Microsoft’s new Wireless Display Adapter is cheaper, faster

Microsoft’s new Wireless Display Adapter is cheaper, faster

Microsoft launched a wireless display adapter in 2014, giving users a way to stream content from a portable device to a TV without wires. Now the company has unveiled a new model with has a new design, reduced latency, and a lower price tag. It’s available for pre-order for $50, and should begin shipping in […]

Microsoft’s new Wireless Display Adapter is cheaper, faster is a post from: Liliputing

Microsoft’s new Wireless Display Adapter is cheaper, faster

Microsoft launched a wireless display adapter in 2014, giving users a way to stream content from a portable device to a TV without wires. Now the company has unveiled a new model with has a new design, reduced latency, and a lower price tag. It’s available for pre-order for $50, and should begin shipping in […]

Microsoft’s new Wireless Display Adapter is cheaper, faster is a post from: Liliputing

Why Tim Cook is right to call court-ordered iPhone hack a “backdoor”

Custom version of iOS could undo years of work Apple put into securing iPhones.

Tuesday's court order compelling Apple to hack the iPhone belonging to a gunman who killed 14 people and injured 22 others has ignited an acrimonious debate. CEO Tim Cook called the order "chilling" because, he said, it requires company engineers to create the equivalent of a backdoor that could be used against any iPhone. Law enforcement officials, meanwhile, contend the order is narrowly tailored to ensure only the shooter's phone is covered.

Here's why the totality of what we know right now leans in favor of Cook and his slippery slope argument.

The order requires Apple to create a customized version of iOS that will run only on the iPhone 5C belonging to Syed Rizwan Farook. Along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, Farook went on a deadly shooting rampage in San Bernadino. The FBI understandably wants access to the data stored on Farook's phone so investigators have a better idea of the events leading up to the deadly attack and whether the husband-and-wife team received support from unknown people. But so far investigators have been unable to unlock the device. Security measures Apple built into the iPhone limit the number of guesses they can make, and there's also concern too many guesses could cause the phone to automatically destroy the data it stores.

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“Locky” crypto-ransomware rides in on malicious Word document macro

Malware depends on users falling for its pleas—twice if Office macros aren’t on.

Several security researchers have discovered a new type of malware that jumps onto the ransomware bandwagon, encrypting victims' files and then demanding a payment of half a bitcoin for the key. Named "Locky," the malware depends on a rather low-tech installation method to take root in a user's system: it arrives courtesy of a malicious macro in a Word document.

Security researchers Kevin Beaumont and Lawrence Abrams each wrote an analysis of Locky on Tuesday, detailing how it installs itself and its components. The carrier document arrives in an e-mail that claims to be delivering an invoice (with a subject line that includes an apparently random invoice number starting with the letter J). When the document is opened, if Office macros are turned on in Word, then the malware installation begins. If not, the victim sees blocks of garbled text in the Word document below the text, "Enable macro if the data encoding is incorrect"—and then infects the system if the user follows that instruction.

Somehow, this malware has already infected hundreds of computers in Europe, Russia, the US, Pakistan, and Mali. The malicious script downloads Locky's malware executable file from a Web server and stores it in the "Temp" folder associated with the active user account. Once installed, it starts scanning for attached drives (including networked drives) and encrypts document, music, video, image, archive, database, and Web application-related files. Networked drives don't need to be actively mapped to be found, however.

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Samsung starts using its great 14nm process on cheaper mobile processors

The FinFET process is becoming more common in SoCs from Samsung and Qualcomm.

(credit: Samsung)

Mobile World Congress is approaching, and chip companies have already started making small announcements ahead of the show. Today, Samsung took the wraps off of the eight-core Exynos Octa 7870, a new SoC intended for midrange smartphones.

The chip itself looks solid but unexciting—it has eight 1.6GHz ARM Cortex A53 CPU cores, a 300Mbps Category 6 LTE modem, and an undisclosed GPU that supports up to 1920×1200 screens. More interesting is the fact that the chip will be made with Samsung's 14nm FinFET manufacturing process, which made the Exynos 7420 shine in Samsung's Galaxy flagships last year. Better manufacturing processes reduce the amount of heat produced and the amount of power used by these processors, which gives chipmakers the room to make the chips run faster, consume less power, or do a little of both.

