface Laptop Go in Microsoft's lineup, and accomplishing that in today's supply-crunched, chip-shortage-afflicted PC market would definitely require some cost-cutting. That would explain the device's use of a two-year-old underpowered Celeron processor and a low-resolution 16:9 display, breaking with the Surface lineup's longstanding tradition of using screens with a taller 3:2 aspect ratio. The laptop may not even be available through typical retail channels, mirroring a strategy Microsoft already uses with certain business-focused Surface configurations and specific models like the Surface Pro 7+. Only offering the machine in bulk to educational institutions could further reduce the price.

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