SSDs: Micron startet Serienfertigung von 3D-NAND-Flash

32 Schichten mit zwei oder drei Bits pro Zelle: Micron hat begonnen, 3D-NAND-Flash-Speicher mit 256 und 384 GBit zu produzieren. SSDs mit den neuen Chips plant der Hersteller im Sommer 2016. (Flash-Speicher, Intel)

32 Schichten mit zwei oder drei Bits pro Zelle: Micron hat begonnen, 3D-NAND-Flash-Speicher mit 256 und 384 GBit zu produzieren. SSDs mit den neuen Chips plant der Hersteller im Sommer 2016. (Flash-Speicher, Intel)

TV-Kabelnetz: Ausfall für 30.000 Haushalte bei Unitymedia

Bei Unitymedia hat eine Großstörung gestern und heute stundenlang Internet, Fernsehen und Telefon in 30.000 Haushalten lahmgelegt. Ursache der Unterbrechung waren Arbeiten an der Glasfaserstrecke. (Unitymedia, Fernsehen)

Bei Unitymedia hat eine Großstörung gestern und heute stundenlang Internet, Fernsehen und Telefon in 30.000 Haushalten lahmgelegt. Ursache der Unterbrechung waren Arbeiten an der Glasfaserstrecke. (Unitymedia, Fernsehen)

Nordrhein-Westfalen: Mehrere Krankenhäuser von Malware befallen

Viren und Krankenhäuser – da denken viele zuerst an MRSA und andere resistente Keime. Doch in NRW stören Computerviren den Betrieb mehrere Krankenhäuser – Operationen wurden abgesagt oder verschoben. (Malware, Virus)

Viren und Krankenhäuser - da denken viele zuerst an MRSA und andere resistente Keime. Doch in NRW stören Computerviren den Betrieb mehrere Krankenhäuser - Operationen wurden abgesagt oder verschoben. (Malware, Virus)

Class-action suit over iPhone-bricking Error 53 filed in California

Error affects iPhone 6 and 6S handsets with replaced or damaged TouchID sensors.

The iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, and 6S Plus don't like it when you replace their TouchID sensors. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

In recent weeks, you may have read about iPhone error code 53, a problem related to the fingerprint sensor that can keep iPhones with damaged or replaced TouchID buttons from installing updates or brick them entirely. Yesterday, a Seattle law firm filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. It argues that preventing iPhones with damaged TouchID buttons from working normally otherwise is "abusive," that Apple did not adequately warn consumers of problems that could arise from a damaged or replaced TouchID sensor, and that "more than 62 million units" have been affected in the US as of November 2015.

Class-action status has yet to be granted by a judge; we'll continue to follow the story if it goes forward.

As much as it has inconvenienced some users, there is a technical reason why Error 53 exists. Every single TouchID sensor is paired to the phone that it ships with, a security measure Apple says is designed to "prevent a fraudulent TouchID sensor from being used." If every TouchID-iPhone pairing is unique, it makes it more difficult to use a bad fingerprint sensor to get into the phone or collect fingerprint or Apple Pay transaction information. Fine.

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Fitness-Apps: Asics kauft Runkeeper

Die Fitness-App Runkeeper gehört ab sofort zum Sportartikelhersteller Asics. Beide sind auf Laufen und Jogging spezialisiert. Für Endkunden soll sich vorerst nichts ändern. In letzter Zeit haben auch Adidas und Under Armour bereits bekannte Apps gekauft. (App, Adidas)

Die Fitness-App Runkeeper gehört ab sofort zum Sportartikelhersteller Asics. Beide sind auf Laufen und Jogging spezialisiert. Für Endkunden soll sich vorerst nichts ändern. In letzter Zeit haben auch Adidas und Under Armour bereits bekannte Apps gekauft. (App, Adidas)

Silicon Photonics: Nanodraht-Laser sollen optische Chips wirtschaftlich machen

Photonen statt Elektronen – optische Schaltungen könnten eine Alternative zu elektronischen Halbleitern werden. Forscher in München haben hierzu einen neuen Ansatz entwickelt, Nanodraht-Laser mit Silizium zu verbinden. (Silicon Nanophotonics, Prozessor)

Photonen statt Elektronen - optische Schaltungen könnten eine Alternative zu elektronischen Halbleitern werden. Forscher in München haben hierzu einen neuen Ansatz entwickelt, Nanodraht-Laser mit Silizium zu verbinden. (Silicon Nanophotonics, Prozessor)

Torrents-Time Faces Security Concerns

Torrents-Time, the browser plug-in which allows people to stream torrents from The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents, has been flagged as insecure by several developers. Responding to the criticism, Torrents-Time just released an update with several fixes and improvements.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

torrents-timeOver the past two weeks Torrents-Time has made headlines on hundreds of news sites.