The 14nm process is showing up in more and more places, which suggests that it's growing more mature—it will make an appearance in the new Exynos 8 Octa 8890 that's likely to ship in the Galaxy S7 and its variants. Qualcomm is using the same process for its upcoming Snapdragon 820 and 625 SoCs and the Snapdragon X16 modem.

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Penn Jillette: With game design, “the challenge is precisely the same as magic”

Penn Jillette and Randy Pitchford talk misdirection, artistic escape in Vegas.

Enlarge / Jillette (left) and Pitchford (center) perform a card trick on stage with an audience volunteer. (credit: Kyle Orland)

LAS VEGAS—For all the clichéd talk of the "magic of video games," we don't often think of the similarities between those games and the kind of magic tricks done on stage. But to kick off the annual DICE Summit Wednesday morning, magician Penn Jillette and Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford (who are working together on a new virtual reality version of Desert Bus) came together to discuss exactly that—how video games can learn from the tricks stage magicians use to play with audience attention.

While many people think of misdirection as essentially pointing and saying "look over there" to fool someone, Jillette stressed that's not actually the case. Instead, misdirection is about studying and learning where people's attention naturally goes and becoming an expert at controlling that. "It's not misdirection; it's direction."

"We've been playing around in VR and traditional games, and one of the challenges is precisely the same as magic," Jillette said. "How to have someone make a totally free choice—put their attention where they want—and have us know where that is."

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Asus unveils M Series tablets for business (with remote management software)

Asus unveils M Series tablets for business (with remote management software)

Asus is going after business customers with its new M Series line of Android tablets. The tablets are available with 7 or 10 inch displays and support WiFi and LTE connectivity. But the key selling point is the remote management software which Asus calls Adam (Asus Device Admin for Mobile). Here’s how it works: IT managers […]

Asus unveils M Series tablets for business (with remote management software) is a post from: Liliputing

Asus unveils M Series tablets for business (with remote management software)

Asus is going after business customers with its new M Series line of Android tablets. The tablets are available with 7 or 10 inch displays and support WiFi and LTE connectivity. But the key selling point is the remote management software which Asus calls Adam (Asus Device Admin for Mobile). Here’s how it works: IT managers […]

Asus unveils M Series tablets for business (with remote management software) is a post from: Liliputing

YouTube Copyright Complaint Kills Harvard Professor’s Copyright Lecture (Update)

YouTube has removed access to a copyright lecture from Harvard Law professor William Fisher, following a takedown request from Sony Music. While the online course includes snippets of well-known Jimi Hendrix covers, the clearly educational use makes this a perfect example of fair use.

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

youtubefaceWeek in and week out automated bots detect and report millions of alleged copyright infringements, which are then processed by the receiving site without a human ever looking at them.

Unfortunately this process is far from flawless, resulting in many false and inaccurate takedown requests.

For regular Internet users YouTube’s Content-ID is particularly problematic. We highlighted this issue a few years ago but in recent months opposition has been swelling.

Google recognizes the problems and recently offered to pay the legal bills of several people who argued that their removed videos are protected by ‘fair use’ legislation. However, this has had little impact on the Content-ID system which still flags a lot of legal content.

Most recently, Harvard Law professor William Fisher had one of his courses pulled from YouTube following a takedown request submitted by Sony Music. Ironically, the video in question has the rather fitting title: “The Subject Matter of Copyright: Music.”

The video in question

youremove

As pointed out by Techdirt, the course is still available on the CopyrightX project website. A more detailed look shows that it does indeed include some music clips, all covers of Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing.

None of the tracks, which include covers by Joe Cocker, Santana and Stevie Ray Vaughan, are played in full. Instead, Fisher highlights small segments ranging from 15 to roughly 40 seconds.

Given the educational nature of the clip, this would be an excellent example of fair use. However, the video in question was flagged and subsequently removed from public view by YouTube’s system.

The ‘takedown’ is likely to be an automated one, but that doesn’t make it less of an issue. There appears to be very little oversight of YouTube takedowns, if any, and with more copyright holders joining the Content-ID program the problems may get worse.

Perhaps Professor Fisher could make a case out of this. His colleague Lawrence Lessig did the same a few years ago, with success, and apparently Google is interested in picking up the legal fees.

Ultimately, however, YouTube should consider giving its publishers more tools to counter inaccurate requests. As long as a cat purring is still flagged as copyright infringement, there’s plenty of room for improvement.

Update: The video in question is now accessible again. It was unavailable for more than a day, but apparently the mistake was corrected after it was pointed out in public.

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

No protons needed? Possible discovery of a four-neutron particle

The best evidence yet that a particle we think shouldn’t exist actually does.

The reaction which may have produced a tetraneutron (seen in the bottom middle). The reaction begins with two forms of helium which become beryllium and a tetraneutron. The beryllium then decays into alpha particles (helium nuclei). (credit: APS/Alan Stonebraker)

It’s tempting to call the tetraneutron a theoretical particle, as its existence has yet to be confirmed. But that would imply that it’s a consequence of some existing theoretical model, that it’s predicted by some theory. The tetraneutron, however, contradicts the relevant theories—it should be impossible.

And yet, amidst all the (deserved) excitement for the detection of gravitational waves last week, an experiment quietly turned up the strongest evidence for a tetraneutron thus far. It’s not full confirmation yet, but if the new study’s conclusions are borne out, things are going to get weird.

The Story So Far

The troublesome particle may have first appeared in 2001 after decades of speculation and a few doubtful experiments. Researchers fired beryllium-14 atoms at a carbon target to observe the resulting chaos of particles, a relatively common practice.

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When phone verification and recycled numbers collide, Lyft leaks user data

User shows Ars data from whoever had his number months ago; Lyft offers few details.

(credit: Getty Images)

A bizarre security flaw involving recycled phone numbers is allowing some users of the taxi-hailing app Lyft to access other riders’ accounts, exposing names, e-mail addresses, complete ride histories, and credit card information.

The bug was brought to Ars’ attention by a Lyft user named Felix, who says he signed up for the service for the first time earlier this month. He went through the normal registration process, entering his name, e-mail, credit card, and a new phone number, which was recently assigned to him by T-Mobile.

But Felix realized something was wrong when drivers kept addressing him by someone else’s name—a woman’s name he didn’t recognize. At first, he brushed it off. “I was like, uhh no, it’s Felix. But whatever, you’re here,” he told Ars, recalling some confused moments during his first week using the ridesharing service.

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David Pogue’s Yahoo Web home gutted in cost-cutting purge

Yahoo Tech slashed; Food, other “digital magazines” to be digitally euthanized.

Yahoo's once-iconic San Francisco billboard, pictured here in 2011. (credit: Scott Schiller)

In January of 2014, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's keynote at CES in Las Vegas featured the launched Yahoo Tech, the company's technology news "digital magazine." She had hired former New York Times technology columnist David Pogue in October of 2013 as the site's architect and shining star and brought in a stable of other editorial talent to create digital magazines for other "verticals" (food, cars, music, and health among them) as part of her big turnaround strategy for the company. But the turnaround never materialized, and now the sites are being shut down or scaled down.

Dan Tynan, editor-in-chief at Yahoo Tech, revealed his departure in an e-mail to staff published by Politico today. "Well, that was not entirely unexpected," Tynan wrote in the memo. "Eight Hundred and Four days after taking the purple, my career as a Yahoo is over." Politico reported that Yahoo intended to shut down Yahoo Tech along with a flight of other sites.

However, a Yahoo spokesperson told Ars that Yahoo Tech was not being shut down—but several other brands are. And Tynan's departure is part of a broader layoff being announced today. "In early February Yahoo shared a plan for the future, with this new plan came some very difficult decisions and changes to our business," the spokesperson said. "As a result of these changes some jobs have been eliminated and those employees will be notified today. We thank those employees for their outstanding service to Yahoo and will treat these employees with the respect and fairness they deserve."

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