While streaming torrents is nothing new, it quickly reached a mainstream audience when several of the largest torrent sites adopted the technology.

Earlier this week TorrentFreak learned that the implementation hadn’t gone flawlessly on all sites. For example, The Pirate Bay is now vulnerable to XSS attacks.

This allows outsiders to execute code on the site, as shown by this example.

While Torrents-Time isn’t necessarily to blame for this issue, the software’s popularity also prompted some developers to look for other possible security concerns in the application.

Aurous and Strike developer Andrew Sampson took the software apart and summarized several findings on his personal website, ultimately characterizing Torrents-Time as unsafe.

Among other things, the software is accused of running as root on OSX, leaking private information, and making it possible for outsiders to launch torrents without the user’s knowledge.

“It’s like leaving your door open, if not worse, giving a complete stranger the keys to your house, with no background check and blindly trusting them,” Sampson tells TorrentFreak.

While some of the issues are indeed causing concern, Torrents-Time’s developers counter that several reports contain incorrect statements and half-truths.

The XSS vulnerability was triggered by The Pirate Bay’s implementation, they say, and some of the privacy issues being highlighted apply to most sites and services.

Torrents-Time does acknowledge that it was possible for third parties to start torrents without the user’s knowledge. This will be fixed in an automatic update later today, after which users have to grant explicit permission.

It’s also true that Torrents-Time has root access on OSX, but according to the Torrents-Time team this is required to integrate the VPN service.

Torrents-Time’s full response to Sampson’s article is available here.

Meanwhile, Torrents-Time is also receiving pushback from other angles. AVG is now categorizing the application as Adware, possibly because it links to a VPN advertisement. In addition, ad-blockers have started to flag the streaming links on The Pirate Bay, hiding them from users.

Nevertheless, the developers are confident that they can deliver a quality product.

“We are more than eager to have an efficient and safe product. We undertake to rectify any flaw and deal with any threat to users and sites alike,” the Torrents-Time team informs us.

Perhaps it’s a no-brainer, but users visiting torrent sites should always proceed with care and with Torrents-Time the situation is no different.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Fallout 4: Überarbeiteter Überlebensmodus und größere Sichtweite

Nach längerer Pause wird Bethesda bei Fallout 4 wieder aktiver: Der Überlebensmodus soll geändert werden, und demnächst kommen offenbar die ersten Zusatzinhalte. Bereits jetzt gibt es in der Konsolenversion eine größere Sichtweite per Patch. (Fallout 4, Rollenspiel)

Nach längerer Pause wird Bethesda bei Fallout 4 wieder aktiver: Der Überlebensmodus soll geändert werden, und demnächst kommen offenbar die ersten Zusatzinhalte. Bereits jetzt gibt es in der Konsolenversion eine größere Sichtweite per Patch. (Fallout 4, Rollenspiel)

Potentially deadly drug interactions found mining FDA complaint bin

Researchers find rare but life-threatening interactions among four common drugs.

(credit: ep_jhu)

Mixing prescription drugs is exceedingly common—one in five Americans takes three or more prescription medicines, and one in ten people take five or more. But, every now and then, the results can be unexpectedly harmful—and sometimes deadly. Adverse drug-drug interactions are estimated to put tens of thousands of people in the hospital each year, but they’re difficult to predict and even trickier to track. Only a relatively small number of patients may take a specific, harmful cocktail of drugs, and only a subset of those will have a notable reaction.

To get around the problem, a team of researchers (working with journalists at the The Chicago Tribune) created a computer model to create side-effect profiles for prescription drugs. Then, they mined a massive database of drug-reaction complaints sent to the Food and Drug Administration, as well as 380,000 electronic health records. The results of the analysis so far suggest that four drug combinations—including the combination of the common antibiotic, ceftriaxone, with the over-the-counter heartburn medication, Prevacid (lansoprazole)—may cause a potentially fatal heart rhythm. The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Drug Safety.

The results are only preliminary and need to be backed up with more data. But in lab tests with living cells, researchers found that the combination of lansoprazole and ceftriaxone blocked an electrical channel crucial for a heart beat.

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